Do Not Disturb (we're disturbed enough already, thanks)

I don't know what kind of statute of limitations there are on petty larceny, so I'm thankful for the anonymity of the Internet when I say that my wife and I, we liked to steal. Don't get crazy, we weren't running short grifts on little old ladies or anything. But every time we stayed in a hotel, we stole the "Do Not Disturb" signs. We had quite a collection. Keep in mind, we didn't even steal the shampoos. We so disdained hotel quality toiletries, we brought our own soaps.

Hotels were always fun for us. We liked going new places and trying new pools and mini-fridges. Yesterday I was going through some boxes from when I moved after her death, desperate for some kind of comfort. These boxes I've been avoiding like leprosy for months, mind you. But last night, I had to do it. I found the D.N.D. sign from our wedding night, among many others. We liked going into a space someone else was responsible for and being as irresponsible as we felt like. Lots of good times, times when we did not wish to be disturbed.

More often than not, we would stay in hotels locally, the old 'staycation.' Our last little jaunt was when we were living in Van Nuys in LA, and made a 40-mile voyage to Long Beach an overnight expedition. It was our birthdays (which are 3 days apart), and of course, we pilfered the D.N.D. hanger. I don't know if finding our wedding night D.N.D. placard brought me the comfort I wanted from the boxes of memories. Likely, the comfort I want to experience is simply impossible. But at least I could grin mischievously for a few minutes at our romantic, if vaguely criminal, collection.

My feelings about your feelings about my feelings

Greeting cards are great at telling people how we feel. We're not all poets, but Hallmark hires them for our use. For people with folks like me in their lives, there's a whole section of cards called 'Sympathy' for you to tell me how you feel about my grieving-ass self.

Unfortunately for the well-meaning sympathy-card buyers, I don't really care how you feel. That may sound callous, but I'm currently burdened with more of my own feelings than I care to carry. Don't expect that telling me your feelings will change mine.

Compare this concept of sympathy to empathy, for which there is no rack in Hallmark stores. Empathy is how I feel reflected in you. Now I'm interested. Let me tell you how I feel, and instead of worrying about how my feelings make you feel, just focus on understanding mine. If you can put yourself in my point-of-view, then you'll be helping me, much more than you may realize (although if you're empathizing, you may realize it perfectly). But empathizing takes work on your part, whereas sympathy just happens to you. You don't owe me empathy. But sympathy is not help, not matter how much you want me to feel helped.

My grief feels absolutely monstrous. It's inhuman, not of this world. But if you can understand my feelings, it brings me back down to Earth. If you can empathize with me, you can help me humanize my fiendish feelings. Your sympathy helps me no more than does your anger. Because I can't care how you feel right now. And your sympathy for me is really just about you, if you think about it (or if you google the difference between sympathy and empathy like I did). Even if, in your sympathy, you just wish I could feel better, guess what: I wish I could feel better, too. But you'd know that already if you were empathizing.

So save yourself 4.99 + tax on a "My Deepest Sympathies" card, and instead, spend some time with me and ask me how I feel. You'll be helping me infinitely more. Unless you don't or can't care about how I truly feel. In which case, feel free to spend your money on the card I'm gonna throw away after you leave. At least you'll feel better, even if I don't.

LA needs rain, and could use some soap, too

There's a place in a suburb of my hometown that was a hilltop housing development three years ago, with only one completed home and one under construction. It had a great view. My wife and I saved the location in our GPS as "Anal Point" (Family Guy reference). I wish we could visit it together one more time. We lived the last 3 years of her life in Los Angeles, and after she died, I returned to my hometown. She came back, too, but as a corpse. She and I will never go and see the view from Anal Point together again. Plus, by now, I'm sure the rich people's houses have spoiled the view. She died in LA.

We used to go on drives in our hometown together all the time (which is how we discovered Anal Point in the first place). It's hard to find a road here that doesn't bring me back to those drives. These streets were ours. Not the stupid LA, half-hour-to-drive-five-miles streets. I'm mad at LA now. You could say I'm looking to place blame, but that city is guilty as hell.

LA is sunny all the time. My wife and I are rain-and-cloud people. When it does rain in LA, it churns up all the pollution and smells like feet. The clouds are only smog. Perhaps the decision to move there was...misguided? We were chasing dreams, what can I say? But she'll never see her hometown again, the streets, the hills, the lakes, the rivers. Have you seen what LA calls a river? It's a freakin' concrete tunnel. No water. Google it.

Sorry I didn't a-dress skirts, too

Can you imagine how grief must've been, even a generation or two ago? I can plop into my chair at my desk and vent my grief into the void of the Internet without even putting on pants. Can you imagine if we could all grieve pantless? How liberating!

I have a fairly good understanding of how grief was handled a couple generations back. My mom lost her father at the age of six, and society taught her widowed mother to bottle up all that grief, to never show a tear. It's that 1950's our-neighbors-seem-perfect-so-we-must-seem-perfect mentality. And being pantless? Pshew, fugeddaboutit. In the words of Inez Wong on Futurama: "No one likes a widow." Of course that was meant to be a joke on the show. But in the Baby Boom, it was a cultural truth.

A hundred or so years ago, before the ticky-tacky times, mourning was amazing. You'd wear all black (pants still a necessity, though) and strangers on the street would come up and ask you who you lost. What happened?

It's no surprise that Western culture doesn't really like to feelings. Especially somebody else's feelings. But if you notice, everybody has a ridiculously authoritative opinion on the nature of feelings. And the almighty dollar makes a loud argument to get your ass back to work on Monday, regardless of, you know, who died or whatever.

The solution isn't clear. We can't demand everybody kowtow to our feelings, but we need to share with somebody. I'm so thankful for the Internet in this regard. People can share as much as they want, pants or no. Plus, there's all kinds of handy "block" features in social media. No need for hostility if you disapprove of someone's grief. Just keep on walking, in those tight, judgmental pants, and we can grieve in peace.

Grief is a joke with no punchline

Why the fuck do I have to trim my fingernails again? It's just another goddamn reminder that I'm still alive and kicking, despite my wife's death. I never used to have an opinion about nail-trimming. It's bad enough that the world kept turning without her, does my body really have to keep aging?

If you can't tell, at present time I'm at a low point on the roller coaster of grief. Today is one of those days I'm questioning the wisdom of trying to make a blog about grief be funny. I want to scream, but the rest of my family is trying to sleep, so I'm gonna scream here, OK?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

It's not quite what I want, but it'll have to do. That's the basic premise of grief: it's not what I want but it'll have to do. My choices are life with grief. That's all. Unless I want to get really dark and suicide-y. I don't think I would mind if I died. It would certainly ease up a lot of pressure, worry and responsibility. But I'm not interested in taking the initiative on that. I have to keep going, I guess. I have to keep trimming my nails. No matter how absurd it feels that they're even still growing.

Grief Level-up!

Yesterday I visited my wife's grave again, and still no headstone. But there's no reason to expect it'd be there, it's only been seven and a half months. The cool thing was that I cried in front of a stranger. I guess the guy lived next door and was walking his dog through the cemetery. But I waved to the friendly older gentleman with tears streaming down my face. I was so stoked.

Actually, I'm really not unhappy about it. I was standing in front of a grave crying, not picking out cantaloupe at the store. If there's a place where crying should always be acceptable, that oughta be it. In fact, I thought about leaving when I saw the man approaching and didn't. If that guy made me uncomfortable by approaching, I wanted to make him uncomfortable right back. Turns out he didn't give a fuck.

I was vaguely hoping he would come start a conversation with me, that he was in the graveyard to visit his own loved one and, seeing me in my state, would share some G.I.A.-certified flawless diamonds of wisdom. Nope, just walking his dog. But I had a secret. I didn't give a fuck either. I didn't let him cut my time short, and I didn't stifle my emotions. I grieved, like a boss, in spite of all Western culture's stigma about men crying and keeping feelings to myself. Who knows what that guy might do in the future? I'm gonna do precisely what I want. Let them deal with me instead of the other way around. I cry in front of strangers now. Suck it.

A tangent about a sign

I was driving behind a big, white panel van today that had two identifying characteristics. The first was a vanity plate that simply said "SHESGONE." What the fuck. The second thing was a bumper sticker than said "Lizzie didn't do it." Since the sticker adorned an abduction van, I assume it's a reference to Lizzie Borden.

I've never wanted to own a panel van, but I want that one. I was tempted to follow it. I wish I could've snapped a photo, but I was driving. Plus, I was also texting, doing my makeup and eating crab legs, so I could only do one another activity, and I chose whittling instead.

I feel like it'd be pretty easy for me to see signs everywhere, if I chose. I know somebody who sees their lost loved one in birds, and have you ever not seen a bird? I don't judge, I just demand my signs be more uncanny. Like the van. Or the red-tailed hawk and black cat. I've always been morbidly fascinated with serial killers and Lizzie Borden was always a fun topic to discuss with my like-minded wife. Although, despite the bumper sticker, I rather prefer the idea that the demure 32-year-old actually did commit the crazy murders. It makes for a better legend.

But "SHESGONE?" I know this is true of my wife, but do ya hafta rub it in, there, universe? Although, I guess "BUTNOTFORGOTTEN" wouldn't've fit on the license plate. What a stupid sign. What an insipid, smug little happenstance. But I'm so thankful for it.

Liar, Liar, Pantheon Fire

I'm not religious but I'm spiritual!  *commence eye roll* I used to laugh derisively at this phrase. I generally shun organized religion. But with my wife's death, I'm finding comfort in some spirituality. I'm not about to shave my head and start chanting "Hare Krishna" but that doesn't mean I don't have my own kooky ideas.*

I've decided to go with a throwback spirituality (and not just because it's Throwback Thursday on social media). My wife used to ask me occasionally why I chose her, and, when put on the spot, I could often only babble, trying to come up with something that didn't sound either cliche or superficial. But now that she's dead, of course, I can identify it in a single word.

Inspiration.

My wife inspired me, made me think in ways I never would've without her. My wife was my muse. So I've decided to throw my spiritual lot in with The Muses of Greco-Roman Mythology.

The Muses are nine sister goddesses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who represent Divine Inspiration. I like to think that when my wife died, she became their tenth adopted sister. Maybe she can be the Muse of Microsoft Word, symbolized by a smiley-face paperclip. To me, when I'm writing (like right now!) I feel closer to my wife. I feel she can live on through my writing, and maybe bestows upon me phat phrases and wicked word wisdom. I always looked up to her writing. When I met her as a teen, I feel in love with her words as surely as I feel in love with any other part of her. So I've found some faith. Don't worry, I'm not trying to convert anyone to my cult. I'm just trying to a-muse you.

*My kooky ideas are not meant to influence your own kooky ideas. Believe whatever you wish, I neither judge nor care (although if your beliefs include telling me my beliefs are wrong, I double-don't-care)

The Last Crusader finally crosses the finish line

Like somebody who just watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time and wants to talk about it now, I've finally woken up. After decades of intense dislike for coffee, I've converted. I never knew that the energy and pep from coffee was fairly different from the caffeine and sugar of Mt. Dew, my fizzy mistress. Are you sure this coffee stuff is legal?

Everybody's seen Indiana Jones. And everybody drinks coffee, now. I was the last holdout, but I've officially joined your Thuggee Cult. I need more energy in my life. I've been told that grief makes you tired as a way to get you the rest you need. But I'm getting annoyed at how hard it can be to drag myself out of bed. I didn't know coffee was like this, man. I'm still not a huge fan of the taste, I add lots of creamer. But recently, nothing tastes good in grief, so who cares?

Don't get crazy, guys. I still avoid Starbucks like ebola. But I'm using a Keurig machine now that belonged to my wife. I feel closer to her, if I can tolerate coffee. I know I'm grasping at straws here, but it's those little black stirrer straws.

Pissed at pests

I just saw a three-inch-long house centipede on the stove. Are you laughing yet? Don't get ahead of me. I fucking hate bugs. Punch line.

The reason I'm telling you is because I have nobody to tell. I'm a 27-year-old dude, nobody cares about me screaming "oh fuckin' shit!" by myself in the kitchen. But my wife would've cared. She would've hugged me and not judged me at all. I want to make enough money one day that I can hire someone to build me a bug-proof house, with a written guarantee. Fuck you, bugs, ya exoskeletal mothafuckas! And fuck fate for taking my security blanket away.

My wife didn't prevent bad stuff from happening to me, but she made it easier to tolerate. Yesterday in the shower I saw my first carpenter ant of the season, there at my most vulnerable. And the day before that, I found a baby spider in my lap! I'm the kind of person where I really don't think a hatchet or a sledgehammer would be overkill as a mosquito-swatter.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I'm so fucking tired of bugs. This is why I stopped camping. Y'all creepy-crawlies can have the whole outdoors. Fuckin' stay there.

When the should hits the fan

If you're reading this, I'm sure I won't need the hard sell to convince you how much grief blows bollocks. Although I am gonna do something hypocritical, and tell you something you should do about your grief. Now, usually, I hate it when people tell me what I should do. I friend of mine says "don't should on me," and she's right. But hear me out.

Everyone in grief should find someone, anyone, who they feel comfortable talking about their grief to for more than one conversation. I was lucky enough to have Dr. Alan Wolfelt visit my town recently to speak about grief, and he drew a distinction between grief and mourning. Grief is you, yourself, and, well, you. Mourning, however, is about sharing your story with others. If you don't have anybody in your life who lets you talk about your grief, find one. Call a local hospice or funeral home and see if they know of any grief support groups in your area. I go to three. And we love seeing new faces: it's a new person to share our story with. And we want to hear your story, too. Because it makes our own grief more human and less monstrous to hear about others'.

I know this post isn't that funny. But it is a bit smug/douchey, so that's something, right? I don't want to try and convince you that I'm some kind of grief expert or that I'm 'better' at grief than you. I titled my last post "Fuck Spring," so you know I've still got grief issues. But I do want to report back to you guys stuff that I've found helpful. Although, if I'm gonna talk about 'should,' you can be sure I'm gonna throw real experts, like Dr. Wolfelt, cheerfully under the bus.

Fuck Spring

Flower are budding. Rivers are swelling. Bunnies are humping. Can somebody tell me why the world is full of rebirth and newness when my wife's 'dead' status remains unchanged? I think I have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. I would be quite happy skipping ahead to Autumn and Winter. Then the world might look as dreary as it ought to. At least my world.

I'm not knocking any of you gardeners or hikers or Easter-nistas who've been waiting for the last frost of the season to finally pass. But for me, seeing the world (at least the Northern Hemisphere) green in growth just feels icky. Wrong. There's fuckin' new grass sprouting, six feet above my wife's body. I'd like to call 'bullshit' on reality.

That being said, my actions seem to agree with Spring. I'm working harder and been more focused on, well, getting a life. I have something akin to hope for the coming months. I'm steady growing my hair out like crabgrass. I'm starting to face all the responsibilities I've been denying since last October. I hate to admit it, but I even did some Spring Cleaning. But I didn't like it. As in everything else with grief, I'm gonna have to accept Spring. But I'll be taking my joy in the rainy-cloudy days, thankyouverymuch.

Mmm, I get high with a little help from my friends

Fun is like a drug, now. In grief, at least, fun comes with a hangover. If I have fun for a few hours, or - puh-rayz jeezus! - a few days, I find the hangover is proportional. Like an addiction, grief is always in the background of fun, and afterward, I crash.

I used to feel guilt, but now I just wish my wife was here so she could do a bump of the fun with me. I can't count the number of times I've thought "She woulda loved this." But I guess that means I also can't count the number of times I've had fun since she died as well. Now there's an idea. It's been just short of 7 months now. And I've created new good memories already? Plural? That can't be right.

Although, that's the nature of a drug. It forces you to feel something, regardless of outside circumstances. I wouldn't pursue having fun if it didn't feel fun. I sometimes feel like my wife and I OD'd on fun. We had so much of it while she was alive, it almost felt like more fun than a couple deserved to have. Maybe the point, for me, is to find out if I'm truly a fun junky - if I can get back the buzz that life used to have for me with her. Can I do it? Sometimes I feel pretty damn fun-sober. I'm gonna have to hit some more fun and find out.

Go forth and set the world on fire (in effigy)

I haven't met anyone in mourning who has no regrets. And if I encountered someone who claimed to have gone through the grief process regret-free, I would slap them and call them a liarpants. One of the numerous support groups I attend regularly had us do an exercise tonight, where we wrote out all the regrets we could think of, and then we burned them. We all admitted to various levels of pyromania during the ritual, so that was fun. You probably get affectionate about arson, too (unless you're grieving someone you lost in a fire, or something like that).

I highly suggest writing out regrets and then torching those bad boys. If you're anything like me in grief, you'd like to burn some shit down. Why not make it symbolic? If you already have a fire pit, burn barrel, fireplace, chiminea or antique pot-bellied stove, you can do this right now. Otherwise you can grab an old pot you never cook with. Go write down something you regret, strike a match or flick a Bic, and say 'goodbye' as the paper curls, and your regret turns orange, then black, then white and and then crumbles into nothingness. Although, it may be wise to try and get someone to do it with you. Setting small fires by yourself may not be a habit you'd end up proud of. But if you do it with someone else, then it becomes a 'special ceremony' instead of a 'misdemeanor*.' 

Everyone in my support group agreed, we wanna burn more things now. Because fire is cleansing and revitalizing. Even while it's also profoundly destructive. Plus, like I said, we're all pyromaniacs, here. That's why, even though lightbulbs were invented in  1879, candles are still a $2 billion a year industry**. There's a reason why a-million-and-one songs on the radio rhyme 'fire' with 'desire.' You know you wanna do it...you're burning for it...

*I actually have no idea if burning a couple pieces of paper is illegal, where I live or anywhere. Consult an attorney, if that's your thing

**According to a five-second Google search

1XL Is The Loneliest Number

Most of my t-shirts come with one modest 'X.' But the biggest hoodie I own comes with five. It's a huge, navy-blue cotton army-tent of a thing. It actually pre-dates my relationship with my wife, and it started out being hers. We both like(d) mondo hoodies. The more X's the better. I have all my wife's hoodies now, and I wear almost all of them. I'm so glad we got 'em big. 

Big hoodies feel like medieval cloaks to me, like a way to hide my devious thoughts in plain sight. I like all my clothes baggy, if I can have my way. You'll never see me wearing a pear of scrotum-squeezing skinny-leg jeans, regardless of those idiots claim to be fashion. I'm glad that my wife agreed, because now I have mementos of her love that I can wear. It makes me smile every time I put one on, even if that smile is on the inside.

I have no problem admitting to wearing my dead wife's clothes, although certainly not all of her clothes. I've never found bras that flattering on me, and I certainly wouldn't wear her panties without a matching bra. But her hoodies are a daily comfort. I am not looking forward to summer. It'll be too hot for hoodies.

PS. If you were following my cat Wolfie's illness, I finally heard back regarding the last of the blood work and he's fine. Bit anti-climactic, I know, but if you really wanna know more, fill out the feedback form and I'll tell you all about the urine and feces tests!

Cat-astrophe seemingly averted

I have two cats. Wolfie was my wife's cat, and the one who was sick yesterday. I also have 'my cat' Zorro. Wolfie hissed exactly one time during our whole trip to the vet today. But he came home smelling like sub-dermal fluid, and now Zorro will not shut up! He's such a little whiner, Zorro is taking it way worse than Wolfie did, and Zorro didn't even leave the house!

I say that Wolfie was sick yesterday, only because he's not showing any symptoms today. I got some blood drawn for analysis, but his vitals all seemed strong. I should know tomorrow. But in the meantime, for the first time in more than half a decade, I have homework! I have been deputized by the veterinarian as Official Crap Collector! Which sounds like fun, I know, except that I have to somehow divine which poop belongs to Wolfie for sampling. To quote Courage the Cowardly Dog: "the things I do for love."

All things considered, I'm less worried than yesterday. Now, the blood work could still, in fact, reveal Quadruple Purple Lupus or Feline-Swine-Bird-Wombat Flu. But he hasn't vomited at all since lucky number eight at about 10:00 PM last night. So I feel safe returning to my normal, cynically optimistic state. Although Zorro still needs to come to terms with the fact that his roommate smells funny (and if it bothers him so much, there are two other floors of house to fuck off to).

Too cute to die

Birds chirping. A moron with a weed-whacker. My cat barfing. These are all things that might wake me up when I'm trying to sleep. Today, I was woken up twice by my cat Wolfie barfing. Good thing I have a mottled, stain-camouflaging carpet, and that I had more clean jeans besides those ones.

I've talked in previous posts about how I know that, even with being a widower in my twenties, things could get worse. I was not wrong. After I got up for the day, the same cat barfed four more times and counting.

Now I'm worried. And not I-hope-that-contestant-doesn't-get-kicked-off-American-Idol worried. I have an appointment tomorrow with a vet to have him checked out. And now, instead of screaming at him "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I'm muttering to myself "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I had to make the decision for my wife, to enact her wishes to be taken off life support. And my wife was even cuter than my cats. I am not fucking ready to make another one of those decisions again. I don't know if barfing six times in ten hours means my cat has Exploding Feline Melanoma. But until I take Wolfie to see the vet tomorrow, I'm pretty much assuming it's Exploding Feline Melanoma. I'm still able to joke about it, so I'm leaving room for the unknown. But I hate pulling plugs on the ones I love. And I'm running out of clean jeans.

Yin-Yang Yo-Yo

Today was actually a fairly good day. Which, of course, I don't trust in the slightest. It's hard to let myself be OK with not being mostly sad. Having a good day without my wife feels immoral. It's like having a good at the cost of killing a panda. But my hands are completely devoid of panda blood. I checked. How can this be so?

If I have a good day, is somebody really gonna come around and tell me I'm being a bad person? I guess not. Just me. Why do I put that on myself? Is it because I feel like I'm betraying my wife? Is it because I feel like I don't deserve to feel good when she's dead? Is it because I think that karma went all topsy-turvy and if I'm having fun, it will come back to me as suffering? Actually, it's probably just due to the roiling cesspool of chemicals that is my grief-addled brain. Brain, you're not helping!

Against the advice of my brain, I'm admitting to the world that I had a good day. It hurts. But I'm not even ashamed of it, although I feel like I should be. Fuck grief for making me doubt enjoying myself. Fuck it hard and dry.

I deserve some time not feeling like shit. So, in this instance, I'm telling my brain he's wrong. He can be a stubborn fool sometimes. But he's wise enough to recognize it. Stubborn and foolish yet wise? I think I have a donkey brain...

...Assbrain. It doesn't have to be an insult! God, I love English.

Cynicism is my superpower

My wife once told me I was "so goddamn cynical it's unbelievable." I love her. I don't know where it originated, but I've always loved the (paraphrased) quote: "If you scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed optimist."  I've always called myself a cynic but never deconstructed it to see what it's made of. By this definition, I don't disagree. Do you know how hard it is to lose a spouse in your twenties and still call yourself an optimist? As much as I say things like "I hate everything" and "life sucks" and "wouldn't it be cool if I died in an impossible downtown tornado," I can't shake the feeling that, disappointed as I am, I still wanna stick around to see what life might do next.

In addition to the long-acknowledged cynicism, I've also learned something brand new about my personality since my wife died. I'm a romantic. How 'bout that shit? I spent my whole life avoiding "The Notebook"-esque movies (which, by the way, was my wife's favorite romance). Now, I'm coming to the conclusion that all the gushy, sickeningly-sweet, googly-eyed dreck in those movies is exactly what I miss. And even when I claimed I hated "The Notebook," I always envisioned that my wife and I would die that way, and the same time, in each other's arms (although minus the dementia). I had a dream a year or two before my wife died where we were actually in a car that was going to be picked up by a tornado. We saw it would be unavoidable, and just held each other as the tornado picked us up, spun us around, and set us down, gently as you please. But in the dream, we were totally at peace with the idea of dying together just then. I woke up glowing.

At least I was able to tell my wife about that dream in health. Maybe it's even why I can call myself an optimist at this point, six months and change after I watched her die. And don't any of you just-trying-to-help people tell me "maybe she died in peace because I gave her permission." I want it clear, for the record, I never gave my wife permission to die. She knew that. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. But disappointment is nothing new to a cynic of my caliber. We cynics brush our teeth every night with disappointment, spit it into the sink, and head to be. But we still get up in the morning with unexplainable optimism. I guess, when you always expect to be let down, then only time you're surprised is when something's good. I hate being let down, but I freakin' love surprises.