Blanked

And that’s where the details end. I’m not sure if my prior detail comes from having re-lived the sequence daily or twice for 13 years straight, unable to let it go.

Or maybe the lack of it from here forward is the indicator, where my mind blanked – the result of short-circuited overload.

The bits and pieces I recall are likely to be jumbled. So many things happened at once.

I don’t recall answering the door, but I was standing in the right place to maybe have. There was an officer inside, still on the threshold, asking me if there was anyone I could call to come be in the house with me.

“No one near here,” I said. I was thinking of Jeff’s family, my family. No one could be there immediately.

“A neighbor?” he offered. I thought about the couple across the street.

I don’t remember seeing any extra people arrive. I don’t recall them in the house. They must have been there, though, because, by that time, two police cars, a sheriff’s car, an ambulance were lined up.

When the officer returned, he told me that he’d woken my neighbors up and the man of the couple had burst into tears when he heard. He continued saying that my neighbor would be over in a little bit, once he got himself together. I don’t remember him arriving, but I know he was there.

I don’t know when I started making calls. I don’t recall being prompted. I’d been standing in the living room, close to the front door. Someone suggested I might want to sit down.

I can’t tell you which order they were in, but I made two phone calls from my seat on the couch.

I called my brother-in-law, who lived closest. My sister-in-law had answered the phone. He was at church with my niece and nephew. She’d been there to pick-up because she’d stayed home not feeling well.

I explained that Jeff was gone and the police were here and I needed him to know and to come. Immediately.

I suppose it could have waited until church was over. Nothing would have changed by then, but the urgency was real to me.

I phoned my mother to tell her Jeff was gone. I asked her to call my brothers. She offered a stunning excuse for not immediately coming. The call ended with an implied you’re-on-your-own request to just let her know when the funeral was and she would be there.

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Murky, September 30

I drove on after the rainbows. By then, there were only two. Kept them in my sight as long as possible; eyes on the sky as two turned into just one, and one eventually misted away, as well.

We might have stopped at the store. It seems like we would have/should have, but I don’t recall that happening.

We might not have, though, because we ended up at The Hoagie Man for take-home cheesesteaks. No fries. We’d been on US 223. Coming from M52 would have been either a double-back or a detoured, long way home.

No idea what time we got home.

No idea what we did after dinner, or before.

No idea what time we went to bed.

We did go to bed, together. Most of the time we did.

Jeff would stay until he’d thought I’d fallen asleep. If he fell asleep with me, he’d likely wake within an hour. At times, I’d be hovering in the twilight. Not quite asleep, yet, I  would hear him get up.

It was an aural thing. I rarely felt his movements, due to the California king-size, split into two twin XL mattresses, on our multi-directional, adjustable electric bed.

We’d purchased the ultra-expensive sleep set-up so that Jeff could sleep with his legs raised. I used the features more than he did, though. Head up, legs up. I enjoyed the massage feature.

That’s wasn’t Jeff’s favorite feature. At first, the vibrating caused heebee jeebee chills and ticklish grunt-giggling. Later, it intensified the neuropathy – the painful kind. He really preferred to lie flat. There was never any adjusting needed when Jeff returned to bed at some later, early morning hour.

No idea if he got up or not after I fell asleep. So, I also have no idea what his sleep cycle was like that night.

This is all kind of murky; and non-impactful, anyway.

I woke up to laughter. Technically, it was October 1st; sometime between 1:30 – 2:00 AM.

Big huge belly laughs, faded into shoulder shaking chuckles. I noticed he’d slipped his PAP mask off.

It wasn’t unusual from him to remove it, unconsciously, in his sleep.

It wasn’t unusual for me to slip it back on him if I happened to wake up. Since I rarely slept through the night, this was a fairly routine, routine.

“Are you awake?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t likely.

When he didn’t respond, I tried, again. “Jeff?”

He smiled, then sighed, and simply began softly snoring.

He seemed to have settled down from what I imagine was probably a highly hilarious, rather raucous, dream adventure.

I rolled out of bed, fished the mask from the floor and replaced it.

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