75 days later

Today, the Medical Examiner’s report arrived in the mail. It had been delayed three weeks due to the Canada Post shutdown. The report did not tell me anything I did not already know, of course. Ailish had no alcohol or drugs in her system. She suffered ‘multiple blunt injuries’ as a result of being ‘struck by a bus’. She suffered broken bones, hemothorax, and hemoperitoneum.

The police investigation was initially expected to be wrapped up by the end of June, but now is expected to conclude around the end of July. The delay has nothing to do with the case, and I’ve come to expect everything will take longer than one may expect.

I could say that I’m trying to piece my life back together. But that’s just not true. At the moment, I’m just trying to survive each day. When I’m not woken up in the middle of the night by a page, I get a good night of sleep about two nights in three. When I get a good night of sleep, the days are tolerable. When I don’t, they aren’t. I get overwhelmed easily, and am very probably often inadvertently rude when dealing with people.

I go to bed around 8 PM, because there’s no reason to stay up any later. Besides, I’m exhausted, even on those nights that I did sleep well the night before. I tried calling someone to come and fix the leaking toilet downstairs, but when two telephone calls didn’t result in any progress, appear to have given up. I suppose I should probably call someone else.

On the other hand, I’m actually doing a better job of maintaining my lawn than my neighbours are. I was much more productive at work in June than I was in May. Training for the half marathon is progressing and I ran 16 Km on Sunday. I’m still losing weight, but at this point it’s probably because running consumes somewhere close to 3000 calories a week. And I’m hoping to go backpacking sometime soon, if it ever stops raining.

Every so often, I go down to the cemetery. This past weekend, I left roses on Ailish’s grave site. Roses always made Ailish smile. I tried to nap on Sunday, but I failed. Ailish, I’m sorry.

01
Judi Hale
July 5th, 2011 12:27 PM

Chris, you know that you really never have to apologize to Ailish. So, you couldn’t nap? Ah well, maybe you slept better that night because you couldn’t nap. She would have been proud of you that you had at least tried on a Sunday! And you know what? You are still doing as well as you can and are as sad as you need to be. What else is there right now? Take pride in being the owner of the best lawn on the block who can run 16 Km on a Sunday!

02
July 31st, 2011 11:04 AM

Ah, Christopher – my RSS feed went off and I did not see these posts. I’m here now, catching up.

Your mother is very wise. You are as sad as you need to be and you need never apologize to Ailish for your days.

I read a book in which one of the characters said that the dead never ask more than their due – they do ask that we honour them with the grief and sorrow that is their right, but they never ask more than that. We do not give up our whole selves to the grief, and they would not wish it, but it would be just as wrong to refuse them the honour of our sorrow. You are as sad as you need to be, and this is right and good … though difficult.

I think you honour Ailish beautifully.

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