The Undertow

Just when I thought I was normal again

For the first time in four years, I felt okay during the holidays, I said to my fellow widowed friend over drinks. This was her second holiday without her husband, and she had made sure to surround herself with friends.

I thought to myself, It must get easier as time moves on.

This was my first Christmas in Los Angeles since 2021. My husband died in June 2022 from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). I was almost four years into my loss. I had woken up on Christmas morning with my 18-year-old daughter Sofie. She was home from New York where she was currently attending college. Sofie had made homemade cinnamon buns and together we slowly opened presents. Every Christmas after Eric died had been spent with my family in Florida or New York. To my surprise our first Christmas with just the two of us was joyful and peaceful. I know we would not have been able to do this the year before or the one before that.

The way I spoke with my friend made it sound as though I had been cured of this thing called grief. As if it were a marathon of endurance. The longer stretches between crying spells had convinced me that I was just like everyone else, normal.

A week after seeing my friend, I decided to watch Song Sung Blue, which had been nominated for a SAG Award. My husband, Eric, and I loved Neil Diamond. How many road trips and dinner parties had ended with us pulling out Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits? Sweet Caroline was one of our favorites. It always brought us back to dancing at his sister Holly’s wedding on Sanibel Island, Florida.

It was a month after 9/11. We flew from New York. People came from everywhere, even England. When that song came on, everyone sang and danced as though as though we were trying to puncture a hole onto that floor! It was a release we all needed desperately.

I expected to cry once or twice during the film. I did not expect the deluge that followed. There were tears, and then there was loud sobbing. An unstoppable current that I feared would never end. Quicksand again! I sat on the couch thinking, How did I get here? How have I been functioning at all?

When the movie ended, I texted Eric’s brother Jeff. He had been there for us physically and emotionally while Eric was dying and always checked in on me. Earlier that week, he had asked how I had managed the holidays. How was I doing after saying goodbye to Sofie?

I am doing alright. I got a whole month with her. I dropped her off at the airport and didn’t cry.

But now, sitting alone, with itchy watery eyes, I felt the loss of my best friend. The father of my child. We texted about how it still felt like a bad dream we would surely wake up from at any minute.

We must accept where he is now and we have to keep moving forward, I told Jeff.

He’s in the cool breeze, the night sky, the moments when I laugh really hard, he texted back.

A few minutes later, my phone rang. It was Sofie calling from New York. She was sobbing in a way that made my heart stop. Please God, let her be okay.

It was three in the morning for her. She had been out with friends. At first, I couldn’t understand her words. I waited, holding my breath.

I’m so sorry you lost your husband, she finally said. I miss Dad. Mom, I’m sorry I’m crying. I’m so sorry.

Honey, you have to let it out, I assured her. It’s okay. This is grief.

I hadn’t heard her cry like this since the day I told that her father was going to die. She had held herself together through high school. And now, here we were in college, and the grief was being felt on a deeper level than I had ever witnessed.

I thought back to my widowed friend. To how easily I had spoken, as though I had fixed my grief.

I had forgotten about the undertow. How it comes without warning. How it pulls you under when you least expect it. How even my daughter, three thousand miles away, could feel it at the same exact time.