Quiet Saturday

It’s been a quiet day, and that’s good. A week ago, I dreaded the arrival of Saturday—the day we usually spent with Jolene.

Mom and I ate lunch at a restaurant where we often went with Jolene. As we dined, I told Mom, “I’m not frightened of Saturday the way I was last week. I may fall apart at some point, but I’m not scared.”

We slept late. Had a leisurely morning. I bought a book of meditations for suicide survivors; each day has a scripture verse and a simple message on how to cope and move forward. Practical comfort from someone who’s been there.

After lunch, we stopped by Jolene’s old apartment to pick up the last of her mail. Nothing there to provoke tears, not like the “grant application success kit” that was forwarded to us. Jolene and I had spent a pleasant evening applying for a grant … something that now no longer matters. We stopped by the library, our books a week overdue, normal activities like returning borrowed items a mere footnote in the nightmare of the last few weeks.

And then we returned home during the hours we normally spent with Jolene. And you know, it wasn’t bad.

The one cry point of the day came when I picked up the mail. We received a sympathy card from complete strangers, women who knew Jolene from a therapy group she attended. People whom she had touched and we had never met. Somehow that reached deep inside of me in a way that all the expressions of sympathy from my friends have not.

Now if I can only get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight.