Expecting

As I age, expecting has a different connotation than it did a decade ago. 10 years ago, it would have referred to someone, probably me, in the family way. (I prefer that euphemism far more than someone being “preggers”. Ew, just ew). My grandma used to refer to pregnant women as in the family way and I always thought it was so old-timey, mildly offensive, and charming all at the same time.

My grandma is one of the reasons I sat down to write this morning. Specifically it is the damned expectation that my grandma should still be here with me. This month marks 2 years since she’s been gone. She was 86 when she died, so people would mostly think that it would be a reasonable expectation that her life wasn’t for the long. But those people, weren’t the people that knew her. She was such a force. Tall with that impeccable posture, thick white hair and bright lip color. To know her at 86, she’d trick you into thinking she would live forever just in demeanor alone. Then she would dazzle you in too many ways to list. Two years ago, when she didn’t show up to her weekly hair appointment her best friend knew that something was wrong. They had standing hair appointments. Jan used the key that my Grandma had given her, probably because my grandma was starting to feel her own mortality, even though she continued to trick the rest of us. Jan found her and called me. She died in her sleep, peacefully. That’s as beautiful a death as a death can be and of course it was saved for a woman as special as my kids’ “Grandma Great”

So how do you manage expectations that continually aren’t met? I lost both of my parents in my 30’s. I didn’t expect that. There was a lot of sadness, processing, healing, anger, resentment and bitterness in the subsequent time that has followed. Their deaths were unjust and brutal. My mom to the unbearable pain of pancreatic cancer. A cancer that is not only bound to kill but is so painful that one wishes for death. My dad’s progression of undiagnosed Vietman era PTSD/agent orange symptoms that eventually led to Parkinson’s dementia, Lewy Body Syndrome, and a Covid-19 nursing home death was also very fucking shitty. And I most certainly didn’t expect them to happen within a year of each other.

With not much direction after loss, I started to create expectations for myself. The rules I play by in this new world without my parents and my Grandma are as follows. Try. That’s it. I just try. I try to do things like workout and yard work and volunteer at school. I try to go to church sometimes. I try to return my library books on time. I try to send a card or a text to someone who needs a little extra love or care. I just keep trying. It’s not always pretty and that is the whole point. I don’t particularly like pretty, I like things a little messy because life is messy. The kids have seen me go through all of it and that’s a gift as well because they also see me trying. My husband has patience with me because he sees me crying and trying. I guess it’s, called grace and I try to give it in return.

What if I didn’t try? What if I said, screw it, yard work doesn’t matter because we’re all going to die anyway. Then all of the lessons that my parents and Grandma taught me, shared with me, and prepared me for would be for nothing. It can’t all be for nothing. Things matter. People matter. Yard work matters. Dying my hair to cover the gray, matters. Trying is good enough. No one expects perfection. You’re not a superhuman, just a regular ol’ one. That last bit is pretty hard for me. I still forget that I’m just a regular human from time to time and I will try to do things perfectly but I never get it quite right anyway so it really is easier to just give yourself grace and move on. I also do. Action always helps to pull you out of a slump. Today I did some more mulching. I moved a dump truck load of mulch to be exact. I also talked to a female cardinal that was clearly my mom and cried while I mulched and then I laughed at myself as the sun dried my tears.

You know what I am struggling with? Expectations for my family. I certainly didn’t expect my kid to get a detention last week, but he did. I did expect my daughter to want me to chaperone her field trip today, but she didn’t. So now I am at home crying all over my laptop instead. I’d expect kids to know to brush their teeth every night but they don’t. I wouldn’t expect my 12 year old to have a boyfriend but she does. I would expect my husband to put his dirty clothes inside the hamper, rather than beside the hamper, but he doesn’t. I would expect that I’d live with people who would throw away an empty box of crackers or cereal rather than leaving them empty on the pantry shelf, but apparently I don’t.

Lastly, I would very much expect a baseball belt to fit through a fucking baseball pant belt loop hole but it sure fucking doesn’t.

To all of you, whose things aren’t quite going as you expected. To all of you who are forced to celebrate mother’s day even though it hurts. To all of you who’ve lost. And to all of you who are trying even though, you don’t really wanna try. I’m with you, most likely we all are, some are just more willing to write about it.