It’s been a month since Brock died, and I’m still locked in this weird, self-conscious state of shock/numbness.

Shelley from Cowichan Hospice brought me a book on grief, Coping With Grief: A Guide for the Bereaved Survivor, and I went straight to the chapters on Shock, Denial and Emotional Numbness — which, comfortingly, were the first chapters. I guess I’m not the only one to react to loss this way.

I found this helpful bit in the Emotional Numbness chapter:

The reactions of shock, denial, body numbness, and emotional numbness all work together to protect you from the incredible overload that would take place in your mind, body, and spirit if you received the full impact of your loss all at once.

While these naturally protective reactions may be confusing to you and to other people in your life, your brain’s natural tendency is to defend itself from pain by insulating and numbing itself.

Coping with Grief, by Bob Baugher, Ph.D.

This passage and the relevant chapters reassured me that I wasn’t a sociopath. I felt normal for a whole week.

But then I started to wonder at myself again.

Soon after we got home from Brock’s memorial service, Isaac found one of the jumbo photos of Brock from the memorial and put it where he thought it belonged: on Brock’s Lazy Boy recliner. Every time I notice Brock smiling from his chair, I smile back. What a handsome man. He looks so young.

Shouldn’t this photo of Brock make me sad? I don’t understand why it makes me smile. I talk to it. We defer to it in conversations. Isaac and I show it the art work Isaac brings home from preschool.

I don’t understand how I’m able to grocery shop, go swimming with Isaac, pay our bills, get a haircut, make phone calls — and all without sobbing.

When Brock and I explored a question, we’d make a list. So:

Theories as to why I am not overcome with grief after losing my life partner

• I’m in the shock/denial/numb stage of grief and this is perfectly natural and normal and someday I will experience (probably) the other stages when my mind/body/spirit begin to accept that Brock is gone.
• I’m a sociopath. Evidence: I have always loved change and never get sad when saying goodbye. I inflict minor life traumas on myself all the time just for fun, such as extreme hair cuts and changing jobs.
• I’m too busy preparing for our December move and taking care of Isaac to have time to be sad. I might need to book some time to sob in the hospice garden.
• I repressed my grief constantly while Brock was sick, because it didn’t make sense to me to feel sad when my sweetie was still RIGHT THERE to hug and love and talk to. I made myself postpone grieving until I actually had something to grieve (i.e. Brock’s death). I did that for almost three years. Then Brock died, and by the end he was so weak and sick that it’s hard to mourn his death — there really was no alternative for him, after so much decline. The Brock most people are mourning is the Brock from 1-3 years ago, or pre-cancer Brock, or child-Brock or teenager-Brock, and the future this Brock could have had, but it’s really hard for me to remember that Brock rather than the sick Brock I loved most recently.

That last bullet is getting long, so we’ll continue the thought in normal formatting.

I wish I could better remember the Brock of three years ago, before he got cancer. I should have made more videos of our daily life, or transcribed conversations.

One question I’ve considered over the past three years is whether it’s better to know someone is dying, so that you can deal with stuff in advance and say goodbye, or whether it’s better to have them die suddenly. I always thought the gradual death was better. But now I’m not sure. A sudden death leaves you with a clear memory of the person you’ve lost. I’m furious with cancer for not only killing Brock, but also for eating away at my memories of him. I can barely remember our normal routines before cancer made me a caregiver and Brock dependent. It doesn’t even feel weird to sit without him at the dinner table or go grocery shopping, because he’d stopped doing those things when he was still alive.

I wish I’d allowed myself more space to mourn Brock’s decline and his terminal diagnosis while he was still alive. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t feel so stuck now.

And I want to grieve Brock’s death properly, both because I think it’s healthy, and because he deserved it. It feels disrespectful to be so functional, so soon after losing him. Brock was the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I loved him and wanted to spend my life with him. I know that cancer isn’t logical, but it’s just ridiculous that he (of all people!) was dealt that card. Brock’s brain would have made our world a better place, if he’d only had more time to develop and use it.

Maybe it would help if I could move all our stuff back into our tiny house on the farm, go to sleep in our bed, and then wake up just as I did every morning for eight years — and discover that Brock isn’t sleeping beside me, because he’s died of cancer. Maybe then I’d be able to feel something.