Crying in public

I don’t know what makes me more sad, that I cried in Owego Donut & Beer or that no one mentioned it.

I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I heard one of the young women who works there telling two musicians setting up for their performance about a recent medical scare. A blood clot, she told them, in her lung. Low down where it was hard to find. She had been having shortness of breath, but really, that was the only symptom. The tears welled in my eyes. She described a CT scan and the tears spilled over. She said the whole thing was scary, they didn’t know why it happened, and still she was fine. It happened in January.

Sitting at that little table, having just helped move some things around for those two performers, I was back at Wilson. Experiencing that chaos all over again. The slow burn of the emergency room, until your bloodwork came back. And then everyone was very interested in what was going on with you. Your own CT at 4 or 5 in the morning. Learning the term pulmonary embolism. Your admission to ICU, though we stayed in the ER for another 24 hours waiting for a bed to open up. It’s crazy that that was the first of many hospital visits we’d make.

As I sat there, crying softly, I had to force myself not to tell her about you. I wanted to warn her of something, but I couldn’t think of a way to. Instead, I ate only half of my sandwich. I finished my juice. Then I got up to leave.

On my way out, I told the performers to have a great show. They thanked me graciously as they had when I helped them move tables and chairs fifteen minutes prior. One of them asked me what I was reading, so I showed her the book. “Poetry,” I said, omitting that the collection was about grief. She mentioned it being soothing and I agreed.

I left because I wanted to get stamps before the post office closed. I made it. I wrote up cards to send to a bunch of people because I decided recently that sending snail mail might make me a little less sad. We’ll see. I went to the crystal shop, too. I bought more candles, and a tiny obsidian sleeping cat figure. I’m going to put it with Dinkie’s ashes.

Now it’s 5 p.m. and I’m watching the Susquehanna, writing and fighting the urge to return to ODB. I didn’t get a donut. I’d like to hear the music. But I’m too afraid I’d find the employee and say the exact wrong thing. If only you were here, maybe the two of you could have struck up a conversation. I know you could have given her whatever it is she might need to hear. And if you were here, I wouldn’t need comforting.