June, 2024 – 3:46am
Why didn’t I say thank you? I roll over and look at my phone. The room is dark and silent, and I’ve got one leg hooked over a pile of clean laundry that’s needed folding for at least a week. I woke up remembering this random day in 2016 when my husband, Jay, was alive, or maybe I was dreaming the memory — I’m not sure which. Why didn’t I say thank you? Why didn’t I tell him?
August, 2016 – Sunday Afternoon
I’m up to my elbows in dishwater, deep cleaning a refrigerator shelf because I found it inch-deep with maple syrup. We’re all running laundry and doing Sunday chores. The two youngest are in high school, a sophomore and junior. My oldest is in college and works at Donatello’s Pizza & Arcade. We find little gold game tokens in the places she’s emptied her pockets – on the bathroom counter, in the laundry room, in her car’s center console.
“Hey, Babe!?” Jay screams from the second-floor bathroom.
I stop scrubbing and yell back at him. “What?”
We’re still unpacking and situating after purchasing an old hunting cabin that was renovated in the 90s. The house is perched two stories above the Little North Santiam River in Oregon, a set of zig-zagging stairs leading to the water’s edge, a deck overlooking the river. When the realtor showed us the house, Jay and our dog, Toby, had a moment on the deck, taking in the view, and I knew we were going to buy it. It is the epitome of good bones with vaulted ceilings and fogged Aspen windows, carpeted bathrooms and brass fixtures abound. The jetted tub broke on day one.
“I found a dead rat under the tub,” he hollers.
“How dead?” I yell, suds dripping off my hands.
“Beef jerky dead,” he laughs.
I chuckle and continue scrubbing the shelf. I’d whined earlier that week about all the house projects and suggested we were in over our heads. He’d given me a “chin up” talk and spent the weekend fixing things. He upgraded all three toilet flush valves, replaced the hideous, 90s glass plate chandelier in our dining room with one I had liked from Home Depot. He installed a new thermostat, replaced a kitchen outlet that had died after I plugged in my blender, and he fixed the tick, tick, ticking noise coming from our bedroom ceiling fan. He was attempting to fix the bathtub jets when he found the rat. “Hey, Mr. Maintenance Man!” I yell. “Dinner’s ready.”
I remember making my famous garlic potatoes that night, Jay’s favorite, with roasted chicken legs and corn on the cob. We ate dinner on the back deck and watched the sun sink behind the mountains, gave the cobs to the chickens and picked blueberries from the garden for dessert.
I remember leaning on each other in the dining room like high school lovers, admiring the updated lighting. “How does a chandelier change an entire room?” I asked, and he kissed the top of my head.
We watched a few episodes of “House of Cards” with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright that night, my legs draped over his as we lounged on the couch. We said goodnight to the kids. In our bedroom, I pretended to faint from amazement when he demoed the ceiling fan above our bed.
“Ehhh? No click, click, clicking!” He smiled. We made the bed together, turned the lights off, scrolled Facebook side by side.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
June, 2024 – 3:50am
I call my mom. There’s a three-hour time difference, so I’m hoping she’s still up. It’s almost 1am where she’s at. The phone rings once, and she picks up.
“Hey, Daughter,” she says.
“Hey, Mama.”
“You okay?”
“I hate that I didn’t say thank you enough.” She listens while I recount the memory and hushes me when I cry.
Her voice is soft and loving. “I heard a lot of thank yous in that story, Hun.” Mom reassures me and reminds me how unhealthy it is to think this way.
And she’s right. It doesn’t do any good to crucify myself over all my should haves. It’s also a very natural part of the grieving process to find yourself asking such questions: Why didn’t I say thank you more, check-in more, say I love you more, listen better? They’re normal questions, but dwelling on them only makes things worse.
What we can do is reach out. I call my mom when I get stuck. She redirects things. She yanks me from my grief-spiraling and helps me embrace the 3am memories, helps me recognize what loving and thanking look like between a husband and wife – a weekend of tackling home repairs, cleaning the kitchen and preparing a meal, sharing dinner on the deck at sunset, a walk in the garden, admiring his handiwork, draped legs on the couch. Thank you, thank you.
I don’t know how to stop the questions that wake me in the night, but I’m grateful I know who to call.
Thanks, Mama.
There was so much love in your marriage. I always thought of you two as the “happily ever after” couple, the kind of relationship everyone dreams of having when they want marriage. No one wants to hear a thank you, they want to feel a thank you, and you were both great at making them felt ❤️
I’m so grateful for the love in my marriage — it was complex and real and human. Now I get to see that in you, with your three littles and husband, running around, living life, exactly like Jay and I did. I love your Facebook posts and updates, especially since I am on the other side of the country now. Miss you guys to the moon and back.
Beautiful article, Sonney. I always love reading your writing! Of course it brought tears to my eyes, but that’s not hard to do. Grief is a tyrant who loves to haunt us at night, rob us of sleep, and steel our semblance of peace. It loves to make us spin on the “I should have’s” and “I didn’t do enough’s” at 3am. The questions may never stop. It’s the hold grief has on us the moment we meet her. If you can, remind yourself that you love, and were loved, by an incredible man who knew you loved him, regardless of how many “thank-yous” were or were not said ❤️
I meant “steal”! I always manage to post grammatical errors, no matter how many times I proof 🤦♀️
The only thing this proves is that you are also a writer! lol My most frequent errors are homophones!!!
Agreed, Natalia! Grief is a tyrant in the darkness of 3am. I’m grateful to have a community of amazing family and friends, and I so appreciate the encouragement. Yes — I was loved, by an incredible man. 🙂 Thank you for this!
When you can do those simple things together it shows appreciation without words. Yes, actions speak louder than words.
Right?!?! It’s the simple things we do together that show our thank yous. 🙂 Thank you for affirming that — gives me joy.
“Beef jerky dead” 🤣
Great article! And yes, there are many other ways to show appreciation besides saying the words thank you. Often actions like admiring the work someone did, being affectionate or spending quality time together speak much louder than those two little words anyway 😊
Abbey, I will laugh about Jay’s “Beef jerky dead” comment for the rest of my life. He always knew how to make life funny. 🙂 And I agree, actions speak louder than words. Thank you for being part of this journey with me!