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I'm back at Halsted the next morning, caffinated and ready to go. I'm assisting Candace today for the most part and feel better today than yesterday. After taking care of several of her clients another one is ready to be shampooed after the usual half hour processing time.
I approach the pretty, blonde with small brown eyes and a head full of foil and get her situated in the shampoo bowl. Once I pull all the foil out I lean her back and shampoo her hair. We chat briefly before she closes her eyes and I continue until everything is rinsed out.
“I like your tattoos.” she tells me when we've walked over to the blowdry station and I've started drying her hair.
“Thank you.” I smile.
“How many do you have?”
“Eleven!” I laugh.
“Really?!” she exclaims.
I love watching people’s reaction to this news.
“I just have one.” she tells me and pulls up her pants leg to reveal a beautiful, small pink flower and the letter “T” next to it. “It’s for my sister. She died about 2 years ago.”
“Really.” I stop briefly and look at her.
“Yeah. Cancer.”
I carefully ask her questions, curious about her experience and she answers all of them. I feel we’re the only two people in the room as I listen intently to her story.
It doesn’t take long for me to tell her about Rob. It feels so good to share this with her. It’s amazing to be able to explain this to someone, to be able to feel close to another person who has lost someone.
“Are there days when grief eats you up?” I ask.
“Of course. One day you’re fine, the next you’re not. I think we’ll be this way our whole lives. It never really goes away.”
I agree.
“Do you ever feel her?”
“I do. It’ll be a song or I’ll see something that reminds me of her suddenly, and just “know” that it’s her telling me she’s still around. My mother feels it too. Something really crazy that happened was one day we were driving, my mom, my sister’s daughter and me and we were talking about my sister and her daughter goes “But Mommy’s right here.” and I explained that no, she was in Heaven and she said “No she’s not. She’s sitting right here.” Children are much closer to that, I dunno, side of things than we are. What about you?”
I have chills. I explain the South Carolina license plates, the random “I love yous” that I see around, songs, the water that turned on in my house without explanation shortly after he died etc…I feel less alone and less crazy knowing someone else has had these experiences. I tend to keep them to myself. Our conversation continues. It’s taking me forever to finish her hair but I’m so wrapped up in this that I don’t want her to leave. I love how she tells me she still gets insanely angry because all she wants is to hear her sister’s voice and she can’t pick up the phone to call her. I love to hear how she’ll take it out on other people, and recognizes that it’s only because she can’t have her sister. I do all of this. I hate admitting it. I hate admitting that I hurt so much that I sometimes want to hurt other people.
I can see myself in the mirror talking to her, big smile plastered across my face, being extra animated so as not to cry. It would be ok to do so with her but I refuse to at work, so I keep the front up.
Later, long after she’s gone I tell Candace about how I loved talking with her and about how I’m so not tolerant of my own process, about how I can listen to other people talk about their experience, not judge them, but judge myself so harshly.
“Why?” she asks.
“It’s opening up…feeling entitled to feel all of this is hard when I’m used to pushing everything away.”
“It’s ok for you to take the time you need.” she reminds me.
I want to believe her, I do…