Day Nine - Laundry

The days following the death of her father-in-law and husband passed in a haze, with people coming and going all around the family. Somehow Raya survived by just doing the next thing, one minute at a time, breathing in and breathing out. They did a funeral together and for most of it, Raya felt like she was floating up above the crowd of people, watching them all mourning down below, feeling numb from top to bottom. She held Nell’s hand and stayed close to the older woman, giving and receiving courage from each other. 

The pastor advised them not to tell anyone how Micah had died, so they kept it a secret. Everything about that made Raya feel like a fraud, but it didn’t feel right to air Micah’s dirty laundry in front of everyone either. Raya wondered how much Nell knew about who MIcah had become toward the end. Everyone was talking about how amazing he was as a husband and provider and Raya’s stomach felt ill at all the smiling and nodding she did throughout those early days. 

Raya thought that their family had experienced the most difficult pain a family could experience. However, about a month later, her brother-in-law Kevin decided to undergo an experimental procedure to cure him of the condition he shared with his father. Within a week he had passed away, in the hospital with his wife and mother beside him. Raya stood in the hallway outside the door, wondering what on earth they were going to do. He didn’t want a funeral, and honestly, none of the family had the ability to host a big funeral for him at that time either. They had a quiet graveside service for him, with the three ladies standing beside the mound of dirt, and the words from the pastor floating around them. 

About six weeks later, Raya was at her house, making her morning coffee when the phone rang. It was Nell, asking her to come over for lunch that day, saying that she had also invited Olivia. Raya looked forward to getting together with the other two ladies. They were the only family she had, and they were the only ones that understood at least a little bit of what she was going through. 

In a way Raya didn’t even know how to grieve Micah. She couldn’t admit this to anyone else, but he had been downright miserable in the year or so before he died. She did her best to keep him happy, but she knew that their marriage was in a very unhealthy place. Micah was not well.  Maybe she should have pushed him harder to talk to his doctor about the changes in his mental health, but Raya knew there was no way Micah would have listened to her about that. He was just so angry all the time, or at best, annoyed. 

Raya looked out her kitchen window at the birds in her birdbath and watched one push the other off the ledge where he wanted to stand. Her eyes filled up with tears, watching the picture of what it felt like to be married to Micah. So, in a way that she would only admit to herself, she felt a bit relieved and free to have her own life back. 

But in so many other ways, she had a sadness deep into her heart. She had so many dreams of what her future would be like with Micah. She wanted children, and wished she would have been able to have a child to keep his family line continuing and his memory alive. She wanted to grow together in this beautiful house they had chosen and learn hobbies and make memories and go on vacations. She didn’t really want to be alone. She wanted to be happy. She wanted her dreams to come true. “Maybe I need different dreams,” she thought. She had no idea what those might be, but the thought intrigued her. 

Raya picked up the newspaper that had arrived outside her door and brought it back to the table. She had decided the day before that it was time to look for a job. She had a list of a few people from college that she was going to contact by email later that day, but she tried the paper first. The thought of being able to use her training as a librarian made her heart feel a glimmer of joy, that maybe things were going to be alright after all. She looked around her beautiful quiet house and smiled for the first time in a long time. She was going to be OK.