handbook, watch out

I wish you had written me a handbook. I could have really used it today, and numerous other times over the last week alone. Ideally, it would have been written in the “Book of Rules” style format. Lots of headings, labeled with the page number attached for quick reference. I’d keep it in my purse to use at a moments notice, or I’d throw it at people when they’re being insensitive. Like today.

I would have looked up, “what to do when a group of women you’re eating lunch with keep discussing the tragic circumstances of Mr. 36 yr old young guy who’s been diagnosed with cancer and it happens to be the week your husband died.” The conversations rarely end there either. How sad, and he has this kind and that kind, but they can’t operate because of this reason and that reason. (How could they possibly know this much?!) And so and so, knows this person who had the same type, and this person’s ex had a similar kind of cancer…How can people presume to think it’s okay to talk about others like this?? Don’t people know that cancer gossip is the most hurtful kind? All the while, the only thing I can do is sit there silently while the tears brim to the surface and I look for the nearest exit so I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I wonder what your one line response would have been to shut them down. You would have been brave enough to say something.

I could also use some guidance on how to not feel so guilty when I can’t attend every school activity for our kids. Especially the ones mid-day, mid-week with ultra short notice, like tomorrow. And it would be great to have a child-approved answer for why I NEVER volunteer for field trips. Or why do we have to stay at daycare for so long?? I just have this feeling that your answers to these pleas would be more accepted, simply because they were yours.

I know the big ones will come in time, like the lessons of life, and how to tell our son about man-like things. These are not the ones that seem so big and scary to me. It’s the little things. Like trying to remember the happy times we had together as a family rather than focusing on what’s been lost simply because of a date on the calendar. I could really use a whole section on this because if you look hard enough there’s probably a dozen of them a year.

So, yes, I wish you had written me a handbook, or better yet, a survival guide to getting through the week. Seeing that this is impossible, I suppose I could keep “The Rules of Life" handy even if just to throw at people when they make me cry.