After my husband died, I took a night job at the hospital. Every night, the same cab driver brought me home, I always saved him a cup of coffee. One night, he missed my exit and said: \u201cYour neighbor is watching you.Do not go home. Tomorrow, I\u2019ll show you why.\u201d The night shift doesn\u2019t care that your husband is four months in the ground. It starts at 11:00 and it ends at 7.And in between you move trays, wipe counters, and smile at people who are too sick to notice whether your smile is real. Mine hasn\u2019t been real in four months. My name is Wen Freeman, and I want to tell you something that took me a long time to understand.The thing that almost killed me wasn\u2019t the grief. It was everything I didn\u2019t know while I was busy grieving. But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself.Odell went on a Tuesday. No warning. He was standing in the kitchen pouring his second cup of coffee and then he wasn\u2019t standing anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time the paramedics got there, the coffee was still warm. That\u2019s the detail that stays with me. Not the hospital, not the call to Shyra.The coffee still warm on the counter like it was waiting for him to come back and finish it. I took the dietary aide position at Piedmont Medical three weeks after we buried him. It was the job that was hiring.It paid enough to cover the monthly installment on the house. The payment Odell had been making for four years toward a property that was almost ours. I kept making it because I didn\u2019t know what else to do with the paperwork sitting in his desk drawer.I told myself I\u2019d deal with it when I had the strength. Four months later, I still didn\u2019t have the strength, so I just kept paying. That\u2019s what survival looks like from the inside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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