Shower

The shower is a funny place.

We sing it it, think deep thoughts it in.

We cry in it.

I cried in the shower a lot growing up. The water would muffle my sobs, and I’m sure in some dramatic teenage way of thinking, I’d symbolically relate the water raining down on me as a way of washing away all my problems.

Three days before Sean and I got married I had a total nervous breakdown in the shower. I was about to get married, become a full-time mom and move across the country all in the same week. He sat on the other side of the tub, holding my hand and assured me that no matter what life threw at us, we’d face it together.

On Memorial Day 2016 our dog, Scout, accidentally got let out and he ran away- we never found him. That night Sean heard me crying in the shower, I was heartbroken that he was missing and worried sick about him. Sean came into the shower fully clothed, and held me, letting me ugly cry onto him.

On Christmas Eve 2017, the morning after Sean died, I left my neighbor’s quietly as everyone was still asleep. I let myself into our….my- profoundly empty apartment. I climbed into the shower and turned it on. I don’t even remember if the water was hot. I leaned against the wall and let the water rush over my head. I screamed and screamed and sobbed until my voice was hoarse, just as I had done the night before. But this time…he wasn’t on the other side of the curtain to ease my heartache.

Eventually I got out. I laid down on our….my- bed. I laid down on his side and stuffed my face in his pillow searching for some trace of his scent. I grabbed the discarded Superman shirt he’d worn the day before out of the dirty laundry and cried into it ceaselessly- I still sleep with this shirt every night.

Today, I cried in the shower. Because it’s been 581 days without him there on the other side of the curtain.