I thought perhaps I had said all I needed about the arsenal of Grief. “But, wait!” As the advertisement runs, “There’s more!” Indeed, there is. And since I have committed to noticing and acknowledging Grief’s weaponry, I write again.

This morning as I lifted slightly to see the old clock-radio’s green digital numbers, I expected the lifted head of Skoshi at bed’s end. I expected next he would stand and stretch in the dog-bowing way, rear hips and tail high, front legs down, head low, and if he deigned, the joy-producing yawn accompanied by a bit of voiced song. I don’t know how long a nano-second is, but it couldn’t have taken much longer than that for the expectation to occur and for Absence to smash it.

In previous blogs when I spoke of Absence, I didn’t notice the impossibility of it without having first expected it. This morning, Grief called for clarification; like seeing the difference between my high-school identical twin friends, Lynn and Linda. Absence and Expectation look very alike but the differences are great. Absence simply is. Like Absence, Expectation also “is” but we can learn to recognize it, to prepare for it. 

For example. My husband answered the phone when our Vet called, saying tenderly, “Skoshi is here.” That is, Skoshi’s ashes could be picked up. Dave took the call and added a stop by PetZen Animal Wellness Center to his list of errands: turn boat prop-shafts, pick up placemats for Barb, Vet’s office, grocery store for bananas and Half-and-Half, Costco for sugar peas; if I rightly remember. I expected that.

I expected to hear the door’s lock click indicating my husband’s returned

I expected grocery bags dropped to the kitchen floor to contain more than Dave’s listed items

I expected the kiss he would bestow

It’s this easy. Some things, even in the grip of grief, can be expected.

Expectation’s twin, “Not Expected” has the mole on its left shoulder, you know, that telling sign that says, “I’m a bit different, I am not my sister. The mole on Not Expected’s shoulder is Surprise.

Predictably, Dave dropped the grocery bags, he bestowed a kiss, he dumped miscellaneous pocket items onto the milk bench in our entry, and predictably, I would soon clear those things away, wished to keep the milk bench tidy. What was not predictable, what I had not expected, consequently had not prepared for, was David placing in my hands a small, quietly ornate tin, heavy with Skoshi’s ashes.

“Oh,” I sobbed. My heart hurt. I was seized by the twin of a different name—Surprise. Of course it wears a different name—duh. It is not exactly the same. Not Expected got me.

And so on the twelfth of October, on a perfect overcast day, Dave, our borrowed neighbor dog, Tucker, and I walked into the wetlands, told Skoshi stories along the way, reached where we climbed over or under the split-rail fence, brushed clear a spot in soft humus, mixed soil and Skoshi’s ashes around a baby Cedar tree we planted in his honor. 

It is a new day. It is a Sunday. A Seattle Seahawks game day. A church day. Friends coming for brunch day. A piano concert evening day. And, likely, a day to expect a variety of surprises—or Not.