You know what my nemesis is right now? The grocery store.
It’s so ridiculous. It’s the place where I lose it most often. “Don’t mind me” I say to myself as the other shoppers wheel past the crazy lady crying on the potato chip aisle. I have almost left a full cart and walked out, unable to contain myself or my tears. Shopping for one is next to impossible. And who wants to cook for one anyway? My steady diet of baked chicken, pita bread, hummus and cucumbers (English of course, because I have no energy to peel vegetables) is sustaining me. But my meltdowns at our local grocery store don’t have anything to do with shopping or eating.
It’s all just about memories.
Memories of a younger version of us grocery shopping together. Joe always pushed the cart and sang along to whatever piped-in music was playing in the store. I vividly remember him singing “Respect” with Aretha Franklin in the background as he danced up and down the aisles, loading our cart with all things bad like squeeze cheese and Chicken-in-a-Biskit crackers, because that’s how we ate in our thirties (to soak up the booze most likely). As we aged, our shopping trips evolved. We went from shopping at the liquor store with a grocery cart to buying bulk and clipping coupons. Joe never stopped pushing the cart, and as he got older he turned into a cranky old man behind the wheel. He hated the grazers at the big box stores who would stand in line for 20 minutes taking up all the space in the aisleway waiting for a cube of cheese. When he was being particularly ornery, he would summon a fart. He usually saved those gems for the aisles at Walmart. He’d call an audible, warning me to keep walking in front of him as the smell wafted behind onto unsuspecting customers. It didn’t always work though, and more than once I was the only victim of his aromatic game.
Yes, I was married to a 5-year-old. But he always had fun, no matter what he was doing. In recent years, my Joe did all of the grocery shopping. This usually meant sending me screenshots of items asking if we needed them, or if it was the right coffee, or the right creamer, almost always walking out without getting what we actually needed. But always, always making those texts fun and every shopping trip together an experience.
Tonight my trip to the grocery store will find me walking slowly past the wine (wishing I liked wine), strategically staying off the candy aisle because Joe’s sweet tooth always had us buying Reese’s and Twizzlers, making my way to find a small package of chicken breasts. By the way, what are they feeding chickens these days? Those breasts are huge! My goal is to stay away from the meat counter, so I don’t have to ask the butcher for just one chicken breast. Because, like Diane Lane in “Must Love Dogs”, I will most likely go off on that butcher if he tries to upsell me on poultry.
What’s your nemesis in the middle of your grief?
WidowSpeak - Random thoughts after losing my husband 
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