Sorry, my life is a bit upside down lately, and it will continue to be for a bit…

Yesterday started with a phone call I never want to get again.

It wasn’t even 7 am. My hubby was walking to work, taking his usual route past his mother’s house — the house she lived in when she passed — when he saw something wrong. People inside. Moving around in a home that should have been quiet and empty.

He called me right away, and I could hear the frustration in his voice, and I dropped everything and got over there as fast as I could.

I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

Every room had been gone through. Torn through, really — that’s a better word for it. Her things, things she’d chosen and kept and loved, tossed around like they meant nothing.  Even pictures were taken off walls! Some of it broken. Anything worth taking was gone. And in the kitchen, of all places, they’d left behind drug paraphernalia all over the table, like a signature scrawled on top of the wreckage. The countertops were covered in dirty dishes, the stove covered as well in dirty pots and pans. Every dish was used. Even the walls were a mess! Don’t even ask about the cupboards…

I called the police. To their credit, they didn’t take long to arrive. They cleared out what the intruders had left behind, took photos, took a report, asked their questions. They were kind about it, which helped more than I expected it to. They agreed to monitor the house now, until it is empty. I truly do like our Police service, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, as they have been very nice with all my interactions with them.

But kindness from strangers doesn’t put a home back together.

I stood in the middle of her living room and just felt it — that particular kind of heartbreak that doesn’t have a clean name. It wasn’t only about the missing things, though that stings too. It was that this was the last physical space that still held her. Her choices in furniture. Her little arrangements on shelves. The way she’d left a room, exactly as she’d left it. And now it had been pawed through by people who had no idea, and probably wouldn’t have cared, that this was somebody’s mother. Somebody’s whole world to someone.

I won’t pretend I have some tidy lesson wrapped up with a bow for you today. Some days grief just gets interrupted by chaos, and you have to deal with both at once, whether you’re ready or not.

What I keep coming back to is that I can’t control what happened. I can’t undo the mess, and I can’t get back what’s gone. What I can control is how I move through the day. This hour. This next task. One drawer, one room, one breath at a time. That’s the whole practice, really. Not pretending the hard thing isn’t hard. Just refusing to let it steal the moment I’m actually standing in.

So hubby took the day off, and we stayed. We started to clean up. It will take a while… Even some furniture is broken. We will fix what can be fixed. We will grieve what can’t. And somewhere in there, we will find a way back to steady ground. I will be heading out soon to get back at it, while hubby will meet me when he gets off work. I prefer now to have someone in the house as much as possible, even if it means I have to spend the day there till hubby can join me. I don’t mind, as with all things, it’s only temporary. Besides, my mother-in-law and her memory are worth the discomfort for a bit.

If you’ve ever had grief interrupted by something like this — a break-in, a scam, some fresh unfairness landing right on top of an old wound — I’d love to hear how you got through it. I’m struggling with this one a bit.

Take care of yourselves today, friends. And maybe hug the people — and the memories — you’ve still got close.