I was seated at my desk in bookkeeping on Sunday afternoon, mired up to my eyeballs in paper, trying to pull together the financial information for our board meeting which was scheduled for later in the week.  I’m assuming the sky grew dark and threatening, based on the amount of rumbling I heard outside, but with the blinds drawn I had no real knowledge of the weather; only assumptions I drew from the thunder.

A few weeks before, the power had gone out for several hours.  Again, it was a Sunday.  Again, I was at work.  There isn’t a lot I can do with no electricity, so I curled up in one of the chairs in the lounge and accidentally took a nap while waiting.  Everyone should be in a dark, quiet funeral home when the power comes back on and they’re asleep.  Just once.  I may have made mention of that before.

But this past Sunday the electricity held steady and the lightning didn’t run in on the conduit that courses throughout the building, so my computer and/or monitor didn’t explode as I sat inches away from them.  However, the electronic devices and the dog lights at home didn’t fare as well.

Not long after the storm subsided, my husband called to say not a television in the house was working.  Each one exhibited a different symptom, from weird light patterns on the cable box to a completely blank screen or, worse yet, that annoyingly loud static, but the end result for each was the same.  Nothing.  When I got home that night and discovered the dog lights were off, I assumed Joe had unplugged them . . . until Wednesday morning when I realized they were still plugged in.  But both bulbs were blown.

The Blu-ray player kept spitting the discs out, proclaiming to anyone who could read that it couldn’t.  It didn’t matter if it was a Dean Martin roast or the original Family Feud, nothing appeared to be appetizing enough for the equipment to actually ingest its content.  And my phone silently declared no WiFi was available.  So data it was.

Of course, the next day was a holiday, and when Joe called the number for our cable/internet provider, the lovely little automated person suggested all manner and kinds of possible fixes, all of which he should try and then, if none proved successful, he should call back.  But when you call back, all you get is the lovely little automated person suggesting all manner and kinds of possible fixes.  And thus is born the vicious circle.

Wednesday morning he actually had time to go by the local cable office and set up an appointment for a service tech to drop by.  But from Sunday night until Wednesday evening (between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00 PM), it’s been very quiet at our house.  Very. Quiet.

My old habits have proven hard to break.  Usually when I get home at night, I turn on the TV in the kitchen while I feed the cats and occasionally indulge in a small chocolate something.  My go-to station is channel 95, Hallmark Mysteries and Movies (or is it Movies and Mysteries?) so I can catch a few minutes of “Murder, She Wrote”.  Their Christmas movies and romances are of no interest to me whatsoever, but give me Jessica Fletcher or even Monk or Columbo and I’m hooked. But when I turned the TV on Sunday night, the jolt of annoyingly loud static scared me half to death.

Monday morning, as I prepared to head for the home, I once again reached for the TV remote and hit the system on button so Robin Meade and I could commune over the day’s news, only to be assaulted by the same static as the night before.  And when I reached for my laptop that evening so I could review the Tribute Wall posts for the website, guess what I couldn’t review?

Did I mention that old habits do not die easily?

Of all the habits in this world, the ones that are the hardest to break are those that revolve around a relationship with someone else, especially when that relationship changes compliments of Death.  How long does your cell phone ring and you reach for it, expecting to see the name of someone you’ve loved and lost pop up on the caller i.d.?  How many times do you walk into a room, fully expecting to see them in their favorite chair or to find the TV tuned to their favorite channel?  What happened today that made you think “I should call and tell them . . .”?  How many places do you go . . . how many sounds do you hear . . . how many scents drift through the air that make you think of them?   How many times do the dreams seem so real . . .?

In the overall scheme of life, it’s easy to do without cable and internet for a few days.  I didn’t grieve over their loss.  I didn’t have to accept that these things would never be mine again and, even if that was the case, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  I just had to turn off my auto-pilot and remember they weren’t working.  But people . . . when we lose the people we love there is no substitute for their presence.  You can’t read a good book or take a walk or bake something to otherwise occupy your time.  When Death takes someone we love, the habits that revolved around them take a while to die, too.  Most of the time, they never completely do—and that’s okay.  Those habits were born of love . . . and true love never really dies.

About the author:  Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926.  She has been employed at Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 40 years and currently serves as the manager there.  Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone, and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.

The post Habits Born of Love appeared first on Shackelford Funeral Directors | Blog.