Melting

I am not one of those women who enjoys shopping. My vision of hell is the local shopping mall. Dillards..I hate that store, yet..they know me well in there, I am embarrassed to admit. My friend took me there a few days after Tal died. I needed funeral garb. How fucking dreadful is that. I wear Levis and boots. My uniform of sorts. I cried as she guided me in a gentle fashion through the displays, showing me this or that, all of which I absolutely detested. She managed to find me a suit..how disgusting, so not me. After all, Tal was going away in his Levis and flip flops, why did I have to dress up like an impostor, he might not recognize me, his wife, at his funeral. I bought the suit, which took 3 hours I later discovered. I then found myself sitting in the shoe department. I sat there crying, with bewildered shoe sales people looking at me. When have you EVER been to a shoe department where you weren't immediately accosted? The lucky sales person of the day was a quiet young man, who shared his loss of his grandfather. He told me that I would be okay one day. I sure hope he's right.
I had the pleasure of visiting the mall on several occasions since then, to purchase clothing for my trip to Greece. I had 2 separate sales people tell me that they remembered me, I was the lady who lost her husband. I was slightly surprised, and wondered what I did to make such a lasting impression upon them.
Walking out the door of Dillards, the extreme heat hit me immediately. It was 120 in my truck, which was parked in the shade. I stood there in the parking lot looking at the wavy heat rising off the pavement. I had the strongest desire to lay down right in the middle of this lot, throwing my shopping bags and purse to the side. I imagined slowly melting like a chocolate bar, hmm.. that wouldn't be so bad. Instead, I just stood there fantasizing how wonderful it would be, to feel the heat from the inside out, to give in to this pain I was feeling. Melting my pain away.