I have blood on my hands from the past. How do you get over guilt and . . . grief? How do you move on?
One way I have found is the job I’ve had since January. It took twenty-two applications to get it; perhaps because of my age: fifty-four, Covid, or the fact that I hadn’t worked since 2006. That was the year I quit to become a fulltime caregiver for my husband, Jake, when he became bedridden with MS.
I’m the dishwasher at a local Greek restaurant. While working, I’m not thinking about my past. I don’t have the time.
I’m thinking, Beth is going to be needing more silverware, glasses are piling up and will need run through again, Dan needs his small pots, and soon the giant saucepan used to make tomato sauce will be showing up, which needs intense scrubbing. And when was the last time I checked the dirty dish bus pan?
Or maybe I’m thinking about how full the garbage can is and how many boxes are stacking up in the back that need broken apart? Or how much sauce is getting on my face mask? All the while praying that my asthma and low blood sugar don’t act up.
It doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that I get occasional burns and cuts on my fingers and arms or that my right middle finger has been numb for weeks now. All that matters is that I’m not thinking about the past.
As soon as I get home, it will all come back, and I’ll agonize over it with Jesus at the campfires, but while working, I’m free from it, and that stops the negative thoughts that leads to the Great Depression.
So, I wash the dishes as if my life depends on it because the faster I go and the harder I work, the more in the present I am, and for those moments, life is more bearable.
Like Lady Macbeth, I want this blood removed. “Out, damned spot!” (Macbeth 5.1.35) and only one Man can do it, has done it. This fact I accept and embrace yet it doesn’t take away my remorse from the greatest sin I’ve ever committed, neglect of Jake early on in the bedridden stage. “And my sin is always before me.” (New King James Version, Ps. 51.3)
And the solution that is given to this crisis? “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart – These, O God, You will not despise.” (Ps.51.17)
Yes, only Jesus can save me, and at least for a little while, washing dishes . . .
