For the first time in I truly cannot remember how long, I spent time in the same space as another human being yesterday: my son came over for the afternoon and evening - and ended up spending the night because the weather was still sketchy and I have a storm shelter. We've both been quarantined for weeks, and so we knew we were both safe; and we both needed the company.
I made a super simple dinner (because that's all I'm capable of), and we watched a movie along with several more episodes of The Walking Dead (not to mention the Weather Channel). He headed off to sleep at 11:00-ish; I was up until 3:00, and back up at 6:30 when he woke me up to tell me he was leaving. Still no dreams, because why should today be different, right?
I'm not going to say that I didn't enjoy myself; my son is fantastic company. Of COURSE I enjoyed myself. I was glad to have him here, and I hope we can see each other more often, provided we both keep ourselves free of COVID-19 so that we can.
Had a Zoom call with the family yesterday, and that was fun, too.
But the thing is, neither the visit nor the Zoom call fundamentally changed anything: my life is every bit as empty as it's been for the past 53 days.
After my post two days ago, one of my friends commented on Facebook that it "sounds like progress," and I had to jump right in and explain that there's no such thing. "Progress" implies that there's a path from here to there (whatever "there" means), and that I'm moving along that path. But as I've said before, there is no path; grief is much more a Jeremy Bearimy kind of thing. And I can't have people thinking that just because I'm able to have a day doing something other than curling up in a ball crying, that means I'm "better." This is the garden path a lot of non-grieving people travel: if the grieving person has a good day, that means they're getting better, which is what everyone wants because it's too hard to believe that maybe it really doesn't get better.
But of course I'm not better. How COULD I be better? Doug is dead. Doug is ALWAYS going to be dead. However much I enjoy spending time with my son and the rest of my family, it doesn't change the fact that the person I loved most and who loved me most is gone. No one else loves me like Doug did, and that loss is not one from which I can "recover." This isn't a life; it's not even going through the motions of having a life. It's a few moments here and there that aren't absolutely excruciating; but at the end of the day, I still don't have the person who gave me new life, the person who taught me how to be loved and how to love in a healthy partnership, the person who gave me reasons to smile every day just because he was here. At the end of the day, I still go to sleep without my love to hold me and knowing that I'll wake up in the morning still without him.
My longing for my husband hasn't waned. My desire to be with him hasn't waned. My steadfast belief that this life holds nothing for me without him hasn't waned.
I miss my husband so much. Everything feels empty without him, especially me.
No comments:
Post a Comment