The hardest day yet

As of today, I've been Doug's widow exactly half as long as I was his wife.

I can't breathe.

In the books of our lives, the chapter that Doug and I shared was so very brief. What I wouldn't give to have had the 20 years we promised each other. But we didn't get that. We didn't even get one year as husband and wife; we got exactly 126 days. And while our love absolutely transcended time, the fact remains that in this plane of existence, time is linear, and we were able to share very little of that time.

Is that why Doug hasn't come to see me yet? Is it that, in the grand scheme of things, our love really was small to him? Has he already forgotten me? Did he have the choice to stay wherever he went or return home to me and did he choose to stay?

Those are just a few of the many thoughts that keep me from sleeping each night: maybe he's forgotten me already. Maybe he's happy to be free of me.

People keep saying that it will get "better" or "easier," but they don't know that. They say it because it's what people say, but that doesn't make it true. What will ever be "better" about not having my love? What will ever be "easier" when I have to spend my days and my nights alone? What am I living for? To keep working until I die, spending my evenings and my weekends doing nothing but missing my husband?

That's not a life. This isn't a life. This isn't even a pale imitation of a life. The only thing I can think of that would give me any hope would be if Doug could come to me and make it clear that he still loves me, that we'll be together again someday, that he's still with me, and that he wants me to find a way to live and be happy in a world without him in it.

But that's not happening, and if I'm going to stay here and suffer for years only to end up without him anyway, then what am I hanging on for? Because other people will miss me? Sure, they will, but not like I miss Doug. The only person who would miss me that much is the one person who's already gone. I'm hanging on for the hope that maybe someday I won't want to cry all the time? I feel about that roughly the same way I feel about the old Survivor challenges: tell me to eat a grub and I'll GET a million dollars? Sure! Tell me to eat a grub so that I have a CHANCE of getting a million dollars? Umm, no. Thanks.

I'll keep doing everything I'm supposed to do, even though it hasn't helped even the tiniest bit. I'll keep doing it because that's what's expected. I'll keep doing it even though every day that passes I become more alone (because it seems that, to everyone who isn't me, grief has a very short shelf life), more scared, and more certain that this is how I'm going to feel forever.