Adventures in grief time

Ten weeks ago, at this very moment, I was holding your hand, stroking your arm, and telling you that I love you and I need you to fight to stay with me. Ten weeks ago, at this very moment, I knew - deep down - what was coming. I knew it, and I knew that nothing could change it. But there was a small part of me - some naive, childlike part - desperately wishing I was wrong. Ten weeks ago, at this very moment, I was still married to a man I loved deeply and who loved me deeply in return. Ten weeks ago, I had a household that included a husband, three cats, and a dog. Ten weeks ago, at this very moment, we had friends and family in the hospital with us, because that was still allowed. 

Everything has changed since then. You wouldn't recognize me now; you wouldn't recognize the world now. But that's a topic for another post.

Grief time is surreal. Grief itself is surreal. Ten weeks ago, I was your wife, but I'm not married anymore. Ten weeks ago, you were alive, but you're not here anymore; at least, not that I can tell. Can you still feel how much I love you? Because I do, you know; you being gone doesn't change that. When you were still living, we both often marveled at the fact that we continued to love each other more with every passing day. 

Ten weeks ago, we were part of a love story that I would never have believed if I hadn't lived it: two no-longer-young-but-not-quite-old people, cynical and beaten up by love, determined never to give our hearts away again... we found each other and wrote the most beautiful love story imaginable. And now it's over. What am I to do with all that love now? What am I to do with all the time that somehow marches on relentlessly toward a future that I can't even imagine, even while it's completely stopped?

Ten weeks ago, at this very moment, I could still see a future for you and for us. But there is no more future for you, and there is no more future for us, and the only future I see for me is a hellscape of endless loneliness, and filling time with the things I have to do, and the overwhelming sadness of missing you and everything you brought into my life.

The morning after you died, I sat at Waffle House with your our family, telling them that the world holds nothing for me without you. That hasn't changed even the tiniest bit in the past 76 days: I don't see me in the world without you; I can't. I cannot imagine emptying your clothes from your dresser and your closet; I can't imagine selling your car; I can't imagine spending the rest of my nights lying in bed without you holding me. I cannot imagine those things, because they're too horrifying to imagine. They're too horrifying to imagine because ten weeks ago at this very moment may as well be literally right THIS very moment: you are my husband; you eat my meals and compliment them; you hold my hand; you make love to me; you laugh at my jokes; you teach me about Vols history and the finer points of basketball since I'm still new(ish) to watching it; you pour me a cocktail on Friday evenings; you send me sweet, schmoopy texts; you slow dance with me in the living room; we gently mock each other at every opportunity. You were just right here, so how can I see a future for me without you?

And yet, that future is already here, and it's still coming, however much I wish to go back to ten weeks ago at this very moment when you were still mine and I was still yours.  

I don't want this future. I don't want to cook meals you'll never get to eat. I don't want to watch football games you'll never see (although at the rate this pandemic is shaping up, it may be quite some time before that's an issue).  I don't want to clean this house you'll never set foot in again. I don't want to wash towels you'll never use, and sheets you'll never sleep in. I don't want my days to be full of pain and sorrow and missing you. But how can my days ever be filled with anything but pain and sorrow and missing you? You aren't coming back, and the pain seems to grow worse every day, and the missing you never stops.

The pain... I keep trying to describe the pain, but it defies description. Even when I'm not actively crying, my eyes seem to leak most of the time. I can "medicate" the pain into a semblance of submission with various distractions and/or adult substances for a while, but the pain never goes away or even diminishes. The pain of missing you is the one constant in my life. 

So many times over the past ten weeks, I've wished that I could die so I can be with you. But that wish, much like my wish ten weeks ago at this very moment, has been denied. Clearly, I have no choice but to face this future without you. I have to build a future without you. I have to do all that while dealing with this unbearable pain that never leaves me. I know that these things are true. I just don't know how to make them happen. And no one can tell me how to make them happen.

Ten weeks ago, at this very moment, I had a life worth living. Today, I have no life at all, no desire to have a life, no idea how to make a life, and no way to avoid the reality that I'm going to have to make one anyway. I truly don't know how to do this without you. And I don't want to do this without you. And I don't think I can do this without you, because living in this much pain can't be sustainable, and yet the pain stands strong within me, undiminished, unwelcome, and unwilling to leave.

Ten weeks ago. This very moment. They are one and the same, and yet nothing has changed, and the world moves on while I remain stuck and dreaming of a life I can never have again.