Today is one of those days that I have no idea what to write about. Not because I have nothing left to say about my husband or us or my grief. That isn’t ever the reason. No. It’s because sometimes, there are literally no words that exist , to properly explain the depths to which I miss him. Sometimes, I just get tired of saying “I miss him.” It doesn’t feel like enough, and I hate the repetitiveness of it. It is soooo much more than just missing him. But there are days, like now, where Im just too tired to go into all of that. So, I miss him. Yes. Always. And I will never be able to find words that are big enough to express what this type of loss does to a person. How it immensely changes every single cell inside a person. It is impossible to explain this to anyone, yet it is always there, like oxygen.
It is impossible to explain how watching The NY Mets win the NLCS last night, and watching them celebrate on the Dodgers home field, made me instantly burst into tears. The Mets arent even my team! Im a Yankees fan. My husband was a Yankees fan. So why? Why did THAT make me cry so hard? I guess it’s just because it is yet one more thing that I will never share with my husband. One more event I will never hear his take on. One more thing we can’t have a conversation about together.
It is impossible to explain why, even after four years, other people’s wedding anniversaries still get to me and make me feel pain and hurt and, yes, jealousy. It is impossible to explain to others the sheer slicing feeling that travels through my heart whenever another friend on Facebook posts about their wedding anniversary. Today I read one that, in part, said: “I don’t know what I would do without you.” And here I sit, still not knowing everyday, what I will do without him. Here I sit, living my life and listening to people tell me how “strong” I am, when the truth is I do not have a choice in any of this. I HAVE to live without him. I did not ask for this nor want this, and part of me still fights it everyday. But how do I do it? I just do. There is really no other option.
Im not even sure what the point of this post is today, other than the fact that it’s Friday and it’s my day to write in here. I suppose maybe I just want people to know that this always hurts – that it never goes away. I want people to know that just because it’s been a bit over four years, and most of the time, I am better than okay and I now have come to a place where my life has more joy than pain – that does NOT mean that the pain has gone away. It does not mean that I don’t still miss my husband with every cell in my body. Because I do. I always, always do. I suppose I have become better at figuring out how to live a joyful life and still miss him terribly at the same time. It is absolutely possible to feel a new type of happiness, while still always feeling his death wrapped inside of that happiness. It is always there for me. It never goes away. What has happened, and is happening, is that I am slowly learning how to rebuild a life for myself, around the grief. It’s like a never-ending math equation where there are no subtractions, only addition. Adding joy or love or new memories or new friends or anything, does not nor will it EVER subtract or erase my husband out of my life. He remains a part of everything that I experience, going forward. Always. And while I have learned to love my life again, I still simultaneously hold a piece of my soul that is reserved for longing for that other life – the one I never got to live with him.
Always and never. The only two constants of grief.
I will always love and miss my husband, and it will never be okay with me that he died. Not ever.
Life is still here, and life is still beautiful, and my husband will still always be dead.
All of these things are true, at the exact same time. And I suppose it will always be this complicated.
