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If You Werent Dead

Posted on: August 26, 2016 | Posted by: Kelley Lynn

The other day, a dear widower friend called me, and could immediately sense in my tone, that something was off. “What’s wrong?”, he said. “Nothing,” I answered, not because I was trying to be vague, but more because I couldn’t really identify a specific thing that was wrong. So he said: “Come on. I know you better than that. Something’s wrong. What happened?” And then I launched into it. “It’s nothing. Honestly. It’s nothing, and it’s everything. I said nothing because Im starting to bore myself with my own story after awhile. I’m like a broken record. You know what’s wrong. It’s the same damn thing that’s always wrong. He’s still dead.”

 

My friend empathized, because he is a widower, so he understood exactly what I meant. I went on to say that even though I know, logically, that this is my life now, and that he is forever not here anymore, there are just days and weeks where “I don’t want any of it. I just don’t want it. It’s not the life I asked for, it’s not the life I signed up for, and I know I sound like a baby saying this, but I don’t care. It’s just so unfair, and I’m tired of it,and I’m tired FROM it. I feel like all I have done is sacrificed since his death, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing. Here I am, 5 years later, and I still can barely support myself. Even after giving up our apartment, getting roommates, selling our car, taking the bus, and working 2 and 3 jobs at a time sometimes. None of it seems to matter or move me forward.”

“There are so many things we lose”, he said.

“Yes. And every single time I grow exhausted or something in this life is just too damn hard to deal with, I go RIGHT back to that thought process of ‘none of this would be happening if you weren’t dead.’ There are literally a hundred different ways I could complete that sentence ….

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t be living in Flushing, Queens – a neighborhood I don’t like at all, and don’t feel I belong in at all.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t be walking home late at night from the subway or bus with keys in my hand because I’m so terrified that Im going to be attacked.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t have to work more than one job just to get by.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night from one of my nightmares, and somehow get through it all alone.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t be so familiar with what a panic attack feels like, or how frightening it is to feel massive anxiety and fear on a regular basis.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t have to look at my own brother with his wife and his house and his kids, and feel a ping of jealousy and intense sadness at the life we never got to have, staring me down in the eyes of his family.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t have to try and navigate the hellish and confusing waters of the dating world, nor would I have to try and figure out the intentions and emotions of people in the male species.

If you weren’t dead, I would still have health insurance.

If you weren’t dead, seeing happy couples or older couples who have been married for even one decade or longer, wouldn’t feel like a knife through my heart, every single time.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t know what it’s like to feel defeated, exhausted, an beaten down by life, just 10 minutes after waking up.

If you weren’t dead, I wouldn’t be living in fear of being alone forever, growing old alone, or dying alone. I would be feeling safe in the knowing that I have you, and you have me, and everything else will be okay.”

I continued the conversation with my friend, fired up now at all the endless ways I could continue that sentence. “So, yeah, I could go on and on … but you get the idea I think.”

He laughed gently, amused by my ability to start out with the response of “nothing”, and somehow turn it into a 30-minute monologue out of nowhere.

“So, nothing’s wrong then?”, he asked, smiling through the phone.

“Nope. Nothing’s wrong. Except that he’s still dead. “

And we both laughed, and sighed, and then lightly cried inside …..
because we understood.

Categories: Uncategorized

About Kelley Lynn

Kelley Lynn is a comedian, actor, TED talk speaker, and author of "My Husband Is Not a Rainbow: the brutally awful, hilarious truth about life, love, grief, and loss." Kelley was widowed at age 39 when her beautiful husband Don left for work one morning and never came home. (sudden heart attack.) Since then, it has been her mission to change the conversations we have surrounding grief and death, and to help those who are sitting in the dark, to find some light again. Kelley is a proud kitty mom to Sammy and Autumn, the 2 rescues that she and Don adopted together. In 2017, Kelley met her next great love story, Nick. They married on New Year's Eve 2020 in a FB LIVE ceremony, and are loving their new home in Westminster, MA.

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