There’s nothing special, or particular, about Saturdays. And I’m not sure when, how or why it started. Maybe a few months ago. Somewhere along the way I just started noticing how quickly the weeks seem to be speeding by. Yawn. Oh, wow, another Saturday morning already. How is that possible?
I lie there staring at the ceiling for a few moments before getting out of bed to let the dogs out. I try to fathom how much life I’ve lived without Mike already. I wonder how many more Saturdays I will wake without him.
My heart squeezes out a silent and invisible hug. You know the kind? Those moments when our lost loves are so close to our hearts, we are thinking of them so hard, remembering little moments no one else would ever understand…we miss them so much our heart aches. We think, I miss you…maybe we even mouth the words and whisper them a little. Some days we might scream, or sob, those words too.
And then the alarm sounds, or the dogs whine, and we get up and move through the motions of another day.
It’s a totally random thing, my Saturday rememberings. Somehow, somewhere, maybe my soul is scratching off the days and weeks like a prisoner marking the time on a cold, cement wall. Somewhere inside of me, my soul is keeping track. Maybe somewhere deep down, that part of my soul I believe is connected to the Greater Soul That Encompasses All Things…maybe that part of it knows how long I have. It knows the length of the sentence I was given, here on Earth, before I will be reunited with him again. I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t access that information. I don’t have the password. But I sense it might be there somewhere, hidden deep in a secure network server only accessible to beings on the other side.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am most certainly not rushing through my life in hopes of being with him again, a matter of my own faith. In fact, quite the opposite. I do believe in that eventual reuniting. But I can wait. I want to live as full as I can down here first. As full, and as well, and as long, as I can.
Which is not the same way I felt the first months after he died. I wanted to die then too…not just to be with him again but because the grief hurt so badly it made me want to die. I didn’t want to feel that pain any longer.
But that did fade. Every once in awhile those embers of grief throw sparks out into my heart. That fire of pain will never, ever, completely go out. I know that now. But I have, for the most part, managed to walk across the coals into a place of relative peace. A place where I recognize myself again, a place that urges me, that encourages me, that supports me, towards future endeavors that will bring me fulfillment, personal happiness, and the hope that I will be able to look back one day and see that I helped people. That I healed people. That I did right, in the time I had. Anyway, that is the idea.
I notice the date too. This past Saturday, the 17th, makes three years and seven months since I lost Mike.
But there are other things about the day to take note of as well. This Saturday is the last one before my nutrition coursework begins. Come Monday I will officially be a student again. And two Saturdays from now I will know the end result of the foreclosure mediation on my house. So, in more immediate terms, I see the ticking of the days as real movement in my life. Limbo land will soon be…something else.
I’m not afraid. Well, mostly. I have good people around me. Family. Friends. The musician. I will survive these changes. And that powerful motivational factor…the intense pain and grief that I could not save my husband from food…that is driving me forward like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life. So wish me luck. Here I go!