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Unexpected Messages

Posted on: November 3, 2018 | Posted by: Bryan Martin

It’s been a long day. I worked, came home, took the dog out, prepping dinner and the dishes of the past few nights are sitting in the sink reminding me that no one else will help me. It’s a regular reminder as I try to find a balance to this new unwanted bachelor life. It’s November already and Clayton has been gone for almost 6 months. I’m not doing better, I’m just getting better at acting. I just don’t know I my new abilities are going to be strong enough to get me through the next most difficult tasks before me….My 40th birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and starting a New Year alone. I’m already unbelievably overwhelmed and I feel like the loss is starting all over again. The intensity might even be stronger than when he passed. There is no immediate shock and adrenaline like there was in April. Again I feel myself back to the beginning of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno

“When I had journeyed half of our life’s way,

I found myself within a shadowed forest,

For I had lost the path that dos not stray”

Much like Dante, this season is a dark forest and before me stands a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf. My birthday. The holidays. The birth of a new year.  They block my way to the great mountain and there will be Hell before there is Heaven. I knew the path would not be easy. In Dante’s struggle to move forward he was visited by a shade. This shade was sent by Dante’s deceased love Beatrice to bring words to Dante and aid his path.

I started cleaning those dishes wishing I could rinse the loneliness down the drain with the leftovers. My phone lit up with a message.

“Ugh. Now what?”

I opened the message send from a ghost of past, a friend of Tin’s. He had gone to a medium to connect with his mother that passed but had a message for me. Tin had come through clearly with knowledge that only Tin would know. Tin acknowledged the ones that cared for him. Tell them he is ok. Talk about a dog he loves. The phone shade didn’t know we had a dog. Tin adored Roan.

These woods are so dark but there is a faint familiar voice telling me to keep searching for the way. There’s more than one way to climb a mountain…

Categories: Widowed Signs from Loved One, LGBTQ+ Widowed

About Bryan Martin

In 2016 my life all started to fall into place. A new job as a Supervisor for animals at a small aquarium along the beautiful Florida gulf coast. It was a dream for Clayton and I to move to the beach, get settled and get married. In June of 2017 my father passed away after a long battle with opiods and alcohol. Four months later, Clayton was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with acute liver failure. Not having been able to truly mourn my father, I was faced with knowing that Clayton (Tin as my family calls him) would also be leaving me. I had dreams of marriage, vacations and a long life together. I watched all of those dreams fade away more and more each day as I cared for him until his final days. He passed away April 16, 2018 the day after my sister’s birthday.

Now I am through the fog of the first year and reality is setting in this second time around the sun. I’m very much alone in this sleepy beach town. I’m trying to just maintain balance with my new normal. I get depressed, angry, sad, jealous, confused and disoriented. Some days are better than others and I remind myself that it is normal. So many people think my life is back to normal and fulfilling because I work with dolphins and penguins but the magic left everything when Tin passed away. I have trouble feeling passion about most things that used to light my fire. I have feelings that oppose one another and it is exhausting. I want to feel happy for others but want to know why I can’t have what they have.

Along my journey, I have had tough days and some wonderful days but at the end of each day I still don't have the answer to my one question....Why?

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