Me, alone. Life after loss.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
~ Kahlil Gibran
I knew from the beginning that grieving was a process that I had to go through. A process I could not prepare myself for. I had no idea how strange it would be though. How guilt, sadness, joy and anger could be so mixed up in my emotions. How Christmas could be so much fun, yet New Years so awful. How I could remember our last good day out in Los Angeles on January 22, 2015, and forget our wedding anniversary a month later.
Immediately afterwards and for a long time, I just felt so sorry for Errol, so sorry that he didn't make it. I remembered how he tried to walk with me and the dogs and couldn't, how he tried to eat and couldn't. Then I felt so guilty that I couldn't help him. In the hospital he mouthed those words, "help me, help me," after they tied his hands so he couldn't rip out the tube in his throat or any of the rest of all the things stuck into him. I felt guilty too for giving consent to perhaps too many surgeries, all in the hope that they would cure his infection.
Then my grieving took me to a place where I just didn't want to think about him, and when I did, I was angry with him. For many reasons, but mostly because he wouldn't see a doctor sooner.
And now, I miss him. I want to share what's going on in the world with him. Events happen, the Superbowl came and went, terrorists, politics, snow and rain after all the dry years. Something on the news and I want to turn to him to talk to him about it and he is not here. It's hard.
Most of all I miss him holding me.
Still, I'm grateful for the more than thirty years of love, togetherness, caring, of all the good food he cooked for me, of him being there for me, having my back, as I would have his.
I miss holding his hand.....
