Bring On The Night

Can't imagine losing a spouse? It will happen to you if you are lucky enough to be the surviving spouse. I'm just an early adopter.  In case you were curious, it is shit.

I ache. My whole body hurts. I worry about the kids constantly. I want to make sure they are okay. It's only been 4 days, but the house is cold and empty. 

The feeling of permanent loss I felt when Corey died, when my mom died, when Jason died, when Shaun died, when Brian died, when Loren died, when Kirk died, when Lance died,when so many others left is understandably more intense than all of those losses combined. It is, however, also different in kind, the loss of a spouse. The fellow traveler of shared experiences, the co-historian of my life is gone. I thought a piece of me would die when she departed. But it isn't just a part of me that is gone. I feel like I am in a malstrom, a hurricane gale has erased everything I thought was permanent and meaningful about my life, except my beautiful children. 

I believed and still believe that loss is what defines our lives, gives it meaning. Forming this belief in the 1980s and 90s as I (and when we started dating, we) watched friend after friend die, most from muscular dystrophy, I am certain to my core today about the belief that loss shapes life. But what meaning? What about loss imputes meaning? 

Entry 2.     9:00 a.m.

I have stopped going through her things, too many painful surprises. The above memento, a pencil from her 2019 trip, was tucked away in the backpack she bought for the trip and never used again after returning. I helped pick out the backpack. Every item is a potential booby trap, a finger in the eye of my grief.

I will spend the rest of my days pondering what was real and what were lies. I am an abject fool. I am a fool for my failure to repair this marriage and my inability to realize the lie we were living. I am a fool for not screaming, well before I learned of the affair and the illness, that Jenny needed to spend time with us. I have failed my girls terribly in this respect. Terribly.

Today is the first day since the decline began in December, that the house will only have 3 people in it. I can hear the clock ticking, mocking my former disinterest in eternity.