8 Years

     Today is the anniversary of my husband's death. Anniversary, is that the right word? Anniversaries are usually meant to measure the passage of time for happy events. I don't know what the right word is, or if there is a right word. I do know that today marks 8 years since he died.

     Grief is strange, sometimes you will be busy in your life and someone will mention or ask a question in reference to your late loved one and it is okay, you can handle it. Other times like today, it overwhelms you, surrounds you and drains you. My eyes are leaky, my emotions are raw, I feel like I'm on edge and it just wouldn't take much to tip the balance. I want to walk away go curl up with a blanket in solitude and just be still. I also want to strike out, throw a good fit and leave the mayhem wherever it lands.

     Unfortunately I can't do any of those things because I'm at work taking care of patients and trying to keep my tears in. Down the hall a patient died and I can hear the family crying. It reminds me of telling the kids, my parents, his parents, my siblings and his sibling that he is gone. Of trying to hold it together as they fell apart. Trying to comfort them as I was dying inside.

     I have no words for the family down the hall, no words can help soothe the suffering. I can't tell them it will get better with time because it won't. Right now they are in shock so it isn't real for them. Later the shock and numbness wear off and the pain comes with daily reminders that he is no longer there.

     I would like to tell them that at 8 years out it gets better but it doesn't not really. Oh it is not a hour to hour struggle just to maintain and function, like it is the first year or so. It is a struggle to build a life without him or to want to build a new life. You have to build a new life because that one is dead it is gone. No matter how much you want your life back, it is gone.

     You don't just mourn the life that is gone. You mourn everything that life encompassed. 8 years of not hearing his voice or his laugh. 8 years of not feeling his touch or touching him. 8 years of not being annoyed by his socks on the floor. 8 years of having to mow the damn grass and take out trash. 8 years of not smelling his scent on the pillows and on my skin. 8 years of reaching for him in the night and clutching a pillow with a death grip. 8 years of the kids having graduations, marriages and babies born without him. 8 years of not being able to share with him my new goals, challenges, failures and successes. 8 years of without him.

     You have to learn to accept a new reality for your life. Adapt to a life you didn't choose and build a life  with a new perception or focus. Acclimate to the changes and evolution this loss causes you to have. Realize that although you are now privy to some truths, that your friends and family who haven't lost someone that close, just do not understand.

     Rediscover what you like and don't like. Stop comparing everyone to him because it just isn't fair to anyone and especially not for you. Cease the would have, could haves, if onlys and etc. Find what makes you happy. What gives you joy. What gives you peace. Be your own safe place to fall.

     I guess you can call it an Anniversary because it is the anniversary of you beginning to redefine who, what, and where you want to go in this new solo shadowed life. Solo because it is just you now but shadowed because he is always with you in your mind, memories and heart.

     I love you Michael! I love who we were together. I love the life we created. So until we meet again I am going to try and love this life I am building. Love is Eternal.

Live Epic
Michelle