Sunday, May 31, 2020
It has been a year and two months now since you died.
Sometimes in a dream, you come to me to explain that the doctors were wrong, and you did not really die. I can almost believe that, in the dream. Your doctors were not infallible, and they did miss a thing or two about your illness over the years.
And I know in the dream, as much as I want to believe that you, it is not true.
There are still moments- for a split second before I open my eyes in the morning, I forget the new reality. Then the memory of your passing returns to me. Earlier this would be sudden and jarring- a tough reminder.
At least now, that part is getting easier.
And there are still times I wake and hear you breathing, and then realize it is my breathing that I hear. Getting used to your absence takes time, having woken next to you for 36 years.
And as I promised you the last time we spoke, in a brief moment in which you were lucid, I will be OK. I know grieving is a process that could go on for many years, and quite possibly for the rest of my life. I miss you every day. That will never change.
Recently, I started to get out of the house again, just to walk in our old neighborhood as we used to do before you got so sick.
It was odd at first to walk by myself on the same routes we used to walk together, hand in hand. Seeing the same old houses and even a few of the same cars in the streets we used to see. Even the fire hydrant that came close to kneecapping me that one time. Then, I leaned on you to keep from going to the ground in pain. This time, I thought of your holding me up back then as I leaned against the fire hydrant to remove a pebble from my shoe.
We went through so much together in those 36 years.
It is still hard to fully understand that you are gone.
Maybe that is because, as I walk by myself now, I feel you with me. And whether it is my walks or shopping for groceries. Or talking to friends over coffee when the covid-19 pandemic shutdown allows a brief time with them . . . I know you are still with me.
And, as long as I know you are with me, I can never really be alone.
Memory is the Key 