Moving on
Tennyson once wrote: “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. I guess love is the only way to deal with it; to know that at one point the love was there in its realist form. The love is still there. But, it lingers in memories rather than in warm hugs.
Grief is a strange thing. It becomes part of you and never quite leaves. I like to think of it as a scar, it fades and settles over time, maybe changing shape, but it’s still there to remind us of the trauma endured. I think trauma is the right word to describe the feeling of losing someone you once loved. It’s like being hit by a truck and living to tell the tale. But, there’s no truck, there’s no injury. Instead you are left with the metallic taste of shock in your mouth and the feeling of shutting down.
What is life without them? Life is life and like the seasons, it goes on regardless. There’s always a part of you that will be broken without them, as if they were the glue that held you all together. Over time, you come to realize that they’re still the glue, they’re still there, just not physically. I think the lack of the physical being is the hardest to process. You wake up and glance at the chair where they should be, drinking tea and nibbling on toast. In my mind, she’s still there. In all of our minds she is and always will be.
It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to scream and shout, in the same way you would if someone pulled off your arm. That’s what it’s like. The arm never grows back, but you adjust to living without it. It’s difficult and painful. It’s frustrating and slow. But, you get there eventually.
Why continue? Because that’s what they would have wanted. They would have wanted to see you succeed, to smile, to laugh. I always say to myself : “What would she want me to do?” “What would she say right now?”. That’s how I try to live, with the thought that she would be proud.
How do you move on? Do you ever really “move on”? Moving on, to me, suggests picking up your belongings and leaving a place or breaking up with a partner. But, if anything, I never want to leave this place with all the memories, with her slippers beside her bed, the smell of her perfume lingering around her pillow. I don’t want to ever think of a time where she wouldn’t be on my mind. You can grow and learn, but with the memories entwined in your soul to help. It’s not a break up. It’s a break and the crack will always be there.
