PERSONAL ESSAY |THE WIND PHONE
Having Conversations With My Husband Helps Me Navigate His Loss
Dealing with loss
Occasionally, a conversation resurfaces, whirling in my head. It does not happen as often now as when I first lost my husband, but it still causes me such anguish.
I should be happy; why can’t I believe what I tell myself daily?
It’s over two and a half years since I lost you. So much is right about my life, yet so much is still the same. Like the photo above, I live primarily in the sunlight, fighting to remain entirely in its luminescence and warmth.
Saturday night, I met a special girlfriend, similarly alone, for dinner, but I couldn’t rise above all that permeating sadness. When I arrived to park the car for dinner, a St. Patrick’s Day celebration was in full swing in our community, reminding me of how youth has left me, and age has crept in like an unwelcome thief in the night to replace it.
I cried in the car, and big sobs engulfed me as I drove back from dinner to “our” home Saturday night, knowing you weren’t there. How I miss your embrace, your reassurance.
Why do I do this to myself? Why must I hold onto the melancholy when I am healing and so much more content?
I am grateful for my friends and my ability to travel, write, explore, and live enthusiastically, all the things you can no longer do.
I am still young, I say, but it makes me mourn to know the opposite is more accurate.
Oh, this dreadful funk.
My friend reminded me that journaling makes me happy, and we briefly discussed that comment. A research and writing project I covet pursuing keeps resurfacing, requiring me to detour for a few days or more to do the background work. Considering the immersion it would provide, I feel lifted.
Yet, I wonder (did I say it aloud?) whether I should, could, or would do it. My indecisiveness is choking me.
You tell my heart that I need a plan. You know me so well.
Another round of holidays approaches, and the questions resurface. You (I) ask what I will do for Easter, Mother’s Day, the Fourth of July, and the anniversary of your death. Ultimately, I would rather commemorate them alone than devise a plan.
Honest? Gut-wrenching at times? Yes, naturally, my love.
Reality quakes in my bones.
When I write about my thoughts, I restore the current picture of my life, which stabilizes me. It may be how I talk to you, God, or myself. It matters not, for at least I have a way of expressing my feelings, which is more than I can ask.
Did I find a way to sleep Saturday night?
Yes, this conversation with you lightened my load, even though I have altered or arranged nothing.
I knew that you were listening. That is enough.
“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
