Dear Walt,
I’ve been going to bed earlier and earlier. Sometimes I have to force myself to stay up till 8:30. And I’ve been staying in bed later and later. One morning I had to force myself to get up at 10:45. The first week after December 21st happened, I didn’t sleep much at all. Now I do. A lot, actually. And it’s my favorite time and place because then I don’t have to face the emptiness.
I haven’t dreamed about you yet though I did dream that Mr. Darcy was helping me choose a bathroom and that made perfect sense after watching P&P and talking with our son in law about finishing off the master bath. I don’t know what I want to do with the house floors. I know what you wanted but it’s a bit more spendy than I’m comfortable with now. What I wanted, you didn’t.
I guess that doesn’t matter, does it? I can do what I want. Whatever.
Right now I’m tired and can’t think beyond the fact that we were supposed to be doing this together. Our life. Our home. The place we’d fallen in love with after sixteen years of four kids moving out then moving back then out again. They were all on their own at last and it was our turn, our time.
This house was for us. Not for me.
We had our living space downstairs and our work space upstairs. And room for the zoo. Now it’s just a shell, literally and figuratively, because you’re not here to make it worth the effort of rebuilding. And I’m filled with why bother as I wait for the day to finish so I can go to bed.
What I’m having the hardest time with is that you were here… and then you weren’t. You just vanished. We went to bed and I never saw you again. For you, it was the best way. For me… I’m so unsettled. Confused. Lost. I’ll never get the answers to the questions badgering me.
And the answers don’t matter. You’re not here. You’ll never be here again. You’re gone. Except you’re not. You’re in every room, every corner. I see you and hear you and don’t understand where you went. Or why. Or what I’m supposed to do without you. Except sleep.
They say you’re not supposed to make big life decisions after a major, life-altering experience like this. Except you probably don’t want to remain in this limbo. Remember, you CAN delay many of these decisions even though you may feel like it’s important to make them right now.
It’s kind of a tough call to make. You may not want to live in a shell of a house, but you may not be ready to make decisions you will have to live with. I honestly don’t believe it will be a problem if you decide you want to wait a couple months to move forward. Only you know what’s best for you, but know that you have “permission” to delay if you feel it’s the right move for you.
Your loss is new. Don’t make any choices or decisions now. Hold off for serval months and one day you will wake up and want to slowly come back to The land of the living. Then go back to fixing up your house. DO NOT LET ANYONE TALK YOU INTO NOW…YOU WILL REGRET IT LATER. When you loose someone that means the world to you eventually you work through the pain but you never get over it, it is always somewhere lurking. But live will become interesting again and you will sleep less but for now, today is not that day and that is okay.
Adding perhaps an odd note. The shoes in my avatar were propped up just as you see them against the back wall of our villa in Bahrain for the entire three months I was there in 2004. Someone who left before I got there must have forgotten them. Finally, before my rotation was set to leave, they disappeared. I asked my housemate about them, and he said he gave them to our maintenance guy. I think there’s a metaphor, but it’s meaning may be different for different people.
When my husband died, I had to move, I couldn’t afford it on my ow. I moved to an apartment and lived there for two years, thinking that was the way to go, no maintenance, etc. but I felt uprooted, and that I was stagnating. I bought a condo in November, all by myself , figured out the financing, made all the arrangements. And I’ve made decorating decisions I know he wouldn’t have agreed with. I can do that now. I couldn’t do that a month after he died. Be kind to yourself. You will be ok.
Hi Mica,
Sometimes nothing makes any difference. It just hurts. There are these memories that I can’t stand because the good memories hurt the most. They hurt so much that I have to bury them for now, to be resurrected when I can handle the pain. Right now there is so much hurt that I can’t stand an ounce more.
This is all I have left of you Anne. This heart that is broken. This heart that loves you. That is what I have. Just love that is causing all this distress.
To you my well meaning friends, don’t anyone try to “fix” me. Don’t tell me how to make it better. Let me be. Let me love because it is all I have left. Try to fix me and you are attempting to take my integrity. My integrity is to love you Anne now as I have for years.
Grief is terrible but it is also sweet because it is all that I have left of you. My grief and my love cannot be separated. They are now one and no one will take either from me.
Tom, I am so very sorry for your loss. Grief is terrible, but the memories are definitely sweet.