Between the Lines

I have been trying to put in to words what grief feels like. I have not been completely foreign to death but most of those who have passed were elderly relatives. Losing my spouse is not losing my grandmother or great grandfather. The death of an individual is incomparable to any other as is the pain felt by one individual to the next. I don't know what it's like to lose my best friend of 26 years, my son or my brother-in-law but I know what it feels like to lose my spouse.

It is physically exhausting. My muscles ache like I have had the most strenuous workout. My joints feel like I have aged 30 years, and my back and neck feel like I have slept wrong every one of the past 32 nights. I'm cold all the time and the dark circles under my eyes seem to elicit stronger responses than I imagined possible.

It is emotionally exhausting. I vacillate between feeling overwhelming sadness and excruciating anger. The issue with the anger is that it is widespread and indiscriminate. I have spent some days wondering what I did to deserve this torture and others giving myself continual pep talks, trying to make myself feel less overpowered by the steamroller cruising down the freeway of my life.

It is socially exhausting. We have had a staggering amount of support. It is easier when other people are here but perhaps because it's easier to ignore the in-my-face emptiness left in my life, my house, my bed since Chris died. Our friends are amazing, over the top, outstanding. They have called to check in, sent me texts, mailed me cards, shared all sorts of stories about Chris, donated to the memorial fund and prayed for us. It is all a double edged sword in that my continual need for this support is only a reminder of this vacuous space in my life. My 'normal' life did not require so much intervention or help. This life requires an outrageous amount of help to make it through a single day or sometimes a single hour.

In the end, my life does not even faintly resemble what I dreamed it would and it never will. Time. I suppose this is truly the only answer. I have to believe that in time these dreams will evolve into ones that are able to be accomplished by my three person family with a lone parent and that it will not feel painful to create new memories and conceive new dreams.

While I wait, I try remember the moments that make me smile and watch my children as they continue to grow and change each day, still curious about this world, still playing and laughing and still longing for protection from the storm raging in our life.