It will have been five long years since I took Nick to the ER.
I'm not one to get all worked up about approaching dates, but the five-year mark looms large in my mind. I just read the CaringBridge journal update by a friend's daughter who has had more cancer surgeries than I can count. She's so upbeat and laughs that "you know you have had too many surgeries when you recognize the recovery room nurse."
I can't laugh about it. I can't be upbeat. It's like my entire being KNOWS that August is just around the corner. I hate this knowledge. I hate this feeling.
I want it all to go away.
Peace & Grace on Christmas Eve
1 hour ago
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8 comments:
yeah, it's funny - in a not ha-ha way - how you just remember without needing a calendar. The 4th of July 2003 was the last real conversation I ever had with Will. We sold our house that day and he was worried that maybe we shouldn't have. (Gawd I should have listened). That maybe it was too much. And on the 7th all hell broke loose and we never again interacted like a husband and wife, a team.
I don't know how much distance one needs before things become simple memories. Maybe there is no such thing as a "simple" memory because if you can recall it then it meant something in the larger scheme of things.
Five years is a long time. I never really know how to date his loss. You are lucky in that respect.
Take good care of you. Be gentle is how someone puts it, I think.
I can relate. August seems to roll around every year and I can feel it coming too.
No matter what I've got going on, I find myself drifting back to
2003. I'm not paralyzed like I was the first year, but I sometimes find myself wondering when did my life become "ok" to live without him. I know there was a time when I didn't think it was possible.
Even so, I still miss him.
And as Annie said, take good care of you.
Diane
I am sorry Alicia...yes, that 'feeling' emerges, like an old enemy. For what it's worth...after the 5 year mark for me, things really changed for the better. The pain and memories (good or bad in my case) had found their place. But we are all different, so I wish you peace and do whatever youhave to do.
Anja
All I can add are my love and hugs and prayers.
What can I say?
August for me too.
Sandy.
As with the rest of us, my body - heart, blood pressure, insomnia, all that, remembers long before it comes to my conscious mind.
I don't know that there are any answers to the question of how long. It is what it is, I suppose.
Keeping you in my prayers, Alicia.
I was just thinking that you must be coming up on the 5-yr mark soon. I was mentioning you to one of my widowed friends last night (I was showing her Facebook and telling her how nice it is to get acknowledgment from old, never-very-close friends AND from widowed friends/strangers on it), and I was trying to remember when precisely Nick died. I thought it was loosely sometime around Charley's but I couldn't remember for sure. And then I read your words this morning.
The five-year mark. I think I'll hate it almost as much as I hated and dreaded the 1-year mark, three years ago. It's just such a large, looming number.
Sending you many, many hugs, Pentha. We're here for you whenever you need, just the same as you've always been for us. You've always been one of the figures who's loomed the largest for me--a beacon and mentor of sorts--on this widowed road, ever since I first "met" you on the YWBB almost four years ago. You seemed so wise, such a veteran at this whole grief thing, and you always offered such gentle, honest, touching wisdom...and real pain too. You were never glib, trite, or dismissive, and I always admired how you could reach out to so many people. I still do.
I wish we'd never had cause to "meet" but I'm thankful every day that you're here with me. And quite literally, I describe you as the Madonna or Mother Theresa of grief to people--you're just that serene and honest and touching.
Sending you many, many hugs this summer, as always.
I'm sorry, Alicia...
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