A Year Gone By

I was flipping through my date book and found myself staring at the month of August. Not so much the month, but the name, the time of year. It has been almost a year since Pete died and it isn’t so much that I haven’t counted each month that has gone by since he passed away, because I have, but that it’s a year now. I still bare that heavy heart that was given to me last August and I have shed enough tears to flood the Sahara Desert. With his death I have learned many lessons, some harsh.
** Alcohol does numb the pain. I understand why people get lost in it when they don’t want to face reality. In large quantities it helps you forget. It allows you to fall asleep into a restless sleep, yes restless, but it is better than being awake and tossing and turning. It takes a sharp mind and puts it to sleep, allowing moments of forgetfulness.
** Most of the “couples” you hung out with no longer wish to hang out. Your singleness scares them. They start making up excuses and eventually you never see them again.
** While your head remembers vividly for a long time to come. Your friends forget much sooner and don’t understand your mood swings 6 months down the road let alone 12 or 18.
** The only thing I can imagine being worse than losing a spouse or significant other, is losing a child.
** Many people will come to the service and offer you help, but take it all with a grain of salt, because most will scatter and hide a day after the offer is out.

** Don’t let anyone dictate how you should feel. Only you know when you are able to take the next step.

Life itself has become very different. Sometimes when I go out to eat by myself, I look around and feel that I could be swallowed up by the emptiness I feel. I think about the future that won’t ever happen and what I have lost. I know I have become more of a homebody. Those spur of the moment things Pete and I used to do are no longer done. Random trips to the coffee house, Barnes and Nobles, and Bay Walk just don’t happen. I still have not been able to take myself to the beach to watch a sunset. Life has become predictable and routine, and I know this has drug me down, but still, a year later, see no way out.
I miss having someone holding me close at night.
I miss having someone to talk to at any time of the day or night.
I miss his hugs.
I miss coming home from work and finding dinner on the table.
I even miss the arguing between Pete and Peter.
Mostly I miss my best friend.
I think of the times I have watched movies and in them a spouse has died and at some point a person will say…. “It’s been a year. Its ok to date, you should be ready.” In truth, it doesn’t work that way. In truth it really does feel like a part of you has been ripped away, and you wonder if you will ever feel whole again. There are also those who will say, “You weren’t married.” No we weren’t but I knew him for 9 years, dated for 8 of that and lived together for 4. A piece of paper doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in emotions. You desperately want the closeness, but the thought of it with another still is not acceptable. Such a harsh conflict………………….
Losing a spouse or significant other is nothing I would wish on anyone, although it will happen to almost all of us in time. I look at those who throw away a marriage and wonder why. For every one that is thrown away there is another destroyed by death. I sit and think how unfair it is that I should suffer while others throw away what I long for.
But life goes on, and I must do the same………so each day I get up and think of one thing that makes the day worth while, and maybe, if I get out of bed for that one thing, I will be surprised and some event will happen to put the wind back in my sails.