It's now been a month since my husband crossed the Great Divide between the land of the living and the arms of God. I knew it was coming, I thought I was prepared, I expected it at any moment, and all that. But still, when it happened, it was a complete surprise. My knees buckled as the nurse met me at the door to give me the news. I thought I was going to faint. It was like being caught in the middle of a breath. Time stopped. The Earth stood still. Everything seemed far away. Something escaped my lips. A wail? It felt like a bad dream, but it was real. Too real. Devastatingly real.
Though I knew that in the blink of an eye he had transitioned from this life to the Next, the weight of a ton of bricks landed on me, crushing me. I had been praying for his healing and restoration, and now he was completely healed, but not in the way I'd hoped. He was gone. Gone gone. He wasn't coming back. And I was left behind. A woeful, overwhelmingly bereaved, blubbering mess. I could almost feel myself shrinking. The shock to my system was wholly unexpected.
I had come prepared to stay, not expecting that he would leave so quickly. I had a cot, a pillow, my overnight bag, the ukulele. I had planned to encourage him, to pray with him, to play and sing for him. And so, our son standing next to me, I took out my music, pulled up a chair, took a deep breath, and selected a few of my husband's favorite tunes. My singing and playing were worse than usual, but I'm sure nobody minded.
The fog that settled over me that day, deepening daily, was all enveloping, saturating. I could not think. It was an effort to breathe. I wasn't even sure I wanted to. My heart hurt so much, I thought it would surely stop beating. I sort of hoped it would. I had already lost my father, then my mother. But those losses didn't even come close to comparing to this whole new level of excruciating pain. Of guilt. Of anger. Of confusion. Had there been a funeral pyre, I might have thrown myself on it. All I could see ahead of me was a yawning chasm of emptiness. Family and friends surrounded me in the most loving way, for which I am grateful. I'm not sure how I could have made arrangements without their help and prayers.
Because of COVID restrictions, we were allowed only a very private graveside service. It took place two weeks after his death. Though it was small, it was very beautiful and personal and comforting. When the children and I returned to the cemetery the next day to place flowers on the grave, I felt oddly at peace, knowing my beloved was at rest. I know I will see him again, but that doesn't take away the terrible sadness, the horrible feeling that half of me is gone, the gaping wound in the core of my being. I will have to walk through the crippling grief, and I'm told there will eventually be more good days than bad days.
In the meantime, I have begun the necessary work that follows a death: contacting various agencies and financial institutions, filing paperwork, making sure nothing falls through the cracks. The first two are routine. The third, well, I'm hoping for the best through the fog. I thought it was starting to lift last week, but now I realize I was wrong about that.
Thank you, dear readers, for your words of encouragement and support over the years, and especially for your prayers both during my husband's illness and continuing through the painful days ahead. Some of you have asked that I continue this diary through what you're calling my "healing process." I'm assuming that I will, at some point, heal. At least, that's my hope, because that's what people do. I just can't really envision that right now.
