Words

There are some words that are supposed to be associated with grief.

Survivor

Closure

Support

I hate them all.

I looked them up in the dictionary just to be sure I understood them properly.

A survivor is supposed to be “somebody who shows a great will to live or a great determination to overcome difficulties and carry on”.

Closure signifies an “ending”, a “finishing”.

And finally, support. Something to “prop” you up, “buoy” you up, “sustain” you.

Those definitions were not written to describe grief reactions. Not to me. Not by a long shot.

I do not feel like I want to carry on. I will never be finished grieving. And there is nothing that props me up and sustains me.

This grief is all consuming and showing no signs of letting go.

That’s all right. I honestly don’t care.

I think the extent to which I don’t care frightens some people so I find myself not being totally honest when I am asked how I am or how I am feeling.

Yesterday someone thought they were being understanding and acknowledged that it’s something you have to take “day by day”.

When I answered sometimes it’s really “hour by hour”, I could instantly see the change in her face. She didn’t want to hear that.

“Well, it takes time”, she said.

There isn’t enough time in the world to make this any better.

There is no “better”.

There is only the wish for it to be over. To rejoin John wherever he is.

And if that scares people, again, I just don’t care.

I am not suicidal. I will not end my life. But I do not enjoy the remnants of what my life has turned into.

Each day is just a reminder of being alive without John.

This man who was an absolute part of me as much as my heart or my arm or my head is not here anymore.

It’s as if I have had a body part amputated and the stump hangs there, bleeding still. And I experience phantom pain in the missing piece. So many times a day I start to tell him something or I find myself thinking I need to relate a story to him that I know he will enjoy and then the cold reality hits me that I can’t do that. There will be no more shared stories, no more inside jokes, no more anything.

My mate is gone. My soul mate is no longer here for me to hug and love and take care of and share with and just sit and be with.

No more.

No more.

No, I am not a survivor. I am just left standing. Alone. And scared. And wishing it weren’t so. Nothing buoys me up. And there will be no end to this.

It's the little things

It's the little things, the little daily reminders that hit me up side the head and make me realize over and over how much I miss John.  How much I will always miss John. How much he was a part of my life, our life. It's not that I can't do these little daily things. It's that I don't want to have to because it forces me to realize and tangibly experience my loss.
Yes, I can grind the coffee beans at night and prepare the coffeepot for the next day. But John used to do that. It was a simple act of love that he did every night. He knew I was the first one up in the morning [usually] and he made the coffee at night even if he wasn't going to work the next day. All I would have to do when I got up was hit the button and there would be coffee for me. Somehow, that coffee tasted better because he prepared it. Now I do it and it's not the same.

Why this is so hard

Yoko Ono was recently interviewed about losing John Lennon and she actually admitted that she is still trying to get over it. It's been thirty years since he was gunned down. But she described why perfectly. She said "Well, it was very hard because it was a sudden thing that happened, he wasn't ill for a long time or anything, it's just, we were talking before that you know, and, it was very hard," she told Reuters, recalling the moment Lennon was shot outside his apartment building in New York on December 8, 1980.
That's how it is for me, too.
The last thing we talked about was how we were looking forward to going home the next morning, how we missed our "babies" [our cats and dogs] and couldn't wait to see them again, how good it would be to be with them. Then I woke up a couple of hours later and John was gone. No hint that he had been feeling bad or sick. In an instant, everything was changed and nothing would ever be the same. It's hard to lose your mate. It's harder still to lose your soul mate. It's the hardest when it happens suddenly.
I agree with Yoko - you don't ever get over that. Not really.

Don't Grieve For Me

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free;
I'm following the path God laid for me.
I took His hand when I heard Him call;
I turned my back and left it all.

I could not stay another day,
To laugh, to love, to work or play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way;
I found that place at the close of day.

If my parting has left a void,
then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss;
Ah yes, these things, I too, will miss.

Be not burdened with times of sorrow;
I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life's been full, I savored much;
Good friends, good times, a loved ones touch.

Perhaps my time seemed all too brief;
Don't lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your heart and share with me;
God wanted me now, He set me free.

Mourning

John always teased me that I was a thorough researcher. He said that when the time came for me to die, if I was faced with two doors and one said "Heaven" and the other said "Lecture on Heaven", I would go through the one that promised a lecture because I would want to make sure I knew all there was to know so I wouldn't miss out on anything.
I'm afraid he's right.
I know soon after John passed away I started reading all I could on what it meant to lose the most valuable person in my life. I tried the usual grief books but found them lacking. Not one seemed to understand quite what I was going through. None of them addressed the depth of my loss. No one talked about the crying that seemed to come from the soles of my feet and the bottom most pit of my stomach, the anguish that resembled an animal more than a person. I didn't read anything about the magnitude of how much I wanted to die that very minute so I could be wherever it was that John was. Reading about when it was time to give away John's clothes and when it was time to stop wearing his ring only made me want to toss the book across the room. If the author had been in front of me I would not have been polite.
The only books that gave me comfort and still do are books that talk about the afterlife. I have been obsessed with books written by mediums and psychologists who have done regressions.
I know in my heart I will be with John again and I know he is with me still.