Counting

A woman I have come to know on the Internet through our shared experience of grief wrote an interesting post in her blog this week. It was about the habit that those of us who are grieving have of counting the time since our loved one passed.
I count too and I wondered if I was the only one. Hours, days, weeks, months, a year, a year and a half. Already I see two years on the horizon and can’t believe that amount of time has passed. It seems surreal and I think the counting helps to keep me based in the here and now. Helps me to see reality. Some days I think the grief will send me spinning off into some world from which there is no return and the counting is my tether.
It’s also a way to stay connected to my Love. This Sunday will be 81 weeks. 81 weeks since I last got to hold my John, talk with him, see his smile, hear his voice and his laugh, plan with him, look forward to the next day with him. I need to hold onto that part of us and me. It makes the horrible part of now more bearable.