Sad all over again

Death by a thousand cuts refers to an old form of Chinese torture whereby a person would slowly die as he bled to death from a thousand little cuts.
Grief is like that.
Yes, death gives you an initial gut punch that brings you to your knees.
But after a while, the shock wears off and you assimilate the loss and continue to live.
But the grief, the pain of losing that person you love so much stays with you and day after day, month after month, year after year, you bleed.
I bleed when I turn over in bed at night and caress John's empty pillow.
I bleed when I make coffee for one in the morning.
When I heat up a frozen dinner at night instead of making a delicious meal for two.
When I watch the sun rise in the morning and John is not here to share it with me and I see another day before me without him.
Grief robs you day by day, cut by cut, tear by tear, loss by loss.
I don't want to sound morbid or pessimistic.
Life does become "routine" again, if you will.
Gradually I have incorporated losing John into my new life and I have learned to band aid the cuts and soon they scab over.
But they never really heal.
Anything can pull that scab off.
Sometimes I am surprised by the renewed hurt.
Sometimes I understand what did it.
A song.
A smell.
A noise.
I was taken aback by the sound of the the pool man one day as he dove under the water to fix a pop up head. For a split second, it sounded like John was back in our backyard. John who loved our pool and dove into it every day after work to cool off. For a split second my soul felt whole again.
And then...
And then it bled all over again.
There is no rhyme or reason to what can make a grief cut bleed again.

Today is the anniversary of when John and I moved into this house we have now in Arizona.
After driving for 5 days with 1 dog, 3 cats, and 1 parakeet, we entered our new home.
Together.
Now I am here alone. Different dog. Different cats. No bird.
And no John.
Tomorrow the bleeding will stop. Again.
But today I am cut all over again.
Such is grief.
Namaste.