Three Months After
Random, Incohesive Thoughts on Grief
“Imagine living with a scream inside you.
And the scream is yours.
And no one else hears it.
That is grief.”
@untanglegrief
I never thought that I would be starting my life over at 43. I loved my life with Ryan. The uncertainty of my future is unsettling to say the least. My sense of security has been stripped away and I feel like I have no foundation. Ryan was my protector, the one who took care of all the things I couldn’t. He was there for me even when my struggles with chronic illness got really hard. Sometimes I wonder if it was just all too much. I have always been so thankful for his strength in the face of difficult situations.
After 17 years of marriage, we had things figured out pretty well. Being together for half of our lives created a balance for us that just worked. I feel like half of me has been torn away, leaving me to question who I even am.
I will never know what happened to him that day. I will never know what went wrong.
On days that I feel alright, I feel bad for not feeling bad.
Sometimes I trigger myself on purpose, just so I can be reminded, so I can feel something.
It is unfathomable that Ryan can just be gone. He was a constant in my life for over 20 years and he is somehow just gone. So suddenly and so completely. I can’t get my head around it. A part of me left with him and I am floating, untethered into a uncertain future and it’s terrifying.
I am constantly flooded with unwanted, unannounced emotions. Anger, sadness, fear and guilt flood my mind and my body on a regular basis, sometimes all at once. The loss of control over my life and myself are unnerving to say the least.
I have a fear. I’m scared that people will judge me for what happened. I’m afraid that somehow it is my fault. If I would have just done some things differently. If I could have stopped him. No matter how many people tell me it’s not my fault, no matter how much I know that this is rationally true, I can’t escape the fear. The guilt.
I have been working on my own fear is death for a long time. Through my work, I have explored death and become more comfortable with it. Perhaps I was really working on my fear of death for Ryan.
Grief is a roiling in the soul. When it comes, it comes hard with little regard for its host.
He seems like a ghost now. A far off memory of some dream. How can half my life seem so cloudy and unreal.
Grief is a stranger. Grief is alive. A creature brought forth by immense loss.
For everyone else, life goes on, but not for me, not yet anyways. I wish the whole world would just stop and take notice of his departure. But that’s not how it works. I want him back more than anything I have ever wanted, but that’s not how death works.
Sometimes I’m crying and I don’t even notice until a tear leaks from my eye and falls slowly down my cheek.
I feel small, tiny. Weightless.
This isn’t just emptiness, I feel like I’ve been zombified. I can’t think straight. I can’t concentrate and I often forget things right away. I feel like this is happening to someone else. Like I’m watching all of this unfold from someone else’s eyes. It’s bizarre and disturbing.
I miss his beautiful smile
I miss the comfortable quiet
I miss his jokes
I miss being loved unconditionally
I miss his quiet presence
I miss laughing hysterically with him
I miss him next to me every night
I miss how he made me feel safe
I miss how he took care of me
I miss how I took care of him
I miss how hard it was
I miss how easy it was
I miss his smell
I miss his hugs
I miss him calling me kitten
I miss calling him mister
I miss me always cooking
I miss him always cleaning up
I miss working on the garden with him
I miss meals with him
I miss how handsome he was
I miss how much he loved our Summer dog
I miss his support
I miss his nearly perfect memory
I miss how smart he was
I miss the things that could have been
I miss what we were working on together
I miss making plans with him
I miss how well we worked together
I miss all of who he was
I miss him everyday
I have to write about this. I have to tell my story, as a reminder that I’m still alive. I’m still here.
I have been photographing my plants in my window. They create shadows with sharp edges and are partially obscured by the curtains. They remind me of how I feel. They remind me of how it feels to be spending the last days in the home that we shared for 9 years together. Our dream house, no longer.
From my Last Days series, 2023