I Want To Go Home

It's the Fourth of July here in the U.S.A. It hasn't been my favorite holiday but it can be a good one. family, food, friends, fireworks. As with any holiday it is what you make of it, or can make of it.

I'm alone. The one friend I've made here has small children, her in-laws, her own parents, and, as she was born here, lived here all her life, she has innumerable friends to be with as well. Her husband has been gone a little over two and a half years. But I'm glad for her. I can only imagine feeling of raising two children alone.

My son is up in New England visiting his father and that family. My daughter is off at her own celebration with her fiancee and friends. I don't think it was anyone's plan that I spend the first big family type holiday alone. It just happened. When they realized it, both my children felt pangs of guilt. So I did what mom's are supposed to do. I put on a brave front, then dissolved to tears as the day dawned and I knew my children, my only family left, won't be around. I won't have anyone to talk to, to even expect a drop-by later on. I won't have anyone to distract me from the fact that my husband is never going to be with me again.

I've been having a terrible time lately. The pain I feel is the exact same pain as when I stepped into the room where they had prepared him for me to sit with after he was pronounced dead. I feel numb, but I'm crying. I feel so lonely for him. I also feel lonely for someone to sit with me and talk to me.

When I got up a made a concerted effort to stay very busy. I watered my plants and moved them to catch the morning sun. It's a small balcony but I'm so glad to have it. I'm on the second floor so I feel a little bit safer. The balcony is all mine.

I vacuumed the carpet, washed the kitchen floor, set out the chicken I'll cook for my supper. Interspersed is the walking of my two Scotties, Carmen Sophia and Scootie Wootums. They are my buddies in everything I do. They stand like sentinels on the balcony when I take out the trash and go check the mail. They sit on the bathroom floor when I take a shower. They bark furiously at any leaf or bunny that happens to get close. They rush to my side when I cry and snuggle beside me. And they sleep beside me, where he used to sleep. They make sure that I'm not alone in the bed.

Tonight there will be fireworks. Maybe I'll hear them. Maybe I won't. I don't know because I'm not home. Home is by the ocean with him. Home is in his arms. The last time I was home was 152 days ago. It seems like such a huge number but it isn't even 22 weeks. It's not yet five and a half months.

I guess all this pain and loneliness comes from wanting to go home. I want to be sitting beside the ocean, on the point on our cove, and see the fireworks at a distance. Sit on the flat rocks with the breeze coming off the water, sit in front of him so that his legs are around me, and his arms are around me.

I want to go home.