finding a way home...

i don't know how to sleep anymore. i used to know. we'd say, "you ready?" and we'd get up and do things. i would set aside sewing or my book. we would walk the dogs one last time together, either silently enjoying the night air or speaking quietly to each other. but we held hands.

we would return and i would free the dogs from their leashes while he locked up and turned off lights. we would brush teeth, etc. and then get into bed. naked. we slept naked together. well, in the winter i wore socks but otherwise..... because he was warm-blooded. he was like a furnace. so hot. i love sleeping with him. his arm around me. my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest. his heart beating so strong under my palm. thump thump thump. bliss. safe. loved.

and it has been ripped away. he was ripped from me. as if an ax has cut my body in two.

i have suffered the loss of my mother, father, grandparents, and a child. my baby son. 19 weeks old. such pain, different grief for each relationship. after the loss of my son, i changed. i was not the same woman. and i have changed again.

for each one of those deaths, i have to tell you, my experience only, i never felt the terror that i do with the death of my husband, my beloved Dragon.

the loneliness is terrible. the isolation is terrible. people can be so terrible to you. the lack of understanding what you feel. the lack of patience as you try to explain, is so terrible.
Elizabeth Taylor was visited by Debbie Reynolds shortly before she died. Reynolds said, "She expressed how scary it was when you see that it's perhaps the end, to find a way to leave this world and go onto the next."

i have been having terrible thoughts that i fight to smother. i get angry with myself and tell myself to stop it, don't do that to yourself, but it is the white elephant in the room.

while he was gasping, choking, while he was dying, did he know? what did he know? was he scared? could he hear me? was my talking to him, did that make it worse? hearing my voice fade from his consciousness as he passed into the next life, did that hurt his soul watching himself leave me behind?

there. i wrote it. and there is more but not now. not tonight.

life is hard without him, so very hard. more than financially hard, it is emotionally hard, spiritually hard. my soul sighs for him. my hands reach up to the dark ceiling above my bed and i cry out for him. i know he would not want me sad. he never wanted me to ever be sad, but i know him, i know his mind. i know his soul. he understands my grief. he understands the anguish i feel being here without him. he would feel the same if he were here without me. he told me once, "i would go into myself and wither without you. i would howl at the moon without you. i cannot be without you."

i am not home if i am not in his arms. what is it like for him being without me on the other side?
blinding, naked, raw grief. that's where i am. two years, one month. i struggle to smile anymore. the "work smile" is easy because it is my job and above all else, i will do my job. but i walk out of the store and my smile disappears as if it had never been there. i see myself in the mirror and i look 1000 years old. my eyes look haunted by the longing i have for my husband. my beautiful, warm Dragon.

we all have to find our way through grief. i am finding my way by not finding my way. i cleave to his memory like a diver grips the anchor line when he finds it. each day right now brings with it the desolation of a life without him.

my fear is that when i die, when it is my turn to find a way to leave this world and go into the next, he will not be there waiting. somehow i will get lost again, like i am lost now. i want to be able to find my way home, into his waiting arms.
i just don't know if i know the way.