On the eve of his birthday

My fingers hover over the keyboard because they know my mind is a cauldron of mixed up words haphazardly collected as I walk through the fog that is this grief. In all those words I find one phrase….this sucks so bad. It has been 201 days since my husband killed himself. There are moments when I see a glimpse of life outside of this whatever it is…this surreal reality where nothing feels real and everything is a struggle. That sounds so utterly depressing! Perhaps today and all the days that gathered to make this week have been shitty but not because anything specific happened on those days. Shitty because when a spouse succumbs to the demons of depression, the living are left to find their way in a world where nothing makes sense. I loved my husband and I hope he has found the peace he couldn’t find here. Truly I wish that for him, but for the survivors left behind, this is a new kind of hard wrapped up in an unfamiliar life where nothing has changed but everything is different.

Monday is his birthday. Last week was our anniversary. My step-daughter is in town and staying with me. Her eyes look like his so much that any time I look into her eyes for more than a moment I see him staring back at me and tears start running down my face in that way they do when they cannot be consoled so you have no choice but to accept their presence and just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing while they make their way from the corners of an eyeball, over the molding of a cheek, down the curve of a jawline before slipping underneath your chin and onto your neck. The tears are always waiting to be free so those of us who grieve must learn to co-exist with the tears, embrace the memories, and hope for a future where the glimpses become long glances become extended stays in a world where grief knows its place and time has allowed the collection of enough moments to comfortably soften the edges of this new tragedy. Her eyes look like his. When I look too long I see him staring back at me. He is buried in the ground but also right here next to me, alive through her eyes.