Feeling

I survived last weekend, and I survived the week, but it was long and difficult and I'm exhausted.  Remembering so many lasts from this time last year - from before the cancer diagnosis changed everything.  It was just a year ago, but it was a lifetime ago.  I do my hair and put on lipstick and go out in the world and function, but then I come home to my empty house and I'm alone, and I hate it.  The nights are long and sleepless.

A few people have said things to me this week that have really hurt.  They somehow think that I should be over it by now.  How is someone going to get over loss in 8 months.  He died 8 months yesterday.  And last year Christmas Day was the last time we went out socially.  And last year New Years Eve Day we spent in the emergency room.  And this year on January 8th, the doctor told me he would die.  How can anyone be so callous as to think that I should be over it by now? 

It hurts, and I feel so much pain, so much loss.  So alone.  Alone and untouchable.  When I'm with my friends, I can suppress the pain, but as soon as it's just me, the pain is back and more suffocating than before. 

I recently met a man who lost his wife to cancer in July.  I saw him last night, and we spoke, and cried, and for those few minutes I thought that there is someone who I can talk to who feels the extreme loss that I feel.  And when he told his story, I cried for him and for the cruelty he experienced.  For the first time, I've felt that there is someone who can really empathize, and while that doesn't relieve the pain, it does give me some hope.  And when he kindly reached out and touched my arm, I thought that maybe someday I'll be able to feel again. 

It's a bleak rainy weekend, and I hate being alone with my memories.  I don't know which hurt more - the good or the bad ones.  I just know that this loss is not going to heal on anyone's schedule - if it heals at all.