Incomplete

I went to the cemetery today.  I don't really know why.  It doesn't bring me comfort.  In fact, it always upsets me.  I guess its a place where I can talk to Brian out loud where nobody will see or judge.

I don't feel particularly close to Brian there.  He isn't there.  His body wasn't buried - just a small bag of ashes,  I don't know what was harvested from his body - I don't want to.  During the last months of his life they cut him open too many times.  I saw the scars, I saw the staples, I saw the huge open gaping hole they left after the second surgery, and I saw his excruciating pain every few days when they changed the horrific dressing on that wound.  No.  Wound isn't the right word.  It wasn't a wound, it was an incredibly large incision made to repair his ruptured stomach after the first futile surgery left him vulnerable.  I saw the blood, the asitiis, the chemo, the nutrition - so many things that nobody should ever see.  And I saw him deal with all that with such courage and grace while I fell apart.

He wanted to donate his body to science, and I wanted to honor his wishes.  Still, the thought of them cutting open his lifeless body, removing organs, or bones, or tissues that once kept him alive feels like desecration.  I love that he wanted to help others through his death, I hate the thought of it though.

So his grave is not a place where he rests.  Its not a place where his body lies.  It's just a hole with some ashes and a stone to tell people that he was once here and that he matters.

Rest in peace.  What a ridiculous expression.  There is no rest in death.  Only the living can rest.  Brian isn't at rest, he's dead.  Gone.

People say the strangest things.  The other day I posted a photo of a yearling on my Facebook page.  It was beautiful.  Tyrone commented that it was Brian coming back to look after me.  I know it was meant to be comforting, but it was disturbing.  I don't see or feel him in the sun, the rain, the deer, the flowers.  Those things are not reminders of him.  If anything, they are reminders that he is gone.

And I'm alive.  And by most definitions I'm doing well.  I have wonderful friends, I have love, I work, I breath.  I experience joy and pleasure; but life isn't easy.  It's incomplete.  I'm not lonely, but I'm alone.  I have amazing friends, incredible support, more love than I deserve, but at the end of the day I'm alone.  I'm no longer sharing life - just moments of it.

And somehow the worst part is that I'm getting used to it.  At some point others assume that I'm done grieving and that everything is okay.  And in many ways I'm no longer actively grieving.  I accept that he is gone. I accept that I am no longer his wife.  I accept that this is my life, my reality.  I'm somehow moving on and starting to think about my future.  But I don't think that I will ever heal from experiencing his death and the unfairness of it.  I try to remember that I didn't have the cancer, that all that happened to Brian - I was just a witness to it.  But, how do you witness pain and death and heal?  How do you accept the death of a wonderful person who was only given 48 years of life?

I'm healthy, and I expect to have many years ahead of me, but Brian's death ended the life I knew and loved.  I'm alive, but somehow my life feels unnatural, inorganic.  Life now comes in moments and spurts.

I suppose every widow feels this way, but nobody warns you about it.  When the period of mourning is over - when you are forced to live a new reality - everything is unfamiliar.  That isn't a bad thing, but it is uncomfortable.  Maybe that's what is hard - feeling comfortable in a strange life.

I know that I have a pretty good life.  I am grateful for so much, and I don't take it for granted, but building a new life is something we do in solitude.  And I'm not good at solitude.

I so glad that this loss didn't rob me of the ability to love.  Life without love would be horrific.  I love, I laugh, I live, but I'm still waiting for the day when things feel comfortable, right, and complete.