Eight months

Eight months ago today, I started the transition to widowhood. I began with the things I knew I had to do: calling Social Security, seeing my therapist, beginning to eat actual meals after weeks of consuming few calories. I knew I had to just keep shuffling through the minutes, and I welcomed the support of friends and family. What I most remember, though, was that clanging in my brain that occurred whenever I tried to make sense of the world. 

People often describe the early stages of grief as feeling like you're in a dream. That was true for me. But even more than that, I felt the victim of a cruel hoax. It was impossible that Sandy — one of the most alive, vital people ever to inhabit this planet — would die. It was impossible that she would leave me; she had told me many times that she wasn't going anywhere. We had a plan. Disbelief competed with frequent, stabbing pain, leaving little room for anything else. 

At first, I honestly couldn't see a future, couldn't imagine that I'd be able to continue my life with that jagged hole sucking the air out of it. Gradually, I realized I could start to imagine a future, but I didn't want it. I resisted it. I wanted Sandy back, and my want was strong enough that I should be able to will her return and build a future with her.

Now, after eight months on this journey, despite my efforts to cling to my grief and my pain, to refuse the earth its cycles — despite all of that, things have gotten easier.

Time's passage has proven to me that I can live alone in the house — or at least, can be the only living person here — without feeling vulnerable or freaking out, as I'd feared I would. I can be happy. I can feel competent. I can even feel connected to the world. I can take care of myself, and even start to get excited about the future.

I'm disappointed that we never got a picture of us with all
four cats back in 2008 or so. We talked about it. But I'm
pleased that Nada decided to join us when Tina was taking
portraits of us in June 2010. Sandy was pleased, too.

I knew, rationally, that I wasn't dependent on Sandy for my survival or even my happiness. But I'm relieved that the past eight months have shown me that my independence and happiness do not mean leaving her behind, do not mean our love wasn't (isn't) real, and do not mean my life wouldn't be so much better if she somehow miraculously returned.

I am not the person I was eight months ago. Grief has changed me. The loss of her physical presence and of the security I felt, the loss of the frequent spontaneous laughter we shared, the loss of her touch, and the loss of my belief that the universe would spare her, would spare us — all of this loss inhabits my cells and informs who and how I am in the world. But I'm not just a creature of loss. Sandy and all that we shared — everything that I adored and admired, and everything that infuriated me about her, about us, about myself with her — remains strong, resilient, and celebrated within me.