Eighteen months

I was disoriented when I woke yesterday morning. I'd slept well and felt okay, but it took me several minutes to figure out that it was Friday. As the day progressed, I tried to write the date incorrectly multiple times, had difficulty holding the 18th in my head. I also became agitated. I assumed I'd picked that up from my mother, as she was understandably frustrated by her lack of independence as she recovers from hip replacement surgery.

As planned, I went out with friends for dinner and a local production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (good but a bit loud). I enjoyed spending time with my friends, and I enjoyed the musical. However, I increasingly felt a sharp longing for Sandy, and by the time I got home I felt empty and lost, sinking into self-pity.

Unable to face the prospect of the empty bed, I self-medicated with potato chips, a few TV comedies, and a mind-numbing game on my iPad. Hours passed before I forced myself to turn out the lights and climb the stairs. It was quite late, but I picked up a book to read before succombing to the night.

After I'd read for a while, I felt my agitation ease, and was encouraged by my spontaneous yawns. I knew I'd be able to sleep now, that whatever I'd been waiting for had passed.

I looked at the clock: 1:35 a.m. And that's when the date registered. Though my conscious mind had hidden the significance of the date (actively avoiding it, even), my subconscious committed to the vigil. I couldn't sleep until the hour of Sandy's death had passed. By the time I finished reading the short story and looked at the clock, we were 15 minutes past the moment that her heart stopped beating exactly eighteen months before.

I haven't looked back to see how I've done on the 18th of recent months, but I suspect those are the nights that my plans to get to bed at a decent hour go most awry. It's a strange thing, waiting for Sandy to die, metaphorically standing watch, when there is even less now for me to do about it than there was the night she actually died. I can't keep it from happening, can no longer hope to ease her passage, can't even prepare myself for the awful reality of widowhood. But I wait, all the same, until the moment has passed and I can rest.

And I did rest. I slept well and deeply, awake every couple of hours but quickly asleep again, and I woke contented with both cats snuggled in tightly against me, seeking body heat on a cold and foggy morning. I'm sad today, resigned, but not agitated. Today is just another day without her.