The Second Weekend Alone

So this is my second weekend alone, and without Bride.  I was blessed to have folks here,  and even more who volunteered to come if I gave the word.   As I have mentioned, I felt like I needed to face some of this by myself.  Giving myself time to sit with things is hard.   The time we would be hanging out, watching stupid TV or sitting on the back porch, or playing games, that’s when it hits the hardest.  With no distractions, I am forced to face my new reality.  I can tell you this, I am not a fan!!

The evenings are hard and the weekends seem brutally empty.  Last Sunday I attended my first “loss of a spouse grief group session”.   I have worked with therapists before, but this was my first experience in a group setting.  Again, not a fan.  I understand the mechanics of how it’s supposed to work, you sit in a room with people who understand the pain, the loss, and try to figure out how to keep going without pretending.  Sounds simple, but like most things involving the heart, it just ain’t.   

I came away from that session more shaken than when I went in.  Listening to one heart breaking story after another was a lot and it felt heavy.  I don’t know if it was just too soon for me, or if that kind of group is just not for me.  When I got home, I googled the purpose of grief groups.  What I found was, breaking isolation, normalizing what feels abnormal, giving language to things we can not name yet, sharing coping mechanisms, creating safe space to feel the loss fully, and rebuilding a sense of meaning and identity. 

The one that hits me the most right now is breaking isolation.  I feel that one in my bones.  I feel all of them, but I don’t think a group is going to help me with the rest, at least not now.  I am blessed, truly blessed, family, chosen and actual, who have been carrying me in all the ways that matter.  These posts, writing this out, this has become my safe space.  This is how I am giving names to the things that don’t have names yet.

I do need to rebuild my sense of meaning, that part if real.  But do not need to rebuild my identity, Bride helped shape who I am, trying to rebuild that feels like it would be a dishonor.  So instead, I’m going to do my best to stay true to the man she helped build. 

A few of things I miss, holding her hand wherever we were walking.  Reaching over in the middle of the night just to touch her.  Surprising her with a few Cherry Mash, that candy thing she loved.  I miss giving her crap about how much true crime she watched, we called them kill shows.  That was not my thing, even though I would watch with her sometimes.  I preferred stuff that showed the inherent good in people, not the worst.  We had shows we watched together, then we each had our own. 

I miss all of that, last night I watched one of hers called Cold Justice.  That show always made me cry.  Last night I cried because I miss my honey.

I miss kissing her on the face, “flush on the lips” she’d say, no idea which one but that came from some show or movie.  I miss how she’d get when she won at cards, cocky when she was winning, annoyed when she wasn’t, never for long, but long enough to make me laugh. I miss calling her, just to check in.  I miss thumb wrasling her to settle disputes, anywhere, at diner, at a table, didn’t matter.  Whoever won would say “LOSER,” and throw up a hand shaped like an “L” to our forehead.  She cheated all the time and I didn’t care.  I miss all of it. 

It was not just a life we built, it was a thousand little things, and every one of them is louder now she’s gone.