Progress??

Last time I posted it was the two year anniversary of Jason’s death…now we are coming up on our 23rd Wedding Anniversary…Aug 26th. I still count it. In my heart we’re still married. He’s my husband. I’m his wife. Always will be. Aug 26th is also Levi’s birthday. He turns 16 this year (yikes!). Saturday my happy face will be firmly in place for him, but I’m definitely having harder than usual moments this week.

A friend commented to me on Aug 8th that I have “made a lot of progress” the past two years. I wish the words that people use sometimes wouldn’t stick with me so much, but I think being the “word geek” that I am means that words hold a lot of weight with me. They always have. “Made a lot of progress”…implies that there’s some sort of destination…some end point… I just keep tumbling those words over and over in my head “made a lot of progress”.

Have I changed over the past two years? Absolutely yes. My core being is still devastatingly sad…always. I miss my husband…my life partner…my soul mate…my forever. I miss the life we had built together. The social shenanigans with other couples. The safety and security I always felt in him. The knowing I was absolutely, positively loved by him and could be my most complete self with him.

But I have also learned to live a little more “around” that. I can have fun times with family or friends and be happy in those moments. It sucks complete and total a$$ when I come home and all I want to do is tell Jason about everything…and he isn’t here…and sometimes that crash and burn doesn’t feel completely worth the happy moments…but I’m working on it. I guess one could call that “progress” towards something.

I’m taking an Introduction to Poetry class right now. There are 5 of us in the class and it amazes me every week how much life experience plays into how a person reads and interprets poetry. My lens of sadness and grief give every poem we read a slightly more morose tone. Literally, one poem we read I was like “obviously the guy wants to die” and all my classmates were like “no, he just wants to go to his cabin by the lake”. Huh…really?? I spose.

Our instructor has been giving us different prompts to spur our own poetry writing. This poem was the result of one of those prompts…

Pillowtalk

Drifting away to sleep
Bodies tangled
Familiar mixup of limbs
Comfortable and safe

His voice whispers
In the still night
“I can’t remember if I told you today
But I love you”

And with those last words
He relaxes into sleep
While she lies awake
Squeezing her eyes shut tight

Trying to capture that moment
Like a snapshot in her heart
That she can keep in a box
And look at whenever she wants

When he’s not there
When the beast living in his brain
Devouring him little by little
Finally consumes him

And all that she’s left with is the
Ghost of pillowtalk