I haven’t written here since my world was utterly demolished and I’m finding it hard to know how to keep writing here. My bio is no longer relevant and I don’t recognize the woman in the pictures. She no longer exists and never will again.
She is a person who doesn’t know what death looks like when it happens right in front of her. She doesn’t know the true sorrows felt at night sleeping in a bed alone because her partner has died. She believes she will live 40+ years alongside her husband, that they may have children one day, and she will grow old with this man. She hasn’t watched her husband grasp for air and watch in panic and terror as his face turns blue. She hasn’t given him “CPR” to try to save his life and fail. She hasn’t watched paramedics work on her husband who lays on the floor of the apartment they share. She hasn’t known the horror of seeing the paramedic come outside and shake his head saying, “We couldn’t save him”. She hasn’t held her husband’s cold, dead hand and weep in their living room on a warm August night. She hasn’t had to call his mother to tell her he has died, suddenly and very unexpectedly. She hasn’t called her own mother and friend to share the same terrible news. Her hands haven’t moved forward and back as her body processes the panic attacks that come.
She has not thought about ending her own life because the thought of living without him hurts so much that it feels as if her own death would be a relief and a way to be reunited with her love. She hasn’t had a viewing a week after he died, where she would touch his body for the last time. She hasn’t seen what his body looks like a week without life flowing through it. She hasn’t seen his almost unrecognizable face that is blue and bloated as he lies on a table. She isn’t haunted or tormented with the images she saw that night, haunted by him screaming in terror as he experienced a massive heart attack.
She doesn’t know the deep regret of our last interaction. She doesn’t know how hard life is without him in it. She doesn’t know the pain that I live with each and every moment of my day. She isn’t me.
I know all of these things and, unfortunately, I will always be the one who knows them and experienced them alone. I have desperately wanted to discuss these terrors with Ron because he was always the person I talked to about life’s hardships. Now I am the one who must continue without his counsel and without his partnership.
I am the woman who must continue. I am the one who witnessed and experienced all of those terrible moments. I am the one who has seen death. I am the one who lives with the distinct knowledge that life ends, sometimes suddenly and violently, and now sees the world in a way only those who know death can see it. I see Thestrals in a world where most cannot.
I am the woman who is fighting to survive each day. Some are better than others, but all are now dimmer and darker. The world is no longer bright and beautiful to me. It might be one day, but it is not now. I might seem like a woman who is doing alright and going through the motions of life…and sometimes I am. Most of the time, however, I am the woman crying alone in my room or screaming in my car. I am the woman who must decide a future that I’m not sure I want to be part of anymore. I must make decisions that I never wanted to make… alone. I must choose a path in life when the path ahead is foggy and dark. I must know that while I’m “not alone” the truth is oftentimes, I am very much alone.
I alone saw what I saw that night. I alone am the widow. I alone had to decide his urn and decide which pictures to print for his memorial. I alone have memories and inside jokes with someone who no longer walks the planet earth. I alone have had conversations with someone who can no longer remind me what we spoke about.
If you are interested, I have started a side blog, focused on grief and Ron specifically (another way of processing) at: https://erikahops.substack.com/ which you can subscribe and receive via email. It’s very new…
This isn’t supposed to make you feel concerned for me or worried of what I might do. This is simply to help me process this life that I have to live now.
If you’re still reading this, thank you. 🙏
Everyday Erika 