Yes, Everyday

Most days, we walk around half alive. It is not the living we crave, but those who have been so brutally ripped from our lives. We wish, with all that is within us that our brains would blank out. Possibly the lucky ones are those who walk around in a brain fog for an extended period. Maybe not so lucky as once that fog fades, once the shock wears off, reality breaks us off at the knees leaving us dragging our shredded hearts in the darkness. We wait to wake, to live again. We hear a familiar noise or smell a certain scent and our hearts leap with joy as suddenly as it crashes with sorrow. Dreams and reality clash, bringing us to the brink of destruction all over again. We wonder how we'll survive the depths of our emotions, day after day.

My husband asked me today, 'Do you ever think about just ending it all?' I did not stop to think about my words or cushion them for his sake. 'Yes, everyday,' was my reply. I looked up at him, apology on my face. I knew my words stung. He has kept careful watch over me for months. The words that were never spoken before; but still they were known. 'Yes, everyday.' It is the truth, a harsh truth. We think about it everyday. That does not mean we are just waiting for the right moment to follow our hearts, but that one cannot help but contemplate that journey. Our sorrow is so vast and unrelenting that we can't see the light nor a way out of this pit that we have been flung into. We are torn, heart and soul, between the living and the dead.

We cannot do anything for those who have gone. Maybe it is built into our genes that we have this all consuming need to go after them, that they need us. The reality is that it is us who needs them. We need to hear their voice, see their face, touch them and know that they are okay. It is the not knowing that keeps our world torn apart. We relive their last days, last moments in our minds. Even though we have no idea what was going on inside of them, we still imagine it, agonize over it. We do not accept that they don't need us anymore. That feeling of not being needed. We have forgotten, for now, that there are others who need us still. Death, grief fills us up leaving little room for anything else.

The sun sets and rises, sometimes without notice as the days blur into each other not in increments, but in jerky leaps and slow motion. Our inner clocks have been reset to endless time. Slowly, as though we are waking up, we take notice of the world around us and wish it would just stop. It won't. People have moved on while we live in this vacuum. We don't know how to move with it, time of this kind is not within our world of hurt. We have to move ourselves now, to our own theme, our own way of dealing with a world that has been cruel. An alien landscape that has many pitfalls and traps. Seeing people we thought we knew as strangers in this new reality. So much to adjust to and so little will to do so.

We have been given the heaviest burden we will ever carry and we may carry it for the rest of our lives. There are times when the burden is so great, we fall. It is then we wonder why we bother. It is then that we don't want to continue. I don't know the whys or reasons that we must hold this pain. For a little while, everyday, I cannot find the will to stand up. I don't want to stand up. I have to breath deep, keep still and wait for those moments to pass. I know they will, but in those dark moments, I cannot find the ability to care. I miss my son, Tim with every fiber of my being. I will always miss and love him. I have duties here though and others that I love just as deeply. We find the steps back though it is a different path we now follow. We learn to swim against the current and not allow the rip-tide to carry us away. We learn to care again, just in a different way.

Yes, everyday it comes into my mind. How easy it would be to just follow and not walk this broken trail anymore. I don't do easy. We struggle over many things through out our lives, nothing to compare to this. We have been torn apart, broken down, destroyed. Here we are, steeped in sadness and loss. There are still many reasons to live if we look for them, if we teach ourselves to care again. We don't want to, but many will, in time. The thought of leaving will probably always be there, just below the surface. It does not mean we are weak, it means we are the humans we are born to be. I still believe that every time you reach out to help someone, no matter what form that help takes, you are helping yourself. You are honoring those you have lost. They deserve to be honored, no matter the circumstances of how they left. You are also honoring those who are still by your side. Everyday.