Grief Guided Journey

I wrote this in my journal 6 months ago.

People often ask how I am doing. All I can do is blankly stare and say something random like “I’m doing OK.” What can I say?

Everything seems complex. I think I grieved most at the beginning, because I couldn’t even remember my interactions with the old Steve. I had been hanging out with this soft, gentle, weak, but incredibly strong man. One who constantly thanked me for all I was doing, and refused to give up the fight to live. The “old Steve” often came into the room and took charge with excitement and passion. The Steve I had been hanging out with for the last year was often in pain, lacked energy, but delighted in life. I grew to love this new Steve so deeply. But often I looked around to see where the other Steve had gone. When was he going to walk back into my life and help me navigate this difficult journey. He had always been there when I needed him.

Secondly, before I could mourn his loss, I found myself involuntarily processing the trauma of it all. Flashes of events suddenly appeared in my mind and dreams. Hospital rooms, alarming machines, the fading of my husband’s life with each monotonous beep. The questions in his eyes I wanted to answer, but could not understand. His pain and my inadequacy to relieve it.

Many of these moments led me to breathe a sigh of relief as he took his last breath. Finally he felt no pain. Finally he found release from the body that had betrayed him. But that relief that I felt was short-lived. Now I must find a way to live without him. But before I move on, I need to process all that we have been through. No longer in the battle, I have to ponder the incredible loss that I did not have time to acknowledge. The terror of those moments haunt me, forcing me to now respond to all that I brushed aside in order to fight the battle and care for Steve.

I have been fighting so long to keep him alive that I didn’t have time to prepare to live without him.