Widow's Dance
by Zoe
I mean that from the depths of my soul, time moves me away from the day he was taken from me. That scares me in so many ways; I do not want to be moved from my time with him. How I function changed instantaneously and forever. All things in my life are marked from the day I lost John. It has been 508 days since John was taken. I live in our house, I make decisions with how he would like things in the forefront, I tell him every morning I love him, I tell him every night through tears how much I miss him. It is how I try to survive this. I am by most people’s definition, healing, because of course their definition is completely superficial I have a home, I have a job, a very stressful job with people working under me, I pay my bills, and I take care of my dog. I am a widow, and no one wants to look too closely, my pain makes other uncomfortable, my reality makes others doubt the security of their own. So there is a space around me, a distance I keep from others, it makes that part of my life workable. An employee told me recently that I had gotten mean. A second later, I think she would have re-evaluated what she thought was mean as to what she dealt with after that statement. As I walked away I started to think, am I different? I realized that in the beginning I was walking backward, as I moved from the date John was taken I was facing that direction staring at the death being pulled away and doing everything to cling to that moment before he was gone. To have him, to feel him to touch him. At some point in the last few weeks, I looked in the other direction. And, as foolish as this is about to sound, I realized I will never ever have him for as long as I live. I am looking, toward the end of my life, and it is like looking at a road in a dark tunnel, there is just the road and darkness. He was my light, and I will never have my light again. The utter desolation, and the realization that for the rest of my life I will never have him, ever, is overwhelming. In some ways, this is worse than when I first lost him. At least when I first had him taken I had the numbness that comes with death, now I am fully aware of what this means. I am supposed to be with John. He was the best part of me, and he is gone. I strain to hear his voice in my mind, or feel his touch on my skin, to smell him, and all I have left are echoes, pale images of what was once my reality. Close your eyes and listen, do you hear it, a music with a maniacal beat, sometimes it is soft sometimes it is so loud that you want to scream, but it is always there, that is the music of grief, it is pounding and unrelenting, plugging your ears simply makes the sound worse, for no matter where you are or what you do you cannot escape the soul shaking tune, because there is no mistaking the music that makes the widows dance. I guess I have changed. I have no time for the smallness and pettiness of those around me. I do not want to hear it, I do not care, because my John is gone, and I will never have him again for the rest of my life. One breath, one-step, too many days
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