Every morning

[adventure]

I came across this picture. It was done by a parent to express the loss of a child. This is a visual image of how I feel every morning. As soon as I wake from my 2 hours of sleep my body feels the instant anguish of this separation. Then I open the curtains and see the daylight, hear the birds and the cars going by with a destination and a driver filled with life. I don't spend much time at the window anymore, looking out and wishing for my old life back with his presence. In that life, I opened the curtains greedy to see the colors and sounds of a new day and anxiously saying to him what should we do today? 

In this life I jump back into the bed and feel the hole get bigger and bigger until I just weep. The bed isn't much of a refuge. Another reminder of his absence. About a week after Tom died  I couldn't take the emptiness of his side.  The pillows I put there to fill it just hurt more because a substitution wasn't possible. Now I'm on his side and fill my side with pillows and books. 

Tom died in the doorway of our bedroom. I'm thankful my healing has gotten me past that constant image. And the image of them working on him in the living room. I have to live here. Occasionally I have an unwanted flashback and I can see it again but it's not too often. 

Now the hardest is walking through the bedroom door every morning into the lifelessness of our home. The empty chair in the office that is next to our bedroom. Tom worked from home. The clean desk that is so absolutely NOT him!!! Things had to be sorted through and his family took some so now the office is a stripped down sterile hollow desk that used to be totally and absolutely a representation of him. His Cornell diploma and much loved Eagle's football team memorabilia are still on the walls and trains in the bookcase. 

I don't ask why so much anymore. I don't try to understand why some people seem to get more heartache then others. I can't grasp that I am grieving the loss of another husband. This deep deep love that is vital to my existence. I am so entwined. This is physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting. 

This picture is how I feel every morning.

[KayC]

That is an amazing picture, it depicts the feeling too common to us all here.  Wow, very aptly done.

Those people in the cars going someplace, may not feel as fulfilled as you might think, they could be people just like you, just going to work or to the bank or grocery store, but alone, no one to share in life with.  I spent years commuting, coming home to an empty house, husband gone, kids grown up and living their lives elsewhere...

Death strikes anyone anywhere at any age.  It doesn't necessarily wait for the old, it hits young people too.  You've been through this twice, that's hard odds, that would be my luck.  I don't play the lottery, I know my luck.  It let me know the day my husband died.  But on the other hand, I struck gold the day I met him.

[Sunflower2]

wow is all I can say!!!!

[LoveGoli]

16 hours ago, adventure said:

This picture is how I feel every morning.

Totally me every single second of my life.

[Britty]

Yes, so much yes. I say I constantly feel like I’ve been punched in the gut but now there’s no gut left to even punch. So hollow without him. It’s even worse to see my adolescent daughter feeling this way without her father. She should be dreaming about fairies, not crying herself to sleep. The mornings are so awful for us too and I didn’t anticipate that. The nights are, of course, agonizing but I expected that. Even on Labor Day when we usually did nothing, we looked forward to doing nothing together as a family. It’s painful to be so empty and I look at my daughter wishing I had more to give but knowing I’m so depleted on the inside. We have each other but I wonder if both of our emptinesses are feeding on each other like a black hole in space. I hurt for her, she hurts for me. I hurt that she hurts for me and she hurts that I hurt for her... and that hurts. So much emptiness with nothing to give my daughter to look forward to each morning.

[Caroline Wilson]

Yep that picture is perfect. It describes the grief and loss I feel after the loss of my husband after 34 years of marriage.