Two years ago two police cars showed up at my house around 10:30pm with my father showing them the way to my house. I had been searching for her for the last 3 hours and had left my son with my parents so I could go and look. She went for a cup of coffee and never came back.
“There was an accident, no alcohol, no drugs and no misdeeds of any sort, just a freak accident.” This is what they told me seconds before telling me she didn’t make it and that she didn’t suffer or feel a thing. How do they know she didn’t feel a thing? Who are they to think that telling me that, would somehow bring me some comfort or ease the pain of having my heart ripped beating from my chest and stomped into the ground?
I have run that night through my mind so many times over the last two years that I have even dreamt of it and awoken screaming and in tears thinking about how on one fateful day my wife just disappeared from my life, from our son’s life and from the life of those that cared so dearly for her. This haunts me and is the bane of my existence to this very day and always brings to mind the question of Why?
Those of us here know that there is no answer to that question and there is nothing that anyone can say to ease the pain or dry the tears. We are all here together and yet alone in our journey. We walk together on this road, none of us really seeing the other as each experience is so personal and so different yet so similar in every respect that we can relate to each other on a level that is only apparent to those of us who have been through this hell. It is contradictory to its core yet alike in that we have each lost half of the life we struggled to build and enjoy with those that are gone. We shared our dreams and we hoped for a brighter future and pondered on what it would be like years from now when things would be better only to have those dreams and hopes disappear into dust crumbled under the foot of an uncaring and unforgiving foe, life and with it death.
Life…my life has changed so much over the last two years and all of those shifts have felt empty and without meaning as the one I strived so hard to please and care for is no longer here for me to tell and share those moments with. I still talk to her and still think of her every day and each time it feels like it is never enough. So I will sit down and day dream about our life and about how much she would have loved to see our son graduate Kindergarten or how she would have loved to see him learn to ride a two wheel bike or learn to swim and hold his breath under water. Then, without warning, I am awoken to the reality of my world. She is gone and she is not coming back…ever. It has taken me almost two years to digest that bitter and hurtful pill only to have it come back every now and then with the same intense pain and sorrow that it invoked so many days ago when it was first handed to me without warning and without regard for the consequences it would bring. It has been a long two years and yet, at times, it only feels like a few days have passed and she will be standing behind the door when I come home from work to give me a kiss and ask me how my day was. Well…that is just a pipe dream now and it still wields the same sting it did so many months ago.
So, here I am two years later amongst some of the most caring and compassionate people I never met and I find comfort here. Comfort in knowing that I am not alone. Comfort in the words of those that have traveled here before me and comfort in the idea that I might help those that are destined to join us in the future, although I wish to never meet another like us. Two years later and I am realizing that I have just begun and while that sounds depressing to those who are not yet this far out please realize that we are all different and I am by no means the norm or the exception. I have good days and bad days and lately it seems that the good outnumber the bad but, for me, only by a few. So take heart and keep hope that one day, and you might not even realize it, you will be living life again and not just surviving. I am just another traveler on this road that has altered my path through life. One day I hope to see through the fog that drowns out what lies ahead.
To my wife:
Two years ago I lost my way, I lost my love and I lost my life. Today, I keep hope that I might find all of those again, be it in life or in death.
My Love, you were never nearer than when you were here and never farther than when you had gone; for it is in my heart where you now reside so may you always be near and never be far.
With all of our love, Sean and Joseph, your family…your world.
Topic: Two Years (Read 2243 times)
