I could not think of anything else to put as an entry title… just “one month.” I actually watched the clock as it came to 2:45…the time one month ago she was drawing her last breaths… coming gasping, slowly, yet quickly…putting my finger to her neck to fell her slowing pulse.. ever weaker and slower… and I felt that last beat of her heart, and the time was 2:50. One month ago.
Time is a strange creature. A moment can seem like it goes on and on, yet a month can seem like it is just a blink of an eye. Four weeks…is that all? just four short weeks? Yet it seems like such a long time. The mystery of time and how we perceive it, and all of it is caught up in the middle of an eternity that is timeless.
One month, and I am starting to manifest some of those crazy symptoms of grieving. Thinking she is there when I wake up in the morning. Thinking she might have the light on, and be waiting for me when I come back from Saturday evening church. Tears at the craziest times. Wondering, “Who am I now?” When you are married as long as we were, your identities are so intertwined…”the two shall become one flesh.” Now, am I half a flesh? No and yes.
Questions fill my mind. Shall I keep this? What should the house look like? How should I decorate? How do I relate now to people? Could I have done more, or better? So many questions, no one can answer…I suppose I will discover the answers as I walk toward in this “Land of Firsts.”
I imagine that this will likely be the last, or nearly the last of these entries. I wish to thank each one who has been so kind and loving and open to allowing me these times to pour out the expressions of my heart. Again, there are no words to convey how strengthening you all have been. And now, a new chapter begins. A new land to explore. And wherever this adventure takes me, the person I will be there, will be a result of how Marilou touched and impacted and molded my life by her influence. She is indelibly stamps on my life and my character.
One month ends, and another begins