My first year, without you

Honey Dearest,

It’s been a year, finally. This first year after your passing on. Leaving me a widower and the children without their mother.

But did I say “finally”? Is this first anniversary so highly anticipated? It’s not one for celebration.

In truth, I have been counting each day since your passing on and each day brings me closer to this eventual date – 17^th of April, the day the world caved in for me and the kids.

Looking back, this year, surely must have been the longest in my life. Yet I remember the events so well. Your last days in the hospital. The children and I by your bedside, harbouring faint hopes for a miracle recovery to happen. And that surreal feeling of numbness as I talked to the undertakers for your funeral arrangements. Stroking your cheeks one last time as you lay in your casket, feeling the waxy half-likeness of your face and wondering how even in death, you still look so beautiful to me. And the crushing moment when your casket was slowly driven into the furnace.  These images remain vividly engraved in my mind as if they took place just weeks ago.

It might sound creepy, knowing that I actually count the days through your first year. At some point I know I should just it give up. It sounds like such a mental burden. But each day without you has been an uphill struggle. The day’s agenda might differ but one thing stays the same. Missing you. And sometimes half-wondering how life would have been if you are still alive, by my side.  My mind plays tricks and games, wandering back a lot.

Getting up each morning, your side of bed, now cold and empty, reminds me of the kind of day that awaits. Another day without you. So each day starts the same as the one before. Regardless of work-days or weekends. And it matters not if I awoke on holidays at faraway places like Bangkok, Perth or Barcelona, where we had ventured to this past year, or in our Villa Verde home. Always, I wake up into a reality that is scarier than the dream I just awoke from.

But I urge and prompt myself to live the day for you. Because I know how much you had wanted to live. To fight and survive. Against the dreaded disease that finally took you down and away from us. Away from all that you held precious.

So, Honey, for me the 366 days of this last leap year has a strange feel. Colours were not as bright. Food tasted blander and it’s nothing to do with the cooking. Music that I once found so uplifting, now sounded melancholic and off-key. Even the silence has a deafening echo around it. There is a stillness in our house that I have not gotten used to. Our house and bedroom which we shared for so long now seems too large, too empty.

But you will be delighted that I am not paralysed and overwhelmed by your loss. I could function well enough. I had dealt with the endless paperwork for deed transfer, insurance claims, credit card cancellations and obtaining the grant of probate.  The kitchen is well stocked with food each week. The household is in good order. Well, most of the time I think. Somewhere from within I found the reserves to help me rise above my sorrows. I do what needs to be done, so life can go one. Losing you was devastating, needless to say. I was dunked into a deep pool of grief. It left a gaping hole torn inside me. But though I am hurt and scarred, I am far from sunk. I guess I could count this as the greatest achievement in my life. But it is not anything I could be proud of.

We had previously casually chatted about the possibility of death separating us and leaving whoever survived the other lost and stranded. We could not foretell the future. But I wonder if in surviving you, I turned out to be the bigger loser. What was sure is I could not imagine what a real loss would feel like. Until now. That sense of loss and hurt is always there, ever present, clinging on like saran wrap. It never leaves me.

It was not that we had never been far apart for long spells of time during our marriage years. In the past I had stayed away from home for several months on overseas work attachments. Once in Northern Ireland and again in Ottawa. But the distances that separated us on those occasions were merely geographical.  Now you are missing everywhere. And permanently. The totality of your loss and absence sometimes terrifies me and I feel stressed and anxious. One year on and I still find it hard to get used to.

I now yearn for you even more than when you were alive. Such is the cruel irony.  How we tend to treasure things more only after losing them. These days I spend long evenings after work, by myself in our bedroom and on weekends strolling, again on my own, in outdoor parks and gardens, to reminiscent on our past life together. I try to recall the times we had shared, from ordinary, plain and banal days to happy occasions and the odd days when we bicker over differences.  We have shared so much between us, raising up three kids and building our home in three different dwellings, progressing from public housing to a larger landed property so there can be more space to grow our family. Thanks to you being so savvy in sniffing out good deals in real estates.

You may say that I now spend more time looking back than looking forward. Am I living in the past? Perhaps.  I do not like to think of the upcoming future. The future is somewhat frightening. My old school-mate had advised against worrying about what is yet to come. Savour the present and be grateful for the day. I try to abide by this wisdom and just focus on the present. Live a day at a time. The future will take care of itself, I suppose. We could never tell what is imminent.

As for work, my morale and motivation is akin to a bouncing yo-yo. One day I would feel so low and was quite sure of packing up and calling quits. Another day, could find me all charged up, vowing that the work engagement was god-sent. It is hard to argue that the distraction offered by work could have saved me from drowning in grief. You have warned me often of not quitting early as work is the best way to keep our minds occupied. I will remember this well.

But this first year has found me doing things I have never done before also. Like starting this blog site for example.

Putting my thoughts in writing allow me a form of emotional release. There is a word to describe this – catharsis.  But I also know how much you value your privacy so you may not sanction all these postings, sharing our life together in public domain. But can you really fault me for keeping this blog? There are many other poor souls out there who have lost their spouses and have similarly set up blog sites to share their grief. I spend many evenings reading their stories. In many ways we are kindred spirits, a sort of a community, united in grief. Our open sharing helped in our healing. A problem shared is a problem halved so they say. And in the past we always have each other to lend a shoulder and share our troubles. But now, there is just this blog site.

So over the past year there have been good days and some not so good ones. But the one constant for each day would be your total absence. And my missing you.

A whole year has passed without you. I think this next year ahead will not change very much. I will welcome each new day. For it brings me closer to you. When we can be together again. And that is the reason for counting, my remaining days without you.

Please wish me a better year ahead, Honey. I love you so much.