The sky was an interesting color this afternoon, leaning more toward turquoise than blue, and there was an unseasonal chill in the air. This is not the usual end of February weather in our neck of the woods, although I can’t honestly remember what the usual is – it’s been a long time since anything was usual in my life.
The month of March arrives on Friday, I am heading toward an unbelievable anniversary, a date I don’t want to remember but will never be able to forget. Memories and emotions are smothering me tonight and I feel any progress I’ve made over the past months blowing away.
Our year of ‘firsts’ is coming to a close – by the end of March it will be over, we will have done it – lived a year without him. And then what? Do we simply start living a year of ‘seconds’? My life didn’t begin on March 31, 2018 I just began marking time from then. For me the date marks the death of the wife and the birth of the widow, it was the day my world tilted and I’ve been trying to catch my balance ever since. Will I feel any more steady after the anniversary? I doubt it, time is helping me cope but it isn’t changing the facts.
The anniversary is a milestone, a landmark. I will keep building a life from there, moving forward and further away from the inuksuk I’m assembling with all the firsts we have endured. It’s been a year of surviving not celebrating – we’ve worked our way through all the birthdays, all the seasons, all the holidays. We sorted a mountain of paperwork, balanced the books, weighed options and made decisions. We figured things out and faced every day one at a time and now the year is almost done.
I have no idea what a year of seconds will look like or what shape the inuksuk at the end of it will take but maybe the road ahead will feel a bit more familiar with the talisman built with the ‘firsts’ looking on.
Tonight I feel older not stronger, more weary than wise. I know the month of March will unfold with me fighting the urge to walk into it backwards, my mind’s eye focused on the past. The anniversary will arrive in due course and I will add the final stone to the monument I’ve built – the year of firsts will be finished and the inuksuk complete.
Comments (2)
I want to weep with you when I read of your grief. The date will come and you will feel all that comes with it. But you have made monumental strides this past year. You have done more than just survive, you have soared. Onward indeed!
Wendy – thank you.