I've written a lot on social media about the loss of my husband, but I still haven't actually published a post about it. The reality is that I've only encountered one other instance in my life where everything was obliterated right to the ground, and that was nothing compared to this.
Most people who lose a spouse lose their partner at home. If they're lucky, they lose their love and best friend as well. But we were tied together so inextricably, two flesh that became one -- moving in the world, at home, in business, and onstage together in time. Until time ultimately severed us. For only time could.
I won't stand before you and tell you our love was perfect. It was broken, shattered, battered, and bruised, just like the two of us. But our marriage made space for all of us, even the ugly parts. It wasn't just that our good parts fit together, but that our bad parts fit together too -- that they forced us each to confront our weaknesses and grow. We made space for each other to do that. We loved each other through that. It isn't even our romantic love I miss the most; it's how we took care of, and even reparented each other. He raised me into the woman I am. And then I comforted, nursed, and sang him home.
They always said grief comes in waves, and they weren't lying. It sounds like one of those euphemisms that doesn't mean anything, but it turns out that tsunamis really do knock you down out of nowhere. And then they pass.
Sometimes, just thinking about the amount of time that has passed since I felt his heart beat under my hand makes me shrivel up inside. I wake up to thoughts that haunt me. My love turned cold, literally. But it's music that hits me the most.
Sometimes I can almost hear his guitar in the background, and when I can't make mine sound the same, I get so frustrated. I miss the way he played while I cooked dinner every night, giving me a chance daily to dance to my favorite music at my favorite person's hands.
But it's remembering how he carried me while we performed that tends to bring on the tsunami. Feeling his eyes on me, hearing his guitar riffing but waiting, at the ready to catch me whenever I stepped up to the mic. There's an intimacy in moving together on stage that cannot be matched or mirrored. It's a tangible energy you feel and create together. Palpable love. That's what someone from the audience called it once. It was going to be the name of our first album. I started working on the cover art just weeks before he died.
I've had a lot of thoughts about death and sickness since his passing, but they are mostly things I'd already been grappling with for years. Since holding Grandma's hand on her deathbed. Since learning to play guitar while Grandpa was fading from Lewey Body Dementia. Since sitting at my father-in-law's bedside while he danced right to the edge of death only to come back after a double organ transplant.
"Death can be fertile ground." I wrote last year, just weeks before he died.
I was speaking of my own father. I was speaking of his mother. I did not realize I was speaking about my husband.
Death doesn't feel like fertility. Ends never do. They feel like fire and anguish, like destruction and desolation.
But always, there in the rubble, there in the ash, there in the mountains of chaos to sort through, something always bubbles up, and here in the depths of my widow's grief... it bubbles up higher.
What is this energy that flows from death, that fuels mycellial explosion in nature? And what is it that moves inside of us in the same ways?
I struggle to envision a life without him even as I live and create it. Our travels. Our websites. Our consulting. Our art. Our music. These things all seem to have died with him.
And yet, surely, they have not.
I carry the memories we created. I carry the things he taught me. And I carry the dreams we were building. Yes, they must inevitably change. They have become MY dream now, and I will certainly end up doing things differently on my own than I would have done them with him by my side. But he lives in those of our dreams I continue to build, and I know I honor him by being true to the growth he helped me achieve in our time together.
I may not be able to feel him or see him, but I know he's still right there, just out of reach. And I am dedicated to getting to the point where I can continue bringing our dreams to life. This post is a step in that path.
If you are interested in following my artistic journey more closely, check out my Patreon. I'll be posting in-progress music and throwback recordings of performances soon. There's also currently a link there to join a facebook group for beta readers for my poetry.
A little life update: It's been 5 months since the New Year rang me in a widow. Most days, I'm doing pretty well. I got a job I enjoy with people I like to distract me from thinking so much until I feel ready to pursue our dreams more fully again. I've been staying with my father-in-law, and we've been taking care of each other. He gives me a reason to cook and someone to care for, and I do my best to keep things happy and worth waking up for. It's been a great fit, and something we both have been grateful to have as we process things and move forward.
