afterlife

Lately, each day seems to have a different fixation. A different bruise that is suddenly unable to be ignored, that I find myself pressing on all day to feel the pain radiate.

Today’s fixation is on the afterlife. I can’t stop thinking about where he is. This has obviously crossed my mind again and again and again since he passed, but I’ve yet to decide where it is he is. Everyone says he’s all around us. I want to believe that so badly. Wherever he is, I do believe he is at peace. But it’s hard to reconcile with that, knowing how at peace he was when he was living. How can he be in a “better place” now, if at home with us was self-proclaimed as the only place he’d ever want to be? 

I guess I just have to believe that wherever he is is even better than it was when he was with us. I hate how much that idea stings, though. It’s been painful today. If where he is now is so much greater, if he’s being finally shown all the secrets of the universe, finding his soul’s greater purpose, does that mean his time here with us ultimately meant nothing? I know that’s not the case somewhere inside me; I know that the kindness he lavished on strangers meant something. The way he was raising our sons meant something. His rock solid love and care as a husband meant something. But to think that what comes after this is the ultimate peace and happiness, it means accepting that what we had here was second best and worth leaving. I know I’m thinking about it all wrong, but that doesn’t mean I can stop.

I will always love him. I will always be longing for him. But wherever he is, if we’re to believe any and all of it – whether he’s in heaven, or his soul is floating around in the ether somewhere, or if there is vast nothingness – regardless, it means he’s not yearning for us. It means he’s moved on. I should be happy about that. But it seems damn unfair that I’m going to spend a lifetime down here yearning for him. I know that love is eternal, but how can it be when he’s no longer a human being with the capacity to love. I know he loved me and he loved his sons more than anything, but isn’t his existence now somewhere beyond that altogether? If that’s the case, I have only myself to worry about. I don’t have to worry about what he’s thinking or feeling, because I think I believe that it’s our existence on earth that ties us to those kinds of things. 

Once we move on, maybe we just… are. Maybe he just is. And for some reason, that just breaks my heart. It means that I’m alone in this pain of the loss of our partnership. He’s not in pain where he is. He isn’t regretful or sad. And I know he wouldn’t want me to feel those things either, but I’m human. I don’t have the choice. I lost my best friend, the love of my life, and my only companion in the blink of an eye. I’m devastated. And I should just feel happy that he can no longer suffer, that he doesn’t have to know what this feels like. Maybe I’m selfish for feeling this way, but to know he’s the only other person who could possibly know what the loss of our marriage feels like… to know that this unbearable pain of loss is completely one-sided… it makes the whole thing feel even more unfair than it already is. 

For over a decade we have wiped each other’s tears and held hands through all kinds of pain and tough decisions. We always said we could handle anything as long as we were doing it together. And now I’m living through the most excruciating pain of my life, and I have to do it without him. And even if death was the most blissful and enlightening experience he’s ever been through, I didn’t get to be there, either. We’ve done everything together for years and years, and now we have to exist apart. We can’t even help each other through the transition. It has been a really tough pill to swallow. 

I hope he is somewhere great. I don’t want to believe he’s floating around the afterlife like Moaning Myrtle, pining after us. But at least I’d know we were in that pain together. I know I shouldn’t feel abandoned or left behind, but I do. It wasn’t his fault, I know that. I don’t blame him. I just miss him.