there are days your absence is the loudest thing in my head

It’s a sucker punch to my gut to see your photos come across our Alexa screen. I’m inundated by “remember when”s on a constant loop in my mind. Maybe when the boys are older this will end up being something we can at least share in. I want to be talking about you constantly on days like this; I want to say your name so many times that it feels like we might conjure you up. I know that’s not how it works, but when your soul is so desperately aching for someone who isn’t here, talking about them is one of the ways to help them feel close. 

You feel so damn far away. 

The life we had just 6 months ago was a lifetime ago. I miss it so deeply. 

It’s so hard to understand that back then, we had a perfect Christmas together. We welcomed two boys into the world, one mere weeks before you died. We kissed each other good morning and good night. We tucked our kids into their own beds in the rooms you worked so hard to paint and decorate for them. I stayed home and took care of our kids, and you went off to work for 10 hours a day. Otherwise, we were always together and always home and almost always happy. We were a whole different kind of family than we are now. How can life change so drastically in such a short amount of time?

Now we live and sleep in a one-room cabin oasis of an apartment. It feels a little like camping and a little like living in a treehouse. I drive Axl to school and grocery shop with Ford and take them to doctor’s appointments alone. I pay the bills and sweep the floors. I kiss all the ow-ows and soothe all the tears and weather all the tantrums. I carry all the stress and my strength has grown in droves. You were my encyclopedia and now I’m googling constantly. Tonight I sat on the floor next to Axl and we played video games. I was drinking kombucha and we talked about you. Ford was asleep on the other side of the room. The fireflies were out and the crickets were singing. I can finally see the stars and the moon without obstruction. 

Two very, very different lives and somehow I’ve loved them both. And to think I’d lived a few others before these ones, too. I am growing tired of starting over from scratch, tending to myself like a tiny seed that has to keep being replanted again and again. I think this will be where I finally dig my roots in as far as I can. 

I know in my bones this is all going to work out, that we’ll be happier than ever at the end of this journey (if it ever ends). I am trying to enjoy the ride, because truly that’s all life is. It’s not all ups and it can’t all be downs, and as difficult as it is, I can’t reduce my life to being about a tragedy that happened to me. I refuse to be victimized by that. I will accept my losses and also keep striving towards wins. I will honor and worship what was, but I will also pray and hope for what will be. 

There is a part of me that feels like I’ve arrived at something. Sometimes that feeling is even stronger than the one that tells me I’ve departed.