In a Wave

I’ve had a rough week since getting back from Florida. I’ve just been so emotional and sad and felt like I’ve wanted to cry all the time. I miss Matt SO much I can’t stand it sometimes. My heart hurts. My brain hurts.

I am definitely being hit by one of those grief waves right now....

But yet, you have to go on living, and hide it, and pretend like you’re okay. You cry in the shower, in the car, and in your bed at night...and that's just your new norm.

When people ask how I’m doing these days, I don’t even know how to answer anymore. I don’t even know what to say. They say time makes it better, but I feel like the more time that has passed, the more I miss him.

Sometimes it feels like my life with Matt was all just a dream. Maybe that’s weird, I don’t know, but that’s what it feels like. Maybe because the memories are hazy. Maybe because this last year seemed to last forever, that strange in-between world that separated my two lives. But it was real. It was real. He was real. He was here. That WAS my life. I just don’t want it to fade away in my mind...I don’t want it to feel like a dream!

Most of the time I think about all the good times and memories, and I picture Matt when he was healthy and vibrant and full of life...but sometimes I can’t help but think about the last year and everything that happened. I couldn’t fall asleep the other night, because I was just lying awake with thoughts and images running through my mind. When you go through something like that, watching a loved one slowly die, it’s not something you just suddenly forget about. It was a traumatic experience, and I can’t help that it comes into my mind sometimes.

I can’t help but wonder sometimes how it had to feel for Matt, when he couldn’t express himself, how it must have felt for him to go from an being amazing athlete to not being able to walk and then becoming completely helpless and dependent on others for everything . I just can’t imagine. I hated it for him. I hated it. I hate that I couldn’t know what he was feeling or thinking, and it just hurts my heart that he had to go through that. Was he scared? Was he worried? Was he at peace at the end? These are the questions that haunt me sometimes. Not often, thankfully, but sometimes.

And it's weird, but I find myself saying out loud to him/myself, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." And I don't know what I'm saying sorry for... Maybe I'm sorry he had to go through what he did? I'm sorry things turned out the way they did? I'm sorry I couldn't do more to keep him here? I don't know. I don't why I say that....

I just hope I brought some joy and happiness to him in those days. That's all I wanted. I told him I would’ve been his caretaker forever, and I would have. I would go through it all again to have him here with me. I SO badly want to kiss his face every day! But I know that’s selfish, because he wasn’t really living life in the state he was in. And I know that none of it matters now, because now he’s happy and free and able to run and smile and talk and laugh. Sometimes that brings me comfort...but sometimes it doesn’t. I'm happy he's happy, but I'm sad he's not with me.

I guess all that matters is that for him, it’s all over. He now knows nothing but pure joy. He has the answers to the things he didn’t understand here on earth. But I don’t. I’m still left here with the memories of his sickness and the pain of losing him. I'm thankful that he's home, though. I truly am. He's the lucky one! I just miss him so, SO much.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”  1 Corinthians 13:12