Day 102: Accepting Loss

Note: All of my blogs are about my own lived experience, but I want to make doubly sure I say that before this one.  The language I'm using here is thoughtfully chosen to reflect that very personal experience.

Every year, on October 14th, I mourn my husband.

It's a funny thing to do, because, in a way, it's like mourning an imaginary friend, or a character in a play.  The man I married didn't really exist.  He was an elaborate costume being worn by a woman who didn't truly know herself yet, and, as such, I guess he wasn't an actual person.

But he was real to me.

We all--no matter how close we are--see each other from the outside in, and for a decade I saw a man that I loved very much, who later faded from my life as the woman she was finally emerged.

It's odd when you lose someone in bits and pieces.  When is it that they start to really be gone?  Is it when they dress differently, and hold themselves differently, and speak in a different tone?  Is it when they give up their old hobbies and favorites, and fill their life with new endeavors?  Is it when their scent changes, and their body changes, and they feel like a stranger sitting beside you on the couch?

Is it when you can no longer lean into them, and feel all the ways in which you fit together?  All the places that your inner selves match up just right?

I don't know.  I don't know when that moment happens.  I didn't see it go by.  It was a process--a long and painful process, made all the harder by my conviction that mourning it was disrespectful to the woman who was slowly emerging in the world, even as my husband faded away.  I was supposed to be supportive, and loving, and embrace this new person.  So I tried not to grieve, because it felt like a betrayal.

But you can't stop grief just because you think you should.  You can make it uglier, and more painful--a thing that bursts out in fits and starts and jagged anguish--but that's all that fighting it will do.  The grief will still come.  The best you can do is accept it.

I grieved then.  And I still grieve now.  Not all the time.  Not constantly.  I love my friend Natalie.  I'm happy for her.  I'm glad she has the chance to live her life as herself, and not inside the shell of a person she never really was.

But I miss my husband.
I mourn him.
And on October 14th, I miss him just a little bit more.