The First Day I Didn't Cry

Monday was the first day I didn't cry. I didn't realised it until Tuesday... and I felt guilty. 

I felt dry. I felt numb. I felt relieved. I felt sad for it.

To hear others saying that Jason wouldn't want me to feel this way doesn't change the fact that I do feel this way. To know deep in my heart that Jason would want me to be happy doesn't make it easier to carry the sadness of his absence.

His absence is everywhere, like a thick layer of dust covering all the surfaces of my life, finding its way into every nook and cranny of my heart. 

Friends say they saw a spark in me, a little flicker of happy-sad hope. Others say they are glad I have turned a corner. 

I have indeed turned many corners in these last 15 weeks and two days. But they are the corners of a confusing and scary maze from which I cannot escape. Each corner I turn seems to only leave even more entangled and discombobulated. 

The days come and go. I, weary of crying or anxious for not crying, force myself to get out of bed for the sake of my children, to put one heavy foot in front of another. Trying to navigate my way through this unsafe new world covered with the dust of my husband's absence. Always asking myself questions I desperately need the answer to, but am frightened off.

What is the point? Who am I? How do I live now?

Am I getting used to grieving as one gets used to live and function without a limb? Will his absence became just one more trivial part of my life as I learn to go about my day and carry on? 

So the fear sits in deeper, the fear that life will forever be this tasteless. Just a series of days filled with things that needs to be done, much like a shopping list where each item gets ticked off but in which there is no real purpose or joy. 

Happy-sad continues to come to my mind time and time again. It came to my mind last night when the tears found their way back from my heart and through my eyes. They came suddenly, forcefully, like a merciless flood.

Happy-sad mingled with the dust of his absence as I dress myself in his too large shirt, smelled his beautifully familiar scent, and lay in my empty bed clutching his pillow. 

Happy-sad is my choice this morning as I woke up with a jolt from a nightmare where I desperately looked for him, screaming his name but he was no where to be seen. Too aware that maybe I have cried his name out loud in my sleep and frightened my children. Did I? I do not know. They do not mention it. I do not ask. 

My children... my beautiful, darling girls... I can do happy-sad for them. We can learn to do happy-sad together. 

Am trying to silver line the thundering storm clouds hanging over my head or is that really a flicker of light amidst the silent darkness inside of me? 

Maybe it's both. And maybe tearless days and happy-sad moments may be a merciful respite to prepare and strengthen me for new floods of tears and new corners as I learn to live in this dusty maze like new world of a life that doesn't seem to be my own.