Three Months Today

Three months today. 

How can it be? I ask myself. How can it be that three whole months have passed since I feel like it was only yesterday when I kissed him goodbye, not knowing that three hours later he took his last breath? How can it be that three whole months have already passed since I feel it was only yesterday I was struck by despair and chained to this overwhelming grief?

Three months today.

How can it be? I ask myself. How can it be that only three months have passed when I feel like it's been three years since that dreadful night when I kissed him goodbye and instead of him returning home, it was death that invaded my life, knocking the very breath out of me, driving me to wish it was I who had stopped breathing instead of him.

"Did you know you were so in love?" A friend asked me.

"Yes, I did. I still am." It was an honest reply. There were times when I didn't like him very much, and times I felt he didn't like me very much either. We fought. We annoyed each other. We demanded too much, we compromised too little.

Other times I liked him very much and he liked me more. I liked his smile and his laughter, I liked that he annoyed me and I liked making up and making out after a fight. But I knew I was in love with him and he was in love with me. 

Three months today.

And I am still in love with him.

Three months...

It's the longest I have been away from him. Saying that I miss him doesn't do justice to convey the enormity of the hole inside my heart, or to explain the paralyzing loneliness that consumes my thoughts, or to reveal the vast emptiness that fills my days. 

Three months... 

It's the longest my girls have ever been away from their Daddy. And I ask myself, how can it be that my girls will never again be hugged by his strong arms, or told off through his strictness, or comforted by his reassuring love? 

Three months today.

And I feel like time has stopped altogether because my life seems to have stopped, frozen in time... while life itself, well, life for everyone else just keeps on going.

I ask myself, how can it be that he is not here anymore. How can it be that he will never annoy me, or caress me, or fight with me or kiss me goodbye or whisper in my ear how much he was in love with me...

Three months today. 

And with every day that passes I come to understand that time heals nothing. Healing only comes from love, but to love is to open ourselves to grief and suffering. 

Had I chosen not to love and be loved, I would have prevented all this suffering. But I would also never have tasted all the goodness and the joys, all the hardships and the struggles, all the transformation and redemption I found through loving and being loved.

I hope I never forget that, not three months from now, not till the day I breathe my last breath.