Death Comes Knocking

Sitting here on the deck overlooking the lake, I am painfully aware that my sweet Sam has been gone two months. Sixty days, sixty good mornings, and good nights and I love yous, and at least ninety bowls of oatmeal with brown sugar (he ate it almost three times a day toward the end).


Even though we knew he was terminally ill, we were lulled into believing we had more time.  He seemed to be holding his own.  It was a shock to everyone when he started hemorrhaging  and dropped dead on the bathroom floor in the wee hours of May 14th.  With him he took the better part of me - he was the best part of me. Knowing he is not coming home again is the harshest reality.  There is no joy in Muddville.


I am trying to adjust to being alone and find the silence or absence of his voice deafening.  I am overwhelming lonely for him.  This house we found and lived in the last year and a half that he loved so much, no longer has the appeal it did when we shared it.  The boat is gone, his beloved Harley Davidson is for sale,  and our kitchen remodeling must be finished by others.  He worked so hard to get it done for me.  They tell me that life must go on, and I hear Sam telling me, "Don't cry all the time when I am gone."

Disappearing Essence

When I went to get a tissue this morning, two popped out and left an empty box.  Not so unusual, huh?  We do it everyday.  But this box was the one Sam used, it sat on the coffee table by his chair.  It probably sounds odd, but when I throw the box away, it feels like I am disposing of a part of him.  It still sits on the coffee table.  The sheet that covered him on his last night is still on the bed, I still smell him on his chair. It is so terribly difficult to write about this, but I somehow feel the need to communicate what life is like without him.  Maybe it will help me heal.  So when you see me out and about, don't be afraid to come up and give me a hug, I will know what you mean, because only you, my friends and family, can help me get past the loneliness.