Sunday, March 10, 2013

Saying My Goodbyes

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When I stood next to my husband’s casket, and said my goodbyes, I thought that would be the first and last goodbye I would ever say to him.

I didn't realize I would be saying goodbye to him on a daily basis, 31 months later.

The goodbyes start every morning. As I slowly wake from my dream state, and his face slowly drifts away with my dreams, I say goodbye.

As I’m rushing around, trying to get my day started, I say hello.

"I love you, but I have got to go. I have work and life to attend to. It’s time for you to leave my mind, so let's say goodbye."

As the day slowly comes to an end, I tell him goodbye, once again.

Enter the dream state and its hello all over again.

Enter the never ending circle of hello's and goodbyes.

The hello's come with signs he is around. Monarch butterflies and the hearts I notice in the weirdest objects and places.

Its “hello, and I love you too. Thanks for the heart, but I got to go. Goodbye my love.”

Looking back, I wish someone would have told me how horribly hard this journey is. I wish instead of telling me “it will get better”, someone would have told me how bad it sucks and how long it would suck for.

I wish someone would have told me of the never ending counting my brain would do. How many days since I last saw my husband. How many months it has been. I wish someone would have told me that the counting, is normal. It took me feeling like I was losing my mind, before someone said “This is normal”.

I wish someone would have told me, as I stood next to his casket saying goodbye, that it wouldn't be the last goodbye I would say to my husband.

Today, I am wishing I only had to say the one goodbye. Today I am wishing I didn't know it is 957 days since I saw my husband alive. Today I wish the “suck it up and move on” actually worked.

This morning as I woke up from yet another dream of Seth, I said my goodbyes all over again. With tears in my eyes and my pillow soaked from dream tears, I realized that saying goodbye never gets easier.

While saying my goodbye's hasn't gotten easier saying my hello's as gotten far easier.

I welcome the hello's and welcome him into my dreams a lot easier now.

In the early stage of grief, I cursed him for showing up in my dreams. I would scream at him for sending me signs that he was around.

It is now a wonderful hello session, that I look forward to every time I close my eyes.

I look forward to the day that goodbye doesn't take me all the way back to the day he died.

5 comments:

  1. Boy, can I relate to this. People say it gets better, but it doesn't it just changes and becomes easier. I have told people that you do not get over it,you learn how to live with it. Even then they do not want tp beliee it. We all want to believe that living with it is not possible, but it is. We are so much stronger than we know. We will continue to live and some of us will even go on to find new love.

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  2. Melinda thanks so much for saying what I feel so much better then I ever can!

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  3. I never say it gets "better". I think you just get stronger as you carry your grief, and so over time it becomes easier to carry.

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  4. I'm only a little over weeks out from losing my husband but I also cant imagine how it ever gets "better" or "easier". Maybe different. Maybe not something constantly on my mind (as it is right now) but still something always there. I'm very happy to have found this site. The posts have really been helping me to cope a little so far.

    http://youthinkyouhavetime.blogspot.com/

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  5. I was at my wit's end today-literally.I just wanted to say goodbye and make a final exit.Then I came across this...
    I then stopped on my tracks...How selfish of me to leave all the people that love me in pain, like the widow who wrote this was when she lost her husband...Thank you for giving me another perspective of life after death.

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