“Somehow she knew that you didn’t get many moments like this in your life: moments when you knew, without any doubt, that you were alive, when you felt the air in your lungs and the wet grass beneath your feet and the cotton on your skin; moments when you were completely in the present, when neither the past nor the future mattered. She tried to slow her breathing, hoping somehow to make this moment last forever.”
-Neil Gaiman
-Neil Gaiman
It was a day before he left.
My hands graced his chiseled jaw.
My eyes melted looking into his.
He asked what I was doing.
I responded with "Remembering this moment."
It was under the sheets as the sun seeped through.
We'd lift them like a tent and stay in our "warmth bubble".
Refusing to remember that time was clicking by.
In that moment, it was frozen.
It was his hand inching over to hold mine for the firs time.
In that truck on our way back from the zoo.
It was our last kiss.
Gate 14.
It's waking up and stepping outside to smell the dew and feel the warmth of the sun on my back.
It's walking down a path in India and soaking in each smell, sight and person.
It's the knowledge that I get to meet the most amazing people and do what I love.
It's cuddling with my dogs and hugging my family extra tight.
It's now.
It was then.
It's the moments.
The moments before tragedy struck.
The moments after.
Both stunning.
Both beautiful.
Both paving the way for those to still come.
Taryn -
ReplyDeleteI started to cry as soon as i looked at your post.
I remember my last moment. He reached up to me, through a haze of medication he said "I love you so much."
While he took his last breaths I stroked his face and whispered "I love youIloveyouIloveyou . . "
These moments are engraved on my soul.
I am struggling again to fine the peace I thought I had uncovered, the acceptance and the moving forward but like the sea it pulls me back. I know I must stand and wait quietly and remember.
These moments, almost 4 years ago were the ending and the beginning.
I have to trust in that.
Thank you.
Taryn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. On June 21, 2011, the love of my life died next to me at 3:11 a.m. unexpectedly of a massive heart attack. There were no goodbyes and no closure. It's been 26 months and, at times, I feel as though it were yesterday that the love of my life died. I've spent the past two weeks struggling with the memories and crying. There is still a shock of sorts that comes and goes. I wanted to share these words that I read earlier with you and all the others here on WV.
"...time, in and of itself, does not heal all wounds. There is no magic in the one- or two-year anniversary date following a loss...death does not end a relationship. Emotionally relocating the deceased is a dynamic process that will continue throughout the life cycle. Love endures death. The loss of a significant loved one is something that is not gotten “over.”
Many of us have family and friends who expect us to be over it and to have moved on. Only those of us who walk this lonely road of grief understand that we will never truly get over the death of our spouses.