The anniversary of my husband’s death passed eight days ago. The date always leads up to a lot of thoughts about him and our life together. As always, I put up a picture of him on FB…this one was simple with no comments about grief…just a picture of the two of us in 1994 in France on the occasion of a friend’s wedding.
I have gotten used to being alone and actually don’t mind it at all. I reach out from time to time to see friends and sometimes they reach out to me…so that I don’t feel entirely isolated…but the truth is I don’t mind being home, doing what I like to do. There is a freedom I have never felt before…even though it might be quite temporary and of course the specter of what is going on in America is unbelievably sad, terrifying and at the same time makes me angry. I feel too many have developed an attitude, promulgated by one of the worst people in the world (Trump) -- that we have certain rights and that those rights have nothing to do with other people’s rights. I can’t help hoping that those people who are so opposed to listening to doctor’s who have studied infectious diseases, will not wear masks or social distance…and all those in governance who are in lock-step with the president, ALL…get a good and serious case of CO-VID…which seems to be the only way they may change their mind-set and begin to become more humble and circumspect. I hope those who are avid and wholly unreachable find out how foolish they are when members of their families or friends actually die. There has to be a reckoning.
Meanwhile, in my own little world, I think that I am now in the 12th year of being without my husband. Eleven years have passed and as I have already written about the events of those 11 years…I am still struck by the fact that I am still alive. But now, I wonder, I always wonder, if I will be here to see the next summer season…if I will see the garden and what I plant today grow larger…or will I fade out…and then all my possessions, all the archives of my journey, all the efforts into making my surroundings lovely…will be passed on…or will lie fallow and die with me. It’s funny to think that there will be a time when I will be no more…and I will likely not know how little it affects the rest of the world or the small microcosm that was my world. Who will memorialize me ? I think very few…I will be another statistic, another obit. A goner. I will join the army of my generation and the generations before me. Melt into history, hardly having made a dent. So be it. Even those that have truly contributed, who have been memorialize,fade. We all do. but that shouldn’t prevent me for wanting another day. one more day.
