TONIGHT TEARS

This morning was my bereavement group sponsored by Arbor Hospice.  A very interesting mix of people, all with loving tales to tell of those they've lost. It's for eight sessions; today was the fourth.  I asked whether that meant we were now half way better.  It doesn't feel like that to me.  My relationship with Gwen goes on, it's just different now.  It was better when I could reach out and squeeze her hand, or kiss her on the neck.  This different isn't better, it's just different.  I imagine I'll re-think all this several more times until it finally begins to feel right.

Valentine's Day has come and gone.  Be good to yourself, they tell me, so last night I made myself a nice steak dinner.  It was good, but I felt really stupid sitting there and eating it all by myself.  I won't do that again.  Now, Sunday night John and Amy and Brooke had me out for dinner.  That was good.  John is a great cook, and he prepared some fish he had caught through the ice just the day before.  Yummy.  The drive out there continues to be a bittersweet experience for me.  Gwen and I always enjoyed that ride.  It was a long enough ride that we had time to talk over thing without all the distractions of being at home and I always felt a strong sense of loving her and her loving me.  I tried to capture a little of what that felt like:

TONIGHT TEARS

A familiar country road

at night

made special

by sheer ordinariness   

Dare I say sacred?

The big hill always surprised us

just by being there.

Look, the lights of Brighton

and Howell, and I think that’s Novi.

All twinkling and sparkling

in the cold clear night.

So beautiful.

You would say.

Comfortable silence.

down the hill

toward the freeway

and that life.

I reach out

you take my hand

squeeze it between your knees.

No need for words.

Tonight, tears.

John A. Bayerl, February 15, 2011

I loved how she would take my hand and rub it and then squeeze it between her knees.  No words were ever necessary.  For right now, that's what it's like to miss someone you have loved so fully and completely for all those years. Somehow it helps me to write about it.