Titanic

There are many losses when your best friend and lover dies. And mini-losses that appear later, much later, after the numbness wears off and the swelling from your shattered heart begins to subside. That’s when the throbbing pain takes over.

For months I’ve been unable to remember much from all the years Rob and I enjoyed together. Finally, I realized it wasn’t due to shock. It was self-protection. I was putting up a barrier every time a memory tried to show up because it hurt too much to recall all that I’ve lost.

But now I know I need those memories to comfort me in whatever way they can. The problem is, they will still hurt even while they help. I suppose it’s similar somehow to getting a root canal, coarse as that analogy may appear. Pain will accompany the remedy, but there’s no other way to save my broken heart.

I need to remember.

Lately, when the memories float up like artifacts from the Titanic’s debris field, instead of pushing them away, I’m learning to let them materialize. To pick them up. Inspect them. Weep while I hold them in my hands. And let them live again.

It’s a blessing, and it’s a curse of sorts, because now, even though they are cherished treasures from a happy marriage, they are still evidence of what I no longer have. It was my counselor who first described them to me as mini-losses. There are thousands of them, floating to the surface of my mind at inopportune times. They always catch me off guard, leaving me with only two ways of handling them. Either push them away or face them.

I have many friends who have stood beside me in my sorrow, sharing in this loss we all still cannot comprehend. Few of them are single. They’ve taken me to lunch. Visited my temporary home. Laughed with me and filled me in on their lives. And I watch as these couples finish each other’s sentences. Laugh together before I hear their punchlines. Work toward their dreams. All the things. It takes decades of commitment and sacrifice to build a relationship like that. I had that once.

I bought a car on my own for the first time last June. I knew how to do it because Rob and I have done it together several times over the years. I was able to pay for it. Insure it. Care for it. But rarely will I ever relax in the passenger seat. Seldom does anyone help me navigate. If I see a hawk in flight, I have to pull over to snap a photo—no one can do it for me. I had to move the toothpicks to the console because I can’t reach the glovebox from my side of the car. I nearly always drive alone now.

At Christmas this year, it was a friend who came with me to see Christmas lights. I don’t date my husband anymore. Rob and I have driven tens of thousands of miles together across America. We’ve been in forty-eight states together. If I want to pick up the remaining two, I’ll have to do it without him. Now if I travel, I either go on my own or with a good friend. I ate at our favorite restaurant today and ordered the meal Rob and I always shared. Tonight, I finished off his half as my supper. Service for one.

I’ll never hear him call me sweetheart or babe or darlin’ anymore. The endearments were silenced when Rob’s voice was. It was only last week that I recognized this particular grief.

Mini-losses. They feel like major losses. I’ve pushed them away like too many floatable toys in a bathtub, but I can’t keep them all under water anymore. I knew from watching other people live and die that this could happen. It’s a risk to love someone as deeply as I loved Rob. It means someday you might lose them. You might cry your eyes out every day, sleep with their t-shirt instead of with them, and order one sandwich at your favorite sub shop for the rest of your life. It’s scary enough to imagine even those things.

What I never saw coming was the aftermath of disaster. The ongoing parade of pain. Pieces of my shattered world floating to the surface all around me while I tread water and try to survive. As I said, I need our memories now. I suppose if I cling to some of the larger pieces that maybe I won’t drown. Or maybe they’ll form a flotilla and help me find my way back to solid ground.

One mini-loss at a time. Still, I'm not convinced grief is ever small.

It feels titanic.

With thanks to Travis for the use of the photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: Titanic | There would be larger ships and worse disasters at… | Flickr