732

Seven Hundred Thirty-Two. It doesn’t sound as long as it feels. Two years and two days since Rob left us. Two years and three since I last saw him. It might as well be a thousand. Before we know it, it will be.

The first year was an empty slate of disbelief. There are so many ways people describe the first three hundred sixty-five days after loss. They use words like numbness. Shock. Depression. Fear. Anxiety. Paralysis. I have felt all of those things, but most of the time I simply couldn’t believe what happened. Coupled with the extreme amount of stress I was shouldering, I suddenly couldn’t remember anything about our lifetime together. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why my brain wasn’t working. Was I to spend the rest of my life living without Rob while simultaneously robbed of our memories together?

There is so much opportunity for fear.

Each morning when I woke up, with the first ray of sunlight that hit my face, realization dawned with it. And I began to cry. Every morning. Every night I fell into bed exhausted and alone, and cried myself to sleep. I still do. In the hours in between, I counted the minutes and reminded myself to breathe. One breath in front of the other, I signed papers and made important decisions that most people have the luxury of postponing for at least a year, while I tried not to think about how normal life seemed only twelve months earlier.

I learned about the unique experiences grief affords, like, “All the firsts.” The first Easter without him. Then my birthday. Soon, his birthday and our forty-fifth anniversary. Followed by the first of thousands of questions—was I supposed to say we were married forty-four years or, since I’m still his wife, can I count the forty-fifth and forty-sixth as they arrive? Is there a book somewhere with all the rules laid out? How long is it appropriate to feel sad? Does my best source of advice on that one come from people who have yet to experience firsts?

The first Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went, precursors to the worst first of all, the first anniversary of Rob’s death. I hate to even write those two words together. Determined to soften the blow, I loaded up the Tahoe I had to buy on my own and drove as far away from my sorrow as I could go. Hilarious. I forgot the universal rule about suffering of any kind—wherever you go, you take yourself with you.

Finally, on the three hundred sixty-sixth day, I began to breathe without needing to remind myself to do it. I’d made it through all the firsts. This was really something. Maybe I was stronger than I seemed and braver than I believed. Or maybe I just had no other choice. When you’re a new member of the Widow’s Club, survival is worth celebrating even though throwing a party would seem super awkward. But let’s say you do it anyway. You eat a cupcake, toast to your success, and when the last bit of confetti falls to the floor, a shocking thought occurs to you.

That calendar of firsts is perpetual. Now you get to go through it all over again. Welcome to Year Two.

Year Two arrives with experience. By now, I had fifty-two counseling sessions under my belt. Lots of guidance and regular reminders to be kind to myself, show myself compassion, make space for the pain when it demanded my attention. And breathe. What is missing in Year Two is any sense of numbness. Now as I looked to my second birthday without Rob, the second anniversary on my own, the second Christmas holiday season, and the second anniversary of his death, I did it with all my senses (nearly) fully intact. It was as if the anesthesia had worn off. Picture dental surgery without novocaine.

The good news is, my memory returned. The bad news is, memories are not as comforting as Hallmark thinks they are. They remind me of all that I had and will never have again.

Two days ago was the second anniversary of the day we lost Rob. Or the day he went to be with Jesus. Or the day he died. Mostly, it’s the date when we said goodbye. The date I pushed as far from my mind as possible for forty-four years. The date over which I had no control. The date that ruins the word “date” for me.

I did my best to get through it, as did the rest of my family. We held onto each other just like we have for the last two years. We got together by Zoom two nights ago and toasted Rob with his favorite Scotch whiskey from the McLeod homeland, Scotland’s Isle of Skye. The same whiskey with which he lifted a glass to his children on their wedding days, and each of his six grandchildren on the day they arrived on earth. It was a sacred toast filled with deep love and respect for our hero. He was, after all, and always will be, the finest man each of us have ever known.

This year I did not run away from February 19. I watched it coming for five slow weeks, the same amount of time it took two years ago for Rob and me to be hospitalized, separated from one another, and eventually separated for all time. I know this is a hard read. Believe me, I’m trying to find some hope here while I journal the journey. Hope is always a good idea when your world has imploded. It’s there somewhere, even if it seems hidden among all the debris.

My heart aches for him. The questions are difficult, and answers don’t come easily. Some will never come at all. Such is the stuff of faith. And trust. Which I’m not really that good at. And on top of it all, yesterday was the first day of the Third Year, not entirely unlike the Second. What these two years both have in common is the realization that we have lost Rob and this loss is permanent. Acceptance may be one of the feelings identified in the so-called ‘stages of grief,’ but it is just as transient as the rest of the stages.

I’m talking to God again, have I mentioned that? I missed him almost as much as I miss Rob. It’s a strange thing in loss to know that God had Rob’s best interests at heart when He released him from his broken body and set him free to really live, with Him, while at the same time God was holding me and my family in His arms, too. Rob’s best day was the beginning of my worst. But somehow there is also the recognition that God is good. And that He feels every tear I shed. 

Seven hundred thirty-two. You have no idea how many boxes of Kleenex that represents. On the up side, I’m seven hundred thirty-two days closer to seeing Rob again. And in between all those firsts and seconds and thirds, hiding somewhere in the confusion, I believe there is hope.