Two Lucky

The service is over and I’ve begun to pack up the apartment. I take my time, as well I should.

There is just too much. Every other hour I find something unexpected that belongs to him. Each piece of him that I uncover - a cup, letter, paintbrush -  holds a narrative I am loathe to put away.

Grief is a long valley. I keep expecting to turn the corner, but I don’t. I am living a strange existence, as if separated from the rest of world by a blanket, or a bubble. 

In my adult life, I have yet to feel so inadequate in my own ability to understand what is happening to me.

I am trying my best to be strong. Friends walk in and out of the apartment. This sense of seclusion. It seems impossible for them to understand, though I can see in their eyes that they are trying.

There’s no denying that some days I “feel better.” Oddly, the nights are easiest to bear. There is some solace in the quiet around me.

In the day, however, I dread this empty apartment. Light casts a pall over activity. I walk with a slight fluttering in my stomach. I feel mildly drunk. There is a familiar swelling in my throat.

I contradict myself incessantly. I want and don’t want to suffer his absence. When the anguish is almost inhuman to endure, I am driven to desperation.

At the same time, I refuse to let our last hours together grow blur for the price of serenity.

This will go on for a long time. I know it. Sometimes, an immense fatigue invades me, and I feel a terrible temptation. I want to rest, to lay down arms. I want to lie next to him, by the headstone, in the earth.

And the idea of falling asleep, half-flesh and half-statue, frightens me not at all.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 12:19 am and is filed under New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.