Prolonged Grief

Hospitals along with it's the forgotten corners with empty stretchers strategically placed there, will always remind me of my husband's motionless body. For a split second, I thought it was all a cruel joke. He hardly looked like a corpse. 

His eyes were closed and his lips were slightly parted. I shook him violently, forcing him to wake up. But he paid no heed. That moment changed everything. The sinking feeling of being completely alone for the rest of my life, hit me like a boulder falling off a cliff and crushing everything under its impact. 

Prolonged Grief; a state of still being in utter shock and disbelief over having your world ripped in two. You're basically an empty Easter egg without the chocolatey goodies inside. You have nothing to give to the world, except darkness. You're Wednesday Addams with a better sense of dressing. 

Prolonged Grief; it takes your breath away, when you least expect it. You find it staring back at you when you catch a band doing sound-check in a mall and when someone at work says, "Close your eyes and be grateful for just being alive" and my brain immediately retorts, "But why should I, a widow with a toddler to fend for, be grateful? My life is hard. I see fairy tales all around me and larger than life weddings, while my partner of 14 years just dropped dead. So no, I'm not grateful"

I have the best parents in the world. They have rooted for me every step of the way. But even with them by my corner, I feel shattered. I never want to be let down by another human being ever again. I've cello-taped all the pieces of my heart to never experience that pain again. 

They say time heals, they lied. They say, the memories fade, they lied again. The reality is, I'll always be the person whose presence makes all the lights in the room, go off. I'll always feel sad and carry the burden of my husband's absence. And that's okay. 

Life is not a bed roses. It is infact hard, horrible, abrupt and bone crushingly final just like death.