Picture this : One morning your young husband gives you a hug and a kiss and sets off to work. It was a big day for him. He had a pitch presentation. He somehow had to bag the client. A couple of hours later, in the middle of your evening walk, his boss calls you and tells you he's no more.
The young husband was mine. It was my life that was turned upside down one year and eight months ago. And during the course of this time, my toddler and I have experienced kindness from complete strangers and close family of course.
Best friends vanished, the husband is lying in a powdery state in some obscure tank in Maharashtra, which i sprinkled. Sprinkled would be an understatement actually. I physically clawed out, every last bit of him from a clay pot and threw him in the water. I almost swam in the water myself, until my big brother held me back and told me to let go.
I did all the last rites on his motionless, rigour mortis body. I saw the love of my life, go up in flames in front of my eyes. I was shattered beyond belief. And hysterical. I was barely living. My emotions were all over the place. I could barely be a human being, let alone be a mother.
I was stuck, between the land of the living and the land of the dead. One didn't want me yet and the other didn't interest me anymore.
The dead never leave us. They reach out to us in different ways and it was interesting to experience all the different forms of communication, my late husband pulled on me. It made me more hysterical. There's a reason why the dead, must remain in the land of the dead.
Trying to reach out to dead loved ones is not recommended. Live, because you're alive and there's a reason for that.
Coming back to the title of my blog, the steps you must take to overcome spousal death are; Step 1 : Do whatever you want. Step 2 : Continue doing whatever you want. Step 3 : Follow steps 1 and 2.
A close friend from France called me and said, "You are poopie now. You'll always have him inside you". It sounded like rubbish to me then, but she was absolutely right.
The man has left his vocabulary behind with the choicest of abuses, he has left behind his taste in food, his outlook in life and perhaps other personality traits that I'm not even aware of.
13 years and a baby, with one human being is a very long time. He was a good man and I'll try my best to remember him with love and respect.
