The Hot Loneliness

I have put this off because it is so hard to write.  But, in writing, I process . . . and maybe in processing, I will heal.  Ron used to listen to me read aloud every blog before I posted them and offered any input he had.  Today, there is no one to read aloud to.  I am alone.

One week, one day, and about four hours ago, I lost the love of my life.  Ron Clark died peacefully in the home he and I shared.  I was by his side, touching his arm and telling him I loved him, when his heart stopped beating.  Dustin and Carrie were at the house with me, so I was not alone when it happened.

I will save the details of his passing for another post, if I post them at all.  It’s not that they are traumatic or anything like that.  In fact, just the opposite – it was all very calm and quiet, even though it felt so unexpected to me.  It’s just that all of this is hard to write about.  But, I do recognize that there are some folks who may want to know what happened and I will try to offer more insight on that later.  I know Ron would not mind.

Last night and today, I am just starting the process of really allowing myself to feel the depths of my grief.  Last week was busy with writing the obituary and getting it into papers, creating a memorial bookmark for his celebration of life service, coordinating with his family and the staff at the Central Michigan Youth for Christ to plan the service, and putting together my favorite Ron photos for a video slide show.  In addition to this stuff, I was working with hospice to get things wrapped up and hospital equipment removed from the home, receiving calls and texts from concerned friends and family, and also handling some of the mundane life details that arise, even in times of death, like mowing the lawn and taking the trash out and picking up dog food.  I had little fits of outwardly expressing my grief, but they were short lived because there was so much else I had to do.  I slept little.  I accomplished a lot.  In creating projects to remember and honor Ron, I still felt connected to him . . . a way of taking care of him even after he was gone.

Now that I am settling back into regular life and the service remembering Ron’s life is over, it is really hitting me.  And I know it needs to.  It is part of the process.

I dropped my sister off at the airport in Grand Rapids early yesterday morning.  I spent several hours at a friend’s house afterward, catching a few more hours of sleep and later talking with him over coffee.  I drove back to Kalamazoo and had lunch with Dustin, got my car washed, went to therapy, walked the dogs, and even took in The Avengers movie at the Rave with Dustin and Carrie, in honor of Ron.  Then, I came home to be alone.  The house is a mess, there’s not much to eat, and nothing has been moved around from when they took out Ron’s body and equipment.  There is a void where his hospital bed was and I keep looking out the window that used to be his view.  I feel like there is much to be done in and around the house, but I want to take my time and not busy-body every moment of every day.  Doing so prevents me from feeling the depth of my emotions.  And I need to feel . . . not just make to-do lists and follow them in an effort to keep myself busy.  All that busy stuff will be there for when I do need a break from feeling.  I just need to pace myself.

I realized while talking in therapy yesterday that I do not really grieve well in front of others.  I know people don’t want to see me hurting, so I put my best, strongest face forward.  I don’t really openly and fully cry around others.  And I tend to want to help others manage their mourning, which kind of gets in the way of me doing my own.  So, looking back at the past week, I can see that I have held a lot in.  I need to take some time to be alone and let it out and just feel how I feel, even if that means I feel really, tremendously, uncomfortably sad. 

Feeling sad does not even begin to cover it.  I just don’t have the words.  I miss Ron so immensely.  I loved him so much and I know he loved me.  He really was my soul mate and I know there will not be another like him in my life.  I wonder what is left.  What’s the point?  I am a 33 year old widow.  I had true love and it was taken away from me too soon.  I know what I need to do to get through this.  I have a list of things Ron and I talked about me getting into when the inevitable happened.  I believe I will get to them eventually, because he would want me to.  But, right now, I don’t want to. 

I don’t want to do any of it.  I don’t want to do this – just this – being here, breathing, without him on the earth with me.  I just want what I can never have.  I want him back.  I want him to come home, right now.  I want to be able to talk to him and hear his voice, his wit and wisdom, his laughter.  I want to feel his patience and love and forgiveness.  I want to bestow on him all the giddy feelings I held when I looked into his eyes.  I want to feel that sensation where my heart skips a beat and my stomach somersaults simply because I am so happy to have this person in my life.  But now I don’t have him in my life.  Not in any tangible sense, anyway.  I just am having a hard time wanting to do any of it without him.

I know Ron is everywhere now and with me all the time, in spirit.  But that does not make his physical absence from my life any less noticeable.  In the car, I want to hold his hand, like we always did.  Sometimes, I reach over and pretend I am, or look over where his face would have been and give a smile and a wink, like we always exchanged.  The car is the hardest place for me, it seems.  At the movies yesterday, once, I pretended to look over where he would have been sitting and put my hand on the empty seat next to me.  When I do these things, I feel like the craziest person in all the world.  I started a book in which I write to Ron.  “Dear Ron, . . . ” and then I proceed to tell him how I feel and what is happening that day.  It is a form of communication that for some reason feels real, like he can read it, even when the most logical side of me has significant doubts about whether he can.  The world just feels empty without him.  He was the love of my life.  He used to joke about haunting me.  We would find our version of Ghost moments - like, instead of him helping me make pottery, he would help me clear the third original Pac Man course flawlessly or help me flip a pancake without it falling apart.  I really wish he would hurry up and get started on this haunting business.  I just want so badly to feel like he is still with me. 

A friend pointed out that the hardest part for Ron is over now.  He was scared to die, but he did not want to be suffering anymore.  I do feel like he is at peace now.  It was so hard to see him feeling so sad and angry and hurt all the time.  I am glad he doesn’t have to go through that anymore.  My friend also pointed out that the hardest part for us, the living who are left behind, is just beginning.  Now, we get to experience the grief and loss and sensation of missing this essential person in our lives. 

The void is vast.  I will feel it when I can.  I will fill it with busy work and time with friends/family when I can’t stand it.  I also think I am going to try to blog (and write to Ron and write in my other journals, etc) a lot more often, because it is therapeutic for me.  But, I warn you, dear blog readers, it’s very likely about to get sad up in here.  So, only read if you want to/feel like you can handle it . . . and if doing so will not compound your own grieving process if you are also someone who knew and loved Ron. 

It is a disgustingly bright and sunny spring day, like they all have been for the past 3 days or so and like it was on the day he passed.  Birds are beautifully singing outside my window and I can see a breeze gently swaying the trees.  It is hard to feel sad when the weather gives me so much to fill my spirit.  Maybe this is what Ron wanted, knowing how motivated I get when the weather is nice. 

I guess I am off to alternate between grieving and working on the mountain of tasks . . . whatever it takes to get me through the day.  This parting quote from Pema Chödrön, shared with me last night by a wonderfully empathetic friend, depicts the task at hand for all of us who knew and loved Ron:  “So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn’t even sit for one, that’s the journey of the warrior.”