Some of the torture comes from the outside, but I confess: Most is self-inflicted.
From the outside come acquaintances, three in the past two days, who ask about Rich. He died, I say; the words come out smoothly, I've said them enough. They hug me, ask how I'm doing, recall what a great guy he was. I'm getting used to saying "was."
No one, though, is responsible for the daily torture that I can't resist. Sometimes it is re-reading Rich's e-mails to me, or his chordoma web log, or my "Chordoma Dance" blog. I'm impressed, over and over, by his calm and his courage and by my shutting out his pain and its consequences. I knew, but couldn't feel, because if I did I would have fallen off the edge.
Now I'm falling, and watch myself, wondering where I will end up, marking the bruises as I go. I wasn't a fool. I knew how "Chordoma Dance" would end.
I don't know when I will stop eating grief. Someday, perhaps, it will taste like poison and I will turn once more to real food.
The pain is in not knowing, and when I cry -- every day, I don't miss one -- it is for Rich, but now more often for me, in free fall as I grasp at the past and cannot find the present.
Candace
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My dear Candace.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the tears aren't so much a free fall as a bridge to a destination you can't yet see? Like setting something down in a fog, toward a foggy destination whose distance is impossible to measure. But you lay them down anyway to have something to walk on tomorrow.
Sending you a warm embrace from Houston, Texas. Will be in NY next week and looking forward to a real embrace to give you directly. :-) Love, Heather