purgatory

I sometimes feel I am in some blazing purgatory and that I am being forged into something else--Etty Hilsum (1914-43)


These are the waiting days.  For what, I'm not sure; other than leaving what I was and not knowing where to go, except that it will not be here.  


So far, these are the hardest days.  Rich isn't returning, but I'm far from letting him go.  My body won't admit he's gone, while the mind chatters away on a track that is, by turns, logical and responsible, dreamy and dim-witted.


Not all that has been burned is bad.  Anger, for one thing.  Other than justified eruptions at the IRS and Sloan Kettering -- and, truly, the heat in the rage is pitifully lukewarm -- nothing can rouse me.  My new mantra works beautifully: Rich is dead.  No other pain can, or will, compare.  Fear?  Anxiety?  Don't know what they are.  Except for my own demise, I have lived through the worst I can imagine.


Death may or may not lead to a place called purgatory.  Surviving does.  It's home, for now.


Candace