Tempus fidgets
A funny thing happened the other night. I was talking to E about how I’d been going through CDs A had sent me, because A and I had recently been discussing the lack of Van Morrison in my music collection when A was certain he’d sent me a bunch. I told him I’d look for it.
What was odd was the “recently.” A moment after it passed my lips, I wondered to aloud, “How recently could it have been?” I haven’t spoken to A in over 3 months. (Well, spoken to him and had him respond. I talk to him all the time.) I realized that the “recently” was in reference to our last conversation; it had been recent prior to that. And I saw how time had stopped for me that day, and all time prior and after is measured from the day he died.
The measurement of time from that day is not a new phenomenon to me. He has been gone 14 weeks; it’ll be 15 on Saturday. Usually only infants’ ages are measured in weeks, but I measure time that way now, too. I wonder if I always will.
This weekend, I got confused, and thought he’d been gone a little over 2 months. The next day I realized it had been 3 months on October 15th. I had known that on October 15th, but somehow spaced it. 3 months. Damn.
I know time has passed; I can feel it whooshing past my ears as the world turns. The sensation is not unlike what I imagine it would be liked to be involuntarily tied to the front of a speeding bus, everyone in a hurry to get where they’re going and paying no heed to the fact that you’re not able or desirous of keeping up with them, and that you are terrified to boot.
Because, to my heart, he may as well have died yesterday. And my trouble with keeping track of time only testifies to that. Three months is no time at all in the grand scheme of things, and indeed, it passed quickly. At the same it has been an eternity without him. We spoke every day, multiple times a day, for hours at a time every night. How is it even in the realm of possibility that we haven’t conversed in 3 months? It’s all so wrong.
I wonder how time passes for him now, if he feels it. My understanding is that one of our lifetimes is a small amount of time for those on the other side, and I hope that means he won’t forget me, and will be there to welcome me when my time comes.
And I think about the time that stretches ahead of me, and what it will bring in terms of this grief. I think about the day it’ll be 2 years since he died, and I’ll have been without him as long as I was with him. The thought of that makes me sick to my stomach, to tell you the truth. But regardless of how much time we had together, we loved each other with an eternal love. I cling to that, as I try not to dwell on the decades I will be without him, and secretly hope there won’t be too many; I’d hate to be the first person in my family to live to 100. 3 months has been too long without him; I don’t think I can do 65 years.