Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

As the plane descended into Oakland over green, rolling foothills, an entirely unexpected thought flashed through my mind:  Home.  I was home, a home that became mine because of him.  Because he lived there, because he showed it to me, because he loved it, I love it, too.

Previous trips there since he passed have felt like coming home to an empty house, familiar enough, and yet somehow too hollow to be borne.  The heart and hearth that had made it home no longer burn there for me, and his absence has been all too conspicuous.  And so that is what I expected:  emptiness, and loneliness, and disconnection, and, at best, wistfulness.  Not “home.”  Not without him.  

And yet I was excited to be there, to see the city and the bay and the bridges.  I love San Francisco after all.  I feel like it was given back to me at that moment, to enjoy instead of mourn as a place I once enjoyed.  How did that happen?  Did he give me that?  Is it just a function of healing, allowing me to recollect, in the most basic sense of the word, those things that I thought I’d lost to pain, and pain avoidance?  Another mystery, but a good one for a change.

I had a wonderful trip, with a dear friend who is so good for me in ways I don’t understand but am grateful for.  We had a lot of fun, and the melancholy I feared would overtake me was largely absent until it was time for me to leave.

It hadn’t been my intention to talk about A constantly, but I ended up talking about him quite a lot, and I felt a little self-conscious about it.  It wasn’t even all about the loss of him, though that came up, too.  But the place, and the trip, and the guitars, all conspired to make him front and center in my thoughts and words.  I worried that I talked about him “too much,” and now that I’m home, I am reconsidering that self-evaluation.  I think I’m just not used to talking about him much these days, so talking about him at all seems like a lot.  And also, there is the fact that he’s still very much a part of my days and my life, if only in spirit.  He is a reality, and therefore, it only stands to reason that I would mention him when it was pertinent, as I would E, as I would anyone close to me.  And the frequency of his pertinence is more a testament to how close we were, and how broad our connections, rather than evidence of my forcing him into the conversation.  He’s just…here, in my heart if not on this earth.  He doesn’t go away.  And I like that.  

I suppose I could just be rationalizing what was nothing more than my taking advantage of a good-hearted friend willing to listen to me yap endlessly about my boy.  On the other hand, I’m unable to feel wrong about it.  The whole world goes around doing whatever the hell it wants, broadcasting its need and damage to all and sundry.  I know, because I am frequently the recipient of true confessions from near-strangers; I guess I have one of those faces.  I rarely engage in such declarations of need and pain myself, because, frankly, I don’t trust the world with my heart and soul, and I do not trust it not to disappoint me.  My friend is one I can trust, and do, and, feeling safe, maybe I just could be entirely myself without self-censoring for a change.  That kind of freedom does wonders for a soul.  We also laughed ourselves silly, ate good food, and rested when we were tired.  All good medicine for world weariness.  I think I’ll write myself a prescription for some refills on those.