A Hole in my Soul….

The emptiness remains.  The hurt unrelenting.  My emotions turbulent. 

Four years today and I’m still reeling.  Left nursing a jagged hole in my soul.

The midnight we lost MK to her brain cancer was undoubtedly the worse night of our lives.  I can only hope nothing ever comes closer to, or eclipses, it in my life.  While we knew our lives together would end someday we had no idea that night would be it.  MK was on a grueling regimen of her series of eight meds every two hours, ‘round the clock.  I’d lost track of exactly how many days it had been since she last ate, but knew it was well over fifty.  Plus no water for longer than I ever imagined to be humanly possible.  Her hospice nurses had trained us well and gone home for a few hours sleep.  Exhausted, I’d collapsed on the sofa while Christina, sitting bedside, was talking nonstop to MK.  Her scream of “Dad!” woke me like a bolt. 

Unlike the bullshit you find in movies, books, and songs the moments of MK’s death were horrific and are forever tragically branded on our memories. 

Then our 43 years of life together ended.

Never again would I see her gorgeous green eyes, enjoy the sweetness of her voice, hear the delight in her laughter, nor the oft repeated chant of “Scott, Scott, Scott…”  Never again getting to hear her call me Sid.  No sharing of the stories of our meeting, dating, children, and our lives together.  I’ll never get to cook her favored meals or pour her a glass of her favorite, which over the years changed from vodka gimlets to Merlot, then to Coronas while ending in her Starbucks and teas.  No more living shoulder-to-shoulder as we worked in symphony to live the life we had so intensely focused on every day of our years.  No more breaks out in her smoking lanai.  Never any chances to improve my pony-tail making abilities and lipstick applying technique.  No more anything carrying the tag of ‘us’.

After sobbing for I don’t know how long we were forced to attend to the crap that only matters to those still living.  The call to her nurse, a message for the mortuary, accounting to a witness each of her unused medications while grinding them to a dust and mixing in old coffee grounds, then the minutia of her death certificate.  It was all a bizarre ritual.

My sense of loss only continues to grow with the passage of time.  The realization of how much meaning she added to my daily life intensifies as life constantly reminds me she is no longer at my side. No longer reaching for my hand, or asking for my help as she was forced to do for those many years of her war.  I simply miss sharing in her love.

The grief continues, especially on this day. It’s neither lessening nor abating. I have come to understand I grieve in proportion to how much I loved her.

Today, as every day, I recognize the truth in the simple words MK chose to engrave on our wedding bands: Forever My Love.