I’ve been sick for the last week and a half. This is highly unusual,because on the rare occasions I do get sick, I’m usually over it in a couple days. I don’t do sick well. Not that anyone really does, but because it’s so unusual, I tend to get more annoyed, whiny, and cranky than I have any right to be… I don’t know how to handle it.

During this period of stuffiness and sinus pressure, it occurred to me that this is what Ian endured pretty much daily. He had allergies bad enough that he was always stuffy… Always had sinus pressure. I know that if something is constant, you learn to live with it… He and I shared perpetual back pain, though his was lower back and occasionally caused him problems with things like walking, and mine is upper/neck, and occasionally causes problems with things like headaches, the idea is similar enough that I identified with it… I understood how he lived with it.

This sinus shit, though? I can’t imagine having to deal with it perpetually. I know millions of people do. I’m one of the lucky few without any allergies… But I just can’t fathom handling it. It makes me relieved for him, in a way… That he doesn’t have to anymore. At least I hope he doesn’t. Even if there’s nothing after death, I hope at least he’s not snuffling around, blowing his nose trying to breathe.

I was talking to his sister yesterday, and mentioned that while it’s not easier, not better, at this point, I’m getting used to him being not here. It still sucks just as much, but it’s like that constant back pain…. Eventually it just fades into the background and becomes part of the normal noise of life.

I don’t even feel terribly SAD if I don’t think about it anymore. Don’t feel particularly happy, probably deep in that whole depression stage of grief, but if I don’t let myself actually think about him or really remember him, I don’t feel like that melon baller is digging away at my heart.

But then I give myself the time and space to remember him, and it all comes back. I physically miss him. I miss the feel of his chest or shoulder under my head as we cuddled listening to music or watching a movie. I miss the feel of his hair. I miss his soft hands. The scar on his stomach, where my hand would rest when we cuddled as we slept.

And so I let myself miss him… For as long as I need. And then I go back to not really thinking about it. Like the days when my neck wins and I stay in bed with a headache.

Tonight the grief is winning, and I’m crying rather than sleeping. Exactly seven months ago right now, he was getting ready. Maybe he was writing the note. Maybe he was listening to his last song. He was on his way out, and I hope he was happy. I hope he was relieved. I hope he felt peaceful. Much as I hope it, I can’t imagine that he did. But I’ve never been there. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision, an impulsive drunken mistake… It was planned. It was thought out. And so maybe he was at peace.

I just wish I could hug him one last time to let him feel how much I love him.

Written 9/18/2014 (1:45am)

648 total views, 1 views today