7 Years, 1 Month - Advice for the Newly Berieved

What do I say to an old friend when she tells me her husband has died? My chest clinches. I still do not know the right words but I feel the pain hit me in the chest. What do I say the first day? It is too early to say most of what I would say. Do I tell her one of the best things that I was told? No, it is too soon to tell her it will get worse, much worse, before it gets better. What do I say when everyone has driven away and she says tonight will be the first night I sleep alone? Do I tell her it will be sleepless? Will she too wake up on his side of the bed, as she moved closer and closer, searching in her sleep for what was no longer there? It is to soon to tell her that she will grieve longer than is comfortable for other people in her life. It is to soon to tell her that her children will grieve too and it will break her heart. He has only been gone a few days. Do I tell her the longing sets in after the usual time you spend apart, say a work day? Do I tell her the longing aches after the time passes that is the longest time they have ever been apart? When do I tell her, that the ache deepens into a need that intensifies without satisfaction as the time becomes double the time you spent apart. How do I explain such a need, such a longing that you carry all day as your hunger turns to starvation? I cry. Not because I knew him so well but because I can envision her suffering and cannot stop it. She will walk through the fire alone.

1 Year, 9 Months - Suicide

I try to think of reasons not to kill myself again.
I picture curling up in child’s pose and slicing my wrist, pealing my rib cage open or taking a gun and shooting my chest.
I try to convince myself it is just the financial worries and I have been worse off financially. That it is not the ache I still have for my husband, the constant unsatisfied yearning for him to hold me, to let me feel loved, to know that I will be all right. That it is not my mom dieing. Memories of her naked in pain, saying she was a good person, why was her life so hard. Why is my life so hard? I am good. I try to convince myself it is only money. Just wait. Don’t kill yourself today.

1 Year, 3 Months: Need, Living is a Chore

I curled in a ball and wailed. I was by myself and I wailed. I can not sleep. It is too late to take sleeping pills.

I can not give you up.
I need you.
I need you to hold me.
I need you to support me.
I need you to be the same.
I need your comfort now.
I can not wait anymore.
I want you so bad.

I cry and it comes from so deep inside. I need you. I need you. I am not O.K. You were my life. I hate this life. It is pointless. It is a job. Something I have to do. Eventually I have to get out of bed. I have to work and do errands. I have to feed myself everyday when nothing satisfies, nothing is appealing. My ribs shutter up and down as I sob. My nose runs on the pillow. There is no relief from the pain. I do not want to go on. I just go through the day as if it is a chore I must accomplish. I procrastinate and try to avoid the chore. I sleep in, I go without eating, and I drift. Yet there is no choice eventually. My brother and his wife will find me. My niece will expect me to get up eventually. She will want to eat so I will eat.
The drugs store the pain away a bit but it is still there. It is a huge, raw, empty hole with sorrow floating in its darkness. I think of you, so far away now. My love for you so unfulfilled. I am craving to be held, touched. I would love just an hour, just an hour to kiss you, to kiss your closed eyelids, to run my palm down between the muscles of your chest, to run my fingers through your soft hair, to smell you. The smell of you, cologne, sweat, Neutrogena T-Gel shampoo, your deodorant, your smell. I only need an hour to feel your weight on top of me.
I can not accept the fact that I can only be with someone else, a stranger to me today. I want to be faithful. Not out of respect, not out of obligation. I want to be faithful because my soul loves you. You are my soul mate. I can not understand why you had to die. I can not understand how people survive this? How do they handle the pain?
Come home to me or take me to you.