Not Here

The ache of missing you erupts like a volcano.

It can happen anywhere.

The store, the gym, the car, the shower. Just anywhere. The reality of your absence hits my heart like a lightning bolt.

And my whole body seizes into waves of grief.

A desperation.

The cutting separation is so severe.

Like a hot knife through my soul.

So fu@king cruel.

It’s an odd kind of thing, how some days, I can relate to you the way I did when I was pregnant.

It’s as though you are gestating in my heart. And I feel so connected. Like I have an ever present love to do life with.

I talk to you all day long. Feel as though you see what I see, notice what I notice, feel what I feel.

And other days, it’s as though I’m trying to stretch my hand across time and space just to reach you. But the distance is too great, with no way to hold onto you.

Your urn sits in my room. On a new altar, dedicated to you.

In the mornings I walk over and say hello. Kiss you. Greet the day with you.

It’s my new favorite place to sit in our home. Right beside you. The way I sat when you were little, beside your bassinet.

Such a weird new world. I feel absolutely brand new here. Though the days drag on, one after the other. Same, same.

The only difference on most days is my emotional state.

Will it hurt a little or a lot?

Will I be alive today? Part of the world? Or will my soul be reaching out for yours in some other place?

And of course, there are no answers, No certainties, no knowings here.

That’s the nature of death, and grief, and loss.

It’s a relationship with the mystery.

As I called out for you this morning, in my vehicle lament, I wondered can you hear me?

Do you know how much I miss you? How much I love you? And even those questions have no concrete answers. I have to ask and answer them for myself.

All of the questions have to asked and answered by me.

Would you have like the Super Bowl? The Half Time Show? What would have thought of the dinner I made? Or the way I rearranged the living room?

Every new thing considers you. It’s a way of keeping you present.

“Tanner would have liked that”.

“Tanner would be happy about that”

That’s how life is now.

You come to me in a thousand ways. In animals, songs, symbols, sunshine, and questions. In dreams, and poems, art, and in my imagination.

In trees and nature, you are there.

But where aren’t, is here.