When You're Gone
I’ve been playing catch up ever since I got back from my trip to Florida. I finally got the laundry done on Monday. I was in town most of yesterday running errands, getting my hair cut, meeting a friend for dinner. I went to the tractor store and bought a live trap to try to catch this feral kitty to get her fixed. Back in time to feed three hungry cats and take the trash out before I settled in to write and catch up with friends.
As I was driving home from town, I had the music blasting as usual. Upbeat, fun road music drifted through the truck and out the open sun roof as I be-bopped out the two-lane blacktop to the farm. Then…Joey + Rory started singing “When I’m Gone”. If you haven’t heard it, do. It’s a sad country song but it ends with hope, much like I strive to do here on my blog.
As I listened to the lyrics, I kept hitting replay so I could pay close attention. In the second verse, the lyrics say “you’ll lay down in our big bed, dread the dark and dread the dawn”. I remember that feeling so well. I don’t feel that anymore. Well, very rarely. But I remember what it felt like to dread nightfall. I never really dreaded the dawn because I always did better in the light of day. It was the nights that killed me.
I started feeling the dread creep in as the light changed and the day drifted towards early evening. I knew what I was facing…long, sleepless hours…aching deep in my chest…longing for comfort…pining for the comforter. I started getting better when I brought God back into the equation. That is when I started to feel less alone, less acute pain, less abandoned. Less angry. Less devastated. Just a little less, bit by bit. Then, like the lyrics of the song, there came a day when I surprised myself with a smile when I remembered something Mr. Virgo had said. At first, I felt guilty for feeling happy. Like I might be betraying him in some way if I didn’t hold this vigil continually.
I think these feeling have stirred as I consider the merits of another relationship. It has to do with the word “widow”. Questions arise in my grief-soaked brain. Questions like…“If you enter a new relationship and fall in love, are you still a widow?” The answer to that is a resounding yes. Once a pickle, always a pickle. You don’t get to go back to being a fresh cucumber. Once a widow, always a widow. This is where you get to define what the word “widow” really means to you. What it looks like when it wears a new set of clothes with each passing season. Sackcloth and ashes gradually get replaced by brighter and more vibrant colors till you re-enter the land of the living. At least, that is what it has felt like to me. Each passing month has eventually become a year. And each year brings me further away from the raw pain of the acute grief and leaves me with an undercurrent….much like a deep, underground river that courses beneath a mountain, only to resurface and pour out like a freshwater spring. Time is the filter that removes some of the stain of pain. There will always be a trace, like the minerals the underground river picks up from the stone it percolates through. But, thank God the dread seems to have been filtered out as well. ❤️
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”” Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV