My beloved husband, Kent, died in January 2012, 3 years after diagnosis of a brain tumour. Our son was 2 1/2 and our daughter 3 months old. He and I were far too young. I am now hurtling through the black space of life without him.

Saturday 6 February 2016

Thirty six at four

I have thirty six hours alone and as I walk along the sand, able to think, I can only think:

My beloved is gone and I'm losing a friendship and the world appears to be made only of lovers walking hand in hand, and the breaking waves are pure perfection.

Four years, all that, and today this is all I know.

Motel after midnight

I'm stuck in a motel room and this pain inside of me is as big as the city we're staying in, and the one who was keeping me afloat (and more) is no longer interested in being a boat. I silence the sounds of pain and sit and listen instead to my kids' breathing, their limbs sliding out of bed on this hot night, and I try not to think of the words that describe the feelings, and hope that the pain in my belly isn't caused by this city-sized, multi-storied-now grief... and I never was made to leave midnight far behind me.

(Written mid January, NP)

It still does

My arm stretches out across the place where you used to lie
and I can't understand how it can reach across
the entire breadth and being of a man.
You used to be alive
in the space of my one small arm.
You used to hear my hand reaching
out across the sheets in the dark,
and know that it needed yours. 

(Written mid January, NP)