Tonight is quiet and brutal. The realization of all I've lost is fresh.
I took out one of the framed photos from the funeral and looked you in the eye. It's the kind of photo where I can believe for a little bit I am really looking into your eyes.
I read through most of my journal entries from the beginning of our marriage on until about the 3rd year. I was looking for something I thought I'd written that somehow felt important now, but I haven't found it yet. It was about sleep, and I will write about it when I find it.
I realized it was late though, so I put the journals down beside my bed- next to the photo of you.
I went to brush my teeth- stopping in the closet to smell your shirt on the way in. It is so strange to me that your body can be buried under a ton of dirt, but I can still smell you as if you are right in front of me.
As I brushed my teeth I felt the aloneness I felt earlier when I came home. I felt that this is my bathroom- not ours. I saw your toothbrush in the cup and could see you flossing and brushing beside me. I thought about how unreal all of this is. C'mon- you drowned in Switzerland? This can not be. It's just too much. Then I thought about how it is true. And how I am going to have to wait such a long time to see you. I try to tell myself I can do it; the time will go fast.
But as I'm turning off the bathroom light, walking past your hanging clothes, I do a quick calculation in my head for the first time. I realize that if I were to live until 84, it will be fifty more years until I see you again. Fifty years feels very, very long.