Now there is the feeling of double displacement. At home, I am always trying to figure out where I am and what's happened. But at least I can look around and have that strange sense of being in a place that was formerly where we lived together. Now I am stranded in another state with relatives I haven't seen in years and a toddler who doesn't nap or sleep well away from home. Since there is no environment to connect it to here, the pain seems to well up around me in puddles now.
The mystical shock strips away more and more each day. Instead of foggy, saturated air to wade through, there is nothing but a crumbling stone wall- reality- you-
you-
are dead.
It feels like another impasse, because there is no way around it. Must I make a home here at this wall for myself and our daughter? Should I plant shrubs and flowers at the stone wall? That is what a tombstone is I suppose.
You and I were so different that I truly am missing 1/2 of my knowledge and traits I've become accustomed to as your wife. I have no sense of direction- you did. I don't know much about pop culture and can't remember what movies I have or have not seen. You reminded me, laughing. I don't have much common sense and would often get stuck on something really simple while you could come and flick some switch or turn something around and say "Really? You really didn't know that?"
I can liken it to the old see saws they had in playgrounds when we were kids. With one person on each end, it is balanced- back and forth. But if one person were to suddenly jump off without warning - and that happened to me as a child- you will hit the ground with such force on that metal base...your tail bone will feel the shock. This is what it is like- a hard hit- no warning- no balance.
Sometimes I wish to be angry with you. I even want to say the dreaded "I told you so," which yes, is highly inappropriate here. But why did you have to travel without your family? Why couldn't you have told your swimming partner that you didn't feel quite right- that you were too cold? It's not your fault Dan. I can't truly blame you for one second. So why then do I keep coming back there I wondered? Because it gives me something- it gives me the only frayed connection I have back to you- and for a moment- I feel like the old me, angry or nagging or disappointed, but at least I am engaged with you. It is familiar and I hope for a reply or some kind of defense.
But there is
silence.
Won't you come and speak up? Won't you answer me with some wise words of defense? Won't you come, I plead.