A little background to get started

June 7, 2012, my husband, Gene, died of cancer. He was the light of my life, my best friend, my soul mate. My Everything.

I'm seeing a grief counselor every now and again. Sometimes once a week. Sometimes once every six or eight weeks. Just whenever I need to talk. And yet, most of the time I don't even know what to say. Grief has robbed me of the words. There are no words. But the counselor lost her husband, too, and she gets it. All of it. The weirdness, the confusion, the lack of interest, the blah that life has become even though life is really quite good. The inability to enjoy life.

I can't even enjoy the memory of my marriage because I can't remember it. I still can't hear Gene's voice, although the other day I thought I heard it faintly for the first time since before he died. I can't remember his laugh. I can recall memories of our life together but they come to me like facts. There's just no feeling behind the memory. Sometimes, it's as if my 15-year marriage is a distant memory, like high school.
 

Happy beyond words

But I do remember one thing: Once I was happy beyond words.

I woke up every day with a smile and went to bed the same way. I literally thanked God every morning and every night for the life I was living with Gene.

No matter what else went on during the day that might rattle me, at the end of the day, I went home to the man who made my life safe and complete. I went home to my better half -- the other half of me.

Gene was my port in the storm. When I was with him, my heart was home. And now my heart is lost or at least being held for ransom. And my life is that ransom. I get my heart back when I die? But I don't want to die – at least not anymore..

Forgetting = self-protection

The fact that I can't remember my marriage is bothersome, frustrating, and sad but it's also OK. Because I can't remember, I have been able to function. I'm on my feet and have been since the day Gene died. And that's probably the biggest shock so far. That grief isn't what I expected. For a while, I thought I must be doing it wrong. I mean, how could a person love beyond a depth she ever believed was possible and then just poof, go on with life? Eat, sleep (at least some), brush her teeth, go to work, go to the grocery, out with friends. Do things that seem like life is normal when it's anything but.
 

Before Gene died, I had semi-arranged for  a friend to take over paying my bills if Gene died because I truly thought I would be in the fetal position for weeks, unable to eat, shower or work. But that didn't happen. I paid the bills, I took care of all of the important documents and papers I had to file. I rearranged banking and investments. (Gene kept a cursory list of stuff, but we never discussed it in depth. We never wanted to "go there" and discuss "what if" because we wanted to believe he could still beat the disease.)

And yet through all of that I just marched on. Sad at times, crying at time but not nearly as much as I expected.

Time to remember?

It's a year later, I know I've made progress. I feel different, and yet I feel no different since the day I lost him. My life is good by many people's standards. And while I see the colors of life, it's as if I'm living in black and white. Although I guess that's an upgrade from the earlier months when I felt like an alien on this planet without Gene.

The counselor has been encouraging me to write "our story" -- Gene's and mine. She thinks if I write about one memory, it will trigger another and another and so on, and I’ll be able to remember the great life I had, grieve its loss and have it remain a wonderful, comforting memory.

In our first meeting, the counselor told me, you can't go around grief; you have to go through it. Sooner or later. Maybe she's right. Maybe it's time to write -- and remember.