“If there’s a downside, it’s that “time and tide wait for no man” and so opportunities have been lost as cousins have passed away. If I could offer only one piece of advice, it would be, make time to talk to your family, learn your family’s stories, ask the questions, share the memories, smile for the camera.”
Four months and 24 days from the day I wrote those words my world shattered. A routine doctor’s visit led to an MRI that revealed my husband had metastatic lung cancer. That day is burned into my brain. My best friend, my soulmate, the love of my life was dying and there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do to change that.
The next 16 weeks passed in fits and spurts, some moments are indelibly etched, others are foggy. One thing we all learned from this is that you can get another job, you can earn another dollar, you can start another project BUT, you can’t get more time.
Never in my life have I experienced grief like I have since the day we found out Jerrell was dying. It comes in waves and often threatens to suck me under with no way to reach the shore. I don’t carry my grief alone, my husband was well loved and we, as a family, are “there for each other” as we make this journey without him. ‘Without’ is now my most hated word because from the day he died until the day I join him, I will be without him. Memories are a comfort and a curse, pictures are a source of joy and tears.
Jerrell was always up for a visit to a cemetery or a courthouse. As a matter of fact, our first date we went to a cemetery, true love.
I begin researching his family not long after we got together and for years the progress was minimal. About six years ago I hit on one tiny piece of information that blew things wide open and fortunately we were able to travel to Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee as well as some places in Texas where his family was prominent in history. I always told him it wasn’t fair that I’d researched my family for over forty years and then overnight he had way cooler history just fall into my lap.
I haven’t been able to even think about researching again. I’ve dipped my toe in the waters a couple of times but so far it’s just not right. I have no doubt that with time I’ll pick up the threads again but it will never be the same ‘without’ my partner.
So, how does this relate to the title of “So Far Away”? Never are we so far away from the ones we love as we are in death.
“The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief – But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love.”
Hillary Stanton Zunin
Hoping you never have to be without or so far away…
Susan