Posted by AK on August 12, 2001 at 00:08:53:
I'm 34 and alone now after 12-1/2 years of marriage. I lost my 35-year old husband to cancer. He battled valiantly for a year and a half and finally succumbed on March 4, 2001.
I thought I was being strong, I thought I could recover. I was going through the motions and moving ahead and now all of a sudden, five months after his death, I can't stop crying. Will the tears ever stop?
How do I feel? I am a camera on the world, a pair of binoculars. I have a clear and wonderful view of all that surrounds me; but I don’t feel, I don’t participate, I don’t look at the view.
I feel like I am drowning in chocolate syrup -- dark, thick, blackness draping over my soul. Blackness so deep that no amount of vanilla ice cream will ever make it palatable. Nothing registers through the blackness, no light, no love, no joy. Only only pain and sorrow remain.
To feel the small, pear-shaped, salty drop roll perfectly over my cheekbone, down my face, and finally arrive on my chest. On my chest, which holds my heart. It’s as if my tears know that is where they began and to where they must return ... full circle ... to my heart which continues to beat without my conscious awareness. It beats in spite of me, it
beats to spite me. A cruel game it plays, pumping its salty river flowage.
Nothing more does it tell me. I loved you once . . . I love you still. With every beat, I feel the rush from the river’s wellspring . . . thump, tha-thump. The heart’s most sacred transaction . . . tears for my beloved who weeps no more.
Please help.