I'm hurting. It's no worse than yesterday. It'll be no different to tomorrow.
I do wonder sometimes, I ask myself when it'll all go away. I think of Ems and wonder when it will stop feeling so crazy that he's not here. I wonder, and then I know.
The truth is it won't ever go away. It won't ever feel crazy that he's not here. There won't be a morning when I wake up and the pain is gone, when I don't miss him anymore, when everything is 'normal' and uncomplicated again.
My perspective, my life, has been well and truly shifted.
I hate life without Ems. I hate that he's not around to make decisions with, big and small. I hate that he's not here to share those little details that you only care about sharing with the one you really love. I hate that I so often find myself in those moments where you're 'killing time' waiting, only to realise that the person I'm subconsciously 'waiting' to hang out with isn't around anymore. I hate being in a situation that no one else is in.
I still have every desire for Ems that I ever had. It's still him that I want to hang out with. It's still him that I want to live out my dreams, frustrations, good days and bad days with. When I have something I want to share, it is still him that I want to share it with, that I want to share everything with.
Life since Ems died is not life without Ems. Ems is no longer here, I am in no denial of that, but the love I have for Ems is as great as the day he died. My desire to be with him, to please him, to serve him, to love him is still as strong as when he was right here next to me. I still think about him all the time and consider him as I'm making decisions. I'm grateful that we were so close, that we knew each other so well. It means that I often know what he'd have wanted or thought about decisions that I make. It's also excrutiating when I don't know, and I can't ask.
The new struggles, struggles that Ems and I would never have come across when he was alive. The new achievements, things that would never have looked like achievements with him here. These things I want to share with him.
Life goes on and the number of days where I've been void of his company increases but the power of the love, the memories - they remain strong.
People ask if it's easier now but it isn't. It is certainly different to the horror and shock of the initial weeks. I feel like I'm still living for two yet with the strength of just one. I guess, more accurately, where I was part of a whole, I am now half. Being a half hurts. Being a half in a world which is so different to what it was before - I'm lost.
I cling on to God with everything that I am and He remains the only thing that brings purpose to my days and peace where everything is in turmoil. But faith doesn't mean an absence of pain. It doesn't mean all of this hurt will just disappear; It is far bigger than that.
I remain indebted to the family, friends and colleagues who have shown me so much love. I am grateful for the words they have encouraged me with even when they feel so helpless. I am grateful for the time they have given to me even when they're not sure what to do with it. I am grateful for the way they have tenderly cared for my breaking heart even though it hurts them to do so.
No the pain doesn't go away and it won't. There are all sorts of phrases about 'grief being the price you pay for loving someone', about it being 'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'. As easy as they are to say and not mean, I actually agree with them.
I truly am experiencing this deep, unquenchable agony because of the inextinguishable, lifechanging love that was (is) Ems and mine. I don't have the option of switching off such feelings - neither the pain, nor the love. And I have to ask whether I'd want to?
The truth is, I have to live with this pain. For with this pain comes the immense memory of the truest love two flawed human beings could have hoped to experience - not just memories of days or acts or words, but memories of feelings. Memories of the excitement, hope, comfort, joy that rises when you hear your loved one's name, see their car approaching, hear those 'sweet everythings'. The anticipation of seeing Ems still rises in me only to be quashed by the repeated realisation that he isn't coming. But would I choose to deny that repeated agony and with it lose the memory of the love? Not a chance.
There is loss because there was once something so beautiful in my posession.
There is pain because there was once such comfort.
There is grief because there was once great love.
The grief has overcome me just like the love did and there is no way to lose one and not the other.
Would I do it all again? Every time.
In giving everything you face losing everything but in losing everything, you seek to gain everything. And as this is true in love, so it is true in life. I'm still going to give everything.
