Today it has been five years since Vic went to the Rainbow Bridge to be with Wags and all the other pets. (I see him as the Walmart Greeter of the Rainbow Bridge.)
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| You gotta love what AI can do these days. |
When I say it out loud, it seems momentous—but what does "five years" even mean when it feels like it was just yesterday ... but also like it was forever ago? (Like this conversation between Rannulph Junuh and Adele Invergorden in The Legend of Bagger Vance.)
So it's been five years of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, births, illnesses, deaths—but also five years of cooking and paying bills and getting gas in the car and all the other mundane things in life.
And what can I say that I haven't already said before?
It's not like me to be at a loss for words—or a positive spin on life.
Because as I sit here, trying to figure out what to write about this day, all I can feel is a crushing sadness. I think about all the things he missed and all the things we missed together. All the things I drove home from alone—with him not waiting for me at the end of that drive. All the funny memes I didn't share with him. All the side-eye or squeezed-hand-under-the-table I didn't give him when someone said or did something I knew he would think was absurd. All the times that Bella did something adorable.
A thousand paper cuts every day. The kind you might forget about until you accidentally squeeze a little lemon on them.
It just never goes away, the sadness, the hurt, the hole in my heart. I thought it would.
But also ... I'm glad it didn't.
As Andrew Garfield said about the loss of his mother, "I hope this grief stays with me because it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to tell her. And I told her every day—we all told her every day. She was the best of us." (You can see the full clip in this episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at 4:20.)
So I'm glad this grief has stayed with me. It means I am alive. I am human. And I loved someone so much that his absence will never go unnoticed.
Of course ... I am fine. I'm living my life. I'm taking care of myself and Bella. I'm crafting. 😄
But man, I wish I were still doing all that with him. I mean, except the crafting, obvi.
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| Our first picture together |
