Five Weeks

It's been five weeks today since you left. I go through the motions in this new life I never asked for, feeling an enormous void, and overwhelmed at facing and viewing the world as an I rather than a we.

While I'm grateful for the many friends and family who have stepped up to ease this burden, I still feel profoundly alone. And numb. And unsure if I can go on.

It may appear to you that I'm handling this loss with grace and strength. But that's all it is--an appearance. Inside, there's an almost constant yearning for a life I'll never have again. It's not just Bruce that's gone, but our life together, deeply changing who I am.

And who is that person? I'm not the guy I was nearly 23 years ago when Bruce and I first met. Nor am I the person I was eight months ago, just before this horror began.

I found a kind of dubious strength and honor in being a caregiver and a witness to a life of someone I love dearly in rapid decline.

Turmoil, on both a personal and global scale, seems to be the constant theme these days.

I know my only solace, really, is in how I react to all of this. Part of me wants to simply stop the world so I can get off. Part of me knows that, with the aid of memories, of gratitude for love, of my own personal determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other, is the only way I can, maybe not triumph, but cope.