“This is us, Liz,” he pleaded with me. “This is you and me. We’re figuring it out as we go. Neither of us expected this, but it happened. We need each other. We… We love each other.”
“So what?” I spat cruelly. “Where does that leave us? Where is this going?”
“Liz…”
“You can’t move in with us. So that’s off the table. I will not get married again. So that’s also off the table. We can’t ever be anything more than what we are right now and is that enough for you?”
“No.” His answer was so immediate and forceful that I jumped.
“See!”
“No, I don’t see. Why can’t we move in together, Liz? Why can’t we get married? What in the hell is stopping us?”
“Me!”
“Right!” He took a step closer to me and I felt the vibrations of his anger ripple around me. “You! But nothing else. Nothing else is standing in our way. So tell me, tell me right now, why you’re putting a stop to this.”
“Because I can’t do this anymore!” I cried. The tears of the day finally fell as my world came crashing down around me for the second time in my life. “I cannot be with you when I miss him so much my body aches from it! I cannot be with you and make a life with you when all I want is for him to come back. I can’t be intimate with you when it’s his hands I imagine touching me, when it’s his body I dream about. I cannot be with you when I will never stop loving him.” I closed my eyes to rid myself of the image of Ben’s broken expression and defeated posture. I couldn’t stand that image of him. My confident, defiant, authoritative neighbor had been crushed because of me. I did that. I destroyed the second man that I loved. “I can’t love you when I love him like this.”
“You mean that?” he rasped. “You’re done trying?”
“I’m done. I have to be done.” I opened my eyes and blinked through the tears. I watched him accept my words, I watched them sink in.
“You don’t have to do this, Liz. We could work through this together. I could share this pain with you and we could get through it.”
I shook my head and delivered the final blow, “You can’t help me, Ben. This is my pain. This is my grief. There is nothing you can do but let me be.”
He nodded once before gathering his things and leaving. I watched the door close behind him and felt the avalanche of grief cascade over me. My dam of sorrow and sadness ripped open again and I felt the agony of losing someone I loved all over again.
I stumbled to the couch and did not get up for the rest of the night. I couldn’t face my bed again, not after the night I had with Ben. I couldn’t face Grady’s empty side of the bed and come to terms with what I had done.
I curled up on my couch, in the place that Ben had just occupied and I cried myself sick. I stayed there until there were no more tears to cry, until the depression I had been in wrapped its skeletal claws around me and carried me into the grave it had been slowly preparing for me.
My husband was the one that died, not me. But it didn’t feel that way tonight.
Not without Ben to help me wade through the pain. Not without this new love to soften the harsh, unforgiving blows.
We had been so active this summer, but after that night, I stopped moving. I lay on that couch for days. My kids ran around me and Emma came over to help take care of them, but other than that I stayed planted.
Never once did I go up to my room or look at my bed again without feeling intensely sick to my stomach. Never once did I pass by Ben’s house that I didn’t burn with new grief and heartache.
I didn’t just stop trying.
I stopped living.
Stage Five: Acceptance
Grady is dead. Grady is not coming back.
These are truths I have come to terms with.
It has taken some time, more than a year, but I have finally reached the stage where I can accept this heartbreaking truth.
It took me a long time to get here and I learned a lot about myself along the way. There were times when I didn’t believe I would ever reach this point. There were times I was convinced I would die first, times when I knew that this grief would kill me.
There were times when I wanted it to.
But, despite my heartache and difficulties, I miraculously made it to the other side.
That doesn’t mean that everything is fantastic now. It doesn’t mean that I feel great all of the time and that life is easy. It really doesn’t mean that I have completely moved on and am okay with what happened to Grady.
I am not. And I still miss him fiercely. Daily. Hourly. Minute by goddamn minute.
I miss his touch, his smile, his laugh. I miss the smell of him wrapped up in our sheets. I miss the sight of him walking through the door after a long day at work. I miss his presence at the dinner table and the way he made each one of our children feel special and so loved.
I miss him. I miss him so very much.
But I have learned to live without him. I have learned to accept that he is gone. And I have come to terms with his absence.
Grief does not get easier. This is something I learned over this process. It does not get easier but it lessens in intensity.
As I move away from Grady’s death, I think about him less, I miss him… less. But when I do think about him, the ache is still there, the heartbreak is always just as strong.
Maybe that doesn’t make sense if you’ve never lost someone, but I’m not sure I will ever be able to think of Grady and our short time together without weeping. I am not sure I will ever watch our children grow without him there to experience it without hating his absence. I am not sure I will ever not miss him.
And that is the truth of losing someone you love. It always hurts. Always.
The same is true for Ben.
I lost him too. And the longer I try to live without him the deeper I realize my feelings for him go. I cannot take this pain. I cannot add his loss to Grady’s and breathe through the day. It is too much.
Grady had to go. The world, his illness and fate decided that there was no other choice.
But I am the one that banished Ben and I am afraid I will have to deal with these consequences for the rest of my miserable life.