Homesick

I started traveling.  Never before have I felt such an ache for something that no longer exists.  If I thought being at home surrounded by all his things was difficult, this is harder.  Death, of course, is the ultimate finality.  The thing is, I have to face the finality of it over and over again, in each and every action.  The viewing, the funeral, sorting through his clothes and shoes and books and music.  Facing it in making new memories and experiences without him.  Every time I had to navigate handing back a snack while going 80 on the expressway- facing it over and over.  I wonder if the grief runs out once you are done facing new experiences without him.....  Until you hit the big milestones- first tooth lost, first homecoming, first wedding, first grandchild.

There have been moments of missing home so acute that if I would have had a way to physically get there without uprooting my kids in that moment- I would already be back.  The sheer intensity of it is beyond words.  Our bodies and minds very quickly learn to forget pain, it's why women have more than one kid.  Insulation.  Sometimes I try to avoid the pain, but for the most part I've stopped as I've realized- it hurts worse that way.  A needle dragging through my skin as I writhe around instead of sitting still.

Pain is the ultimate human unifier.  All of us are in it, experience it, live it out at some point in our lives- after all every human relationship ends in pain even if you manage to live a perfect existence to that point.

There is no avoidance, no going back.  My home is undone.  My safety zone in turmoil.  For five beautiful weeks I lived my dream.

Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.

Daniel Defoe, "Robinson Crusoe"