Two years plus, the same and different

Language warning. One use of a swear word. This may be hard to read if you are still grieving Kevin.

So here I am, just over two years out from Kevin's death. For those of you counting, it's 111-and-a-half weeks. I still keep count without meaning to. Now I have to pause for a bit though I always know. So much is the same and so much is different. The last few weeks have been difficult, I've had big gulping waves of grief crash over me in ways that I've not felt in quite some time. I am reminded that, no matter how long it is, Kevin still is not here and I will always miss him.

At just over two years I am still shocked by his absence, still stunned that all of it really happened. He really had pancreatic cancer and he really died. That mother-fucker of a disease really did it. It ate him from the inside and extinguished his light. He really isn't on this planet anymore, at least not in the ways that I knew him best.

At just over two years I am at least as shocked by the fact that I am still here. Even more, I am stunned that I am at all functional, let alone doing pretty well most days. I miss him more than I can tell you yet I have found new joys in my life. I have been able to let in new love, been supported by new friends as well as old, and all of this still leaves room for Kevin. For me. For my grief which sometimes still overwhelms me. And that is okay, as it should be, all of it.

In the last two years I learned that it is okay to ask for help. I have learned that most people will be kind, if you give them a chance. I have sobbed in the arms of strangers and held others while they cried. I have learned that some people really do think it's their business how I grieve and how I express it. I have learned to ignore them, that no one can tell me or anyone else how long is too long. I have gotten really good at taking a deep breath before I respond to any suggestion that I have finished grieving Kevin. I have become much more comfortable with both silence and boundaries. I have been reminded, time and again, that we all are doing the best we can. Sometimes it is enough. Sometimes not. I have learned that the world will not stop as much as we may long for it to do so.

Two years is nothing and eternity. So much is the same and so much is different. I am so much the same and so different. The Laura I was before his diagnosis, illness and death is gone. I may look mostly the same but I am very different now. Yet I still am me. I am an altered me and in some ways I like this version more though the cost was too high.

What remains the same is the love. I still love Kevin, I always will. I still hold his love for me. I still love his kids, my family and friends. Love only creates more love, it is the easiest and best thing in the world to give away. I didn't know this as clearly then as I do now, but I have learned.

I have learned that love does not end. It does not end. It does not.

(c)2016 Laura S. Packer