Time stands still

Tomorrow it will be five months to the day since we lost Billy.  I am writing tonight because tomorrow I may not be able to process my thoughts with much clarity.  As each month passes the anguish inside us remains.  It is unchanging and the only constant that we now know.  Sure we have at this point learned how to force ourselves to go through the motions of some semblance of a normal life.  But there is no doubt, nothing for us will ever be normal again.

This morning when we got to our store a gentleman was waiting.   It was Billy's last boss there to present us with his w-2 and a flyer for a hospice event coming up.  How is that for a split paradigm?  Bill wept, I held him, silent tears falling as I nestled my face in his hair, holding on the best I could.  Then we dried our eyes, unlocked our store and faced the day. 

There is a surreal quality to most of our existence these days.  Underlying everything is the feeling that Billy isn't really gone.  He can't be. Its not possible.  It is obviously true but there are parts of us that may never grasp this truth.  So we create our own reality.  A mixture of the tangible and the surreal.  Its the only way we hold on.

Later in the day, a young man was sitting on a bench across from our shop having lunch.  I can not tell you how much he looked like Billy.  The way he sat, his appearance, how he held his sandwich, I swore it was him.  I had to go look.  I had to get about five feet away from the poor guy before my brain would tell my heart it wasn't him.  I think he must have thought I was crazy.  and maybe I am.  I might be.

The thing that scares me most is that this grief thing seems to be getting harder not easier.  In the early days, there was just raw pain or numbness, no rational thought.  I couldn't tell you my name some days.  When the officers asked me Billy's age the first day I got it wrong!  I added a year.  It was shock.

Now, with the mind beginning to think again, comes a different kind of soul searing pain.  Its duller but deeper and the realization that Billy will never come through our door physically again is almost unbearable.  Being able to contain the pain for periods of time doesn't help either.  Because when it gets out, it erupts with a vengeance that is all encompassing. 

Five months without that smile, Five months without that laugh, Five months of a closed door behind which lies Billy's room, Five months of longing for just one more of everything.....Time stands still.