She is long lost in a black oblivion. Three years and seven months lost, as of today.
And yet I can’t get her out of my mind.
I was, variously, throughout thirty-four years of marriage, the love of her life, a jackass who treated her ‘like shit,’ and her best friend.
The latter description is my saving grace. If it had ended with me treating her like shit, I doubt if I’d still be here to share these personal thoughts with all of my three readers. Too personal, you say — a blog is a chronicle of personal reflections — so be it.
We married each other relatively late in life, right around forty, each of us with a fairly long list of previous relationships, good, bad and disastrous. We both knew several of our old flames, and some we wanted to kill and some we respected. Either way, and for whatever reason, we ended up with each other, in front of a Justice of the Peace in Vancouver, British Columbia.
In a private ceremony on the balcony of a house in the mountains with a view of the lights of Vancouver, we put the rest of our lives in each other’s trust and care, and then we went back to our hotel room, smoked weed and watched Easy Rider on the Late Movie.
It was the greatest night of my life.
And now, thirty-seven years and seven months later, in a bungalow in Upstate New York, I smoke weed and watch Easy Rider on TV and I am still on that balcony in the mountains above Vancouver. I will always be there, until oblivion claims me too.
Mich, it saddens my heart for the loss of your wife, and then again, it shows you have a streak of survival that permeates your earthly soul. We all say things to our wives that the second we say them, we wish them back, but its too late and the hurt is there, if not forever, but for a time to long to ignore. Us men are cruel, more to ourselves than to our spouses, but it always hurts the ones we love because we don’t know how to channel our own short comings to heap it upon ourselves, so we lash out on the ones we care the most for. In her Heavenly home, she will forgive you when the day your hold her in your arms again, and life will be better than you could ever dream. Be a good man to yourself, your love ones, your children, your friends and to strangers. Give them the kindness you forgot to give your wife and good will become of it. God did not make any of us perfect, nor did he ever intend to, but he wants us to be as good as we can to others. I hope you find peace and personal forgiveness to yourself for the misgivings in your life. It’s never too late to start, and never to late at the end to say the words, God forgive me for my sins and misgivings. Your loving wife awaits your presence, and all will be wonderful beyond belief. I lost my oldest son in 2012 to drug abuse, and there is not a day, sometimes a minute that I am washed in guilt and shame for the things we, and I said to each other over his poor personal choices fueled by addition. It’s my personal hell that shapes my daily life with my loved ones out of shame and misguidance. Be brave Mitch and know that the best is yet to come.
Comforting words and something to hang onto, thanks. I am so sorry for the loss of your son.