I’ll say this in one long sentence and then I’ll shut the hell up, have a brandy and go to bed.
My wife had a big heart and for thirty-four years I was inside it and when her heart stopped beating I was suddenly and shockingly cast into a void, where I suspect she is now, in an oblivion and not, as her Catholic faith led her to believe, in an afterlife of continuing energy and awareness in some divine sphere or dimension — and my only corporeal salvation, for what it’s worth, is that the void in which I now survive is surrounded by the warmth and the strength, the spirit and the ethereal companionship of her memory, and it is that in which I now wrap myself as protection from the fear of loneliness and the suicidal yearning to be with her, knowing as my intelligence perceives, notwithstanding the well-meaning help and advice of the church and its dedicated believers, the stark reality of death.
I FEEL YOUR PAIN.
The river of life is a meandering, unrelenting force that eventual consumes every living thing. It has no motive, meaning, care nor intent. It simply is. We alone, as far as I know, are left to ascribe meaning to the experience and offer solace and a relatable context for the swimmers still parsing clues of their existence within the cultural iceberg that has hold of them. I hope you’re memories bring you comfort.