A visit from you

December 11, 2017

The printer just made the cycling noise that lets me know you are here.

So I started blabbing to you. I think you may be around at other times, but when I hear this, I jump at the chance that you’re trying to tell me you’re here.

I love you. You know that.

I wonder what you think when you see me alone and crying, wailing.

I think of how that would affect me, watching over you and seeing you in your misery. I would hate it, of course, but what can I do? This is awful. This is miserable.

I try to go on. Some days, I think I can. I have more hope in a future on my own. I feel not quite excitement, but slight anticipation of an upcoming event – meeting Tina for a movie/dinner night, the SAE Christmas party, things like that. I look forward to escaping my solitary tomb for a little while.

But then I long to come back home, to you, to your photos, and videos, and your “stuff.”

I don’t want to go on. I want to stay in our world, try to recreate it, memorialize it, feel it again in some small way by touching your things, watching our TV shows, but usually, staring at your picture and talking to you.

I don’t want to leave you behind, but I know I must.

About the author

Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”

In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.

Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.

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