And again.

I've tried to write social media posts that would "establish" it. I wasn't able to write a post when Daddy died, and I wasn't able to write a post when MyJamie died. Honestly, what I couldn't do was wade through all the expected comments, believing they could not bring any peace or ease to my broken heart. How could someone ever understand what it's like to lose MyJamie? His brother, my husband, broken in a way that I can guess at, but only guess, because there's no competition in grief, but I understand he lost an entire life. I lost the future I had planned, while the previous years had been a completely unexpected gift. I would ask his mother if I could pick him up from the skill center on Fridays. When I walked through the door and he saw me, MyJamie would jumped up, ran to get his coat and would race me out the door. When driving home from our Friday lunches he would play air guitar and sing, and sometimes he would hold my hand. I almost always passed the turn to take a longer way home. I never in my life thought I would be the recepient of a gift that was such a look of joy and love in someone's face when they saw me. Then it was gone. Quicker than it came, it was gone. We grew into each other's love after that first day we met. It grew, our companionship, it did. I didn't expect it. He gave it so freely. Then gone. My husband had well over 50 years of life with another person built, and I had planned for more. Social media just doesn't aptly cover such an event. I called my aunt this week, thinking again perhaps there was some secret she knew, something she could tell me. The stark honesty of her words, my pain made hers rise up, but I came to understand hers is always there. That's the secret, that right there. "They" tell you it goes away, "they" tell you it comes easier - well intentioned friends, self help books. But it does not. That's the truth "they" don't tell you. MyJamie's birthday is February 19. Daddy dies in less than a month, and three weeks later MyJamie dies. It's like a very bad Ground Hog Day movie, the cycle just repeats itself. Always in the last of Winter and start of Spring. It just happens. Now I wait for Daddy to die. Then MyJamie. We tackled yesterday differently. Plans for parties were no more, no cakes, no gifts, no family meals. Instead my husband suggested we drive to my mom's house. We went saying we would help with any errands, but she didn't need much done. I cooked a nice evening meal. Meatloaf. It was bland. Mom and he said it was good. The night before we ignored our grief until bedtime, letting the TV and the tablets and phones steal our consciousness away from the one thing on our mind. Then in bed the grief was too much, we could not console each other. His stronger than mine, and I prayed for my higher dosage of a sleep pill to put me to sleep. I used the higher dosage last night again, and I expect I will do it again tonight. Anything to get through these days, through these nights. Sometimes I sit in my living room chair, I seldom turn on the TV, and I will have allow myself to daydream, eyes closed, for minutes. For minutes with my eyes closed I can pretend, I can remember. I can hold myself in another place, different times, times when he was alive, times when I could hear his voice. But sleep never brings me dreams of him, and wakeful dreaming always ends.