Eulogy

This past week was the first Thanksgiving I had without my spouse since two years before we got married. We married just over six years ago. I think two years before that we began dating and going to holidays with each other's family. Depending on the calendar and Thanksgiving, her birthday was usually on or right around Thanksgiving. This year, no call, no talk, no card, no nothing between us for either special day.

Essentially, I have realized I must live as if my former wife no longer exists. She was annihilated by the person who bears her name now, but not her personality or her love for me. My grief is bottomless when it shows itself. I can't put it all into words.

An image came to mind while I was dreaming about a month ago. She's reaching up to me, arms outstretched while she's being pulled away under water by an unseen force. Her hair is wet, her face is wet, I see love for me, recognition of me in her eyes. Maybe a touch of The Titanic finale there, the final scene when Leonardo's character sinks away into the deep, arms outstretched. We saw that movie together at the theater when it came out. I remember she cried at that part.

Another image is one I imagined while going through a formal thought exercise to get closure the other day, the day after her birthday. I pictured her preparing one of the meals she liked to prepare for me, when she liked to cook (stacks of cookbooks in the kitchen bookcase, every kitchen trinket and tool from Pampered Chef and the kitchen store you could think of), and sitting at the dinner table with me. She is smiling, looking at me lovingly, adoringly. She pets the cats we got together, who come up to greet her. She kisses me gently, lovingly. This is the picture of our shared home at its warmest and most peaceful.

I've seen my marriage "flash before my eyes" a couple different ways -- snippets of memories flash by: from the Cape, from college, from Ohio, from Michigan, from her family's home in Connecticut, from our house, holidays, special moments, milestone events, even fights. I cry. Too much to dwell on too long. It begins to feel like self-inflicted torture and I need to stop. The desire to move on and forget must be balanced with the desire to be honest and not forget or deny the past.

The part of her to whom I was married no longer exists. The person who left and who lives on wants nothing to do with me. So, I own my love for the woman I married and who was a faithful loving wife and friend for almost 6 years. There is a part of me, deeply hurt, quietly present and waiting to be discovered, who sobs and does not understand what's happened. He's a little boy. He doesn't understand complex relationships, legal issues, adult reality. He is crushed. I have a lot of compassion for him since I realized how much he's hurting. He needs time to get over things, unlike the brusque man on the surface, who sometimes races ahead of the feelings inside.

I can't do a true eulogy in this forum. It's too personal, too lengthy, too maudlin. I just wanted to express the idea. Basically, I need only rewind my memory a few months before the radical change when my divorce began (before I knew it would end in divorce), and remember and say goodbye to that person. And giving the child within the opportunity to grieve and be comforted.