When I wake up tomorrow, it will have been 7 months since Sara died. 213 days. Just over a month until her birthday (she’s supposed to be turning 43) and then another month until the anniversary of George’s stillbirth, and then I get to relive the memory of the last 3 months of Sara’s life. Not quite 3 weeks after Sara’s first deathiversary will be what should be our 4th wedding anniversary and the day after, my 37th birthday.
I am a numbers person and I hate that Sara’s death has stolen numbers as a comfort from me. Now I’m in this strange era that is measured in the time I’ve been alive that she hasn’t, and there is also the parallel time of what should have been but isn’t.
I had a statistically shitty year in 2019 and now I find no comfort in knowing odds of a given thing are in my favor, because what does that even mean when my wife died of cancer that was so advanced when it was discovered that it surprised her oncologist, and continued surprising him when it acted in ways he (an expert in that type of cancer) was not used to seeing? And what comfort can good odds ever be again when that same year I lost our pregnancy at just under 20 weeks? I dont have those odds handy, but why us? Why George? He should have been ok by that point.
Numbers used to bring me comfort, but not anymore. Now I have to find a way to live with these numbers, these days, this grief, for the rest of my life.