…what happens when you return?
Returning home after the death of a loved one who lives – lived – in that home with you is something that a million words couldn’t fully capture. I didn’t go home until the day after Sara died – I spent the first day/night at my mom’s house. But it was quickly evident to me that our dogs needed to be home, and I needed to be home.
Things had been hectic the two weeks before that – with Sara in the hospital I’d been spending so much time there with her, and so little time at home. Most days had involved driving back and forth between the house and the hospital several times to take care of the dogs and take care of Sara, though some days I was lucky to have a friend who could pop in and tend to the dogs, saving me a trip. I slept at the house most nights, though looking back now I wish I’d stayed with Sara overnight more at the hospital.
Coming home for the first time – there was this unnatural silence. As I entered the house and set my keys down, the silence carried in it an inescapable truth that Sara would never set foot in the house again. There was no need to rush back to the hospital. I looked around at the perfect blend of her and I that became our home, and was overwhelmed by the love that was now missing half of its source.
Every day since then, I’ve been living this surreal life where it feels like any moment now Sara should walk in the door. At first, it was things like the paperwork from her treatments, the masks I bought to keep her safe during her chemo treatment, her multiple water cups stashed around the house, the setup in the guest room upstairs where she’d been sleeping before her hospitalization, because she couldn’t make it up and down the stairs to get to our basement bedroom anymore.
As the months have passed, I’m still confronted daily with reminders that she’s gone. Really, what catches my eye (my heart) depends on the day. Last weekend I cleaned some stuff out of the garage that we hadn’t really touched since we moved in here 4 years ago, and it occurred to me that I could never ask her where she got the cool black stretchy fabric and wire wings that I found, or whether they had been for her or the dog. I wished I’d asked her about them when I saw them in 2016 when we moved in together. A few weeks ago, I finally decided to watch the rest of the episodes from the most recent season of Bob’s Burgers. It was Sara’s favorite show, and one that slowly grew on me until we started watching the episodes weekly together during the 2018-2019 season. Sara only had the opportunity to watch a few episodes in the 2019-2020 season; the last one she watched was in the hospital, I think. It really hurt my heart to watch it, knowing that we were supposed to have watched the episodes together. It’s as if I’d been waiting for her to watch the rest, and giving in and doing so without her was another recognition that she is really gone.
I try to remember the love that we had and focus on the beauty that she brought to my life – love and beauty that still resides in my memories and in the home we made together, and in the friends that she brought into my life. However, she is gone. GONE. I’m never going to get another kiss from her, or have the opportunity to get another one of her amazing hugs. I’m never again going to get to watch her face light up in a moment of pride at having accomplished something, and will never get to taste another delicious meal that she made for us with so much love.
I know some people find comfort in the idea of their loved ones moving on to heaven and looking down or maybe visiting, continuing to send their love… but these ideas don’t bring any solace to me. I don’t begrudge anyone their faith, and I’m glad that these ideas bring them comfort, but when directed at me in response to my grief they feel dismissive. I watched Sara die, and I’m the one who has to live in our house surrounded by the trinkets and reminders of our life together. As much as I love our home, some days it just feels so incredibly empty without her – a shell filled with what looks like our life, but is now some strange life that I’m trying to learn to live with.