In a couple of hours it will have been a full year since Sara set foot in our house. A year ago tonight, Sara and I called 911 because she’d gotten so weak that she couldn’t get up from a seated position anymore, and wasn’t safe in our home. She died in the hospital 2 weeks later.
I miss Sara. Our doggos miss Sara. Our home misses Sara.
Some days, I still feel like I’m just on the other side of another reality, one where Sara and George and I are all alive, here in our home. Where we’re a happy family and the hell that was last year didn’t happen. It’s almost as if somewhere, somehow, what was supposed to be is still playing out, and I just drew the short straw – I’m the Trent who has to live in a world without them. My love for them both is still so strong and I hate that all I have of them is sitting in two urns in our living room.
I don’t want to be someone who becomes completely lost in my grief. I know that people survive tragedies – humans are resilient. I am not unique in going through this – millions of people experience deaths of loved ones every year. I am not “special” because of my grief. It just takes time and effort to try and learn how to balance my particular grief within my life. Only I can do this – this isn’t something someone else can just tell me how to do. I have to figure our how to hold my grief, reshape my expectations of my future, and connect with the life that continues moving all around me.
Doing all this work is important and necessary, but it’s painful and some days it’s just too much.