It’s been really hard lately. Don’t know why. I am both depressed and labile. truth is I never imagined living without you and I don’t much want to. I am stuck here without you, in a fairly barren place with almost no good friends, our kind of friends, nearby. I never thought what this would be like. It’s fairly grim. But I am housed, fed, and still travel some. Health is compromised but I’m working on being better. Our last ten years were so awful, we lost sight of one another and failed love from time to time. 

No Words

 I’ve always been comfortable with words — reading them, using them, writing them, speaking them. Lord knows it’s rare when I have nothing to say.

I guess I thought, for a while, I would find the woulds to express the profound wound of Jim’s death and horrendous loss of his partnership. That hasn’t happened. Now I think it may never happen.

Last year I was in Panama for Jim’s first death anniversary. I marked it but was distracted. This year I am wholly present and the devastation has only begun. Still looking for the words.

 he was gallant

over my innumeracy

and protective when I gave him a chance

he loved me to bits

even the bad bits

I loved him with

a ferocity that was less than kind

uniquely mine

 This grief, Jim, our grief, grows stronger not lesser. Why is that? This is a solitary grief, is that why it never seems less? Would if it be different if There were public markings. We have not believed in that but maybe it was about comfort, not display.

Bereft of Jim

 Bereft of Jim

bereft,

be-left

be-less

be Jim-less

Alone gives 

ample wallow

tidal sweep and swallow

Flawed

 It’s not only that we were so interwoven, but that we were one with the other, could correct, change course together, make us both solid. Now there is no solid, no way to be made whole. I live now so flawed without you.

Alone

 Alone, so hard. I miss you, and also alone.