It Follows You
The Pain of Loss
When you lose a spouse it is impossible to go through a day and not be reminded in some way of them. Little things conspire and the smallest of minutiae can trigger a flood of emotions. I went to a dentist yesterday for the first time since the death of my beloved wife over a year ago. As a new patient of course there is a raft of paperwork that must be completed. I should have been prepared for it but I wasn’t and the very nanosecond I realized what was to come I froze in terror, a wave of nausea struck, and then the pain of the loss broke upon my heart and soul like a tsunami, tearing at me, eroding my very being. I think I blacked out then because I blinked, cleared the moisture from my eyes, and suddenly I was back in the dentist office waiting room staring at that damn question, the one that asks about your marital status. The options are always the same four or five: single, married, divorced, sometimes separated, and the last one, the one that now best describes me, widowed. I circled it and moved on to the next question.
