I DO MISS HER

It is so different when she is gone. There is no one to talk to around here unless a neighbor comes around. What thoughts I have must be kept to myself. Or what joys I have I can’t share. Like glancing out the front door window and I see a rabbit hunched up in the wet grass and he just sits there for period of time. I must wait until she returns, or like when a neighbor brings me pizza and offers to bring soft drink as well. I have to eat it alone. It is different being alone.

I like reading and listening to old music and videos. But when I find an amazing video of the newborn grandson, just 12 hours old; and the beaming mother who is so full of love, joy, and total peace so soon after child birth, I must wait until she come home to share it. When I want to share it with this mother after twenty some years, she also is not there. I must retreat to the lonely house and go about my business.

My first real bout with alone-ness was the first morning after a very restless night being awake a lot with muscular aches and pains like flu or malaria. I am alone to bare my misery. When I get up, I feel just the same with tiredness as well and feel like retreating to the bed where I had no comfort before. How I wish I had someone with whom to share my misery and get some comfort! It is not too bad to sleep alone, while I am sleeping- but to wake up alone when I am miserable, that is something else. I struggled through the day and was releaved by the afternoon. But I was still alone. I called her on the phone and got a little pity, but it was nothing like her presence when I was miserable.

Then there are the little inconveniences, like deciding what to cook and then to eat it alone. The dishes still just sit there this third morning. With that cut on my thumb, I would have a good excuse to have her do them if she was here. Actually I wouldn’t even have to have any excuse- she would just do them. But can I wait to have them done till she returns? What a welcome that would be to her! And a confession of my ineptness of living alone. I also then think of what it would be like if I was always alone. I think of persons I know well who have been alone for years. I just can’t imagine being happy that way. Would I get used to it? I doubt it. True, “it is not good for the man to be alone”.

Loretta in Ohio for several days, August, 2009

Rebloged as she is at a Women's Retreat, October, 2016