Old Memories

Do I choose to wake up every day and grieve? No! I wake up every day and know a part of me is missing. – Renee Scrima

Every day. Every single day for 598 mornings I wake up tired. I am tired of waking up to this reality. I am so completely exhausted of it hitting me in the face repeatedly all day.

Feeling tired is not new. The new part of this grief surprised me. I was thinking today about what I can write. Like so many times before I looked at my Facebook timeline a year ago this month to remind me of some moment. Unlike the other times I looked, a year ago this month Caleb was already dead and had been for over seven months.

I do not know how to describe the feeling. Not having new memories with him is the worst but having recent memories was a small comfort. Today’s search made me realize there are no more recent memories. All I have is over nineteen months “old” memories with no possibility of any newer.

Gut punch: The same memories will keep getting replayed in my mind, over and over.

I cannot have memories of him dating or married. I will have no memories of his children. Those grandchildren will not be in my arms. We have had two birthdays each, Thanksgivings, and Christmases without Caleb. Each time we run away from making a memory at home without him.

The only thing I have new left is a memory someone else might have and willing to share. No one has shared one with me yet. I hope people are not shy about sharing because I am thinking, maybe, no one else knew him well enough.

Here is one of the worst things about having someone you love die: It happens again every single morning – Anna Quindlen

 

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Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash