I don’t know what to do. When someone so close to you dies you tend to question certain things, well, you tend to question everything really. I asked the doctor to extend my sick leave for another week because I simply can’t bear to go to work yet, I know I can’t stay home forever, and trust me I wouldn’t want to either, but there are also quite some practicalities that need to be dealt with. That’s life for the ones that stay behind. Ben and I lived together and our flat will always remind me of him. So I’m going to move out. I can’t stay here, I simply can’t. Helen and Mona, who have not decided to get back together after this tragedy (it must be for real then), have agreed that Mona will be moving out and I will be moving in with Helen for now. It’s not a permanent solution because I don’t want to stay in this building and I don’t even know if I want to live with Helen, but it allows me to leave the flat Ben and I shared immediately and it also allows me to be with Helen. I thought about escaping it all, even for a couple of days, but I can’t leave her now. She just broke up with Mona and even though the whole situation forces them to be extremely civil about it, Mona’s not her friend right now. And Mona lost Ben too of course. We all lost him.
I asked Helen whether she wasn’t going to reconsider her decision to leave Mona but she was very adamant about it being permanent, now even more than before. For so many years it has always been Me, Helen, Mona and Ben. I guess from now on it’ll just be Helen and me. I feel for them you know, I know it took a lot from Helen to finally break up with Mona and one of the reasons why she felt strong enough to do so was Ben, little did she know he wasn’t going to be around anymore. So when my parents, who have been in town since last week and will be leaving tomorrow, asked me to come home with them for a couple of days I had to decline, for Helen’s sake (and my own). They understood.
It may sound weird but I get a lot of comfort from Fred and Ginger, I’m sure they must feel that something is going on, but of course their little cat brains can never understand. I guess that’s what so comforting about it, to them Ben – who loved them so much – isn’t dead (yet). Holding them does always make me cry though, but I’m so glad they’re here.
Last week I was totally numbed by it all, it’s all still a bit of a blur and I don’t really know how time passed. Then last weekend there was the memorial service, which hit us all really hard because it made it so definite and this week I seem to be passing my time by packing up things. I’m not just packing up my things; I’m packing Ben’s stuff as well. I have until the end of the month to move everything out but I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. My parents have spent a lot of time here the past week and probably everyone I know in this city has stopped by. (Even the people I didn’t want to see.) I find myself trying to actually think of Ben as little as possible. I try to stop myself as much as possible from thinking anything at all really…
I know we will all have to find some way to move on, but right now the world is still very much at a standstill for me.
your writing if marveouls, would you like to exchange links? let me know
again I’m so sorry for your loss.
I agree with franco – your writing is amazing. I was thinking about you the other day and wanted to [beg] ask you to please don’t stop writing. I feel what you are going through. I lost my mother and felt the same. The only thing you can do is keep taking it moment to moment, one day at a time.
I know that numbing feeling, when my Nan died, i felt like my confidante and friend was gone forever, and everything was so black.
It will pass, but you cannot rush it, as much as you want to. Life will get better, but it will not be straight away. Remember the good times you had, the smiles and the laughs. Maybe it will comfort you in the dark times. My thoughts are with you
I’m sorry, Hon, truly I am.
I feel your pain too. We are with you.