Ten years ago today, Paul died.  Ten years.  A decade.

The ubiquitous “they” would tell me – life has moved on – time has passed – you have adjusted.  Or I hear “You have done so well” or “What a great life you have.”  And my soul wants to scream, “I have NOT adjusted.”   Yes, life has moved on, but my heart hasn’t.  I still love this man and still feel like I am married.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t live with me anymore. CS Lewis explained it well in his painful reflection, A Grief Observed, penned after his wife, Joy’s death –

  “Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.”

I am that one-legged person.  I walk well.  I smile and laugh.  I dote on my grandchildren.  I travel God’s world.  I am eternally grateful for all that God has done for me.  But . . .                                                                                                 I do it all as a single woman, missing a limb.

I miss Paul.