This evening, as I closed up the house early in order to get to sleep to relieve an exhaustion that I cannot shake, I stared up at the black and white family pictures that I’ve hung in the corner of the living room.  Before I turn off the lamp there, I looked at David.  His face, as familiar as my own, the way he holds himself, where he puts his hands in each picture, the tilt of his head, where he looks and how he looks, likewise familiar, comfortable, loved.  My knowledge of him “proves” that my life did include him, but as I look at the pictures, I almost can’t believe that there was a life with this person who was a partner to me.  It is not a sad feeling but a perplexing one.

When I am at my emotional best these days, it does not break my heart to look at a picture of David.  I am confused, perplexed, in wonderment (still not close to feelings I am trying to describe) that there was a time when he was present and now there is a time when he is utterly not present.  Perhaps it if from these questions that people form the strong believe that they will see their beloved lost person after their own death. I don’t necessarily not believe this.  I just have no reason, from my experience, to really trust the belief.  And then again, the belief does not matter in this discussion.  I am abandoned right now.  Some totally unknown future does not count in these feelings.  Likewise, thoughts of him observing from afar or even existing in some other place offer no comfort.

I am left wondering how I can hold so many lives inside of me and why I have to. I went to sleep early and then woke up after a dream in which I continued my internal discussion/confusion/state of being.  

In the dream I was in a car, riding with two people who have long loved and taken care of me.  The dream had other threads of concern and conversation, but those fell away.  We found a place to park and got out of the car to take a walk.  I wondered whether it was appropriate to create life with someone that I was merely very fond of.  This feeling felt well fussed over inside although not discussed.  

As I debated inside my mind, the idea of David came to me and the world dramatically expanded on the thought.  At the same time, I held distinctly opposing and very deep, gut-wrenching feelings -- I felt intense and realized love and I felt loss and abandonment equally intense and real.  I could and could not hold both of these feeling at the same time, and I could not remember how I moved from one to the other.  It was as if the time of his death had not existed, like weeks and months were cut out of my memory.  I knew that he had not left, we had not broken up.  He was with me completely one moment and then some time later, I noticed he was completely gone from all the corners of my life.  It was at the same time devastating and perplexing.  I could not take in how all these worlds or lives or experiences could exist at the same time.  

Perhaps the people who were with me, who are real in my past or present life and who care/cared deeply for me, represent the strength that I need to dive head first into this perplexity.

I can’t go beyond these understandings, these rationalizations, the whys of my whirling mind.  I can only witness them right now.  Is this trying to “live the questions”?