While my girlfriend was dying....

That was the phrase that came unbidden to my lips as I was trying to explain something completely mundane.  "While my girlfriend was dying..." began a sentence I thought I was going to be unaffected by finishing.  That was two weeks ago. 

The obscenity of the grief and despair of that sentence is still haunting me.  "While my girlfriend was dying..." I uttered as if I was discussing having my car washed or cable TV installed.  So utterly common, so utterly matter-of-factly.    Such a lie.  Not the sentence but the pretense.  The farce that nothing was wrong in my life, that I had come to some sort of terms with Sara's last conscious breath, and my own survival despite her absence.

Never have I been such a liar, such an insincere son-of-a-bitch.    It's as if being stabbed once by her death, I again stabbed myself with the same implement to satisfy my own curiosity of wondering if it had ever really hurt as much as it did the first time.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry I ever said that phrase, "While my girfriend was dying..." I had no way of knowing the after effects, the helplessness I feel at the grief that wants to drown out everything else.  Like a child who hits the cold sidewalk for the first time and has to learn the lesson that concrete is hard, and running dangerous.

Comments

[em]

Erik. I think it's so crazy, we have words that string together in that way, but no words to say the extremity of grief. This thing of going on past the moment which is unthinkable to us, but we go on because what else is there to do?

It seems like to go on is to deny the truth of what was.

I'm not trying to dig into your psyche, your post triggered something in me even though my experiences are way different than yours.

[kathy a.]

erik, i'm so sorry.

for what it is worth, losing sara was and is at the entire center of your life now. you'd be lying if you denied that. people may be startled by "when my girlfriend was dying," but it is factual -- and you aren't disrespecting her by saying it factually, even if you aren't telling every damned person exactly how you feel about it.

grieving truly sucks. please be good to yourself. xoxo

[aura]

Erik, you were so good to Sara and gave her so much of yourself. I wish you a speedy recovery and that you will find joy and peace again in your life.

We had a happy ending and it still took us several months to recover. I don't think that there can be any bigger emotional trauma in a family than cancer.

[Jeff]

I am going through all of this now my girlfriend was diagnosed with breast cancer in July and the cancer spread and is now brain and bone cancer and is terminal I am having a very hard time dealing with it , I don't know how I am going to live without her ,she is my rock
Jeff