Tonight I went to a Survivors of Suicide support group.
It was...weird. I'm used to being the support group leader. I found myself comforting someone else rather than crying my eyes out. Maybe I don't know how to be on the other side anymore.
I sat there with a rock in my stomach, just waiting for the inevitable moment when I would have to say it was my spouse who was dead. It did not feel real. I felt like I was explaining the premise of a movie or a book.
I'll probably go back, but so far I haven't met anyone else who lost a spouse to suicide. I feel alone in that.
And I don't want to think about anyone else being in the kind of pain I'm in right now.
As I drive home most days, I feel sad. Sometimes, to curb the urge to cry in my car, I imagine Rick waiting for me at home, sitting in his chair, watching sports. I go through the whole scenario in my mind. I walk in the front door. He turns to me with a big smile and says, "Hi, baby!" The cats come over to greet me. "They missed you!" Rick says. I go over to where he's sitting and give him a kiss. "How was your day?" he asks me.
"Good," I say. "How was yours?"
Sometimes we talk about our day. Sometimes we talk about the cats. Other times, I just climb into the chair with him and sit on his lap for a few minutes.
By the time I'm done imagining, I'm smiling. And I pull in my driveway. The reality of an empty house in comparison to the old days I just imagined hits me like a ton of bricks, the way it always does. Sometimes I cry in my car for a few minutes before getting out. Sometimes I cry while I get my mail and let myself in the house, not caring whether the neighbors will hear me. Sometimes I make it inside the house before I cry.
I don't remember what my heart felt like before it hurt so much. All I know is that I want that feeling back.
I just finished Rick's golf on the DVR. I reached the end. It's over. I blogged my way through it each night until right now. I'm afraid to delete it. It feels final. There won't be anything left in the DVR except my stuff. I'm the only one who lives here now.
I just keep staring at it on the screen. I could keep it. I could delete it. I watched it all. I spent these nights looking at the green and thought of my husband. I listened to the announcers in the background and remembered how Rick loved David Feherty. I smile. I cry.
We watched it, Rick. We watched all your golf. It was the soundtrack to my nightly blogging and now it's done.
I miss him. I miss his voice telling me to look up from what I was always doing to see the leaderboard.
I miss Rick. I finished his golf. And I'm still afraid to delete it.
