"Are you doing okay?"
"How are you doing?"
"How are you holding up?"
The questions don't stop, and to be honest, when someone asks, I want to cry. Or punch them in the nose and ask the question right back at them.
Grief. It's a funny thing, but not in a "haha" way.
This isn't the first time someone close to me, in my heart, has died. But those were somewhat expected due to the circumstances. This was not.
I woke up in the morning to find that the man who had been by my side for the past six years had died in his sleep.
I am not a heavy sleeper. After five children, and their sometimes late night peccadilloes, that was off the table decades ago.
But there was nothing to wake me.
All I know is that when we went to bed I said, "I really love you, you know."
"Yeah, yeah, they all say that!"
"I do really love you."
How can someone be okay? How can you hold up or do anything, when the person who has been there through every night and every morning is gone?
When I am not around people, I am truly alone.
Before, even when we weren't in the same physical location, he was there, a phone call or a text away. Not anymore.
And when I am around people, it is exhausting. I have to pretend that I'm "holding up". But I'm not.
Today was not good. I went to go help a friend, and ran into another one who didn't know...yet.
"It's great to see you! How is everything going?"
And I started crying, and then explained. And she hugged me and asked me to call her anytime. And she meant it.
I had time to let it fade to background noise after that.
But then the call on his cell phone from another friend, who didn't know.
So I cried once again as I broke the news.
I am not okay. Not right now. Not for a while
We are not okay. Those of us who are faced with a sudden or unexpected death.
There is no warning, no ability to mentally prepare.
Just the sudden arrival of death like a stone thrown through a plate glass window.
And we find ways to cope, to pretend to make it through another day so that we don't have to hear the silence, feel the absence in our lives.
But for now, it will take time to work through this.
Ask if we need a hug, or if we need to be left alone.
Ask if we need help with anything and be willing to follow through with that phone call, because we don't have the energy to do it ourselves..
But please don't ask "Are you doing okay?" Because we aren't.
