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Two Years Later - Not healed…but healing
Thursday night was the annual Bailey House Auction and it was terrific as always. As I was getting ready at home before meeting up with my family for dinner prior to the event, I thought back to where I was two years ago that night and much of it did not seem very different at all.
The music was still piping through every room in the apartment and I still stood in my towel thinking about what I was going to wear as I sipped a glass of red wine. When I went to call out for Rand to see what he was doing, however, that is when it hit…nothing was the same. Nothing at all.
The music I was listening to had morphed from Rand’s favorite mixes of old school dance classics to my Glee Playlist. The bathroom I stood in two years ago was filled with brass fixtures and gilded accents while my new bathroom was nothing but polished nickel and white marble. Although the wine was still Pinot Noir, the glass I was holding was no longer the traditional crystal wine goblet but a stem-less Riedel.
Even though many parts of my “new life” (or as I often refer to it, Life After Rand) have now started to feel normal, I still instinctively call out for him as I did on Thursday, hopefully assuming that he is sitting at his desk or talking away on his phone somewhere close by.
When I got out of the shower two years ago, however, Rand was not sitting at his computer nor was he talking on the phone at his desk. Instead, he was lying on our bed telling me he wasn’t going to make it to the Bailey House Auction as he wasn’t feeling well. As this was such a big night for him, I knew it must have been serious and I insisted on staying home as well. In typical Rand fashion, however, he somehow convinced me that it was more important to attend the event to represent us both.
Two years ago was the first time I went to the Bailey House Auction without Rand on my side and it was simply not the same. Three days later I brought him to the hospital and a few days after that we got the devastating news of the tumor on his Pancreas. Thursday night marked my third year attending the auction without Rand.
Anyone who has lost a loved one hears that time heals wounds. Am I healed from the loss of Rand? Absolutely not…nor will I ever be. But two years after it all started, the wounds are not so deep and the tears are not so frequent. And even though I still have the urge to call out for him at home, or pick up the phone to tell him something about my day, those urges have started putting a smile on my face instead of tears in my eyes. Not always…but more often.
Life has indeed changed and Thursday night reinforced not only just how different Life After Rand is, but also how much I have begun to adapt to the changes. Not healed…but healing.
One More Day –
T
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