November 11, 2025. 11//11/2025. Veteran's Day. Second anniversary of the day Connie died.
Last year I was in Thailand on this date and had plenty of things to distract me. Things that shielded me from the pain. Things that put me outside of my home and the family room where Connie died on the hospital bed at 5:30am.
After being married for 45 or 46 years, whatever it was, I just cannot avoid feeling the hole that is now in my life. Even when I smile or laugh, it feels hollow. I feel hollow. I feel like I have lost the ability to see a particular color, but don't know what it is. Feel that I have lost the ability to hear something that used to always be there, but now is gone.
Some people say I will eventually get over it. Some say I never will, but it will just get easier to bear. And some people I can tell just do not understand. They never had what I had.
Sort of fitting that today has been cold. Showing me the absence of a warmth I used to have. And damn this house is so quiet. I am trying to avoid walking through the family room. To many visions still frozen in my mind that I wish I had never had to see. No one should ever have to look at the face of someone they love and is now dead. It is something that I doubt will ever be erased from my mind. Not a thing someone can say "well one day you will only think of happy memories." I doubt that. Watch a loved one getting zipped up into a body bag and tell me that doesn't damage you permanently.
So 2 years. And I still cry at times.
Last year I was in Thailand on this date and had plenty of things to distract me. Things that shielded me from the pain. Things that put me outside of my home and the family room where Connie died on the hospital bed at 5:30am.
After being married for 45 or 46 years, whatever it was, I just cannot avoid feeling the hole that is now in my life. Even when I smile or laugh, it feels hollow. I feel hollow. I feel like I have lost the ability to see a particular color, but don't know what it is. Feel that I have lost the ability to hear something that used to always be there, but now is gone.
Some people say I will eventually get over it. Some say I never will, but it will just get easier to bear. And some people I can tell just do not understand. They never had what I had.
Sort of fitting that today has been cold. Showing me the absence of a warmth I used to have. And damn this house is so quiet. I am trying to avoid walking through the family room. To many visions still frozen in my mind that I wish I had never had to see. No one should ever have to look at the face of someone they love and is now dead. It is something that I doubt will ever be erased from my mind. Not a thing someone can say "well one day you will only think of happy memories." I doubt that. Watch a loved one getting zipped up into a body bag and tell me that doesn't damage you permanently.
So 2 years. And I still cry at times.