The scream

There I was, standing over Deb's grave.

I was talking to her as I have been for the past nine months, telling her what I'd been doing, how the cats were doing, the usual things.

Then I read her tombstone.

It was the first time I had been there with the headstone in place. Seeing her name, her birthdate and the day she died in stone ... suddenly, it was real.

My wife is dead.

I don't know if I've been holding back as a defense mechanism, because I didn't want to truly face it, or if somewhere in my mind I was still hoping someone would tell me it's all been a horrible understanding, but I finally felt it click.

Deb's not coming back.

I started weeping. First a few sniffles, then a few tears, then full body heaves.

Then I screamed.

I didn't mean to scream. I just didn't know what else to do. There was no other way to express what I was feeling.

I don't know how to describe it except, and I don't mean this as a joke, it was like when Christopher Reeve screamed after Margot Kidder died in the first Superman movie.

It was a moment of total agony, and the only way I could let it out was a scream.

I went blind. I was in a rage. I put everything I had into that scream.

Then it stopped. I had nothing else to give. Or maybe I've exorcised the demon of grief that's been possessing me.

I won't say I felt better, but I did feel something resembling relief.

I don't feel Deb's presence any more. It's too early to say I've really let her go, but it's starting to feel that way. That's not to say I won't talk to her every now and then, or that she won't come to see me in my dreams, but I'm finally ready to say she's not here. And she's not going to be, except in my mind and spirit.

Everything has a price, and I guess the price I have to pay to move on with my life is to let her be a part of my past, and the best way to honor her is by making a future.

Perhaps this is acceptance.

Or perhaps just the echoes of a scream.