I’ve now survived two years without my love, my husband Tom. Two years seems absolutely impossible—it somehow feels simultaneously impossibly short and impossibly long. I wonder how it’s possible that the world has continued on without him in it. So much has happened since he died—how can it be only two years? And also—he was just here, I was just talking to him, we were just laughing about some foolishness of the dogs, I can still hear his laugh and feel his ribs against my arm, how can he be gone?
The most surprising realization I’ve had this anniversary is that I am not lonely. I’ve been “alone” now for two years, and I definitely felt lonely for a long time. I was surrounded by people who were available to me, but even when I was with them, I felt lonely.
My husband and I spent 12 years together, day in and day out. The rhythm of my life was built around us. Before my husband’s stroke, we began our days together around 5 a.m., drinking coffee and talking about the upcoming day. After work, we’d sit on the front porch or the couch with cocktails and share funny stories about our days. We found the contrasts between my work in academia and his in construction endlessly amusing (one example: I began meetings by reviewing the agenda, he began by saying, “Alright, listen up, dick heads”).
We ate dinner together, and even when we engaged in different activities in the evening—usually Tom tinkering in his Garage Mahal and me reading or working in the house—we would periodically wander into the other’s space to share a frustration or anecdote. And we ended each day together in bed, laughing, cuddling, loving each other.
After his stroke, our day-to-day activities were even more intertwined because he relied on me for so much. We were nearly always in the same room or at least within sight-distance of each other.
And then it was all gone. The house, the garage, the bed—it all felt empty. The days lacked structure. I still woke up at 5 a.m. out of habit, but not having someone to talk to, as I did before his stroke, or someone to kiss on the cheek as he went back to dozing, as I did after his stroke, made me feel like I was free-falling from the moment I got up.
It felt lonely. I wasn’t lonely in the way I’ve always understood loneliness before. I was lonely for Tom. Being with others didn’t assuage my loneliness one bit because I wasn’t lonely for company—I was lonely for Tom and the life we shared. Not just the man or the activities, but the entirety of what we had together—the spoken and the unspoken, the smells and tastes, the feelings of security and acceptance and love that permeated everything.
My life felt empty, not because it was empty, but because it wasn’t full of coffee at 5 a.m. with my husband, funny stories about his work, and him coming in from the garage smelling like sawdust. There was no more knowing look on his face when I considered saying something snarky and then thought better of it. There was no more of his hand around mine.
That loneliness lasted through the first year after his death and into the fall. At some point around the 17th month, it started fading. It faded so gradually I didn’t even realize it was happening.
And then this past weekend, I realized I hadn’t felt that aching loneliness in a while. I miss my husband like crazy and I wish every day that he was still here with me, but the loneliness I have felt in the last six months or so has been fleeting, lasting a few hours at a time.
I’m certainly not the person I was before he died, but I think I am at the point in this journey where people say “things are back to normal.” I don’t know what “normal” is, really, and I like to think I’ve never lived a normal life. But I do like not feeling like I’m free-falling.
I’ve established new routines that feel comfortable. I’ve survived challenges that terrified me (every house repair and maintenance task) and now I at least feel confident that the house will not collapse on me. I expect more loneliness but I also know that it won’t last forever.