Where Do I go From Here?

My husband of almost 38 years was gone! What would I do without him? Despite my sadness at losing him, I also felt sad for myself……

That night, the night he passed away, I stroked his face and kissed him for the last time. I felt the loss of his presence so intensely. He was such a big personality! He had a loud voice, a big laugh and a smile that made everything alright. Even in his illness he had been my rock.

The funeral director came to get him. As he wheeled him out of the assisted living residence for the last time, the staff on duty that night lined the hallway to say goodbye, many with tears in their eyes and others who reached out to me with a pat on the shoulder or a hug. Their devotion to him was evident and I knew they would also grieve his loss.

Fortunately the weather was beautiful the day of the funeral. He was buried in the family plot and, despite a little mix up with where to dig the grave, everything went well.

Let me tell you about the little mix up that I referred to above. The family plot has 12 grave sites in it. There is a monument with his grandmother and grandfather on one side and his parents on the other. There is another monument separated from the first by a bench, that has Al and me on one side and his sister and her husband on the other. He and I are on the side with his grandparents. There are two grave sites between them and us.

The day of the funeral I noticed that the covered pile of dirt was not where it should have been when they dug his grave. At the end of the service, when everyone had walked away, I mentioned to the funeral director that apparently they had dug in the wrong place, putting him in one of the two spaces between his grandparents and us and not in the space below his name on our monument which sat close by. The director agreed.

My sister-in-law and I talked to people from the cemetery and they insisted that the grave dug was where he was supposed to be but they finally saw how ridiculous that was since his name was on the monument and reason dictated that he should be buried there under his name. They said they would move him to the chapel and would dig in the proper place then bring him back to bury him correctly before the end of the day.

The funeral director left and with assurance that the mistake would be taken care of quickly, we left. Walking away, looking back at that hillside with his coffin sitting there in the sunlight and nothing around but the slight breeze that was blowing, made me feel like I was abandoning him, leaving him there, exposed and alone.

Thankfully they got it all fixed that afternoon and he was finally where he was supposed to be. Later someone said to me that Al would probably have gotten a kick out of the whole thing and I replied that, knowing him, I wasn’t so sure of that. He probably would have just shaken his head and said, “What kind of dumb cluck can’t even dig a hole in the right place?”

The day I had long dreaded had finally come. How would I be able to bear not having him around? Could I function without his council, his support and his love?

What now?