The Hardest to Fill

I'm not a nervous person. Anxiety, fear, and uncertainty are actually pretty foreign feelings. I've been called resilient, strong, self-sufficient, and any number of other adjectives that mean "You're going to be just fine." Even during the toughtest times these past few years, I've usually known that I would be ok. I'd get through it.

For that reason, this afternoon caught me a bit offguard.

I signed a contract to sublet a home in Northern California for the next three months. And after I signed the wire transfer for my security deposit, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of fear. It was a genuine awareness that my life was changing drastically, soon. And I was actually scared.

I'm sure that sounds wierd considering it's been five months since Dalton died and over a year since he was diagnosed. But I think this was the biggest decision I've made since May 26, 2006 and the first one I've made on my own for over ten years. I wanted to curl up next to Dalton on the couch, rest my head in his lap while he comfortingly wrapped his arm around my shoulder and assured me it would be fine.

In the ten years we were together, these moments might have happened five or six times. The night mom died and Dalton wrapped himself around me while I sobbed. The evening in the hospital when they told me I was having a miscarriage. The day I couldn't stop crying because I thought I would never be a decent mom. But, these were the moments that made our marriage intimate, real, vulnerable. when we were more than partners, more than friends, more than lovers. It was in these moments when I was really vulnerable, that Dalton was my husband, my flesh.

That hole seems the hardest to fill.