Take a look at the person you’re with.  Your person.  The one you count on to be there at the end of the day.  The one you share everything with, maybe the bills, meals, mundane conversations, love.  Sometimes things are a notch above routine and you share laughs, kitchen dances, special occasions and if you’re really lucky, grandchildren.

Imagine they are gone in a blink of an eye.  You didn’t get to say goodbye. They are just gone and your breath is sucked out of your lungs. You gasp and go into shock.  Gone… forever.

Suddenly, you are alone.  The miles traveled and sacrifices made over a decade to keep this love alive and suddenly it’s over. Years that follow pass quicker than you can imagine. You try to hold every single memory tightly in your grasp, but some of those memories are fading.  Photographs, videos and text messages are treasures that you view over and over again.

Now imagine, you are locked out of the places that you’ve shared your most precious days together.  There is no reason, really.  You are just locked out, without an explanation, other than “things have changed”.

Oh boy, have things changed.  I know that more than almost anyone.  Changed isn’t really an appropriate word.  Imploded, buckled, crashed, caved in.  My entire world and future as I knew it was devastated. My confidant, lover, protector and best friend died.  Until that is placed on your lap, you would have no idea on how crushing that is, for years into the future.

No longer can I enter his home where we danced and cooked and loved and made love. This home was a place where he made the promise “mi casa es su casa” – translated “my house is your house”.  I can no longer walk on his land, through the wildflowers just to have those memories come rushing back.  No longer allowed to sit and gaze over the pond, where we shared summer afternoons and evenings watching the ducks on the water and shared stories about our lives.  No longer visit the lilac bushes we planted on the last summer of his life, with dreams of watching them grow and bloom for years to come.

I remember where he was stung by wasps on that hot July day as we walked across the bridge he built over the creek.  I recall the allergic reaction and how scared I was for him. The starry skies we laid under on many nights just staring in wonder, talking about the universe and God.  The thousands of memories over the decade are abundant and ricochet like bullets through my mind.  To borrow a phrase from Bruno Mars, I feel like I’ve been locked out of heaven, for too long.

Memories are much more vivid when you get to visit the places where those things happened, the details of the people, places and events.   The truth is, I’m locked out.  I feel like I am being robbed of the enrichment of those memories.  They aren’t as vivid as they could be.  The memories are fading with time, as is my personality.

It was made clear that I don’t need to “go there” to remember him, as the spirit of the departed loved one is with us wherever they are.  A person who has not lost their spouse would not understand the gravity of that particular loss of an intimate relationship.  Uprooted from a person and place that one considered home. Torn away from the comfort, protection and tangible locations where the love was built over years. No, I don’t expect someone to understand who has never experienced this sort of devastating loss, but maybe have a little compassion for a person who has.

I do need to “go there” as he told me many times, that was my home too.  We talked about having our ashes scattered together amongst the wildflowers.  Well, I know now that isn’t going to happen.  His last wishes only meant something to me, as I was the only one he talked to about them.  My final resting place will not be with him, as I’ve been shut out. It is my opinion that this treatment does not honor him and his memory.  I’m sure it saddens his soul to see how I’ve not been embraced, but excluded from the people who meant so much to him.

Wouldn’t it be nice if people were more compassionate, more understanding and not afraid of whatever it is that they are afraid of?  I do not want things.  I want to walk again in the places that we walked when our love story blossomed.  I want to feel all of that.  I want to heal.  I told a friend the other day, I don’t sparkle as I used to, and I don’t smile as broadly as I once did.  It brings tears to my eye when I say that.  In order to sparkle again, I need to heal.  Visiting his land would help me heal.

“Mi casa es su casa”.  Honoring his words would be the right thing to do, even for a few hours a year.