I got Russ to try boiled peanuts for the first time that last weekend. LOL He was not impressed. And I forgot what was left in his fridge. Amalie Arena is where the Jimmy Buffett concert was held that we were going to in December. 🙁
I don’t understand… Correction, I STILL cannot process I didn’t wake up next to him just this morning and spend a few more hours with him before coming home.
I cannot process I didn’t JUST kiss him goodbye and tell him “I love you” in person this morning.
It CANNOT be 26 weeks. It CANNOT be six fucking months ago that he set sail.
The Universe looks down at me stomping my feet in disbelief and just shakes its head, because none of that brings Russ back and I know this. But my last in-person memory of him alive is him standing by the back of his car, smiling and waving at me, blowing me a kiss after I’d just backed out of his garage, the taste of our goodbye kiss still on my lips and still feeling the way his beard and moustache felt against my face. How tightly he hugged me before letting me go.
My mind still rebels over what I saw just a couple of days later when I found him, refuses to reconcile those two images.
Refuses.
My therapist warned me the mile-markers and anniversaries will hurt. All the “firsts” that slam into you–the first “withouts.”
It can’t be HALF A FUCKING YEAR since I woke up next to him–his Halloween costume is still sitting here in my office, where I set it down after getting it out of my car–because we’d BOUGHT IT THAT WEEKEND and he asked me to pack it with my stuff so he wouldn’t forget it that next weekend, because he was picking me up since I drove over that weekend.
“They” talk about you take one step, move forward one inch at a time and then you look back and can see the distance you travelled.
I look back and I see my Viking standing there by his car, smiling, waving, blowing me a kiss.
And he’s standing RIGHT FUCKING THERE. I could reach out and touch him.
It’s a blessing and a curse because I don’t want to forget a single second of that final weekend. Of any of the time we spent together.
But he’s standing RIGHT there. How can what’s left of him be sitting in an urn on my altar just feet from my desk, where I can reach out and touch it multiple times a day? How can little bits of my 6’2″, 245-pound VIking fit in the three necklaces, one of which is always hanging around my neck 24/7 except when I’m in the shower?
How can six months feel like a torturous forever and yet have passed in the blink of an eye?
I never did get the rest of the peanuts out of his fridge. I had bigger concerns “that” night.
Love you, Russ. Miss you so much, baby. Sweet dreams. 🥰💖😘
