and then suddenly..: 300 nights ago.

I’m standing outside in the dark. The cool chill has crept into the air and it’s the season of fire pits and rambling conversations over a glass of Shiraz.

300 nights ago. That's where I am.
300 nights ago- he is still here.

He knows that his time is slipping fast through the hourglass of remaining moments and hours that are allocated his. He knows.

I’m standing outside and it’s dark. It’s cold tonight. Inside the house, the lights are on and there is movement. The flow and ebb, the lull and the chaos of dinnertime.

She is standing in the kitchen. Pouring a glass of wine. She tilts her head to the side and listens for the shower. He can’t stand up and shower anymore. He is just so very tired. The sallow in his face has snuck in and settled, severe and apparent over the past weeks. She listens and knows that he is sitting on the shower chair- letting the warmth and the solitude of a veil of warm water soothe him.

I’m watching her- the strain of knowing he is leaving soon is etched so deeply into her face. Into the lines around her tired eyes. Into the set of her mouth.

I am her.

She is me.

I am outside.. Standing in the dark and I see her.

She sips the wine and closes her eyes for just a moment as it slides in warmth down her clenched throat. She can’t relax. He is having such a bad day. The morphine isn’t enough to ease the pain that he is in. He is tired and in pain. She calculates how much more morphine she will give him so that he can rest. Her life is dosage and medication and watching him fade.

I reach out my hand towards the cool glass of the window. I know her. She is me and I can see her. The pain of his going is etched deeply tonight.

“It’s going to get bad…” I want to whisper to her. But I can’t and I won’t. Let her think that tonight and the moments she is enduring now are the hardest parts. This pain that he is in… The slow goodbye, bittersweet and heartbreaking.

“So much worse..” I would whisper.

I look around the room- people are there and they love her fiercely. They are beside her as she walks this goodbye. It is their goodbye as well- they love him wholeheartedly. He is loveable.

I know the way they love her, this me who is watching her great love fade away, because they love me in my now just like they loved me on this night.

The shower stops and she puts down her wine suddenly, so that it spills on the bench. Her movements are hurried as she steps around the kitchen bench and goes towards the bedroom. Eyes follow her and she slips into the room.

I’m standing outside. It’s cold tonight and he is going.

He is leaving her.

He left me.

I can see her, this me who is heartsick with the longing to never let him go.

I know her.

It’s been nearly a year since I was her. Hundreds of days and nights since those hours we spent around the fire pit with our people. Those hours and moments of saying goodbyes in each kiss, each smile, each whispered conversation late at night. Bodies turned towards each other, her fingers stroking and memorising the contours of his face.

The bedroom door opens and he leans heavily against the wall. The soft shuffle in his slow stride moves him forward to the chair that is left unoccupied for him. He is tired. The final fade has arrived- He knows.

I’m standing outside and I see him. The way he slowly lowers his failing body into the chair. The way she lingers slightly to make sure that he is comfortable enough. The way she fixes a smile onto her face, and gives him a cheeky mouthful about something.

He knows. He knows that he is leaving her.

She walks past him and his eyes follow her. They follow that me who I am watching. She picks up her wine and takes another sip. He watches her and his eyes close in a heavy weariness.

I can see them.

Walking towards this end with no option but to be together.

No option but to face it with a determined stride.

But I know.

I know that she is not determined.

Or brave.

Or strong.

Or inspiring.

She is broken.

Broken hearted that he is going.

This.

This is what we have in common- this her and this me.

Her broken heart is his going.

My broken heart is him gone.

I see them. My people.

The house full of people. Leaning into talk to him because he still has so very much to say.

He always had so much to say. I smile at the way she purposefully disagrees with him- just to get a bite.
He knows what she is doing and plays along.

I see them. And I’m suddenly overcome with the desire to bang on this frosted window and scream at them-

“This is the best part of a goodbye… his being here. He is here and you are not alone!!”

I want to grab her and let her see the hollow place in my eyes. The hundreds of days that have rolled past since this night that I am watching from outside have left a hollowed place deep in my eyes and I want her to see it.

But I won’t.

Let them think that this is the hardest part.

Let them think that.

I don’t want to walk away. I want to stay here, in the cold night and keep watching this house, my house on a night 300 nights ago.

I want to watch the way she walks past him and brushes his hair away from his forehead before she leans in to give him a kiss. I know her. I am her. I see her and I want to be her again. Because when I was her, I had him.

But I turn.

I turn and it is over. She is gone- she has become this me.

And the hundreds of nights disappear and I am here. Tonight.

The lounge room is quiet and dark when I look again.

Hundreds of days and nights have slipped past and the kitchen is silent.

The chairs are empty.

He is gone.

And my heart loves him still. That will be unchanging and unchangeable.

And she is gone.

That tired carer.

That tireless and weary woman who lived each day waiting for him to leave her.

She is gone and she is now me. This Suz.

That’s what has happened. The hundreds of days that have slipped past since those nights of our long goodbye have meant that she, that woman who loved to brush back his hair from his forehead, has had to learn what life is like on the other side of a goodbye.

There are no titles that she wants as she has become me.

Widow doesn’t suit her.

Single is too final for her liking.

Alone is scary.

Single mum is scarier.

“Just Suz- that’s what I want to be” has been her thoughts as she has stepped into these new moments.

Suz- who loves to laugh uproariously and who is irreverent at inopportune times.

Suz- who is a little lost sometimes but mostly found in the network of people who love her fiercely.

Suz- who isn’t quite sure what grief looks like or how it is meant to work, but does know that sometimes her heart is about ready to burst open with the enormous immensity of the way that it aches. And other times its perfectly content in the days that are unfolding.

Suz- who needs to be loved. She always has- she always will.

Suz- who is constantly amazed that she parents these sons. These sons who have so many reasons to hate the world, and yet who are the first to forgive and the loudest to cheer her on as she stumbles and stuffs up.

Suz- who will continue to make decisions about these new days and hope to high heaven that they are actually the right ones. And if they aren’t, then at least that she would have the fortitude to own them. Learn and move on.

Suz- who misses being his wife. Who misses the ebb and flow of a life that was ours.

Suz- who knows that she will one day be a wife again… one day. And she knows that great joy will find a home in her heart once more.

If I could go back, step into the past- here is what I would tell her. That me from a couple of hundred nights ago… I would whisper to her as I held her tight in her tired, weary brokenness:

“You will hurt. And you will heal.

You will drink too much and you will hate to be hungover.

You will rage in the lonely hours of the night and you will hate the world.

You will find joy in meeting strangers and great delight in making friends.

You will wonder at every decision that you make, because it is weighted with the responsibility of three sons.

But Suz… You will be ok. You really, truly will. You will survive his leaving you and you will be ok.”