Recently a friend told me that he thought I was “doing much better and in a good place.” It took me about a millisecond to reply, with no hesitation at all, that yes. Yes I was.

I am doing better. Time may not necessarily heal all wounds but the slow-healing scab that it leaves certainly eases the discomfort. Three years out of the dead Husband/Father-fest of ’09 and faced with the possibility of a whole new life often leads you to a better path, at least I’m hoping so. I still have those moments though, the ones where I feel guilty, just for a minute, that I’m going on while he’s ashes, the ones where I get pissed at him when he’s the first one I want to tell about school but I can’t, and those moments where I wake in the middle of the night from dreams where he won’t speak to me and then I end up playing Angry Birds or on the twitters for hours. But that’s “normal” for most of us who have lost a spouse, or so I hear. Well, maybe not the Angry Birds part.

Then there are the moments where I laugh whereas I used to scream. The times when I’m reading directions and it clearly says “takes two to assemble” and instead of ripping the manual apart with my bare hands I just do it. Probably slower, definitely more messy and with more cursing than with two, but I do it. And I know that I can.

The milliseconds where I think I might want to date again and then I look at some of the men on the dating sites and I’m instantly reminded that school is my boyfriend for the next few years and that I’m doing pretty well with just me, my friends and family and my TV boyfriends. Those moments of “what’s wrong with me?” that occurred when I saw other widows, some barely 6 months from their husbands death already dating, already with someone, they are long gone. There is nothing wrong with me. I may still be a bit of damaged goods in the emotional department, but otherwise I think I’m fine. Sure, poundage could be lost, but hey, it’s happening slowly. I exercise, I work outside, I swim darn near every day. But I’ve learned that death comes too quickly to let that cupcake pass you by if you really want it. And you will pry my wine glass from my cold dead fingers, to mangle a quote from some old movie. And it’s not that I don’t have um, friends. You know, winkwingnudgenudge friends? I’m a widow, not a nun.

And it’s not that despite all of that I don’t get lonely, sometimes I do, especially at social events and places where everyone is a couple or seems to be, but I’ve always been an independent sort, and I don’t have to be with someone to have fun. This is compounded by some that seem to be on the constant relationship merry-go-round and their entire life consists of loving-hating-bitching about their man of the moment only to toss him off the ride in favor of another while they docudrama the entire thing online. I think they call that codependence. I do not need nor desire that drama.

I’ve decided that my status is going to be Kimdependence.

I think that sounds like a pretty good place to be.

Goodbye 390 Knightsbridge … thanks for the memories.

If you’re new here, this was mine and Gregory’s home. I am involved in a probate court battle with greedy urchins and was forced to move out and sell the home by the court. This was in October of 2010. The house finally sold today. So the wheels on the probate bus, while not going round and round, are at least getting a little air in their tires. However, a long battle still awaits. It’s a bittersweet feeling. Glad for the progress, sad for what should have been.

 She stood for a long time at the foot of the bed, watching her love. The rhythm of his

chest as it climbed and fell with each breath, the sheet fluttering around him as it rose

ever so slightly, settled, then rose again, like some loyal soldier marching a repetitive

cadence across his broad chest. His dark hair was tousled, his lips dry and showing

signs of chapping despite the balm she had applied almost absent mindedly, as if it was

her duty to do for him which he could not. Which, she assumed, it really is my duty now,

isn’t it? How long had she stood here, staring, lost in her thoughts of him? Had it been

hours? Minutes? She didn’t know, but it felt like days. Days since she had heard his

voice, seen his eyes change magically from green to blue as they often did when he

stepped from shadow to sunlight. Days since she had felt his touch, heard his laugh, felt

his voice laughing in her ear across their magical electronic telephones that connected

them, wherever they were, whether just minutes or just miles apart. Always connected

somehow, these two, from the very beginning. A bond no one but them understood or

approved of. Their own bond, one that they had joined together, approval be damned,

and one that no man could tear asunder, until death do they part.

  And now, Death was here. Death was in this room, in him, surrounding him in the wires

and tubes that snaked out of him like Satan’s own serpents, crossing the bed and the

floor, leading them to their beeping masters. Death surrounded her in this place, in

the cries from other rooms, separated by glass doors and flimsy curtains, in the faces

of doctors and nurses, the looks on their faces as they passed in and out of the room,

waiting, waiting, waiting. On what? The chaplain had come, and he stank of Death and

the words that God had a plan and planted the feeling within her that he might be a bit

of a buzzard, especially when he returned again with the woman from a place called

organ donation. She pretended to listen to them all as they came and went. She

pretended well. She nodded her head, pursed her lips and put just the right amount of

effort into a facial expression that could be construed as thinking. Yet she only thought

of him. Staring at his face, his hands, the celtic cross pattern on their shared wedding

bands as it shined beneath the harsh lighting that comes standard in a hell on earth

such as this. They didn’t take it off of his hand, and she certainly never intended to. He

was still her husband, after all. Still her husband, connected to tubes and wires and

machines that breathed for him, felt his heart beat, collected his fluids. Still her husband,

this shell on the bed in front of her. Not the body that could stop a room with a laugh or

light up the darkness with his smile, but a shell that looked like him but couldn’t possibly

be him, could it?

  Couldn’t they just leave them alone? She liked it best when they were alone, when the

machines hummed and beeped quietly and faces weren’t looking down at her, mourning

for what they already knew she had lost. She could talk to him then, as much as she

wanted to without feeling like a foolish girl talking to an imaginary friend you’ll never see,

because he wasn’t imaginary, he was right there, wasn’t he? That was her husband

lying in that bed, and any minute now he was going to open his sparkling Irish eyes and

laugh at her and tell her that he was ready to go home, let’s just go home.

  But he didn’t. And the faces streamed back and forth, doing what nameless faces do in

places like that, day in, day out. She would close her eyes, just for a moment, just a

moment to rest, and then before she knew it another face was shaking her awake,

questioning, comforting, worrying. Finally, they stopped comforting her and started

consoling, explaining, preparing. Trying to make her realize that Death was here,

with them, and that they would never again be alone together because Death wouldn’t

allow it. His charges came in white coats, armed with sheaths of papers and a silver

pen, offering it to her like a contract, a promise that soon, things would be better for him.

The beeping would stop and Death would take over, freeing them both from the faces,

the serpents and the constant static wash of the fluorescent lights. It was the best thing

she could do, the faces said. It was the only thing to do. Nothing would change, and

Death wasn’t leaving. Ever. She silently took the silver pen, and whipped it like a sword

across the papers, signing everything away to Death. As easy as buying a car. Or a

hearse.

  And then, when the beeping finally stopped and the sheet moved no more, she

realized that it was her. She was Death. And all it took was the stroke of a silver pen.