She’s on Mars and we’re stuck here
Me: Hey, kid. Get up. It’s time to get dressed and go.
Son: (yawns, smiles)
Tomorrow will be the first Thanksgiving without my dad and without Alison in over a decade. Trying to accept that.
Before 2017, I rarely wore black. I think it’s probably because I did so much as a kid.
But since Alison died, I’ve only worn black. It was my quiet way to memorialize her.
Tomorrow, I’ll stop. It’ll been six months since that fucking day and three months since my dad passed. It’s time to accept my new normal.
It felt weird wearing all black and now, it feels weird not.
Everything is weird. I’m weird. Nothing will ever be normal again.
Dunno if I ever told you but Alison spoke fluent Spanish and, by extension, understood French and Portuguese. Thought that was pretty cool.
There’s this song by David Bowie I’ve always liked called Life on Mars. But there’s a Portuguese version I prefer, with very different lyrics.
One part goes:
Se o futuro assim permitir
Não pretendo viver em vão
Meu amor não estamos sós
Tem um mundo a esperar por nós,
No infinito do céu azul,
Pode ter vida em Marte
If the future allows
I don’t intend to live in vain
My love, we’re not alone.
There’s a world waiting for us,
in the infinite blue sky,
perhaps it’s a life on Mars
Always told her that I’d go anywhere she was. Even if it was Mars. Cause heaven wouldn’t be heaven without her, hell wouldn’t be hell with her. But where she is now, I can’t follow, as much as I wanna.
It’s been six months since Alison was taken.
I miss my wife, but even more, I miss my best friend. She was the first person I saw and spoke to in the morning, and the last person I saw and spoke to at night.
I’ll never be the same and I’ll always have a hole in my soul in the shape of her.
But I have to move on with my life.
Because I can’t follow her right now; the boy needs me here and he needs me on my feet.
Me: Get up. (gently) It’s time to get up.
Location: home, surrounded by her clothes
Mood: hard to say
Music: I’m going to want to move to a life on Mars
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2 replies on “Thanksgiving 2017: It’s time to get up”
I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Not that my opinion matters but I agree. Its time to get on with your life. For your son and yourself.
On a different but alt universe plane i can relate. Since my divorce, i’ve worn nothing but dark colored clothes and i only had realized that a few weeks ago. No, a divorce isn’t the same in some respects but for me it was a great loss and one that i still grieve over today.
I really don’t know how to encourage you. there are few words for grief. Loss does change you, but its up to you what kind of change you want that to be.
Whatever you grow and find footing in, don’t become a super villain. The best heroes of this world have scars.