~Elli~
From: [email protected]
Subject: For Whatever Reason I am Writing You.
Dear Usmcraider1,
I’m not really sure what to start off with…
But, I guess I’ll take a shot at it.
My name is Elli, pronounced Ellie – it’s Norwegian. I live in a small two story with just me myself and I. Oh, I do have a dog though. Right now it’s just the two of us. We used to be three but now we’re just two.
…what am I doing? This is stupid, I don’t even really know why I’m writing to you. I have no idea who you are or how this is supposed to help me. This is supposed to help me get better.
So far I’m just spouting off random details about myself and it makes it seem like I want this to be personal, which this is just… not supposed to be.
This is me attempting to follow guidance and advice and make myself feel “better,” make myself get over…him.
Well you know what usmcraider1? I don’t need to do that.
I am just fine feeling bitter and empty. Bitter is such a rancid word for what I am, but it’s what they all call me.
They look at me walking around with a blank expression and shake their heads, I’m the girl with the dead husband. I am the girl whose fire went out when he died. I am the outsider, the one who doesn’t try to be normal anymore.
But you know what? I don’t give one single fuck about it, about them.
They didn’t bury the love of their life, they didn’t get handed that rigidly folded American flag. They don’t hear a noise and think it’s their dead husband coming in the front door or moving around the kitchen.
They don’t live with a black hole flexing and gaping inside them.
They can’t comprehend my pain, the anguish that eats at me day after day.
They don’t know what it’s like to not have him here with me.
Not that this has anything to do with you, this has to do with the advice I am being stupid enough to follow.
My best friend, Jen, said reach out to someone who knows what Garrett went through. Reach out to someone who knows what a soldier feels like.
But let me ask you something.
Do you know what a Veteran’s widow feels like?
Do you know what it’s like for that Veteran’s widow to go on living impossibly day after day with the knowledge their husband didn’t want to exist in this world anymore?
Why am I even asking you this?
You’re an absolute stranger, I don’t know you, you don’t know me… but if I erased it now I probably wouldn’t write anything else.
Whatever. I wrote it all out anyway.
I hope all is well as it can be wherever you are.
Stay safe if that’s an option…
-The Veteran’s Widow
My eyes itch, begging me to close them and let them rest but I just can’t.
I click send and shut my MacBook down.
What did I just do? When Jen told me about a pen pal program that connects you with a solider overseas I didn’t want anything to do with it. Her rationale was that talking to someone who is experiencing living and fighting in the war would be able to give me some insight into why my husband came home damaged. She used Google to find a forum where soldiers volunteer their email addresses and people around the world can write to them. Jen chose one email address and pled her case with me. I truly wanted to deny her, most days I don’t want to talk to anyone let alone someone that could potentially remind me of the husband I lost. But in the end, it made sense, this is my last resort to try and move on from this.
Really, what have I to lose?
Nothing, because I’ve already lost that, everything.
Worst case scenario, usmcraider1 trashes the message and I go on being the “bitter” bitch that everyone knows me as.
No harm, no foul right?
Well, really lots of harm no foul.
I’ve been aware of just how damaged I am for a long time.
I’m coming to realize, after all the time that’s passed that’s probably the only thing I can be. Losing my husband to suicide has been without a doubt the most horrific event in my life. It has changed every fundamental part of me and I fear I’ll never be able to recover.
I lean back into the pillows behind me and let the hurt seep in once again.
God, when will I be okay?
It’s been two years.
730 days.
Two impossible years since Garrett died.
I know better by now then to let myself think about him, but nonetheless, I let the memories consume me and bring me back to ground zero again.
Now, I am no longer the bright-eyed Scandinavian girl on the arm of my ruggedly handsome husband.
Nope, not me.
Now I fully resemble the last little stub of a candle. The one where the stick has burned down to nothing and the remains are channels of melted wax down the sides of a table.
My flame has been suffocated.
During the day I’ve learned how to keep the pain at bay, I try to avoid feeling any kind of emotion. It’s easier to turn it all off than to struggle with filtering them. If I become a robot, going through the motions and ignore feeling anything I can stay safe and guarded from the hurt.
At night is when it becomes unbearable. I can’t sleep because, like some sick clockwork when I close my eyes and let the silence come at me, I relive the scene all over again.
Blood, the metallic tang assaulting my nose.
The rich color of it almost black it’s so concentrated.
His bare feet, his favorite cargo shorts.
So much blood. So much heartache.
I should move, shouldn’t I?
I should run away, find some way to start over.
But how do you start over when your life ended along with his?
I suppose I can just keep breathing even if it feels forced and horrible.
I roll over, pulling his blanket over my shoulders and curl up. If I curl tight enough maybe the shards of my broken heart won’t escape through my chest.
I know I’ll see him in my dreams, I can only pray that I see him as he was before that day.
The day that ended two lives, my husband’s literally and mine psychologically. The day that is seared so deeply in my mind I wonder if I’ll ever escape it.