Night

Day 548.

It’s the early hours and I’m comfortable.

Yesterday was sunny and warm. The California light in all its glory is uncomfortable, as is the warmth. Today I tried to overcome that by sitting outside a while, just a bit longer than I could bare, and then retreated to lie on Luke’s bed. Then outside some more till I could stand it no more and retreated to my windowless bedroom with no light - my haven.

Night time is my solace. To be clear, I was always a night owl. But now, I let it happen.

I watch TV and films, I journal (yes, here I am) and I can think what I need to think, undisturbed by noises and interjections of everyday life. I don’t have to interact. I can be with my thoughts.

I miss Luke, but I can say the pain is lessening.

I flick through my phone. I am reminded by a post on the Facebook page GRASP, that addiction is a mental illness, absent from rhyme or reason - cunning, powerful and baffling. It’s good to be reminded as I continue to look for that absent rhyme or reason.

The early stages of grief peeling away.

I feel Luke less. Or do I? Am I just more familiar with the feeling?

Is my night time love just a PTSD symptom?

As I struggle towards being a more effective mother to George and wife to Adam and preparing for what new role I will have in this world of opioid madness and loss, I have to admit that my inner reluctance to lose my grief in homage to Luke is strong.

My last notion of anger towards Marlon for withholding the truth of that night stands firm. Sometimes I wish someone would take him and string him up so that I could attempt to squeeze the account of that fateful night out of him in some Russian gangland style interrogation. But I, at some point must realize that he, in the insanity of drug addiction, either because he has overwritten it or because drug addiction is an insanity in itself, is unlikely to ever tell me.

I see on Facebook that Marlon now has a baby girl and wonder if in becoming a parent he may now understand the torture of my position. I just want the account of what happened. Closure.

Adam told me of an author who finally agreed to take a much needed kidney from his daughter, understanding her plea that she needed him to live because she wanted him to know his grandchildren. I heard her loud and clear.

It made me want to live to meet mine, just incase they happen, and to know George as an adult man, as a dad. How cruel would it be to lose my way and die of a broken heart and have to stand only as a spirit over them and not be able to touch them, smell them, reduced to the flickering of lights and sending orbs when I could be alive to caress and sing lullabies.

As Adam and I explore the various stories that pass our way together, I find healing in the conundrums of the lives of others.

…and that’s a nice place to be.

Wow, I just wrote that! And I meant it!