It’s the eve of October 1st. Any other year, and this date would have no significance, but tonight, it means everything. How can it be six months since I last saw my darling, my strength, my husband. Our last conversation still runs rampant through my mind every moment of every day. Only six short (but long) months ago. I went to bed fully expecting my good morning kiss in 8 short hours later, only to never get one again. What does it mean to be the “last conversation” though – I still feel like there should be so many more we were supposed to have.

Even now, with every stroke of my finger hitting the keyboard, my heartache is stronger as the realization sinks in that this is my new reality. And my mind races with the thoughts of tomorrows we will never get to have. I don’t want tomorrow to come. I don’t want it to be 6 months. Half a year. 26 weeks. 183 days. 4,392 hours. 263,520 minutes. 15,811,200 seconds.

Every one of those minutes has felt like an eternity – an eternity I didn’t ask for. A nightmare that never ends. So many of these seconds have been taken breath by breath. I have watched the clock tick away as I stared into space, not sure what to do with myself, unsure of how to go on.

And yet here I am. Six months later. Still here. Still surviving. Still enduring. One breath, one moment, one day at a time.

 

Jennifer Trapuzzano