The other half of me

by Pamela
(Cheshire, UK)

THE OTHER HALF OF ME

September. A month when good things are supposed to happen. Autumn. Holidays. Glowing evenings. Bright colours and warm Indian summer days. My birthday, ………… but then death, darkness and despair. I lost the other half of me.

Lost so quickly that I didn’t have time to prepare. Gone in a moment and lost in time and space for eternity.

When two people live, love, support, share, laugh, cry…..become one and exclude all others, how can one continue to live without the other? I have lost the other half of me and I know I will never find it again.

Each day becomes a test. Can I get through today? Will it be any better tomorrow? Why do I still feel lonely, even in a crowded room? Because the other half of me is missing! It is a physical pain. As if half of my body has been removed and I limp along with one leg, one arm, half a brain……….

“I’m keeping busy”. That is my mantra. People believe me…that is the strangest thing….can’t they see? Are they blind? Don’t they look at me and see only half a person? Surgically split in two.

So – where is my other half? Gone. No longer here. Out of sight. I was born whole.
Now I am only half. It’s scary. I feel disabled. Somehow not normal, not a whole human being. I function…..but only just.

I hide all this from those who love me the most. They have lost my other half too. They feel the loss of a loved one and grieve…… but my other half was mine…part of me…..part of my mind and body and without it I am no longer a whole person.

The other half of me was without doubt my better half. The part that remains is unable to think clearly or make decisions. I amble along from day to day with a reckless abandon. No clear path. No clear aim. Trying to fill the endless time with sense….but only realise trivia. My other half would have done it better. Would have made a better job of each day. Would have decided and done. Would have planned and acted. My other half should have stayed.

Why did it go? I ask myself constantly. There was no reason to go. So much to stay for. So much to do. A life still to live for….together and whole. Plans, hopes, dreams still to fulfill. All gone. Lost for ever.

What will I do with the rest of my life? I have no idea. Can half a person go on living? Can half a person still be the same as before? No…I am not the same person. I have changed. I still look the same…a little sadder, a little thinner, a little paler…but much the same. No one notices the differences. No one can see the pain of severance. But the pain has changed me…….perhaps for ever.

I write these words in an effort to make sense of things to myself. Yet, …. no matter what I think, say or do….nothing answers my loneliness. Nothing meets .. or can ever again meet…my need to see, hold, touch and love my other half again.

Tomorrow I will rise early. Try to meet the day with renewed strength and determination. Hope for a day without tears … but just accept that tears come without restraint, often and unexpectedly. Each day looms long. Each day different but strangely the same…..nothing changes….my other half is still missing.

I see, I feel, I hear and I smell…….my other half. It stands beside me when I need support….holds me in my despair….wipes my tears when I cry…sits beside me in the quiet and lies beside me in the night. Invisible to the eye but tangible to me. I feel the warmth of its love and dwell in its arms.

Do I want to “move on”? Seems such a stupid phrase to me. Eventually people will say I should. It is expected. There is a time to grieve and a time to every purpose under heaven…….or so they say. Grief is a luxury. A time to indulge. A time to think. Thoughts of past, present, future…………wonderful past, car crash present,….but future….what future? I don’t know. I can’t think. Can’t imagine. A future as half a person? Is that a life? Is it living? Years as a shadow?

My other half told me not to be scared. Held me. Soothed me. Told me to be strong.
I held it, soothed it and loved it as it drifted away. But now it has gone and I live on. All I can do is try to keep living until I feel alive again.

Without the other half of me.