Silent New Year’s Eve
Outside our silent lonely home, the world is eagerly preparing to greet the advent of the New Year. In our house I am alone, except for Picasso and Ebony. I feel weakened by the flu that has gripped me all week long. I slept off and on all the while in an effort to regain my strength. Through it all I feel a deep dull unceasing ache deep within me. I am missing my Peter in the worst way. The classical station is playing the listeners’ favourites of the year. They are so poignant and beautiful that my eyes sting with tears and my heart contracts with deep pain. I think back at all the wonderful years I had with my Peter. I look in the mirror at the old woman I have become since he passed away. My face is drawn. Today I snapped at a person over the telephone who was trying to sell me something I did not want. He quickly adjusted his attitude and I realized that not only had I become an old woman, I had become a crabby old woman. I always feel that way around holiday times. I wonder at the widows that keep going as if nothing is missing in their lives, as if they do not have a hollow gaping pit where there used to be love and joy and laughter. I feel angry at them! I am not speaking of the ones who busy themselves in order to fill the gaps of loneliness and pain. I know how they feel, but the ones who behave as if they have at last been set free. They seem to soar up into the skies, free as a lark. I wonder to myself, did they ever love their husbands? Do their voices echo in the silence of the lonely nights as they have one way conversations with the spirit of their long gone husbands? Do they cry as they tell them how very much they love them and miss them? Perhaps it is I who is the strange one? Maybe it is women like me who are not the norm?
I look out of the window. It is quiet and feels dreary. The sun is setting and it makes a pattern through the bare branches. I continue to look out the window until the sky darkens to black. In other homes people are getting ready to celebrate. They are getting dressed and they call friends to make plans. We used to do that, once upon a time.
I am tired. Why am I sitting here looking out into the dark sky? I slowly get up and get ready to retire for the night. I take my copy of Buddenbrook and curl up into a ball in bed. It is only eight o’clock. I listen to the classical music as I read. My pups keep me company. They sense my pain and my feeling of aloneness. They snuggle closer and closer to me. They comfort me.
Happy New Year everyone. Hug your happiness tightly around you, for love and happiness is a fleeting gift… Nothing is promised forever.