Loss can sometimes just creep up on you and hit you on the head when you are least expecting it.
My mother just died.
It was a short death, relatively speaking.
She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and eight messy months later she was dead.
I was her primary caregiver and I was up to my elbows with her disease for as long as she was.
And then she died.
Her death was almost a relief.
She had been suffering so much and was so angry that she was dying and it was painful to watch.
It was even more painful to live through I am sure.
She died, we had the funeral and then life went on.
It was summer.
I gardened and dated and hiked in the woods.
Life was fine.
And now it's fall.
My kids have gone back to school and the weather here in Vermont has turned cold quickly.
And suddenly I am feeling the loss.
Big time.
But not of my mother.
Of my ex-husband.
WTF? I have been divorced for a number of years.
The negotiations have been completed and the papers have been signed.
Except for occasional discussions around the kids and finances, I never talk to him.
I never see him.
I have moved on.
But, for some reason, the loss of my mother has brought up my sadness at the loss of my marriage.
Let us pause here and note the distinction between feeling the loss of my ex-husband and feeling the loss of my marriage.
Really, our divorce was a relief.
But the loss of our marriage, our family? That is a completely different thing.
When you get married you are full of hopes and dreams.
Dreams of a family, a home, a partnership that will last a lifetime.
Those are the dreams that we are raised on and that we long for.
And that is what I miss most with the end of our marriage.
I miss waking up every day next this person who I know so well.
I miss turning to him at parent meetings and smiling, secure in our partnership.
I miss calling him on the phone when the kids have some personal triumph, exalting together in this remarkable creature that we created together.
I miss knowing that someone always has my back, albeit sometimes begrudgingly.
I miss being part of a team.
I haven't yet mourned the death of my mother but I know it will come.
Today I am remembering all of the wonderful things about my marriage.
Celebrating their memory.
Feeling the loss deep in my heart.
Soon I will pack them up and put them away, knowing that I will always have them but that life moves forward.
And knowing that everything is going to be amazing.