My life is 50%

I've been thinking about how profoundly my life has changed since my husband passed away. You see, God created us as a couple. He took a part of Adam's life and created Eve. He commanded them to go forth, multiply and fill the earth. Everything we do has always gravitated around the concept of coupling and pairing that comes from adding 1 plus 1. When I think about growing up with my siblings, beginning friendships and relationships, dating, working a job, marrying, I am reminded of how these different types of connections to others helped build me into the person I became and that I am today. In looking back over my life, my happiest times were happy because I was sharing myself with someone else. Think about it, the people that are chronically depressed, sad, feeling alone and unloved are many times feeling that way because they aren't in a happy relationship, friendship, marriage, career, etc. Why do I say my life is 50% now? Before Mike became very ill and passed away we enjoyed a very busy, healthy social life. It was always a couples thing...we were like almost primal with it, where we always traveled in packs, our names changed when we referred to each other as "The Smiths, the Joneses, the Johnsons, etc." Once one of the "couples" became a widow or widower it seemed like that "couple" dropped out of the pack. Maybe it was because like me that surviving spouse wasn't comfortable anymore being in the company of couples. There would be too many sad memories of socializing as a couple and suddenly, even awkwardly finding yourself trying to fit in and pretend to have fun. Or, maybe the couples in the pack felt uncomfortable about sending an invite because it may make the surviving spouse feel out of place being around the other couples without their spouse. What I'm feeling is that half of me is missing and gone forever. I'll never have that half again. That half made my whole. Now I'm missing the half that was 50% of every part of me. My half was my best friend to whom I could tell all my juiciest secrets and bare my true inner feelings about anything and anyone. He was my consoler when I lost my sister, mom and dad. He was my voice of reason when I had the urge to act impulsively and buy that 100th pair of shoes. He was my lover who would walk up behind me at the kitchen sink and hug me and lean around for a kiss. He was my dance partner who would come out of nowhere in the house and grab my hand and dance with me to the radio song that had interrupted my house cleaning chore. He was my partner who signed his name to many joint legal contracts, bank accounts, birth certificates, etc. He was my funny man who could crack me up laughing at his one liners. He was my therapist who kept me grounded with his common sense advice and lifted me up with his complements about my looks, my dress, or what being his wife meant to him. He was my student who sat in my classroom and went along with my demand that he call me Mrs. Rice. He was my rock who held down the fort and kept 4 wild, rambunctious little boys from tearing down the house when I traveled on business for weeks or days at a time. He was my strong provider who took great pride in making sure me and the kids were always well taken care of. He was my event planner for our date nights or family vacations. He was my everything and this gap that his passing created will never be filled again...it's a life that I lost that was not only his, but the other half of my life. I'm sharing these feelings and thoughts in hopes that if you read this, and you have experienced your own grief, then maybe if you share it in this blog we can help each other learn to cope with our grief and adapt to living with the remaining 50% of our life.