The Gloaming

It’s been over 10 years since Rick died.
How can it still feel like it was yesterday?
or at the most, just last month?

A little over 3457 days.
Almost 5 million minutes.
How can that be?

And how can it still feel the way it does?
The lostness.
The vulnerability.
The aloneness.

Every day I get up.
Get dressed.
Most days I drink coffee.
Every day I face the day.
Do what is in front of me.

Some days are better than others.
Some days I get more accomplished than others.

The tears still burn blisters on my heart.
The memories still leak down my cheeks.

I miss so much – about Rick, about the me I was then, about our life together.

People wander in and out of my life.
Few from those years with Rick have stayed since he died.

I have fought hard against being a widow.
And I have fought just as hard to accept being a widow.
Neither seems to work well.

Rick’s favorite time of the day was the gloaming 

– those few moments between daylight and dark.
When it was neither.
He would sit, or stand, outside during those moments 

– silent as a statue.
Just listening, watching.

I often wondered what he was thinking, feeling.
When I asked, his answer was always the same 

– “Nothing really, just being.”

There is an eeriness to those moments. 
Everything has a different look about it.
There is a surrealness to those moments.

I think that’s what grief is – gloaming.

According to the dictionary: 

“The term ‘gloaming’ refers to twilight or dusk.

That period of time when the sun is setting and the sky begins to darken. 

In Old English it meant ‘twilight’. 

In a broader context, ‘gloaming’ can symbolize transition, memory and the confrontation with the unknown. 

Evoking feelings of mystery, reflection and melancholy.

Hmmm…maybe grief IS the gloaming moments of life.