Six months. It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t seem feasible. For me to have survived without him all these months.
I had some intense dreams last night. I was in a big game, a challenge, with four teams of eleven players in these weird elaborate games. And we had food in this big mall-like cafeteria with other people who weren’t playing, but we didn’t interact with those who weren’t playing. And I saw Ambrose, twice. He was watching me play the game, but we didn’t talk.
It feels like he was giving me a message. That I’m here to play the game, and that he is watching me and watching over me.
I still had the migraine when I woke up around 8. I forced myself to get up and walk. It was snowing, so I put on my Yaktrax for traction support and walked a bit slower than I have been with no snow on the ground. That little fall on Friday taught me caution. I did a different route this time, going up towards one neighbor and then turning at the mailboxes instead of going all the way down the hill. My head was hurting so bad I didn’t want to go all the way down the hill.
When I was at the doctor’s office the other week, I was just getting over a headache and the doctor gave me a prescription for a migraine medication. I didn’t take it at the time, but today I was glad to have something to try. It was, perhaps, a mistake to take it on an empty stomach, but I couldn’t decide on something to eat. I mostly ate snack foods all day today. Once I started eating, the medication made me a bit nauseous, but I kept eating and felt better.
I had a family zoom this morning and got to talk a bit about Ambrose. But also about what things are going on in others’ lives. A good thing to help take me out of my own head.
My dad had suggested building a pyramid today as a memorial for Ambrose, but the snow put the kibosh on that idea. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, other than “something.”
I watched a couple of movies as the medication took care of the headache. Half paying attention to them. And then I had a bit of screaming and crying and release.
Over the last week, I created a simple song for myself, with sounds instead of words. I also put it to my flute. I shared both the flute version and the sung version with my dad.
Kind of spontaneously, I took Ambrose’s ashes out of the box and held him in the bag and stepped outside and sang the song out my back porch, loud and sobbing through with bare feet on the wet wood and snow. Then, it came to me to finish the directions. I put on boots and walked him next to the east and sang again. Then to the north, where the mountains we climbed together lay hidden beneath layers of clouds and fog, invisible but ever present. I knelt and bowed to the mountains as I sang to the north. Finally, to the west, where the sun sets. I held up his ashes and sang, thinking of how his sun has set.
It was a little ritual, and one that I might do again. The song I will sing whenever I need to feel calm and peace. I hope that next time I will have a better container for his earthly remains.
Then I came back inside and did paced breathing for my Move U time, with singing bowls as musical accompaniment.
I spoke with my father-in-law and mother-in-law for a while tonight. Always good to talk with them. I know that they feel pain like I do about him. He says it’s not about getting over or past the pain, but learning to bear it. I will always love Ambrose and feel a deep grief that he is no longer here to have adventures with me, to share in my triumphs and comfort me in my sorrows. We had such adventures together.
I believe there are still adventures ahead of me. And that he is watching me. Waiting to see how I play the game.