I miss my husband every single day. I miss, miss, miss him.

Sometimes it is just a passing thought, a memory, a glimpse of our past. Sometimes its something our child says or does, the way she sleeps, a flicker in her face, or hands – precious replicas of his beautiful hands.

Sometimes it is a dagger through my soul. An unbelievable and unbearable ache that makes me wail and rant for all that I have known and all that I expected. I get angry and bitterly, bitterly sad for that which our daughter has lost and will never know. It is as if a part of her jigsaw has been removed and she will never be the full picture, all that she should be. There are parts of her that are forever lost and are irreplaceable, those parts from her dad, what he would teach her and I never can.

Eric was, and remains, the most intelligent person I have known. He had a knowledge and understanding that flabbergasted me every day. Everyday he taught me something and everyday our daughter would glean information from him. (It was not for nothing that we were part of the team that holds the record for the most wins in the annual Holy Cross Pre-primary Quiz Night!). Eric taught her about geology, flora, landscapes and music, he taught her how to pick up insects and identify birds, of Latin and languages, he showed her how to treat all with dignity and respect. He showed her daily what is meant to love a woman and how a man must treat a woman. These things are all lost to her as so many of them are outside of my reach. I am unable to offer these to our daughter, as they are not part of my makeup as they were part of Eric’s being and fabric.

The loneliness is seldom spoken about, only fleetingly to those closest or academically to my therapists. How do you explain it? How do you articulate it? The isolation, the fear, and the sadness. It makes me do things and make choices that would be inconceivable otherwise. I accept things I would never tolerate if not for the loneliness. My choices, decisions and actions would be vastly different if Eric were here. But he is not and he is never, ever, going to be. He is gone forever. And that’s a fucking long time to be lonely. So I do what I can to fill the void, even though I know that sometimes it would not sit well with him.

The biggest fear is the vast voids of time. Those first few seconds waking up in the months after he died having forgotten he was dead, the first five minutes after waking every morning and realizing I need to fill my time without him, or the thoughts of my future – a life without him. We had been together for 15 years. I had expected to grow old with Eric. I had waited long enough for him to come into my life. Now I have to traverse my life without him.

My best friend of twenty years has gone. He is not here to share the minutiae and mundane of daily life, nor the thrills and fun and laughter, nor the angry, horrible and hurt. He is not here and in his place is an Eric-shaped void of heartache, missing and loneliness.

* This is one of a number of journal entries that I wrote a while ago, perhaps someone will relate.