I am not short of 'me' time at the moment, but it made me think about the smile thing. I guess each day gets a teeny bit easier since Chris died, just a teeny bit. I am making myself do social things and I am doing some volunteering stuff, I am getting back into my hobbies, I am learning to be independent and dependent on just me, tough when I relied on Chris so much, but does any of this make me smile?
I realised that although my face will go through the actions and a smile may appear there to others, I don't think I have smiled inside for a very long time, way before Chris died. Living with the love of your life having a terminal illness does that to you. I think we both stopped internally smiling on diagnosis. I don't mean Chris or I lived our life in a depressive state for 16 months. We both tried really hard to enjoy life as best we could and have fun, but for me, watching MND slowly consume Chris was devastating. Inside my heart broke on May 5th 2014 and it is still broken.
I guess my body is starting to smile, but my soul isn't there yet. My children give me plenty of reasons to smile and they keep me afloat, but everything else is such an effort. The urge to retreat to my cave is overwhelming at times. I know this is normal, but I want to have my soul smile again without feeling guilty or that it is some kind of betrayal to Chris. I will never stop loving him or missing him, but I don't want to feel sad for the rest of my life. I know damn well too that he would not want me to be sad either.
I need to be patient, not my strongest point and be kind to myself, never been good at that either, but I am surviving this. I might not like being a widow or want it and I wish everyday to have Chris back, but I am surviving it. I still talk to him everyday, I still say words of love over his ashes casket every night (they will be interned at Easter), I still snuggle up to his pillow. I still miss him so very much, but I will survive this, I owe it to him and my children and myself.
Hopefully one day I will learn to smile inside too, for now the smile on my face will have to do.
