Melancholy

I'm feeling melancholy today. I guess it's a change from the deep aching sadness that has gripped me for most of the last week, but it's still a far cry from the upbeat optimistic personality I normally am. In so many ways, the loss of Ammon is only getting more poignant. Life has mostly returned to 'normal' for most of the people around me. Everybody has returned to the lives they were leading before this happened, with few exceptions. I know that the loss of Ammon reverberates through the lives of many, many people, especially his family and friends that live near here, but it's nothing compared to the ripples it has made in the lives of me and the children. I find myself being inordinately jealous of the normalcy other people get to have. The ward has had people coming in and helping me several times a week, and meals continue to trickle in. I appreciate the support and help from people around me, and could not have made it through the last month without them. On the flip side, I know when they leave me, when their hours with me are at a close, they are leaving me to return to their lives. Their lives that are unchanged, whole, and still hold the promise of a future. I know, logically, that my life is not over. I know that my future is simply altered, not ended, but the pain of the dreams I lost that day stay with me today. The Victoria that I have been for the last 25 years, the woman who was married to the man of her dreams, mother to his children, and content in her life as a whole, has died. From here on out, I have to learn to be somebody else. Yes, I'm still Victoria, but I know that this experience will forever alter me. It will alter my personality, my perceptions, my reality. It will change my faith, my strength, and my ability to adapt to change. I try to have confidence that in the end, the Lord is working to make me a work of art. I know that I am worth saving, worth knowing, and have a life worth experiencing, but it hurts. I was happy. We were happy. We were goofy, deliriously, serenely, and genuinely happy, and the loss of that stings. I was content with the person I was, and confident in myself in a way that I had only just started to appreciate. I felt like I had finally come into myself as a woman, and didn't feel the need to justify my actions, beliefs, or experiences to anyone around me. I wonder if the gift of confidence was given to me to get me through this experience. When it came time to plan the funeral, I had the ability to make many difficult decisions. When somebody came to me with a difficult decision to make, I had a vision of what I wanted, and was capable of planning accordingly. In the weeks since Ammon's death, I have accomplished a lot. The house is still reasonably clean, the kids have stayed fed and mostly bathed, and I have completed mounds of paperwork, several dozen phone calls, and completed many items in the business of death. Social Security benefits were deposited in my account today, and that knowledge provides some security to the children and I. After all this, though, there is still a void in my life. I miss Ammon in a way that makes me ache to the core. I miss his smile, his scent, the way his arms felt when they were wrapped around me. I feel like a robot. I feel dead. I feel like I can't go on without him, but I will.