But I shook my head, “No.” I wasn’t going to promise him that. I couldn’t make myself. And it was unfair of him to ask me that.
“Please, Sweetheart, for me?” His deep, green eyes glossed over with emotion and I could physically feel how painful this was for him to ask me. He didn’t want this anymore than I did.
I found myself nodding, while I sniffled back a stream of tears. “Okay,” I whispered. “I promise.”
He broke out into a genuine smile then, his thumb rubbing back and forth along my jaw. “Now tell me you love me, one more time.”
“I love you, Grady,” I murmured, leaning into his touch and savoring this moment with him.
“And I will always, always love you, Lizzy.”
His eyes finally fluttered shut and his hand dropped from my face. His vitals remained the same, so I knew he was just sleeping. I crawled into bed with him, gently shifting him so that I could lie on my side, in the nook of his arm and lay my hand on his chest. I did this often; I liked to feel the beat of his heart underneath my hand. It had stopped too many times before, for me to trust its reliability. My husband was a very sick man, and had been for a while now.
Tonight was different though. Tonight, Grady was lucid and coherent, he’d found enough energy to stand up and dance with me, to tell me he loved me. Tonight could have been a turn for the better.
But it wasn’t- because only a few hours later, Grady’s heart stopped for the third time during his adult life, and this time it never restarted.
Stage One: Denial
Not every story has a happy ending. Some only hold a happy beginning.
This is my story. I’d already met my soul mate, fallen in love with him and lived our happily ever after.
This story is not about me falling in love.
This story is about me learning to live again after love left my life.
Research shows there are five stages of grief. I don’t know what this means for me, as I was stuck, nice and hard, in step one.
Denial.
I knew, acutely, that I was still in stage one.
I knew this because every time I walked in the house, I wandered around aimlessly looking for Grady. I still picked up my phone to check if he texted or called throughout the day. I looked for him in a crowdedroom,got the urge to call him from the grocery store just to make sure I had everything he needed, and reached for him in the middle of the night.
Acceptance- the last stage of grief- was firmly and forever out of my reach, and I often looked forward to it with longing. Why? Because Denial was ason of a bitchand it hurt more thananythingwhen I realized he wasn’t in the house, wouldn’t be calling me, wasn’t where I wanted him to be, didn’t need anything from the store and would never lie next to me in bed again. The grief, fresh and suffocating, would cascade over me and I was forced to suffer through the unbearable pain of losing my husband all over again.
Denialsucked.
But it was where I was right now. I was living in Denial.
Chapter One
Six Months after Grady died.
I snuggled back into the cradle of his body while his arms wrapped around me tightly. He buried his scruffy face against the nape of my neck and I sighed contentedly. We fit perfectly together, but then again we always had- his big spoon nestled up against my little spoon.
“It’s your turn,” he rumbled against my skin with that deep morning voice I would always drink in.
“No,” I argued half-heartedly. “It’s always my turn.”
“But you’re so good at it,” he teased.
I giggled, “It’s one of my many talents, pouring cereal into bowls, making juice cups. I might just take this show on the road.”
He laughed behind me and his chest shook with the movement. I pushed back into him, loving the feel of his hard, firm chest against my back. He was so hot first thing in the morning, his whole body radiated warmth.
His hand splayed out across my belly possessively and he pressed a kiss just below my ear. I could feel his lips through my tangle of hair and the tickle of his breath which wasn’t all that pleasant first thing in the morning, but it was Grady and it was familiar.
