Whole vs Hole

To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. . .

The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. . .

This hole in your heart is the shape of the one you lost – no one else can fit it.

 – Jeanette Winterson

Today most of this quote rings true to me, still not sure about the pain stopping, but the part about the hole in your heart being the shape of the one you lost fits how I felt today.  Today Jaelyn and I went to visit friends, Bill and Laurie Baltaeff, who live in the Philadelphia area.  We have not seen them since Scott’s funeral.  Bill and Scott were close friends for about fifteen years.   Bill and Laurie married when Jaelyn was nine months old.  Ever since they started dating, it has been the four of us (plus kids) getting together.  Today, Scott’s loss and absence was very obvious. 

Whenever Jaelyn and I get together with friends, Scott’s absence is amplified and this changes the whole dynamic.  It is as if all of our “couple” friendships have to be re-tuned and re-adjusted.  This change is difficult, painful, and at times awkward. This is amplified even more when we spend time with Scott’s family, as I think that our (Jaelyn and I) presence reminds Scott’s family of his absence, just as when we get together with them, it reminds Jaelyn and I of Scott’s absence.   Yet because of the shared memories, these relationships with friends and family become even more important.

I was thinking on the long drive home from Philadephia about the hole in our lives without Scott.  I find it ironic that the word whole and hole are pronounced exactly the same but mean exactly the opposite.  I no longer feel whole and no longer feel that our family is whole, because of the hole that Scott’s death has left in our hearts, our lives, and our family. Each time we do something for the first time since Scott’s death, that we would have done with Scott -- the pain, hurt, and tears surge up freshly again.  We cannot avoid these experiences, not only is it impossible to avoid these experiences, it wouldn’t be healthy.  Yet it is often with a sense of dread and hesitancy that I move toward each experience, knowing that it brings the most intense pain of the loss back to front and center.  I know that I need to live moving forward, not stuck in time or moving backward.  It is for this reason that I mentally prod myself to keep moving forward and not avoid the painful situations.  Living is not standing still and the pain reminds me that I am alive and need to keep moving.