Posts Tagged "loss and guilt"

I give Troy the bur­gundy vel­vet bag that con­tains Erik’s ashes. “Do you mind hold­ing them? I may need to run down to the beach by myself.” “I’ll put them in my back pack.” Troy rests the gray sack by his feet and slides the ashes in. He starts to zip up the back­pack, but pauses. “Jeanette, I might be able to fit yours in, too.” Jeanette hugs her pine box closer to her chest. “No, I want to hold him. Hayden’s fine right here.” My mother-in-law, Jeanette, has held on to her husband’s ashes for 17 years now. When we talked about scat­ter­ing Erik’s ashes, she said, “We’ll scat­ter them together. It’s never felt right to do it before, but it feels right now. Erik can be with his daddy. They can finally be ...

I folded our warm white tow­els while Tatiana, only twelve months old then, napped in her bed­room. Erik and I had been mar­ried just over two years and, already, I was four months preg­nant with our sec­ond daugh­ter, Keira. Erik and I both felt the same intense love for Tatiana and were excited to have another baby right away. But there was no excite­ment in the house that day. The house was quiet, except for the annoyed thoughts I could hear myself think­ing about Erik. Sick of his crap. We had not been speak­ing to each other for hours. I stacked the tow­els neatly into the closet, pass­ing Erik in the hall. I did not look at his brown eyes or admire his thick black hair. Instead, I grabbed a new set of sheets and I walked away...