Well it's been probably a week of his soul not being there. I've given up hope that it's coming back. When it first came back, of course I was ecstatic!!! Then it began to flicker and sometimes it wouldn't be there but would come back and I tried to learn that maybe I'll get him part of the time. But now he's not there. He's just gone. It is an unbearable pain!
Right now he remembers when his soul was there. He remembers when he could KNOW I was there and FEEL my feelings. During that time he never jumped when I touched him because he could FEEL that I was going to touch him. He wasn't surprised by me or anyone. He remembers being connected to all life - when he'd walk outside and could FEEL the energy in the sun, the grass, the trees, the animals - he could FEEL its life. His memories will go. I already know they will. Then he'll be reserved to being the lost one who doesn't know he's lost. He'll be sleeping and not know he's asleep. He'll forget what it was like to be awake and he'll be full of fear again and after afraid for so long, it morphs into terror and then he'll be locked inside his own dead room. Since his mind works he knows that allowing himself to feel the grief of his loss is a very bad thing. It will spiral into suicide being an option that makes sense. So he won't go there. He'll use his mind to only focus on what he hasn't lost. He can smell things, he can see things, he can touch things, he can make things, and he can make things happy....on the outside.....which is all he can experience. He is grateful to God for another breath. When you are the one that loses yourself maybe that is what you can do.
For me it's very different! I am watching my husband slip deeper and deeper into his coma. He lays on the hospital bed with no brain activity to experience life but his heart beats which keeps him warm. He's essentially dead but when I kiss him he's not a cold body. Part of me feels selfish for keeping him alive just so I can feel his warmth. Part of me feels grateful that I can still feel his warmth. Part of me is really pissed off at God that all I can feel is his warmth! What kind of horrible trick is this??? I had lost my husband almost 6 years ago, I went through it (or not really) able to be distracted by all the fighting I had to do to pay our bills, then in my loneliness I had to find myself since I was by myself, then my wants and needs emerged until I finally actually dealt with the loss! And then.....he came back....and I felt the most joy that I could ever feel - a MIRACLE that God brought my husband back to me! And now he's gone again??? How can I go through this all again???? This is so unfair!
Living grief is what they call this. It is seriously fucked up!!! My husband body walks around seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, breathing and not experiencing or not connecting or remembering while I ache in my soul that he's a zombie. His body is here and his soul is gone. When his soul is there I can see his eyes sparkle, dance, and sing the most beautiful music and I am with him. When his soul is dead I can see blackness in his eyes, they are flat, dark, still, and tired.
I feel so afraid and angry and sad that I'm overwhelmed! I want to just scream! I am lonely again and I must put on my happy face to keep keeping on. What a sick fucking joke!
Right now, while he remembers his soul, we can grieve together like it's a child we both lost but soon he'll forget he had a child and then I will be even more alone. When his soul was here I'd tell him about when he first came home and told me to not look at him. Back then I just felt that looking at him made him uncomfortable like a room of strangers were staring at him because he couldn't FEEL me...there was no connection. I didn't know that then. I told him of my first realization that he was not there....when I sat across the table from him and while he was telling me a story I snuck a peek at his eyes and I saw nothing. I actually gasped because I saw what he looked like dead. From then on I even tried explaining that to doctors. I would tell them, "Look at his eyes, it's like they are dead" as if they'd be able to tell? No...it was only me that could tell. Now that I remember all of this dead vs. not dead, I was talking to a very close friend of mine about his eyes and she said that before he was deployed she remembers his eyes danced and sparkled and when she came over and saw him after he got back, his eyes were dark and lost. THAT made me feel so good! To hear that validation that I wasn't the only one, I'm not crazy, he really is lost.
Now I have anger, sadness, and memories of my best friend, my lover, my soulmate being WITH me and now he's just not.
