Tonight is horrible.  The permanence sinks in deeper.

There has not yet been room to think about the future or the reality that faces me- but yesterday after meeting with a financial advisor, I felt it.  He estimated Audrey’s college expenses at $400,000 for four years if she goes to a state school.  There were other figures too.  It’s not that we ever made a ton of money in our chosen professions, but just that it’s just me now.  Just me.

The amount of pain I feel on behalf of Audrey is also unbearable.  She talked about you traveling around the world to buy her presents today.  I felt you morphing into a mythical person she wouldn’t remember.  Please God, please let her remember how she loved him and how he loved her.  At least I have that much.

Today she pulled a bunch of your clothes out of the drawer and put them in the laundry basket and climbed in.  I folded them back up, crying, and rested my head on top of the pile in the drawer for a moment.  I hadn’t seen these clothes in a long time now.  Still, it is unbelievable.

The intensity of the pain of grief makes it very hard to believe that we are just physical beings experiencing a process that can be explained in clinical terms and stages.

It is ineffable, mind-boggling pain.  It is

sacred.