Day 14 - Grieving the Loss of My Future

May 14th - Day 14

Chasing Dinosaurs

I planned on taking Robin on a steam train ride for his 32nd birthday but we slept in on the intended day and the birthday plans were squashed.  So I got my thinking cap on and after a few phone calls we were on our way to catch a plane to Drumheller.  One of Robin's loves since he was a child has been dinosaurs and we enjoyed our time at this amazing Canadian museum.  

Going to Drumheller reminded me of going to the Royal British Columbia Museum, where he had me take notes on the mammoth, this was the day after we made our marriage vows.  I also took notes when we went to National History Museum in New York, now that was a dinosaur hall!  I would follow Robin around these museums and take notes as he visually devoured the dinosaur skeletal sculptures.  They would fuel the next metal sculpture being birthed in his mind.

When we first met, Robin was building an atomically correct, life-sized sculpture of a Dimetrodon.  It was our baby, it went everywhere with us.  It was the main sculpture in our Vancouver warehouse studio and was shown at the Dinosaur world tour when it went through Vancouver.  When we moved to Salt Spring, he relocated with us and greeted our visitors outside the front entrance.  Donny, as he was named, went with us every week when we went to sell Robin’s metal work at the Salt Spring Island Market.  Robin was known as the guy with the big dinosaur.  

When the market ended for the season, Robin decided to relocate Donny down on the property to enjoy on our morning walks.  I was delighted, I hated lugging this huge dinosaur back and forth to the market as he is really heavy.  I struggled to help Robin carry Donny down the hill of our property to his new home.  I loved greeting him on my walk every morning.  When the market started on Easter long weekend, I almost fell over when Robin said we better go get him so we can bring him to market tomorrow.  I complained the whole time but I trudged behind, aiding Robin in his quest.  Robin told everyone that came to our table the next day of my misfortune. 

Donny at the Market with us

An invitation to an show at our studio apartment

Burgos to Hormillos - 21.0 km

The volunteers at the albergue donʼt open the doors until 6:30, it is a stampede of pilgrims by the time we are let out of the albergue, the sun is already up and I am stuck in the day light. Where are my stars that I miss so much?  I feel so sad walking out of the gates leaving Burgos.  I say a prayer and wish my friends well on their own journey’s.

The walk is surprisingly enjoyable today. The sun is out accenting the beautiful scenery with a cool breeze and gradual slopes up and down.  A lady named Stacy passes me and we start to talk. She is an author of a devotional book that she is leaving at different albergues. After I talk with her, she walks ahead and I think to myself, this isnʼt so bad, much the same as always, I was worried for nothing. I have only known these people for a week of my life, I am sure I can easily get passed their absence.

I ended up in a little village where not even one person looks familiar. Now is when I start to feel the contrast of my friends presence compared to the fun and comradeship of the previous evening. I only knew them for a week but they knew all about me and why I was here. We had a connection and we felt like we understood each other, even through the language barrier, now they were gone and I am feeling the loss. I do my routine and then go to siesta feeling very strange. I feel neither happy or sad, I feel nothingness, I feel lonely.  I wonder if this is what depression feels like? nothingness, a void?  I miss all my friends and I even miss the people whom I donʼt even know their names. I feel like I should have walked further now as it was such an easy day, at least I could be with the Brazilians.

After siesta I need to get up to eat but I want to stay in bed until tomorrow morning and not speak to a single soul. But I get up to purchase supplies from the convenience store across the street and make myself a sandwich with a baguette, cheese and salami. It is starting to get very cold and windy, my clothes dry quickly but I have to put all my clothes on to keep warm.

There is a mother/daughter duo walking together Emilia and Maria. They both left on May 1st so there is an instant bond with anyone I meet who also left on that dreadful day. Even people who didnʼt leave on May 1st, when you tell them you left on May 1st, they are, “oh wow, I heard that was a horrible day, and a horrible storm”. So there is an instant understanding of what we had to go through. Funny most of the people I met on that day also had to stay in the portables past the parking lot and over the creek.   

Well off to bed I go, at least I will get a good nights sleep.   A very blah day indeed. 

Grieving the loss of my future

I followed Robin around for so many years and now I am on my own path and it is so boring.  I no longer have his homework to do and everyone I meet is on their own journey, separate from me and I am on my own ... but what is this journey.  I have no idea.  Robin had so much passion for the things he did; he loved trains and guns and knives and dinosaurs and metal.  He was so passionate and I followed him around with a clipboard as he gave me homework for another one of his ideas.  

My future was Robin’s future and now there is no future.  With every step, I walk into my new future but it feels like it is a void of nothingness.  I am alone, Robin is left behind and I am starting all over.  The only problem is I have no idea where I want to go.  I am good, really good at enjoying the moment and right now I can’t even do that.  How can I look forward to a future when I can’t even enjoy this moment? 

I realize I have stopped grieving the loss of Robin I am now grieving the loss of my own life.  I am future less.  I am on my own and I feel like I have no direction at all.  When I meet other widows, there is an instant bond, an immediate understanding of the journey we all didn’t choose.  We all have invisible futures or futures we were trying to create, each one never wishing this journey on anyone else.  

This feeling of nothingness is so insular and lonely.  I am lonely but I don't want to let anyone in, this feeling is so strange, so not like me.  I feel like a stranger to myself.  There must be a me in here somewhere, hiding.  I worry there was never a me, I just put on a costume of Robin's wife and people thought I had a personality.  Actually I have been in a relationship since I was 15 years old.  Maybe I am nothing without a partner.  I have so many fears but they do not move me to act, I sit in this place, wondering if I will ever find a way out.