After the bomb

(I just went back and checked -- Mr. B died just 20 minutes after I posted my previous post.)

Mr. B and I both are (were?) avid fans of science fiction/fantasy books. He tended more toward space opera things with lots on interesting world-building and aliens and ships and adventures where lots of stuff happened. I liked those if they were cleverly written (I'm looking at you, Lois McMaster Bujold) but my favorites are typically stories set in our world, or not-quite our world, with richly-drawn characters and relationships. But my most favorites are post-apocalyptic "after the bomb" books, as we used to call them way back in Cold War times. Stephen Kings' The Stand, for example, or even the Left Behind books which are fascinating when read from a sci-fi perspective.

Anyhooze, that's where I am right now: A post-apocalyptic, bombed out world where the survivors have to scrabble and scramble to survive. Something catastrophic happened and the whole world changed in an instant. It was just a week ago we returned from our three-day cancer retreat (now that sounds like a fun time, doesn't it?) and met with hospice.

Yesterday was a flurry of activity which made it super-easy to stay in left-brain mode. The Ex went with me to the funeral home which was easy-peasy, really, since Mr. B and I tend toward the minimalist in that regard. Sister flew in to stay with me, and Evil Twin was finalizing preps to come, too. The 'durable medical supply' place came to take back the, ahem, 'day bed', etc. There were phone calls and emails and Facebook communications to take care of. I was running on four hours of sleep, and I was grateful for the buzz of exhaustion.

But last night after Sister went to bed and I was shutting down the house for the night, I looked over my shoulder into the now-empty dining room where Mr. B had lain a scant twenty-four hours ago, where Pal Peg and I helped him finish up the hard work of dying and letting go.

The hard candy shell of uber-competent and strong caregiver/problem solver I had constructed around my gooey soft inner core cracked wide open and everything started to leak out. I sat in the middle of the empty floor and wept. That's the first time I felt the Mr. B-shaped hole in me.

It was the first time since his diagnosis a scant three months ago (THREE FUCKING MONTHS!!) that I simply sat and cried to the point where I couldn't stop myself.

I know full well that as the hubbub fades and I have to reconstruct a daily life from the rubble, that Mr. B-shaped hole is only going to get larger and larger.

The world is now Mr. B-less, and that's just so wrong, on every level. Wow. It looks like my tag "Strange New World" has just taken on a whole new meaning, hasn't it?

Fuck.