The Odd Companion

A friend, who lost her husband once told me, nights are the worst. I listened and gave whatever comfort listening gives. But inside, I thought perhaps it was an individual experience. My wife was gone to memory care, and the nights seemed only marginally different. Then my wife passed, and the light that lived down the road went out. Now I know what she meant. Nights are the worst.

The darkness that comes feels like the darkness that came for my wife, a smothering velvet blackness. The world, bright and shiny in the daytime, is tiny and constrained at night. There is only the now of the room in which I find myself. The limits of my vision are at the edges of the light that falls from lamps that cast their dim glow about the room. The void in my life has come to life and sits with me, an odd companion.

I assume it will pass and the visits slow. These things almost always do. And I base that assumption on the very simple idea that making it public, telling someone, means little candles of care will gather around me in the form of friends paying attention, and the darkness will be pushed back, the circle of light enlarged. And anytime I need it, all I need do is think of them. The light they bring will come. The odd companion will have to seek other company. The love still alive will save me.