Tonight has been a quiet night of eating, cooking, letter writing, and Christmas card making. I thought back to the last two Christmases when I didn’t make Christmas cards. Last year, I ran out of time since my dad suddenly had to get heart surgery, so I flew home to be with him. The year before that, I had no desire to make cards since Ed passed away just months before. I didn’t really have the desire to do much of anything then.

I wouldn’t say that things are “back to normal.” “Normal” is a weird word in itself, and the world will never be fully okay to me because he is gone. Sometimes when I am alone, I think about the deep loneliness he felt, and I wonder if I have ever felt even a fraction of the loneliness he experienced. My version of feeling lonely is probably nothing compared to his. My aunt used to tell me that there’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely. Ed was both most of the time. There was no separation of it for him.

I’m doing a lot of the same things again like card making and scrapbooking. I’m also doing new things like volunteering and mentoring since he died. I wonder what he thinks of my life now that he has left.

This weekend, I was sent a fundraiser appreciation gift for the money I raised for AFSP’s Out of the Darkness Walks this year. Last year, I received a solar charger that I still have yet to open and use, and this year, I got a big, sturdy red hiking backpack that has multiple pieces. It looks like a really high quality backpack that could potentially be very useful for someone, but probably not me. I don’t go hiking that often, and when I do, I definitely would not want to carry around a backpack this large. I’ve been trying to give it away, but no one seems to want or need it.

I felt really spoiled staring at it today. It’s a really good backpack. I just don’t need it. Our apartment is small, and we already have so many things we don’t use. We have too many things because we are first world privileged snobs to the point where we get given things when we don’t need them and definitely don’t ask for them, and many times don’t use them. I don’t want to give it to Goodwill or even the secondhand shop near the apartment I usually donate things to because I don’t really want these things to be resold. This is brand new. I want it to go to someone who will really appreciate and use it. But who is that going to be?

I was at the airport this evening waiting to board my flight back to New York when I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed on my phone to discover that a former colleague’s wife had died earlier this month from lung cancer. She had never smoked in her life. This colleague isn’t just any colleague; he was one of the hiring managers at my last company who decided I was smart enough to work on his team, and so he hired me. The same year I was hired in 2009, he got married. I even remember contributing to their wedding gift from our company. I just can’t believe that just six years and one son later, his wife is gone. They weren’t even married a decade.

As soon as I read his very brief but sincere post announcing his wife’s passing, I felt choked up and had to catch my breath. He posted a photo of her posing from their wedding day, and I felt sick to my stomach. Now, he has to go through life without the love of his life, the mother of their only child, and has to raise this son all on his own.

I haven’t spoken to him since he left my last company, so I felt weird reaching out to him, but I did anyway. I feel sick when I think of all the potential negative things that could face me in the future; there are too many bad things to think about, so I try not to do it. But sometimes I think, losing Ed and the way in which I lost him was so bad that maybe I could face anything now. And perhaps everyone who loses someone so dear them is bonded through their shared despondency. We’re all bonded through our losses.