As I was about to write this post, the lyrics from the song “The Way We Were” played within my mind, bringing with it memories of grief, loss, and denial. This song continued as I realized that nine years have passed since my wife’s last sunset, and that time continues forward.
But within it, something else was moving — quietly, without being named.
I went back to my chapbook, Grief. Road Alone. Shared Paths, to a poem I had written — Denial Then and Now. I read it and found myself moving between this poem and this section’s opening poem, Grief and Joy — not searching, but absorbing, and recognizing what was then and what is now.
Denial Then and Now
Back then, when she passed
my mind whispered, She’s gone —
but deep within, denial wrapped tightly
around this truth.
As days blurred, entwined together,
then unraveled —
a thick fog born, cloaking this truth
with endless pains,
fragile bridges over emptiness.
Of—
A place mat set for her at the kitchen table,
with a coffee cup waiting to be filled.
Flashes of her sitting in her favorite chair,
silent before the television in its walled alcove.
A patio table for two —
under a warm, sunny sky,
her loving gaze,
watching me grill.
Washing her clothing, folding it into her
drawer.
Waking in the middle of the night,
checking for her well-being.
And as these days turned to years,
this thick denial fog thinned —
into softened mist, allowing
the first rays — of my acceptance.
Yet still, I slept on one half of our bed,
awakening, knowing—silently hoping,
feeling the need
to comfort her.
But now, these many years have passed,
this mist has faded,
revealing acceptance, a reality —
my life alone.
And still, the other half of our bed
holds her absence—
an ache I have learned to carry.
If something here feels understood, or shared—there is more within
E.K. Mitsunaga 