1,000 Sleepless Nights

On Monday I woke up from 1,000 nights.

1,000 nights without my Craig.

1,000 days of missing him, of wondering what happened, of not understanding.

1,000 days of tears, of heartache, of anger.

1,000 days of fighting, of breathing, of putting one foot in front of the other.

1,000 feels so big.

It sounds so long.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's barely a blip. My heart understands this better than my head.

I wish I had words of wisdom, beautiful things I had learned. Something to mark those 1,000 days.

But in truth, I feel just as lost at times as I did 1,000 days ago.

I still don't know why this happened.

I still don't understand how God, if He exists, could have looked away.

I still can't fathom the magnitude of losing Craig, of where he is now.

I still miss my best friend. So much. Every day.

1,000 days is just time. A human construct, how we mark the slow ticking of a clock. It has absolutely no relevance when it comes to loss.

Loss is still loss, even 1,000 days later.

If anything, it magnifies that loss. Because now we can finally begin to see just how long time can stretch, what it can encompass. 1,000 days means 3 missed birthdays, 3 missed Christmases, 2 nephews' births missed.

It is missing hearing your name called by someone, over and over. Missing experiences, missing jokes, missing laughter, missing fights. It means missing drives to work, visiting with your in-laws, cooking dinner together, sipping coffee on the weekends, curling up to a movie, moving furniture, visiting garage sales, walking in the cold, skating on the pond.

It means missing waking up to someone's face that you know better than your own, eyes that light up whenever you walk in a room, a grin that could make you laugh no matter how mad you might be. It is missing notes left to make you smile and the world's worst macaroni & cheese, made just for you.

1,000 feels like forever.

It crawled by.

It flew past.