Deep Inside

Deep inside
A tugging at my heart, my soul
Is it good or bad?
I’m not sure

Is it sadness? Is it grief?
Or just a memory
Buried beneath the scars.
Residue of a marriage lost
Seeping out of a softened heart.

Twenty-five years ago
The vows were spoken
“In sickness or in health,
Till death do we part” …

I must have died
Deep inside

August 26, 2002 Elaine Carlson

I’ve always focused on how I broke our vows-in sickness or in health. Gary became sick—so did I. I felt guilty that I wasn’t able to stay and fight through it to the end.

But maybe I did stay to the end. Till death do we part—I died, maybe not physically, but my soul died. Does this death qualify as a legitimate ending—no guilt attached? Am I a survivor of my own death?

I use to say that if I had stayed married to Gary, either he would have die (I would have killed him accidentally in “play time”) or I would have died (suicide or he would have killed me). I was always thinking of the physical aspect of death. I never recognized the death of my soul-my mind, my will, and my emotions. I was dead—a walking zombie.

Death ended our marriage.

I can feel a release of the guilt for being responsible for Gary’s mental health.