Focus on the Good

Focus on the good, focus on the good...you were not good for me, very often oftener than not, not good to me.  That's the fucking truth.  After this nightmare month passed, right at the end of it,  I thought I'd found some footing.  Equilibrium that I hadn't known in 28 years.  I started to remember what it was really like with you.  How wrecked and bloodied and battered I was, long before you died.  I started to think: I could finally have a life free from fear! My being was crowded, in the immediate afterwards, with the glory of your infrequent smile and the warm good smell of you, the sex, the jokes, the way you were my best friend forever...a strange set of only-half-truths my mind told me, because I was mourning my husband and that's the way it's supposed to go.  Focus on the good.

Focus on the good.  Focus on the good.  Focus on the good, even if the good kills you soul-dead in its memory.  The good I wished for.  The good I clung to like a weak infant.  You were the cloth mother, and I was trained to believe in a kindness of living flesh inside the soft rags suffused with that wonderful smell of Husband.  Focus on the good! Focus on the good! Focus on the good! Focus on the life! Focus on the beautiful memories! Good times! Compassion! Heroism! He loved you he loved you he loved you! Oh yes yes!

I'm curled up in the loneliness of 28 years of all alone, mourning the cloth mother and the Everything-I-Ever-Wished-I-Had.