One of the first hard lessons I learned was that safety does not always look like staying put. Sometimes it looks like leaving before you are healed because the act of choosing movement is part of the healing. George’s journal had hinted at that in his brief entries. I learned it in real time.
I also learned that grief does not disappear just because purpose arrives.
There were nights when I would lock the farmhouse doors, check the monitors, make one last pass through the downstairs, and catch sight of George’s handwriting on a label or his old work jacket hanging near the mudroom and feel rage rise fresh and bright in me.
How dare you love me and not trust me enough to tell me?
How dare you build something this important and leave me outside it?
How dare you die one day before asking for help?