The house is empty. No more furniture. No more pictures. No more people celebrating birthdays and holidays. No more family around the dining room table. No more memories to be made there. No more feeling like my ghosts are there.
The house is empty. I walk around empty rooms hoping to feel their presence with me. Instead, I feel alone with my memories. All the happy times we had in that house. The sadness of losing Matt and Grandma now haunts the rooms.
The house is empty. Our belongings are packed up and moved. What would not fit in my house has been thrown out. That house no longer feels like home. The people that made it home are gone.
The house is empty. Room-by-room memories pop up. Room by room I struggle to be there. Room by room I lose them again and again. Room by room we gather what is important small pieces of them.
The house that was my home is now empty. Someday in the future, it will be torn down. Another piece of me gone.
The house is empty. My soul is trying to heal. My heart is trying to move on. My brain remembers the pain and fears more. My soul is lost searching for a piece that is missing. My heart is looking for its home.
The house is empty. Empty like grief has left me. Another round one by grief.
The house is empty. Searching for comfort knowing I won’t find it. Searching for the brown eyes that saw through me. Searching for the arms I was safe in. Searching for signs he is with me.
The house is empty. The love I had there is gone. The dreams of the future are gone. The life that was ahead of us.
The house is empty. I was hoping to find them there. Sitting at the table talking, waking up from this dream. Finding out the last two years were not real.
The house is empty. It is the house that built me. It taught me what love was. Held me together when life flipped upside down. Taught me that people die but love doesn’t.
The house is empty. Now I have to make my new house become my home. Fill it with more than just belongings. Fill it with love. My house needs to become a home. The people that made the empty house a home live in my heart.
About Laurel Snook
Laurel became a young widow on October 2, 2020, her husband Matt had a heart attack he was only 37. Matt was a juvenile diabetic and they always knew he would die young but she never thought that she could be a widow at 32. Navigating grief with anxiety, regrets and guilt have been a struggle for Laurel. They had gotten into a fight days before he died and they had talked about divorce. One of the things that helped her the most is finding other widows who understood the pain she was feeling. In February she decided to start writing her story. Self-care is something else she started to do daily and art has become her outlet to get what she is feeling out which she shares on her Instagram. Being a young widow comes with its own challenges but we are not alone in this journey.
You can find her on Instagram @HealingPorcupine or her personal blog link- Healingporcupine.com.
This is beautiful. Describes exactly how I feel as we must move from our home of 17 years. Every memory for my son, daughter, and me is held there. We don’t know where we will move, it’s heartbreaking to go.
Beautiful.