The void that stands beside me.

It might not be so bad if I could pick up the phone and call him at any time or skype. I could at least have an emotional connection on an as needed basis. I could work with that. But as things have been going, $5 buys you 20 minutes of phone time to Uganda. The rates used to be better but anymore this is the best they get. I’ve spent a fortune on phone cards. Then we’ve switched to skype and used google voice both of which are dependent upon a decent internet connection and on power. Needless to say those two items have infringed greatly on good communication with my husband. Sometimes I can’t speak to him for over a week.

It’s been a super hard week. I’ve missed him so much. I’ve been sick with a feverish cold. The babies are so much bigger now than before. And I’ve blown through another deadline for leaving the continental US. It is definitely fall now. My low wage job is not helping me save much for our flights to Uganda. I’ve been interviewing all summer here and there, trying to get a higher paying job to no avail. I work hard every weekend to get the house into shape and to pack up my life here. The items on my to do list get done very slowly. Perhaps if I would have started working that list a year ago, I’d be done now. But I still remember how sick I was last year about this time and how needy the twins still were at that time.

I have my strength back now. I remember being too weak to care. Perhaps that is the difference between missing my husband and caring that he is not with me. Last year the loneliness didn’t hit me because I didn’t have the strength to feel much. I remember a lot of things fell behind as I lay on the couch last year. One evening I had fallen asleep with the lights on. I woke and saw a portly mouse walking across the floor and squeezing under the closet door. Normally, such an incident would have roused me from slumber to clean out whatever it was that drew that mouse to be in the closet. Instead, I simply lay there. I remember making a mental note to do that later. By morning that mental note had completely disappeared. Months later, I re-discovered the closet mouse remains.

Now, time eats away at our lives together. Hard work helps but a little. I’m weary with trying to keep up but know that if I don’t put in a brute effort, I will eventually be stranded here in the US and this painful separation will go on and on. The sadness settles like the cold before dawn. Like the death of a sister, I’ll remember it less and I will only weep occasionally. I want to call out for help but like the last cries of a mouse caught in a trap, I know I am near the end.