The Other Widow

I met a widow today.  We were in a store, both shopping, and we struck up a conversation.  She mentioned that she'd lost her husband in April and that now everyone expected her to get over it--to move on with life.  No one understood.  Then I told her about me--and how I'd lost my husband in March of 2010.  I told her how it's a physical pain that we experience, like we're being cut apart.  It's something only those who've lost would understand.
I meet lots of widows in my sales position.  I've meet gay and straight, yet all talk about the pain of losing--a pain that does not just go away with the passing of time.  They have a look about them too, a sort of hollowness that maybe only the people in our club can see.  The woman I met today walked aimlessly through the store, her eyes unfocused.  She was there to take away the pain.  She'd filled her arms with expensive items.  A year ago, I did the same, hoping that things could make me feel better.  That maybe I could derive some comfort from a dress or a coat, but it doesn't work, because when I get home, no one is there to tell me how pretty I look wearing those things.
I'm in my second year now.  At this point I'd say I've gotten use to the pain.  I've learned to not focus on it, to live a somewhat normal life.   I'm like the chronic pain sufferer that somehow finds a way to do the things needed in life.  I've learned to laugh because I'm tired of crying.   Yet, I still miss my husband.  I still want him here.  And sometimes in the wee hours of the night, when my mind floats freely toward sleep,  I ask why he isn't with me.   And life goes on. 
Today is Labor Day.  It's a day of husbands and wives, family,  friends.  It's a day for those who still have joy in their lives.  Yet on this day I feel that I'm only witnessing life.  That my part in it has been far too diminshed to think of it as a true life.  I am existing.