Finally, the finality begins

Sometimes you have to make journeys that are hard. There are all kinds of hard journeys. This one isn't as hard as most. Your greatgrandfather walked through a vast hunger. My grandfather watched his people vanish before his eyes. Your son will have a hard journey. My daughter is on a hard journey. But we make our journeys. We have no choice. We can't hide from who we are. That's no life at all. You know that. --Brian Doyle, Mink River

The immediacy of loss is searing, and I had purposely scheduled my final journey away from my final time with Ben via rail, hoping that the length but security of the tracks would give me time to process. More time to cry when you are on a train for half a day instead of on a plane for an hour. I had no room for airports or NYC or security checks. We got up so early that the moon and stars greeted us this morning for the long drive south, but the sun rose by the time he dropped me at the station. It took three trains to get home, and I shuffled between crying, reading a mediocre book, and staring out the window. The last one was good, since I was so mesmerized by the growths in the trees that I couldn't comprehend, saddened by the takeover of huge swaths of water by organisms that aren't very good for it, and soothed by the river, trees, sky, movement. I have already started to book myself to go out and work and socialize, starting tomorrow morning, but that is no guarantee that I won't cry while doing all of those things. This year is worst on my record since 2005, or 1998/9, or whenever. I know people live through relationships all the time, all stages of them, but I really dislike the ends of them.