To Miss

What is it "to miss"? How exactly is missing someone defined. Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition.

miss 1  (mɪs)
— vb
1.	to fail to reach, hit, meet, find, or attain (some specified orimplied aim, goal, target, etc)
2.	( tr ) to fail to attend or be present for: to miss a train ; to missan appointment
3.	( tr ) to fail to see, hear, understand, or perceive: to miss apoint
4.	( tr ) to lose, overlook, or fail to take advantage of: to miss anopportunity
5.	( tr ) to leave out; omit: to miss an entry in a list
6.	( tr ) to discover or regret the loss or absence of: he missed hiswatch ; she missed him
7.	( tr ) to escape or avoid (something, esp a danger), usuallynarrowly: he missed death by inches
8.	miss the boat , miss the bus  to lose an opportunity
— n
9.	a failure to reach, hit, meet, find, etc
10.	informal give something a miss  to avoid (something): give thelecture a miss ; give the pudding a miss

That's certainly not how I would define it. In fact, in doesn't even begin to touch on it.


Miss.
1. The sinking feeling in your stomach at the realization that the what or who you want and need most is unobtainable.
2. When your thoughts are completely absorbed in someone/thing that is not and can not be present at the current moment
3. Longing for what once was

That touches a little bit on my definition of "to miss," but even then, it's only slightly.
When Jonny first died, I walked around with the constant sinking feeling in my gut. It never went away. Almost like that feeling when you go over a hill too quickly, but not as fun. Like my heart was literally working it's way down into the depths of my body to hide itself from anymore pain. That sinking feeling stayed with my for months and then it seemed to ease up a bit. It started to happen only when I first woke up and right before I went to sleep. There was something about starting and ending my day that was painful and made the missing so much stronger. As time went on, the sinking feeling lifted. My life continued and while I still miss him every day, my body as seemed to adjust to it and stop hurting physically so often.

That is why it hurts that much more when the sinking springs up again. It's not gone for good, in fact I don't believe it ever will be. It will continue to happen when I am missing him more than usual and it will surprise me and I will just live with it like I have.

I had too much time with myself on Saturday. Driving solo with only my thoughts and the radio to entertain me got the best of the former. Not to mention, I'd awoken that morning from a weird dream featuring Jonny. I don't remember it much just that it was weird and left me feeling unsettled. Those dreams always set me up for a weird day, to say the least. The sinking feeling stayed with me almost all day, until I was too tired to really notice anymore. My thoughts wondered and of course ended up at the inevitable "could, should, would" place.

Then I realized... I've been widowed longer than I was married. I've been widowed longer than I even knew Jonathan. This has been true for a while, actually, but the realization came yesterday. And it sucked... at first. It sucked to think that my happiness has been less than my pain - in terms of time. But with that came another realization. The realization of what an impact that man really had on me. Sure, I've known for a long, long while how much I was in love with him and how much I continue to love him. But the impact he had on my life, my soul... wow. For someone to walk into my life and stay only so briefly but to have changed me forever. Wow.  Jonny Porto, you certainly are a special soul and I am thankful for having had you, even for so brief a time, to have my soul changed and for our souls to have been melded together in the way that they have.

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It's weird, but sometimes I swear I can still hear him through things and songs and crazy stuff. Signs, if you will. It could just me being presumptuous and hopeful, but it's my mind and my heart and I can think what I want. There's a Kip Moore song that I cry nearly every time I hear it. Hey Pretty Girl. It really seems to document our relationship in an eery way. They met and they fell in love, and the topic of time moving quickly is brought up. The last two stanza's of the song really do it for me -

Hey pretty girl, you did so good
Our baby's got your eyes
And a fighter's heart like I knew she would
Hey pretty girl, you did so good

Hey pretty girl, when I see the light
And it's my time to go
I'm gonna thank the Lord for a real good life
A pretty little girl and a beautiful wife

I guess because it's a song and everything needs to fit in a song's length, everything happens so quickly for the relationship, just as it did for Jonny and myself. And then at the end, he dies. It seems like their relationship is just unfolding and it's his time to go. So much like us. Whenever I hear this song, I swear I hear Jonathan saying it to me. Like I said, probably pretty presumptuous. I mean, who am I to assume he'd say these things to me... it just really feels like something he would. So that's how it's justified in my mind (so there). 

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So after three plus years, the pain is still there, but it's manageable. It's become part of my day to day life and sometimes it presents itself more than other times, and that's ok. I've accepted that it will always be part of my life and I almost welcome it, as a reminder of our love and how intense it was and how much a part of me he is, it only makes sense.