Death Doth Not Separate

December 21, 2012 today is the eleventh anniversary of my husband’s death. I suppose I should feel sad, maybe some grief, or some other sort of emotions, but I feel free. I probably shouldn’t say this aloud, but it’s true. It’s been my secret for eleven years now, the best day of my life was the day he passed away. I’m sure you’re curious; how can a young woman say such things about a man that has passed away. Well, the secret gets a bit deeper than my freedom. My husband was very abusive, I was thinking about leaving him when he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Just like any normal abusive person, like the bully he was, he blamed me for cooking his meals the wrong way, for not exercising with him, for denying him a healthy lifestyle. His health was so bad and he made me feel so guilty that I stayed and when he passed away, so did our secret of the constant beatings. I pretended to grieve, but really, I was celebrating, though a bit lost … what’s a domestic violence survivor supposed to do with a sudden onslaught of freedom?

Every year, for the past ten years, I’ve come here, to his grave, with eight watermelon wine coolers and my dancing shoes. I sit and write about everything I have done with my freedom in the past year, drink, dance, drink some more, and dance some more. Right now I’m so drunk I’m having trouble writing, I will never be able to decipher this later, but I don’t care, I’m partying.

Drunk, so drunk, can hardly dance, but I’m gonna stagger out the two-step, just me and my wine cooler. Freedom, lovely freedom.

And that is where my journal entry ends and sobriety begins. There is nothing more sobering than dancing on your dead husband’s grave and suddenly being pulled down. I knew I was drunk, but I was plastered to the ground, someone was holding me down. And then, I heard it, he was laughing his evil laugh, suddenly my husband rose from the grave. I puked up all the wine coolers I had drank when I smelled the scent of eleven years of decay. I tried to run, but he held me down, his evil laugh ringing in my ears.

I squirmed and kicked until I was able to grab the last two wine coolers and beat his head as it rose from the grave. SMACK! The bottles broke open and still, his evil laugh rang in my ears. He reached out and grabbed me by the throat with his hand, he held fast as I continued to squirm. Then his arm came off, still attached to my neck, but detached from his body. I released the grasp from my throat and used his own arm to beat him back into his grave. I felt a great satisfaction of seeing him to the grave two times, but I was scared, so I began to run.

It was then that I realized all of the graves were open, the Zombie Apocalypse really did occur, but like all bullies, they ignore those that have great confidence in themselves.