Counting the days

A recent comment by @Jo124c on another thread prompted me to share this poem I recently wrote. The commenter wrote about counting the number of days since their husband died and posting it on a whiteboard as a way of maintaining connection.

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Sunday, December 21, 2025

Eleven months today

(Will I ever stop marking time

in the months

since you left me)

When I started counting

(the morning after

when I looked in the mirror

and saw a widow

looking back

a face I did not recognize)

I counted in hours

(as the clock’s face

betrayed mine)

Hours bled into days

(for a month or so)

Then weeks

(until the math became

too difficult

for my frozen brain)

The months have slowly

ticked by

(dragging their feet

through the changing seasons)

Winter

(tick)

Spring

(tick)

Summer

(tick)

Autumn

(tick)

Solstice

When it becomes twelve months

Will I start counting

the long years

(relentless in their progression)

or will I number only

the 31,536,000 seconds

you have been gone