Daniel has a lamp on his nightstand. He turns it on each night as we make our way to bed. We dress and read and, all too often, poke at our phones in the light of that little lamp.
I have two lamps on my nightstand. One is on a timer. It turns on at 0545 and off at 0730, its bright full-spectrum light intended to tell my body that it needn’t hibernate for winter. My other lamp is for finishing a chapter after Daniel goes to sleep, or putting the final touches on my plan for the next day. I use it rarely.
On nights like tonight, when Daniel is traveling for work, I turn on Daniel’s lamp when I come in to get ready for bed. I sit in bed and read or poke at my phone or finish up my plan for the next day. And then I reach over the empty space where my husband ought to lie and turn off his lamp. My lamps remain unused.
Life is so very normal and so very abnormal when he is gone.