I had hoped to go quietly into widowhood, accepting the unexpected death of my husband from a heart attack suffered while he was sleeping. But two years later, I am not very quiet about it all. I’m confused and at sea about being without the man I had counted on to be my life partner. About facing the day-to-day and the difficult times without a life partner.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting I’ll jump at an offer of a relationship. In fact, I’ll likely be as slow moving as a turtle. That’s what I was like years ago when I divorced. I did not want to remake mistakes, nor jump into a rebound love. Instead love came along and sort of jumped into life.
I’m cautious by nature, preferring lots of “considering time” when I do something momentous such as changing jobs, changing geographic locales, going overseas. Yet I’m also a risk-taker, the kind of person who will kick herself in the rear and make herself do something that seems frightening or unnerving. Even if I wait to take the last seat on the boat to an unknown future, I’ll still make the journey.
So that is part of how I’ve made this journey. The journey into and through losing someone I loved very much. Early on, a wise fellow writer made me face the fact that I was not going to find a “how to” book for this life passage. I did not like learning that truth, though I believed her.
Nowadays, I find that well-meaning friends and family try to say comforting things, and do their best to listen when I am sad. One person reminded me that my father died after a long illness, and that then my husband died unexpectedly. “That’s two deaths,” she said. “You had no warning, absolutely no warning.” Well, I knew that then and I know that now. But the reality is I have to keep living and I find myself seeking ways to enjoy living not just meander miserably through it.
Someone else suggested I “keep busy.” I have followed that advice, but sometimes find myself staring straight ahead in the midst of my busyness, thinking fearfully about the future and trying to hold onto the past. Then I remember to live in the moment and return to what is right in front of me. I know all we really have is now.
Recently, when I confessed that the grief often was still with me, another friend quoted Shakespeare to me in a text message, noting: “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I was touched, not offended. I believe the bard’s words. I just wish I could have kept the love and forgone the loss.
For grief is an unpredictable thing – impossible to program. Not controlled by logic, chronology or reason. It comes upon us sometimes when we least expect it, and may linger for hours, days, even weeks. I think it lingers until we find a way to release a small piece of it.
For awhile and still sometimes, parties were hard for me. I lost too much psychic energy trying to be in large groups of people. I needed to be alone, a lot. I still do sometimes. And I honestly believe I’m getting a bit more introverted.
But I still make myself go places. The other day I went to an anniversary party for two friends. They had been married 50 years. As I watched their pleasure in each other and saw how much their marriage meant to them, I felt a deep pleasure at sharing their joy. Every time I let myself share someone else’s joy, I release part of my own sadness. There is no workbook for the process of grief, but there are—I have discovered—ways to join in joy.
