At our Annual Women’s Retreat in late September we were led in a meditation. We were asked to identify the emotion that came to us in our meditation and to open ourselves to it, to welcome that emotion. In that moment I realized the emotion flooding around me was grief. How to welcome grief? No one wants to have grief in their life and yet I know no one who can avoid it. Grief comes with the loss of relationship, with the loss of ability and, most profoundly, with the loss of a loved one.
I have been grieving for sometime now as many of you know. Carl, my beloved for over 29 years of marriage, was diagnosed with Dementia in June of 2016. The reality was that he had been losing ability to remember and to think things through for sometime before that. The frailty that comes with age seemed magnified as he lost ground mentally as well as physically. Both he and I grieved the changes he faced as he struggled. He died on Friday the 13th of October. He was almost 84 years old. I grieve.
There are volumes beyond counting written about grief and loss but it is not until it becomes a singular, personal journey that the depth of pain and loss is realized. It is an emotional roller coaster lurching from calm to upheaval. Tears come unbidden at the strangest times and the heartache is a real physical sensation. Details and decisions can dominate but the sadness never really leaves. Grief comes into life not like a welcome guest but more like a marauder who plunders and loots moments of joy and peace and leaves upset and hurt, anger and sadness.
I have not realized the importance of sympathy cards or notes of condolence until now. I find myself hanging onto every word that speaks of my beloved. I want people to talk about him, to remember him, to praise him, to, in some small way, keep him alive for me. Of course, that can’t happen and I try to talk myself through the inevitable denial to find a place of acceptance and vision but, as one friend put it, no matter how you try it is still surreal.
I have not lost only my husband to death, I have lost a piece of myself. I will never be the same as I was because that one who has been my partner, teammate, shadow, and love is no longer with me. Grief is now my partner and shadow and I must learn to walk into a life that is forever changed.
I always love the heartfelt way you express your life moments, the good ones and the not-so-good ones. I know you feel blessed with the life you have had with Carl, but I am certain in my belief that Carl felt he was the one who was blessed!