Anniversary of a Goodbye

Three years ago, on May 10, 2013, I said goodbye to my husband, my love, my best friend.  I was blessed to be there when he died, to be able to hold his hand, to say goodbye.  That doesn't mean that letting go was easy.  Although I didn't fully realize it at that time, the hardest  part was yet to come.

In some ways this anniversary has been more unsettling than the previous one.  I wasn't expecting that, and it caught me by surprise, although now, in retrospect, I can see that the tide had changed, and I was walking on shifting sands.   I suppose I thought that there would come a point where I would be a new me, resurrected in some sense, and no longer touched by grief.  Of course that is silly and a bit naïve.  But there is no knowing of the process until one is in the middle of it.

The weekend caught me by surprise and hit me hard.  There were tears; but they were not predominantly tears of loss or tears of self-pity.  There were tears of release also.  And there were dreams, dreams of bondage, and chains, and of breaking those chains.  There were dreams and tears and the calm certainty of "I am", of growth and healing.  This is not a post about sadness.

I'm really not sure I can adequately put this in words yet; I am not ready.  There are possibly moments in life, moments of transition, of evolution,  even of a kind of resurrection of sorts, that elude words, that elude definition, that are important precisely because of the subtlety of the shift in perspective they bring about.

Losing a spouse is like being ripped in two: One tree formed of two, grown together, entwined; and then, suddenly, as if hit by lightening, divided into two again.  But this new half is somehow less and more than what one had started with, part of oneself is also lost, and part of the other is retained.  Yes, we are ravaged by scars, but we do not have to hide behind those scars; they do not have to be a constant reminder of pain.  They may pain us on occasion, they may have introduced a bend to our otherwise upright stance, but that very bend could also be an opportunity for new growth.

George would have loved to sit in his chair in the corner of the sun room and look out at the garden.  But I didn't work on the garden until after he was gone, couldn't work on the garden until after he was gone.  He lost much in those final years, but he was not the only one, we both lost much.  But we also gained much and found something that, despite adversity, might have otherwise gone undiscovered. 

As for me.  I am different and yet I am the same.  But then, aren't we all, always the same, and yet different?  Wounds heal, scabs appear, new skin forms.  Sometimes life surprises us.  Sometimes it doesn't, but it seems much better to be open to the surprises than to be dragged down by the disappointments.   I am trying to let go of walls and things that distract from what is important to me now, but sometimes I'm not even sure I've hit a wall until after I've banged my head upon it a few times, or until a few tears have fallen.  Only then it seems, can I say "yes, I knew that all along.  Why did it take me so long to recognize it?"