Clarity in the moment ...

Blogger was down for a few days and I must admit, I am a blogging junky.  I felt quite disconnected in those days, unable to post and unable to comment on my sisters' and brother's posts.  I needed my fix! 

As always, for every perceived challenge, there is a lesson to be learned.  Mine was to be still again in my grief.  It was time to come back to basics - my pen and my three journals, lots of coffee and *groan* my cigarette in the garage.

In an attempt to offer myself something to calm my need to share through my blog, I re-read my 80+ blogs since February of this year.  That didn't seem to be enough, so I read once again, the "favourites" or "most visited" posts, searching for what others would have found in my words.

It was not so much in the words that I wrote but in the journey I wrote about that brought about clarity.  It will be ten months soon and it has been quite the journey so far.

Although it has not yet been the completion of the "year", I thought it was timely to re-count my journey for there is much richness in this summary.

My life changed in a moment.  As I watched the paramedics leave my home on July 26th, 2010 with my husband's beautiful body, I remember thinking he is leaving this world much like he came in - naked.  Although they were carrying him out on a chair and I could see his slumped head, I knew he had left us.  My boys and I were going to the hospital where my sister was waiting for us and knew that we were going to claim his body.  When the doctor came in to say, "It is not great news," I knew that I knew, Bill was dead.  I had said this to my sister when we were getting all the registration done ... "he is gone".  I had a moment of manic release with my sister at my side.  I let out a quick howl, recomposed myself and asked to see Bill.  My middle son was out having a smoke and the youngest had accompanied the fire department back home so that they could reclaim some of the equipment they had left on our bathroom floor.  I entered the room, knowing full well what I was going to see but in the depths of my heart I wanted it all to be okay.  I wanted to see machines and tubes fueling life back into my love.  Instead, there was my Bill, lying still, his body already beginning to grow cold.  I wanted to climb into the bed next to him to have that last hold.  But instead, I brought my lips close to his ear and simply and quietly asked him to wake up.  There is something inherently unfair when death comes unexpectedly.  I remember thinking, this is not right, I can't even say goodbye.  There would be no intimate moments of recapping our life together.  There would be no knowing moments of encouragement to the one left behind that would say, "you will be okay" or "I will be with you" or "I am ready to take God's hand."  Bill left and grief moved in.  All I had left was the present.

There have been many moments where I did not want to live anymore, but they were short lived for in the present, there were my three young sons, my sisters and brothers and a mother and mother-in-law who still needed me to be.

These moments of wanting to let go were always prefaced with experiencing the small things.  It is always the small things, the routines of a life together like parking at the river to have coffee and conversations, buying toilet paper, Friday evenings with Sarah and getting ready for work and sharing the bathroom mirror.  How many times did we take for granted that it would always be?  Overall, I was blessed with the sixth sense that  this would not always be.  Having that perception influenced how I appreciated the small moments with Bill while he was with me.  However, there were many moments of taking these small pleasures for granted.

There had never been a challenge that Bill and I could not deal with together.  We were complete.  I was the "worry wart" and he trusted life and the value in living life with integrity and laughter.  At some point in my journey, I realized that the only way I could live through this greatest challenge in my life was to trust completely and to befriend my grief.

Today, as I summarize this journey, I recognize that I have more gentle moments and even okay days than in my early journey.  There are even days when I would dare say that there is a sense of calm and wellbeing.  These are the days that I begin to separate my grief from who Bill means to me.  These are the days when I recognize that I am leaving my grief behind and embracing Bill's legacy.  I live in the same home, work for the same organization and attend to regular routines but everything has changed.  I miss him - the man - and the wonderful way he had of grounding me.  He had a way of separating what is and what my emotional self would bring to a challenge.  He always brought about clarity, and perspective.

In my early journey, people were always there.  Some offered an ear, a tissue or a simple hug. Life goes on and people go on with their lives.  There are moments when people ask, "Why are you so quiet?" or "Are you okay?" and when I simply want to respond, "Have you forgotten, what is so obviously wrong?"  Then there are moments when people have simply stopped asking; these are moments that have me doing a reality check ... life goes on - where do I fit?

In their attempt to be kind, people have attempted to say the right thing.  My patience was often tested when people would say, "I understand".  Many times, I had to bite my tongue when they would say, "I am sorry for your loss."  It always left me feeling guilty that I had somehow been so irresponsible as to having misplaced him.  More recently, I find it most difficult when people will say, "It's good that you have the boys at home and that your work is keeping you busy."  This is of little comfort when you finally end your day alone in bed with nothing left between you and your loneliness.  I must face my loneliness without the magic healing power of numbness offered in the early days of my grief.

As always, I have found the "silver lining".  All these well-intentioned statements that would imply "I understand" or "this is how you should be feeling" have given reason to my anger.  I have grown and will never presume to "understand" or suggest that another is not grieving in the right way.  No words often speak louder than empty words.

At another cross-roads of my journey, I have reflected and commented on society's response to grief today.  I suggested that I probably scare people.  Today's society will offer a pill in response to pain.  If a pill is not available, busy is good for it will give the impression that life goes on "as usual" and that you are doing okay.  Grief will allow you to escape from time to time through being busy, however, it will always come to tap you on the shoulder and demand that you continue to walk with it.  These are my "drive-by" moments when for no apparent reason other than a simple glimpse of what was or what it should have been, I am reduced to unbelievable sorrow.  The tears stream down my face and the only thing I can do is acknowledge it with a primal bellow!  There remains conflict within me between others acknowledging my pain and not wanting to see pity in their eyes.  Conflict between needing to hear Bill's name spoken and not wanting it said in the context of his death.

Most days, I continue to long for Bill.  I am reminded of his love always and sometimes these reminders are quite tangible as in the box of cards, photos and letters I found.  This box that he  had so carefully set aside and filled with our memories.  These are the moments that I feel most abandoned.  These are the moments of pure grief when I will cry out, "Why did you leave us?"  Then wisdom sets in and I appreciate that Bill loved us so much, he would not have  abandonned us.  He simply died and the rest of my life is before me.  I will grieve you in the sunlight - and I will live enough for the both of us. 

Life has both, blessings and sorrows.  I often ponder on how Bill would have dealt with this had the roles been reversed.  There is little value in these thoughts; the reality is that I am the one to deal with this new reality.  How I choose to do so is my new cross-roads.

My journey in grief has offered me clarity.  Life is simple when you can do no more than to live in the moment.