New meaning to acceptance ...

Life on the road came to an end last Thursday.  After a long drive filled with lengthy traffic and construction delays, having to pull off to the side of the road due to strong winds, torrential rain and blinding sleet, I was comforted by the familiar blue door welcoming me home.  Home.

There was work to be done before my company arrived the next day but my heart was just not in it.   Both sons helped with the shuffling of furniture to make the guest room ready and then they were gone.  I unpacked a little, wandered through the house, put a few more things away and wandered again.  Opening doors, running my hand over the banister, feeling the floorboards under my feet when I happened to look down and see the painted words on the floor - The Walton's 1989!  It was my undoing.

When we built our home, we hid messages everywhere, making our home a time capsule.   Letters and pictures hidden in door frames, newspapers of the year we built hidden behind the sheetrock and these painted words on the floor hidden under the carpet.  We marked time for the next to see that our little family had been here and how much we loved our home.  In a fit of anger two nights after Bill's funeral, I ripped out the carpet and this message has been a constant reminder of those times.  However, the words shot through my heart on Thursday evening in a new and meaningful way, since that fit of anger.

The Walton's 1989!  Having held back all of my emotions during the trip, the week of the 2nd anniversary of Bill's death, the dam broke.  I managed to find my bed and threw myself down.  I cried out over and over again, "When will this end?"  For a very long time now, I suspect I have known the answer, "never".  The answer veiled by my own denial for I took solace in the fact that there are more okay days than bad, thus believing that I was "getting better".  "Never."  So many emotions wrapped up in such a small word, "never."

I am no longer the same person who walked out of the hospital alone on July 27th, 2010.  My journey with grief has transformed me and continues to fashion me.  I am and always have been a great believer in it is what you do with your life experiences that makes you who you are today.  It is in accepting that this will "never" end that I can accept that it is okay to still feel this pain from time to time knowing that my pain is also changing.  There is that word "acceptance" ... is this what experts mean when they speak of acceptance?

I am changing.  Life has new meaning in the present and it has me carefully choosing how I spend my time and with whom.  Most of the time I delight in my time alone without being lonely and carefully guard this healthy solitary time.  I am learning to be grateful for the time I am afforded to rediscover myself and accept that I am really never alone.  I am only really lonely when I miss Bill the most.

I have wept and accept that I will continue to weep for this beautiful person until the hour of my own death.  I accept that I will never stop searching for him in a crowd or in the middle of the night remembering what I have lost.  More importantly I accept that more dark moments and days will teach me how to be a better person.

I patiently await the day when I have not only re-membered Bill in my head but finally in my heart for I have found renewed spirit in the simple belief that he is never really far away.  I can only imagine the strength I will garner when my pain has sufficiently transformed to unconditionally re-member Bill in my heart.