Everyone has a list. It might be a physical list, but some of us only keep a mental one tucked far back in the brain. And every once in a while, we drag it out of hiding and examine it. It's the Someday list. Others might call it the Bucket List (good movie by the way...). It is a comprehensive list of all the things we mean to do someday.
Someday...
Here is a question I struggle with a great deal: What does grief look like? Is it meant to look exactly the same for everyone? Does it come in different sizes and different forms? Does it go in and out of fashion like styles? How do I, as a new widow, still lively enough to want to live fully and well, deal with loss? What is my identity now?
So many questions follow the one question, which is circular and always comes back around: What does grief look like?
This is where I am here in June. I have experienced a loss, a great loss, and yet I am so very aware that there are all sorts of possibilities before me. It's a weird balance to walk between grief and joy, between old identity and new unformed self, between now and a future that is so vast and unknown before me that it scares and thrills me all at once.
As I came into May, once I began to be aware of life still life-ing all around me, it was hard to remain in the fog of grieving on a permanent basis. Oh, there is still grief and it comes upon me unexpectedly at some point in most days, but it's not devastating. It's not consuming misery. It's just an awareness that there is a huge void in my life, that John's presence was large in my life. I was happy to sit on the sidelines for the most part, to observe quietly and share what I observed with him.
Ecclesiastes 3 has always been one of my favorite passages. The whole book is a favorite of mine, but most especially Chapter 3:1-8.
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace."
Those verses speak of all the things of life in my opinion. I find them very comforting at most any time but of late I've found them reminders to of hope because for everything we might experience in life there is an opposite that balances all.
There was a place in my life where I didn't like who I was. I'd say the shocking things that no one else would say just to see people react, to draw attention to myself. I didn't want their attention, yet I felt compelled to get it just the same. I was too loud. Prone to exaggerate. Intent on disguising all that I wasn't by pretending to be someone much bolder, badder, and funnier. Acting and behaving in ways that made me uncomfortable, that felt false to who I truly was underneath, but I thought if I acted more like those around me then I'd not feel so lost and alone and so very much on the outside of the window looking in at everyone else.
There comes a point in every life where we have to own who we are inside and who we are pretending to be.
I've been reading an absolutely lovely book by a female Christian writer widowed after 46 years. She talks of the great love she and her husband shared. I too have spoken of the depth of love John and I had, how good (and normal) our marriage was.
She mentions many of the emotions and feelings I myself have experienced. But one thing is noticeably missing. It is missing in most dialogues about widowhood. Perhaps because for many of us it is such a powerfully intimate subject, and for some even taboo.
June is always a busy month. The kids are newly home for the summer, there are umpteen birthdays starting the last week of May (8 total), and somehow a new season always spurs many new projects. It will be hard to hold myself to promises but I plan to keep as many as I possibly can. And if you want to check how I did in May, then look right here at the updates.
1. I promise to find something nice and cool and comfortable to wear around the house. I've been wearing jeans and t-shirts which is fine for the cooler days of spring but now that we're in the hotter days? Nope! I have some 'capris' I bought last summer that fit badly then and don't fit any better now. They were actually made for someone about 4 feet 5 inches not 5 feet 3 inches. And the size tag is a straight up liar. I crammed into them last year but this year, I'm not planning to be that uncomfortable.
I've shared before that when Katie left home at 18, I found myself in a long spell of grief. It was completely unexpected. I'd been parenting for over 30 years, and I thought I was more than ready to lose that role of full-time parent. I started out excited about the time ahead. And then I was hit by the runaway car called grief which nearly debilitated me for two full years.
I didn't know what to do with myself! All those plans I'd made for the day when I would not be on call 24/7 mattered no longer. I lost my footing. It was totally unexpected and it took me by surprise.
Six weeks into losing John, I can tell you that I find myself in a similar place now.
I floated through the last of March and the first part of April as though I were lost in a fog and I was. I realized in mid-April I needed to stop and just 'be' so to speak, whatever form 'being' took at the time. Tears, making relational decisions, attempting social occasions and church solo, dealing with paperwork and appointments, and finally determining what I wanted beyond John's NOT being gone, which is not an option I can choose.
I realized I could re-establish some routines in my life and ground myself somewhat better. I started with the Friday and Monday house blessings, those two days of the week when my house is most prone to be untidy and need real attention. I like going into the weekend with it clean and neat and I like coming out of the weekend well rested and ready to set things to rights for the week ahead.
Grief work always causes us to revisit underlying grief. ~ Liz (in the comments of this post)
She is so right! I recognized the truth of it as soon as I read that statement. I had wondered why I kept dwelling on so many hurts, long past and more recent, things I'd normally have thought little about. But even the slightest grief has been like a new pang in my soul. I needed that "Ah ha!" moment she gave me when she chose to share that.
Grief is a magnet that will pick up all the little pieces of grief. And it has made it more difficult for me to discern exactly what I'm grieving at times.
The thing I've found about grief is that it has a way of dredging up all the past griefs, ones I'd thought were long dealt with and forgotten.
The need of a girl for her mother...
The desire to be an aunt...
Today, as I was leaving church, a young woman came and stopped directly in front of me. I stood looking at her, sure I knew her, sure she was family, but not quite recognizing her. I said "Hi..." a little hesitantly. Something about her face kept nagging at me that she was someone I knew well. It was my niece. We hugged long and deep. She is 30 years old. I have had only the briefest moments of contact with her.
Everyone has a list. It might be a physical list, but some of us only keep a mental one tucked far back in the brain. And every once in ...
