A Year On

I never thought I would be here. I certainly never wanted to be here. And yet, here I am. I found myself sitting in a row of widows during a church service at Christmas, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I appreciated these women reaching out to me, welcoming me and inviting me to sit with them, since I had no one else to sit with. But I didn’t want to be one of them (as awful as that sounds.) They were all at least 20 years older than I am. What am I doing sitting with a group of widows?

And yet, here I am.

I told my grief counselor that I had imagined that my husband and I would be one of those couples who lived well into their 90s or 100s and died within an hour of each other. We both got a laugh out of that, since that seldom, if ever, happens – but I wasn’t really kidding. We were going to live LONG, happy lives together. Together.

And yet, here I am.

Somewhere, in the recesses of my brain, there’s a clock ticking. M and I were separated for a year when we were first married and the Air Force sent him to Korea for an unaccompanied tour. The clock has been counting down the days to the end of this year, crazily imagining that once the year is up, M will magically come back. I know, I know, he’s not coming back on a plane from Korea tomorrow.

And yet, here I am.

Grief is a terrible, terrible thing. There are some days that are good – bearable even. Days that I think I can do this. I learned how to hang a toilet paper holder on the wall and installed it all by myself PLUS I put two 85 lb. wall anchors into the wall. M would be so proud of me! Then there are days I can barely get out of bed, I stay in my pajamas all day and eat ice cream while I watch marathon sessions of “Chicago PD” and convince myself I need to get a performance car because I can’t accelerate from 0-90 mph fast enough in my current car. I’m learning grief isn’t linear – and some days will knock you to your knees.

And that’s okay.

My older son and his family lost their black Lab, Raleigh, right before Christmas and it was hard for everyone, but especially their two younger boys. The youngest grandson spent the night with me recently and, as he was eating an oatmeal creme pie, said “Opa liked these cookies. He’s having fun playing with Raleigh now.” Opa is what the kids called M – and you can imagine how I was bowled over by his matter-of-fact statement. Actually, I was in tears, so all I could do was nod my head.

And that’s how it goes. Some days I’m in tears, some days I can laugh. I guess that’s normal – who knows? I hope M would be happy and proud of what the boys and I have done since he’s been gone. I finally ordered his gravestone and it was installed. I got our house on the market and accepted an offer on it today. It’s not been easy on any of us, doing these things, but we’ve had to keep moving forward.

And I guess that’s the secret, if there is one. Keep moving forward.