Perspective

Coffee thoughts on a growingly hot Monday morning :

There are those in my life who aren’t good about letting go, letting me grow and change. They seem to want to hold me to those mistakes and missteps I have taken and made in these 8 years since Rick died. And there are those who don't know how to just let me grieve. In their understanding, it has been long enough. It's been long enough for a long time now. So, grow up and get over it already!

Grieving is a realm of life that many people do not know, do not understand.

Before Rick died, I knew the grief of losing someone I loved and cared deeply for - but I did not know this side of grief.

I did not know how someone could lose so much of themselves when they still lived.

I did not know how one death could change so much in a life.

I had been taught much like Gus said in Lonesome Dove - best thing to do with death is look at it, then ride away from it.

I didn’t know how someone’s death could follow you in every breath you take.

I didn’t know.

I did not understand.

Until Rick died.

And my whole world crashed into a million pieces.

In picking up those pieces and trying to put them back together, it’s like putting a broken glass together - never looks the same, isn’t of the same purpose either, and there’s always a few shards missing.

Or it’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, where all the pieces basically look the same, but there is just enough difference that it makes it super difficult to get them to fit - especially when you don’t have the box lid with a picture on it.

And the puzzle pieces have all faded, some are just blank.

Then just about the time you get one corner almost finished, you realize that the pieces that matter the most, are gone.

The one person who can put all things right and make it all work again - is no longer here, but he took those pieces with him!

Because he took me.

The me I was with him.

It took me 19 years to be the woman he wanted to marry.

And it took me 35 years to be the woman I was when he died.

So, what is 8 weeks without him?

Or 8 months?

Or even 8 years?

Perspective is called for here.

I think I’m just now beginning to find that perspective.

And in that finding, I am growing, changing.

Becoming.

I am a widow.

It's who I am.

It's what I do.

No matter where I go or what I do - I am a widow.

Louis L'Amour said in one of his books that if you fight against the desert, you will lose and you will die.

BUT if you learn to embrace the desert way of life, you will live.

I cannot fight against being a widow.

I must, as unpleasant as the thought is, embrace it - and learn to live.

Grief is a very mean-spirited taskmaster. Just saying.