Dear Larry:
Your 7-year anniversary has passed. Today is your birthday. You would have been 78 years old and we would soon have been celebrating our 43rd wedding anniversary. Our granddaughter will soon be off to college and we are great grandparents now. Oh, how the time has flown. Things change. Life goes on. Things stop and time stands still.
No one can explain the experience of grief. It is as singular an experience as anyone can have and everyone does it differently. There is no right way to do it and being completely honest, there is no way to control or even manage it. Oh, but there are lots of opinions about just how you should grieve. Mostly that comes from people who have never come close to the agony of losing a spouse. God knows, they are happy to judge you and share with you how they think this process should look! Grief happens as it happens and you are simply along for the ride no matter how long it decides to take.
I have heard every possible trite statement about grief, It’s a new normal. It’s part of the process. You will walk forward. Blah, blah, blah. It is all noise. Cacophony. Emotional chaos. It only helps the one speaking it and does nothing but annoy the person experiencing the grief. Don’t give us unsolicited advice. It makes those offering look like unfeeling, insensitive idiots.
When you died, a huge slice of me went with you. It feels as if, to fill that spot, grief moved in. It takes up residence in the space that you vacated and where it will stay forever. When there is a nostalgic moment, a moment of revery, a flashback that should feel warm and comforting, grief steps in to cover it with a veil of sorry and absence as a constant reminder that you are gone.
Sometimes when the reality hits me that we have been apart for seven years, it takes my breathe away. I sit and force memories to come back of our times together, travels, family gatherings, our work, family births, family deaths. The process is often heartbreaking, but I do not want to lose the memory of one moment that we had together. It was OUR life and it was glorious to do it with you.
As the years go by. I find myself sharing less and less about any wave of grief. It becomes more personal, more private. There is no way to anticipate when it will hit, but all of this practice has taught me how to hide it and manage it behind the closed doors of our home. I know that grief is now a piece of me and it plans to stay with me forever. Somehow, I have managed to accept that this is the price that I pay for having the gift of you in my like. I accept this gift but it does nothing to make me miss you less.
Happy birthday, my love.
I love you.
Your wife,
P
