| “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.” |
| Brené Brown |
Pretty powerful how the first characteristic of vulnerability in Brené Brown’s definition is Love. Because, love is the foundation of why grief is what it is in our lives. Loss of the freedom to express love. To share love with the ones we work with so closely on building a life worth being proud of. I’m proud of the life I was building with my deceased partner. The active thought about my partner that is no longer with me has left me in a state of shock, and it’s almost been a year since she died.
I will say the love I have for her now feels like a love that was too late. I don’t blame myself for her illness. I don’t blame myself for how multiple myeloma attacked our lives. I don’t blame myself for anything except how hard I was on her to want to beat the diagnosis. I wanted her to be one of the lucky few that fought for herself to keep going…and going…and going.
However, the disease had other plans. Now we are in the thick of life without the womanly touch that was Julie Ann. She was powerful in her desire to beat the disease, yet there were things in play that countered the health care of my bride. Things I wish I knew how to speak against in love and patience instead of fear and anger.
I desperately want greater clarity in my purpose, because at this point in my daily life I am failing to see the purpose of this level of suffering and pain. It’s the pain of loss. The pain that I was introduced to so many years ago at four years old. Witnessing my grandfather’s slow deterioration due to illness. Of course, at four years old, We aren’t prepared to have language that speaks towards death in a way that makes sense. I just know it was a quiet time in the household. For him, and when his wife eventually got sick and died.
Separation of life from loved ones is not a new experience to me. It’s just the first time it has come this close to me personally. There are family members who have died that I didn’t get the chance to share my love with, and that is a form of grieving that is as hard as the death of my wife. People I loved deeply because of how loving they were towards me. People in wheel chairs that had their own life of suffering. People too young to have died in that car crash on the expressway on their way to a high school basketball game. Children too young to even know what they were doing in the hospital to begin with.
This is vulnerability that starts with love for me. The emotions and feelings I am no longer able to express to the people that are dead. The desire to share just one more conversation with Julie Ann about…It would probably turn into an argument at some point. But, that’s what happens when two very passionate people must work together to build lives worth sharing. And, we wanted to share so much of our lives with the world. We’d only just begun to come to a place where we could do so without shame or fear of judgement between each other.
We’d simply…ran out of time. But, love doesn’t ever run out of time. Love is always present and available to those who are willing to feel it. I do still struggle with wanting to be expressive socially of my love for people, but that’s due to the years of separation from people and things I love in such a powerless way.
Dare I say, I am afraid of loving because of the other side of loving. The loss of love. I always wondered why in Men in Black when Tommy Lee Jones’ character was presented with the old adage, “Better to have loved and lost…” He was pretty direct in his answer, “TRY IT!” I felt his pain when he said it, but had no clue why? I never had a context for what my heart and soul was feeling until now. Now I have terminology for what I am feeling. And, it doesn’t make the pain of feeling it any less. If anything, it gives me a context for what I am feeling. Although, I really wish I wasn’t feeling it.
It’s a level of helplessness that I felt growing up. Funny how I was loved as a child, and grieved the loss of so many things…only to come to a new precipice at 44 years old on why we grieve what we lose. Yes, I lost a wife. But, I lost a life I was growing with. We had plans. We had dreams. I had a job I really enjoyed that provided an avenue for us to see more of the world, and see more of ourselves in relation to this world.
The grief I experience now is the grief of the loss of lives developing. Now, we have to develop another way because we’re going to forever be missing a member of our party. A member that will never return. Even if we talk about her, and commemorate her, and share stories of how she loved us or we loved her. We are going to forever be altered in our development.
This is what Love has allowed. A pivot in development. One of the hardest pivots I’ve ever had to do, because I lost my dance partner. Now, I have to find a new way of belonging. A new place of belonging. With new partners in developing. No one will ever replace my original dance partner, and it’s going to have to be ok that I am in that space.
Companionship comes with pitfalls. Companionship comes with opportunities to heal. Companionship is a challenge for me on most levels now because when I love, I give large amounts of myself to what I love. I have wondered why there is such lasting fatigue with just waking up every morning. All day long it’s as if I am barely present. I prefer to be alone, but know having relationships is extremely beneficial for my healing. Yet it’s such hard work to try to act like I’m not missing a HUGE piece of my life. No one is suggesting that I do, but this type of work is extremely heavy!
One day we are here. The next day we are gone. The survivors have a hard road of choices to live in love and vulnerability or hide. Some days are hidden. Some days are exploratory. Most days are tough.
But, Love is what helps keep us going through. Love from the village helping to raise the children. The child in me that has never really received the healing he has been needing for decades. Maybe now is the time to be vulnerable with my needs for love and belonging?