Universe of Radness

Tag: grief

  • Restarting a Derailed Life

    What no one, and nothing could prepare me for in experiencing death at a young age is varied.  It’s not something that is really able to be worked out beforehand because our lives are all so unique.  Although we all may complete the same tasks, or work together in the same spaces to complete tasks as a community, we are all processing our experiences according to who we are becoming.

    One aspect of the trauma of death is that the deceased no longer has any opportunities to become anything more than what they were at the time of departure.  For me, it has been my life’s joy to watch the people around me become more than they were last week.  

    The transition to an experience of life without my now-deceased bride has been emotionally numbing, which is another part of the trauma that for which no one can be prepared.  The feelings of love, anger, joy, sadness are all emotions I felt at their strongest with her.  There is a large portion of me that wants nothing more to do with experiencing those emotions to that degree ever again, because of the pain of life without her.

    Yet, we have children that deserve all of those emotions, and more.  They deserve access to opportunities that will encourage their open exploration of life as full as they can make it.  In my grieving, I often feel as though I am hindering that development.

    The pain of remembering that I will never see her again is enough to halt me every time I think about it.  What once held sway upon my daily to-do lists came from a life that is distancing in the rearview mirror, getting further and further away.

    Even the tomorrow I would like to have feels like a life dreamt up for someone a million miles from who I am at present.  I feel like I am becoming the ghost of what will never come to be.  

    It’s a challenge to set goals and follow through until completion because of this ghostly feeling inside.  The battle between hope and hopelessness is unbelievably overbearing in weight.  Battling my fear of acknowledging my emotions as they are in the moments ahead has been a target I purposefully distract myself from.  

    And yet, I am not the only one to have experienced a death unprepared.  Healing is available if I can trust the process being revealed before me.  If I can patiently await the processing of her last wishes, there is hope for a healing tomorrow.  Allowing the grief to move on and move out like the waves of the ocean.  The place we had our deepest connections.

  • Hey Julie – 3

    Hey Julie, 

    I miss you so much. I love you. But this life without you has been like a year of disorientation. It’s not just in my waking hours, but even in my dreams. Some parts of my life are still moving like you were here, especially in my dreams. I’m chasing you, or the ghost of you, only to find that the ghost has moved on to a whole new existence filled with its own excitement. Meanwhile, the life we were building together is a shattered dream.

    It’s been a year of this, where I try to figure out what you were doing in your life, only to find that you were building a life where you would be the leader for the foreseeable future. A future we all hoped would come to pass. One that we were building to benefit as many people as we could with our family’s decision to start a business.

    Now, I’m navigating a present of censorship, semi-isolation, and rebuilding in many ways on my own. I know I’m not alone, but a lot of what has happened in the past year has made me have to reevaluate how I live without you. How I can carry on the legacy of what you stood for, and of what our goals were. You’re no longer here for us to work together to see how far we could go in building a resource that would benefit more than just us.

    You’re no longer here to guide the direction of our joint life, and all the benefits and challenges that come with it. The challenges of co-parenting. The benefits of having our own sources of income not dependent on a standard 9-5 job. The anticipatory excitement of having a world open up to us in ways we never dreamed of when we were younger.

    The “what ifs” surrounding integrating your death into our lives are strong indicators that I need to seek recovery. I’m grateful that I stumbled upon Grief Recovery, as it has the potential to keep the “what ifs” of dealing with death from spiraling further. Grief Recovery might be my path to “stop the bleeding” of hopeless grieving. Grieving without goals is tough, especially since moving on without you and your profound presence wasn’t part of the plan when we said “I do.”

    Yes, I still remember that we agreed, “in sickness and in health…til death do us part.” But death has torn us apart. Now, I’m wondering what it means for all the things we were building. What do I do with the past that was creating a shared present leading to an incredible future…together? You’re irreplaceable in every way. We never prepared for this reality. The “til death do us part” part.

    I wonder who has ever prepared for the death part of the vow? Who has entered a marriage relationship with the intention of living a life of togetherness without their partner? It’s a morbid thought, but you and I did it for seven years. We faced the worst news anyone could ever have, and we survived. We moved daily, we had our lives, and we were together. At times, we were inseparable. The two of us and our boys. Exploring.

    Now, I explore a new reality without you. My dear Julie, my beloved wife, you are deeply missed.  I just dropped our 2nd son off at school, and returned to our home where I walked in the backyard.  I was hit with a memory.

    The memory was a moment of hoping that when I walked in the backdoor, you would be asleep in the bed awaiting my return with coffee.  For almost two years, that was our routine.  I would run the morning errands, and return with a gift to help get your day started.  I can’t decide on if I want this particular memory to include your habit of cigarette smoking, but to be honest is the way forward.  

    Just like that, I looked up in our actual backyard to see our outdoor dining furniture.  The deck that we had built to host friends and family in the summer for swimming.  The pool cover that hasn’t been removed in two years.  The pool I don’t know if I will ever use again. The pool was a safe haven for us all.  We could melt away, and draw closer together.  

    Maybe this is how you continue to live.  I know it is, but I like laying down for catch-up sleep a little more most mornings. 

  • Vulnerability in Grieving Part 1

    “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

    Well, maybe I’m pregnant then?  With a vulnerable set of truth sextuplets I haven’t stopped to look at yet?  What better time than now since it feels like an emotional train wreck.  And, I’m sifting through the remains.  Hollow and empty are driving and navigating the train that just ran me over.  Just sitting at the kitchen table clearing space on Jonah’s GO Pros.  WHAM!  What just happened?

    A memory of her.  A video of her.  My creative partner for nearly 18 years.  My art project partner since we’ve created 3 things together.  2 boys and a business.  But, there comes caveats with our projects.  There is pain with these realizations, because my partner is gone.  

    Dead.  Died.  Gone.  This is the birthplace of my daily sorrow.  Maybe it’ll get better.  I’m sure someone somewhere will tell me that it will.  But, what if this feeling of being stuck is what I’ll keep getting because it’s all I keep seeing. The courage to see anything at this point seems…

    I don’t want to be vulnerable because hope and courage have been super bittersweet companions.  I held out hope that my partner would have more time to…Who knows what she would have done.  She didn’t do what she wanted to do at the end.  She wanted to be in a different place.  I wanted to take her to that different place, but she wanted to listen to the doctors too.  It was…

    Tragic.  At the end.

    What remains are the echos of a life unfinished.  It’s very hard to believe that a person goes when their time has come.  What good is having an unknown expiration date?  The fear of not knowing when this will end.  Who’s going next.  What remains of…

    Purpose.  I’m their father now.  Doing a teamwork job.  Alone.  But, not alone alone.  There is still our active “village that helps to raise the children” helping to raise the child in my direct care.  There is the emotional connection we had that I miss.  The agreements we lived through together.  The versions of love we were creating.  It wasn’t perfect…and at times, very dysfunctional.  We were navigating that together.  The added strain of incurable cancer was a weight on both of us we struggled deeply to weather.  The cancer wasn’t even operable.  There was no getting away from what was devouring my bride.

    There was no way I could understand how to fight for a future that was going to stop creating for both of us.  I enjoyed creating opportunities with her.  I enjoyed exploring the unknown futures with her.  I struggled to be the type of support she was looking for until the end.  She just wanted someone to stand beside her and encourage her to keep working hard to build her piece of heaven on earth.  Our piece of heaven on earth. 

    Maybe next time, I’ll talk about my loss of peace?  Sleep…perchance…stop the dreaming.