As I sit writing this, I don’t really feel like Mike’s widow as much as I do some days.  Today, I don’t feel overly grief stricken.  I don’t feel particularly sad.  But, don’t get too excited, I am not exactly happy either.  I am simply kind of a dull nothing.

Oh, opps, I did cry briefly today when I reread one of my blogs.  I cried and I missed the man who adored me when he was alive.  I missed him with all my heart; and, then, I continued living.  Life demands that I do this.  I don’t have time to sit around crying.  And, besides, my tears do not resurrect Mike anyhow.  At this point, they don’t do much besides run down my cheeks and wet my sleeves as I dry my eyes.  Sure, tears are part of grief and they are necessary.  And, honestly, I don’t remember what it feels like to not be on the verge of tears.  This is just how life is for me now.  I cry and I live.  I can and must do both things simultaneously.

It is nearly four years since Mike died and yes I still cry, but now my recovery time is quick.  The turn around between tears and living can be compared to the space between breaths.  It is almost indistinguishable.  The time between my tears falling and my life interrupting is fleeting at best.  My tears fall and I don’t miss a beat anymore.  I guess you could say that I have become very proficient at living with the tears of grief.

My life, like every widowed person’s life, is a delicate balance between soul crushing missing and a both feeble and fierce attempt at living as normal of a life as possible.  There, hidden among my regular routine life, is an ache that runs so deep inside me that if feels like it is not even separate from me.

 

My grief is part of who I am.  And, really, my grief is not grief at all.  It is love. 

My tears are not necessarily tears of sadness, more accurately, they are love tears.

 

 

 

Over the years, I have learned to trust the process.

I have learned to surrender to my sadness.

I have adapted so that I can live with the aloneness and the missingness that exists inside me.

I have leaned into my grief. Way in.

I have leaned so far in that I have fallen to my knees many, many times.

I have felt it.

I have sat with my grief when I thought the stillness would kill me.

What I have learned is that grief will lead you back towards life – if you let it.

After all, grief is just our love for them and love will never do us wrong.

 

With love stained cheeks,

~Staci