I have been having a near death experience. You know, where your life flashes in front of you, all the memories, sights, sounds and smells. That rewind reminder, which puts your whole past into a present perspective. No, there wasn’t an accident or anything sudden, my near death experience has been almost undetectable. How so? It was slow and stretched out across the last three years. Let me explain what suddenly occurred to me this week.

Since Clayton died, I’ve spent plenty of days remembering all our time together but I have had lots of old events randomly rise from some forgotten corner of my mind. This week I had more memories surprisingly surface. Good memories that made me smile but I couldn’t seem to understand what triggered them. There was nothing said, no sound or sight obviously contributing to my consciousness. I’ve learned to ask myself “why”. Why do I feel the way I do? Why did I have that thought? Why everything? So I asked myself why those thoughts came into my mind when they did. My answer for everything happening now:

“Because Clayton died.”

The connection made no sense until I asked myself to go deeper:

“But why?”

I answered myself honestly:

“When he died, part of me died.”

There it was, my answer to the rewind riddle -“part of me died”. That was anew piece of the grief puzzle that had been missing. It makes sense why so many old memories seem to surface without a specific trigger. I thought that a lot of me had died but this year, as I grow through the grief, I have brought parts of me back to life that I thought were gone forever. Not all of me died, just part of me. Instead of the normal “near death” experience, mine has played out in subtle slower scenes.

Coming back from the “dead” can be overwhelming. For a while you don’t know if you will wake up again. I felt numb, cold and feeling like a lost soul. I could have stayed in that headspace for the rest of my life but I missed me and wanted to come back. No one else would be able to shake me awake. I had to revive myself. So I chose to change my mindset. I choose to open my eyes. I chose to warm myself. I choose sit up and take a deep breath. I choose to stand and I chose to put one foot in front of the other.

It’s taken me over three years but I’m waking up from the hit of heartbreak. I still feel sore and there is pain from the bereavement battle but I am healing. I know these widowed wounds will scar over. One day they will serve as memories of how far I’ve come. They will remind me of this epic journey on my road to return…