• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Widow's Voice

Widow's Voice

  • Soaring Spirits
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors
    • Victoria Helmly
    • Staci Sulin
    • Emma Pearson
    • Alison Miller
    • Jeff Ziegler
    • Kelley Lynn
    • Bryan Martin

Quarantined from Closure in a Garden of Grief

Posted on: May 2, 2020 | Posted by: Bryan Martin

We find ourselves surrounded by closures of stores, restaurants, movie theaters, parks and beaches. Those are the closures we can tangibly see but there are so many more emotional situations we are closed off from. The one I’m feeling heavier than any other is a certain aspect of closure with the loss of a loved one and it’s echoed in the news. People are falling ill and dying without being able to see their family. Funerals and services are on pause and what would be normal grieving planned event timelines are now being stretched to a new schedule. How sad they can’t move through the closure of service sooner but I very much understand where they lay in limbo.

Clayton passed away 2 years ago and we still haven’t had a service for him. Shortly after he passed his mother had a stroke and was moved up to her family cross-country. She was in no position to handle having a service for him. A year later there was a last minute desire to have it on his birthday with no notice to family and friends. There was no way we could pull it off. I’d have to drive his urn up to Illinois or ask the funeral home to ship him. The thought of mailing my dead partner and the risks that his urn would break makes me physically ill. I said no.

Now his birthday is approaching. There’s talk of having the service this year but the country has been in closure. Things are slowly opening but what happens if we shut down again? His mother is in poor health. Does bringing people together to celebrate his life risk hers? He wanted to be buried next to her. Do we just wait? That’s an uncomfortable thought to wait for her to die to finally hold a service for him. It would feel different if he wanted me to keep him but until I can fulfill his wishes. This is a new patch of widowed weeds growing in my garden of grief.

All our gardens grow differently as we tend to them in our own unique ways. Trimming back encroaching vines full of thorns, raking up the leaves of fallen dreams, removing the dead brush, watering the new seeds in hope they grow and fill the empty spaces left from our past. We used to be allowed out to walk our new paths to just check in on our garden here and there depending on the day. Now I am locked in unable to get rid of the old debris. I find myself quarantined from a milestone in my closure surrounded by a garden of grief.

Categories: Widowed, Widowed & Unmarried, Widowed Memories, Widowed and Healing, Widowed Milestones, Widowed Emotions, LGBTQ+ Widowed, Widowed by Illness

Bryan Martin

About Bryan Martin

In 2016 my life all started to fall into place. A new job as a Supervisor for animals at a small aquarium along the beautiful Florida gulf coast. It was a dream for Clayton and I to move to the beach, get settled and get married. In June of 2017 my father passed away after a long battle with opiods and alcohol. Four months later, Clayton was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with acute liver failure. Not having been able to truly mourn my father, I was faced with knowing that Clayton (Tin as my family calls him) would also be leaving me. I had dreams of marriage, vacations and a long life together. I watched all of those dreams fade away more and more each day as I cared for him until his final days. He passed away April 16, 2018 the day after my sister’s birthday.

Now I am through the fog of the first year and reality is setting in this second time around the sun. I’m very much alone in this sleepy beach town. I’m trying to just maintain balance with my new normal. I get depressed, angry, sad, jealous, confused and disoriented. Some days are better than others and I remind myself that it is normal. So many people think my life is back to normal and fulfilling because I work with dolphins and penguins but the magic left everything when Tin passed away. I have trouble feeling passion about most things that used to light my fire. I have feelings that oppose one another and it is exhausting. I want to feel happy for others but want to know why I can’t have what they have.

Along my journey, I have had tough days and some wonderful days but at the end of each day I still don't have the answer to my one question....Why?

TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON A BLOG, sign in to the comments section using your Facebook or Gmail accounts, or sign up for Disqus.

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors

SSI Network

  • Soaring Spirits International
  • Camp Widow
  • Resilience Center
  • Widowed Village
  • Widowed Pen Pal Program
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Contact Info

Soaring Spirits International
2828 Cochran St. #194
Simi Valley, CA 93065

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 877-671-4071

Soaring Spirits International is a 501(c)3 Corporation EIN#: 38-3787893. Soaring Spirits International provides resources with no endorsement implied.

Copyright © 2021 Widow's Voice. All Rights Reserved.