As a widow, when does our license to actively grieve expire? Is there a time limit to our sadness? An event that signals the end of our foray into melancholy remembering? An experience that renders the act of longing for our spouse void? 

As I drag myself along this road of the widowed person, I know that I am not done. Almost three years and I am not finished. Not completed my grief. I don’t know if I will ever be. 

Is this longing sadness a luxury? Is it just there because I allow it to be? If I were someone else, or had someone else, would it be over? 

I don’t know. I do know that I miss him and grieve him every day still. Even though I have physically moved, changed our lives monumentally and healed enormously….I am not done. 

I don’t know if this means that I am not ready for another love to enter my life. I don’t know if this means that I am broken. I don’t know if this means I am honest about my mourning. 

I wonder if other people feel that I should be ‘finished’ by now. That the expiry date on my feelings of loss have long since passed. 

I hope not….because I am still feeling them. Even if the expiry date has passed.