Words for the Journey

I never really created a bucket list before. Growing up, my life was such a mass of constant change, that I didn’t make plans for the future; I just took life as it came to me. When I started dating and later became engaged to Chase, we had fun making plans and planning a future.

 

What I Have Learned Since Being A Widow

It was a normal moment. The last meeting before Easter was coming to a close, the cookie container was emptying, people were discussing next steps. Sitting in my church’s conference room at a large rectangular table, I heard one of my colleagues say, “Let’s close in prayer.”

The sad man trudged alone in the dark of a miserable, gray night when a sudden shock of yellow caught his eye.“Taxi!” he yelled with his hand raised.

My father died last week. He was 89. He had lived a full life. He had been a productive member of society by all accounts: four children, 9 grand children, 63-year marriage, retired to a beach community in Florida when he was 60, lived with his bride in his own house right up until the last few weeks. Yes, my father was a fortunate man. His entire family came for the funeral services.

A lot has happened since my daughter died in 2007 from the injuries she received in a car crash. Every day, when I awaken in the morning, I feel her absence and try to accommodate to it. Creating Action Memorials is one accommodation and it has helped us recover from grief. This has been a slow, rewarding process.

 This is not goodbye--it’s still “I’ll love you forever.”

Muted darkness has given way to lightened shapes of distant colors. Today, I can see through a tunneled kaleidoscope of prismatic, disarranged but softly spoken whispers of change. Today, I stepped beside the hole. The black hole, the one that ingests you till you bleed blackness, the blackness that tears your soul into mortifying shards of glass. Cocooned.

It's been seven months. I have to remind myself to breathe. It's the space between the breath, where time stops and everything is still. You can actually feel the blood pulsating through your veins as your body wakes with silent tremors from the cascading tears silently flowing from your eyes. Seven months. How does my heart still beat after holding my breath for so many months.