Suffering + Life After Death

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

When grief is new, your world and your body are like a hideous sludge. Everything is dark. Everything is slow. You can barely breathe, let alone move. Even talking is too much effort. Trying to wrap thoughts around words just makes you sink further into your own personal abyss.

When my husband, Robert, passed away, the foundation of my grief was that it was me who was suffering now. I was comforted by the thought that his earthly suffering was over, but more than that, I was thinking how terrible I felt. And it was true: I felt like I had a heart attack (it was mild angina brought on by stress and it wasn’t the first time so I wasn’t panicked at all). It hurt to move. Every ache and pain that I had ever had in my life suddenly resurrected into an immediacy of piercing needles...in my chest area, in my legs, in my shoulders, migraines. Oh, I was a mess but the strange thing was that I had never heard that grief takes a physical toll on the body. I just thought it was my personal coping mechanism. And frankly, I wasn’t coping all that well as evidenced by my pain.

Fast forward two weeks of running around, completing the inevitable paperwork associated with the death of a spouse. So many forms to sign, documents to photocopy and notary publics to witness. I was so lucky that my firstborn son was able to drive me to the necessary venues because I was such a wreck that nothing was being accomplished on my own efforts. The pains disappeared and my endless days of grieving began. Maybe you’ve had a similar situation, too? Physically I was getting stronger because I was making the time, each day, for regular exercise but every day brought copious tears.

Even though my husband was no longer on this earth, I still felt the love between us. I heard his voice. I felt him touch me. I felt his kiss (not what I had expected but still thrilling). I wrote about those kisses in a blog post. Both around home and during my daily walks, I would see evidence that his spirit (I call him my angel-spirit) was still visiting me.

Not only did I still feel so in love with him, I felt that he was still in love with me. You know how you can recognize when people just don’t care that much? Subtle signs like avoiding eye contact or interrupting your conversations? And when somebody you love moves away to a different city and you gradually lose contact? Well, after Rob floated into eternity, I didn’t feel any of that. I didn’t feel as if love was waning. In fact, just the opposite. It seemed as if we were still just as much in love as always. Maybe even more so.

I’ve explored the concept of love after death on my blog in quite a few posts. Beyond the little messages that you can see (feathers, cardinals, pennies and so forth) there really is an energy connection. In Elementary school we learned that energy can change from one form to another (electricity, heat, light) but doesn’t die. Energy is our life force, sustaining our body but comprising also our mind, soul and spirit. Death can’t destroy it.

And death definitely does not destroy love. For me, our love functioned as a focusing beam. The beam began focusing on love as a completely different path than suffering. I stopped my overwhelming attachment to the fact that I was suffering. I started looking at the amazing gift of a love that transcends death.

As for me, I’m still discovering the power and beauty of that love. Although suffering is indeed universal, I feel that my connection to the Universe is now via love. Love sustains me and keeps me focused on happy times in my present existence. If there remain days with tears, at least I can smile through them.

I’m no angel and I am still likely to have ambivalent thoughts but it sure helps to have a real angel by my side. Thanks, Rob, for letting me know that love in the afterlife is real. Angels are real. And most of all, that it’s still, “I’ll love you forever.”