the long, slow goodbye

"every true story ends in death."  ~ ernest hemingway

grief is so very different for everyone.  it is also a very private affair.

it's an affair of the heart and only the person going through it knows how deep the pain goes.

he meant the world to me.  he means the world to me.

i admit i find secret comfort in widow(er)s both fictitious and real who have not moved on,

who have kept their sorrow inside and simply lived on with the memories.

there was a short-lived television show titled "10 things i hate about you."  in it the father character is aggressively, and unsuccessfully, seduced by a divorced woman.  he tells her he is not ready to date; that he is a recent widow.  the woman extends her sympathy and asks him how long it's been.

"7 years."

i loved that.  his face.  his expression.  the soft, lingering love for his dead wife.  he was still wearing his wedding ring.

or Jessica Fletcher of the television show "Murder, She Wrote."  she never dated nor married again.  she had a full life writing her novels, welcoming company to her home, and solving murders all over the globe.

and Betty White. she has been his widow for 34 years.  she's having fun with her acting and her animal charities, yet when she was on Inside the Actor's Studio and she was asked that last question, her answer was so very poignant.

"If heaven exists, what would you want God to say at the pearly gates?"

Betty said, "come on in, Betty.  here's Allen."

i've been told to never say never; that i do not know what's around the bend.

but .....

it's been 5 years and i still feel the same about him.

i will love him forever.

i think this is one of those long, slow goodbyes.

he was so much fun
and he gave me so much.

laughter and joy,

confidence and love,
and the ocean.
he took me to live beside the ocean.

we talked and shared.

we were a true meeting of the minds.

i love him.  he is so dear to me.

a long, slow goodbye.
i think of him quite a lot.
i do still dream of him.
my memories of him are so vivid.
i can hear his voice.
i can hear his laugh.
i feel this deep and abiding connection to him.

it is my most fervent hope and wish that i will be with him when i die.

a long, slow goodbye.
my memories keep me company.
and as i will one day die,
know that this is a true story.

i leave you with the words of a fictitious widow ~ Jessica Fletcher.

"i won't tell you that the hurt will disappear.

it doesn't,

but sooner or later it becomes different.

the pain subsides and the memories take over.

it isn't wonderful,

but it's better."

to the people who don't understand

here are some words to the people who don't understand.  be forewarned.  there will be sarcasm.

some of them may also be widows, widowers, people who have lost someone dear to them.  some of these people don't understand those of us who do grieve for a while longer than expected, than is the norm.  outside influences may affect the grief journey.  yes, it's true.  it shouldn't be big news.  sometimes medical issues and/or financial issues may exacerbate, or hinder, the "wishing they were here" part of this life without them.

some people feel such a bond with their loved one who died that they live their lives missing them, talking to them, and even creating great works for themselves to help bring about comfort and closeness to them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9397478/Farmer-creates-heart-shaped-meadow-in-memory-of-wife.html

some people spend their lives living, yes, i'll say living because if we get up, go to work, raise our children, are involved in the community, we are living.  people who have read my blog have left comments about others they knew who grieved/missed/"didn't move on with their life" as some are want to put it.


"I don't know if I ever told you, but my Grandmother was widowed at 48--she never "dated"--said she never would. Roy was her life--she always felt like he was just around the corner. She was a widow for 30 years and yet a happy person. She didn't need any other man then Roy in her life.

The day she died, she sat up in bed, looked at the door, smiled and said, 'Roy has come for me', laid back and died. I know for a fact that my grandfather came to get her and walk home with her."

some have left me quotes that they agree with and feel inspired by.  they either understand this particular journey that i am on, or they accept that i am on it without feeling the need to correct, criticize, or condemn me.

"I am not anxious to give you the truth. I am very anxious to have you understand that all truth and power are feeble to you except your own." - walt whitman 

i have also written in a previous blog about a man i knew.  he "grieved" his whole life and no one thought he was odd, or wrong, or "not moving on with his life" or anything bad.

http://womannshadows.blogspot.com/2009/08/hard-dreaming-mortality-and-widower.html


i guess back in the old days of grief, it was acceptable to live, {<~~ see that word?  live}, live your life alone and missing someone.  you laugh.  you work.  you celebrate the holidays.  but you do miss the person you loved.  you do not feel the need to date or remarry or, as someone once put it to me, "go out and have sex to at least feel alive."  if i had the money i would take trips and see the world.  i would take hundreds of thousands of pictures.  and i would miss him in Rome, Paris, Edinburgh, on cruise ships, wherever i may roam.

it is perfectly acceptable, lovely, wonderful, all the good things i can say, for a widow or widower to find someone new to love, get married, even have more children.  congratulations.  i am thrilled.

it is also perfectly acceptable for me to still love and miss my husband.  this blog is mine.  it is my journal that i do hope for feedback, contact with the world at large, but do not, do not, do NOT criticize me for still loving my husband, feeling the strength of our marriage vows, not feeling the desire or inclination to date, and still missing him while i go through some of my medical issues, my worries over money, and my wistful desire to talk to him.  do not presume to have been there, even if you have.  do not presume you know my life and how i am affected by things.  you do not know what has happened before that shaped the woman i am today.  you do not really even possibly know my exact age, 54.  now you know.  yes, there are over 50 singles sites.  i'm not interested.

and if you have something that will hurt my feelings, say it with grace and gentleness or don't say it at all.  cruelty is you loving being hurtful and that speaks volumes about who you are.  i would rather be on this grief journey missing him as i do than be you in all your lofty cruel glory heaping your opinions over everyone.  they will say about me, "she loved him immensely and missed him all the days of her life."  they will say about you, "what a bitch."

that expression, you need to walk a mile in my shoes, is true.  to fully understand that expression you need to know that if you walk a mile in my shoes all the scars inflicted on my body and all my nightmares of the past will come rushing around you.  beware.  some of it is horrible.  so before you criticize a widow or a widower, whether they've "remarried too quickly" or "grieving too long and need to get on with their life," you truly need to "walk a mile in their shoes."

to the people who don't understand, who say to me, "get on with your life," i will take those words and hand them back to you.  "get on with your life." stop wasting your obviously frustrated time fretting about me.  get on with your life.  go on, and don't look back.

as for me, for right now, and as far as i can see in the distant future, i will grieve the loss of my husband.  i will LIVE, work, laugh, love my children, plan things, wait for holidays, write, take photographs, sew, paint, all that i used to do when he was alive, but i will do three more things.

1. i will miss him, love him, talk to him,
2. i will take pictures of and commune with the full moon,
and 3. i will see dragons, however subtle, in ephemeral things throughout the day.....

everyday, maybe for the rest of my life.

"Love is the only thing that we carry with us when we go......"

~ Louisa May Alcott