Excerpted from thegriefblog.com, here’s a man’s perspective on losing his wife.
Now That She's Gone
You’ve been with her for many years. You have shared the ups and downs, the tragedies and the triumphs. You became used to each other and shared your dreams, the dreams you both had, with bright eyes and wondrous anticipation when you were young. . . . And then one day, she was gone.
Just that fast, she was gone. You didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, or tell her what she meant to you, or ask her what you will do without her. She was just . . . gone.
You walk through the house and find her here and there, the lamp you both argued about, but she let you win; her favorite, cracked cup that she glued back together so carefully; little things, a million memories, and you wonder how you will go on.
It’s too quiet now. No one there to say, “Hi Babe; how was your day?” Just the mocking silence. Why is the pain so unbearable? What is it with life anyway? Does it all come down to this; this crushing loneliness? Will there ever be another? No, there couldn’t be, not like that one. You could never let yourself fall so deeply in love again, it’s too painful.
The days go by, and the memories fade, and you find that you are changing. You will never be what you once were. The youthful exuberance and the never ending optimism has been replaced by a deep sadness, a melancholy wisdom, and you find yourself slowing down a little; nowhere important to go now, now that the one you lived for is gone. You find yourself going through the motions.
And one day you think about her less often, but when you do, you still wonder if you could have made her happier, if you could have sacrificed a little more or paid more attention to her little dreams, instead of just what you wanted. But then you remember -she never asked for that much, just to be with you.
You’re moving on now; you can’t live in the past. The world does not stop spinning. You know that she is okay, wherever she is; she always had a way of making the best of things. But you’re not okay, not really — maybe someday, but not today.
And you sit with the loneliness, and the pain; and you don’t escape from it this time. You don’t escape into a therapy of some kind, or a self-help book. No, you sit with it, and it takes every bit or courage that you have, and you feel defeated.
There is no more hatred toward others, no more criticism. There is no energy for that. They will feel this same pain someday, and therefore how could you not feel connected to them? There is no longer any self-righteousness, because you no longer know anything about life for certain, all of your certainties died with her. Now you are experiencing life, raw life, just as it is, without hiding from it, or theorizing about it, and somewhere deep inside, mixed in with all the pain and the hurt, there is a murmur, just a whisper of something else.
And you sit at night, alone in your meditation; your breath going in and going out, your memories and the pain going in and going out. The moonlight drifts through your window, your only friend now, and after awhile, it’s okay. It’s quiet now. If you listen carefully you can almost hear her breathing next to you, and you continue sitting in your meditation. And you hold your broken heart in your hands . . . and you ask why.
No answers come, just the in breath, and the out breath, and the cycles of life where everything changes, and where we suffer so much.
And that is enough for now. And you sit with it. And you wait . . .
E. Raymond Rock
