What does it mean to be strong? Many are left alone through similar or different circumstances than mine, but what happens then? How does someone "recover" from loosing a spouse and best friend?
Following the one year mark, this issue becomes more apparent to me. How do I replace my best friend in the whole world? The person I could complain to about stuff. He would just listened...no judgements... no repercussions...he was just were there for me. He was my biggest cheerleader. That person is gone. When someone disappointments or lets me down, what is there to do? It's not always that "they" were wrong, just that it hurt me. We all have that happen to us.
It has been of the most important for me to support our friends and family through loosing Dave. In the end, who supports me....
It isn't that no one loves or supports me. It's the realization that life is going forward for us all and my life isn't, and shouldn't be, the center of every one's life. It's the realization that I can forever count on my two dogs, cat and me. I told Dave..."don't worry about me, I'll be okay". I may have lied. I didn't mean to.
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It has to be most difficult to try to find a new way to live, and each and every day to find it so changed from the way it was for almost half of your life. How to adapt, and make life feel whole again? How, when such a huge part is gone?
ReplyDeleteI can only suppose that each person on that journey has to carve their own path. Those of us who have spent chunks of our lives (long or short) "alone", know the fear--and exhilaration--of being our own rock. Friends can help, but the day-to-day of it is yours to figure out. The moments of almost unbearable loneliness will stand as proof of how deeply you have loved, and been loved in return. That you have the capacity for that in your heart and in your life will not change, and I don't believe Dave would want it to.
Treat yourself gently, as you would anyone you love who has been deeply wounded. You didn't lie to Dave, you WILL be okay. Give yourself lots of time.
Love you...
Life is like looking at the sky or a lake or a crowd of a thousand people, it changes constantly. But there are choices and to break them down to the black & white it is giving or taking, the givers give incessantly and the takers use the givers up emotionally. When you have nothing left to give it forces you to see that there is nothing left for yourself or is there? You gave it all to Dave just like the greatest Bon voyage ever & forever, there is no manual for that, it may be frozen in time but it is for all time! You are healing and that brings self-doubt and a thousand ways to feel again, too much for our mind to take in & no one knows how it really shakes out but you & no advice except keep on living is practical. Those day-to-day washed out bridges, and pot holes, and a too quite house late at night will rip your heart out but to no avail, you have won this with tears! There are too many people watching out for you, even more so now because we know this will never go away or be done, with loss comes gain as Dave was and is worth it & you are too, you are a giver. There is love on this earth for you again if you want it and like shapes in the sky and anything you see, this is ALL temporary! In less than 50 years we are all going to be with Dave. You live for two now and you are not wasting a day of it, the fact that you can tell us this after just a year is like wow Lee.
ReplyDeleteWOW!
John
Thanks Mimi and John....don't think I need another cheerleader. You both are pretty dang good. Love you both. me
ReplyDeleteJohn has a special eloquence that is second to none. Every bit of every person who loves you is something for you to hold on to, when you need to.
ReplyDeleteNo one is ever out of this either, it is for the long haul & everyone will be there for ya! We are all so lucky we have each other for this journey & tears.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a special journey for us all too. It maybe a little self serving, but I do think Dave was a special guy. It gives me strength to know you are all there with me. Thanks for hanging with me during the times I fall down...I recover. PLG
ReplyDeleteEach of us has lost people since we have come of age, but the loss of Dave, I think, has been even more profound for many of us, on many levels. For me personally, I can say it is because I first met him when I was 7. The bulk of my memories are from childhood, and beyond into high school. And oh, what he added to it! Even before the cancer, when I thought of my childhood, and those years at Jefferson and Milton Jr. High, Dave was a big part of those memories. In our adult years, I saw him only a handful of times, but almost every time he grinned and said, "Let the Sunshine In"...the song we played in the Colorful Imagination. I'm having a hard time right now thinking of a passing that has affected me as much as Dave's...and that includes family members. Wow.
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