This morning it occurred to me that I have been keeping this blog for close to three years - I reflected how far I have come on the path to healing and wholeness and then I looked back for a moment to see my very first post. It was three years on June 20th - as someone once said, "What a trip its been." I began blogging to record my grief journey for myself. I have journaled for many decades and still do so. For some reason, I was compelled to go online - starting the blog seemed a place that would stand witness to my grief in a very different way. I never gave a thought to the fact that anyone else would ever read it. I poured my heart to the keyboard and then some amazing, unexpected things began to happen. People started to leave comments and I began to visit other people's lives, opinions, triumphs and struggles through their writing and their blogs.
The blog stood witness to my journey and so have you. The support, the love, the encouragement, the love, and the friendship I have found here has been a major element in my journey to a new life. Happy Birthday Blog - in deepest gratitude and love across the miles - thank you my bloggy buddies.
Three years...and look where you are Suzann. What a journey you have made my sweet friend. You have amazed me in so many ways...and still do. You are one strong lady with a most beautiful soul and giving heart. I'm so proud be one of your blogging buddies and to share in your journey sweetie..... ~Joy xo
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your blogging birthday. Like the look of your blog now, too. Expect writing may not always have been easy, but glad doing so has contributed to your tranformative journey emerging from loss. Wish you much love and happiness in the future
ReplyDeleteIt seems that pouring the heart onto the keyboard and allowing it to float out over the world invites the compassion, sympathy, support we are needing, and the Universe delivers! Blogging is a very wonderful form of communication, personal and public and a great network of new friends. We are all helping each other. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI have read most all your blogs over the months (yesterday) and skimmed the rest. Below are some excerpts from your writings that spoke to me. My Beloved husband had a sudden heart attack this past January 25, 2008. I am wretched and just trying to get thru each day. Searching, I guess. It's as if I am 'waiting' for something. I can't seem to get out of the house much, and when I do, I want to go back home. The finality of him really not coming back strikes me over and over.
ReplyDeleteYou have written what is in my heart, so I know you understand.
Thank you.
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive it isn't." Moving through sorrow with joy is difficult. Making meaning out of mourning the challenge. I am becoming - the metamorphosis of a life suddenly spun out of control. CONTROL - ha, that is another illusion, isn't it. There is no such thing.
I surrender.
Here today - what are my dreams? What do I want? Where am I going? What is my future? The one thing I know for sure, life is transitory - I could be gone in a flash. The other is - life is precious.
The grief journey is a bit like being dropped into mental illness. At times you believe you will never survive; at times you do not want to do so.
Yet, through all the pain - you do survive. For a long time, you wait for "it" to be over. One day you realize, "it" will never be over. "It" becomes a missing piece; a hole in your life; a hole in your heart; a longing in your soul.
Gradually, you climb from the dark pit. You pull yourself from the dismal hole of sorrow and bereavement. Then there comes a day, the first flash of acceptance - you awake to realize that you have taken a giant step into the future. "I am alive."
Forever, I will miss my husband. This week, I have moments that bring me to my knees.
Mending A Broken Heart
Heartbreak happens to all of us and can wash over us like a heavy rain. When experiencing a broken heart, our ethereal selves are saturated with grief, and the overflow is channeled into the physical body. Loss becomes a physical emptiness, and longing is transmuted into a feeling that often cannot be put into words.
Mending a broken heart can seem a task so monumental that we dare not attempt it for fear of damaging ourselves further. But heartbreak, like all emotions, falls under the spell of our conscious influence. Often the pain that wounds us most deeply also leaves the most enduring mark upon us.
The shock that becomes the tender, throbbing ache of the heart eventually leads us down the path of enlightenment, blessing our lives with a new depth and richness. Acknowledging heartbreak's impermanence by no means dulls its sting for it is the sting itself that stimulates healing. The pain is letting us know that we need to pay attention to our emotional selves, to sit with our feelings and be in them fully before we can begin to heal.
It is said that time heals all wounds. Time may dull the pain of a broken heart, but it is fully feeling your pain and acknowledging it that will truly help you heal. Dealing with your heartache in a healthy way rather than putting it off for tomorrow is the key to repair. Gentleness more than anything else is called for.
Most important, open yourself to the possibility of loving, trusting, and believing again. When, someday soon, you emerge from the cushion of your grief, you will see that the universe did not cease to be as you nursed your broken heart. You emerge on the other side of the mending, stronger for all you have experienced.
Forever in my heart ----- my husband, my soul mate, my friend, my guardian angel.
I will love you for eternity. You said, "throw off the veil of death and live your transformed life." And so I shall. But, forever, forever --- there will be the days of rememberance - walking hand-in-hand in the crisp autumn air. I love you.
I find myself slipping back into an old place of "why, why, why did this happen?" There are no answers.
Grief - the transformational journey that keeps on giving - the journey that keeps on ripping your heart out, that keeps reminding you to live in each moment - it is the only one we truly have.
I honor the grief, it has brought me to my knees a million times over, it has tested the resilience of every fiber of my being, it has drawn a new landscape on my soul.
Making peace with what was and what isn't is a major task of the grief journey.
Struck by the wonder of nature, sweeping the garage, crying - longing for a life that is forever gone. We walk the path and heal - it is a very long journey
Tonight. Thirty months since your spirit took flight. My heart yearns for you. Forever, will you be alive in my memory. Driving and crying in the car tonight - so long since that has occurred. Just missing our missing life. Forging a new life - but never will I be the same - forever transformed. I love you.
I know that Tom is dead. He is not coming back. It may sound strange for me to write that after two years. Things come in layers in this grief journey. I have had to learn things over and over; it is a matter of degrees. I know he is dead. His spirit rests within me - he is not coming back. I am alive
Death ends a life not a relationship.
That first year when you cry without warning a million times a day.
Last night I wept long into the night; something I have not done for so long. I miss my life and am totally confused because what is my life? Is it this new life I am forging and then - what of the life I loved, the dreams we shared, the warmth of your body in bed at night, the strength of your laugher echoing from the other room, the dancing in the kitchen, the apple fritters, hugs from behind while washing dishes. Growing old together is not to be. Oh weeping shadows on the wall - guide me as I reflect and continue to make meaning of this transformative journey.
Saturday is twenty-three months since Tom died. My heart beats so ferociously at times. The sadness sneaks up on me without warning. I made my dinner tonight and when I put the food on the plate all I could think was how much he would have liked to eat that dinner. I went to the store after work tonight and on the way home just burst into tears, Crying in the car = the widda way of life. I miss my husband. I am vulnerable tonight. Just longing for his smile, his arms, his kisses, his laughter from the other room. Oh my sweet darling. Forever in my heart.
Only our bodies part - the spirits joined - live forever.
I have been struck in my heart again - I miss my guy. It is different, it does not last as long when it happens ----but it is no less aching, no less painful, no less craving - his touch, his laugh, his hand to hold, his hugs and kisses - our life together that is lost. Oh weeping shadows on the wall. My longing knows no end.
"See there's this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It's the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me."
My heart aches for Tom - my heart reaches out to my friend - grief knows no bounds - there is no "getting over it" - the love we shared can never be extinguished.
Tom - my darling - missing you tonight - wishing I could curl up in your arms and sleep peacefully after some of those excellent, hot kisses. With Longing - Your Girl.
Remembering Tom today and all the joy he brought to us during his time on this earth. His legacy of love and caring live in my heart. Amazing that we found one another on this planet - we both learned and grew as a result of our union. Friends, lovers, confidants, silly together as little children, grateful to know unconditional love.
My sweet baby darling, you - the love of my life. I do not love or miss you more today because it is Valentine's Day. I just wish you were here with your big smile and warm arms. I am profoundly grateful for your love - for all the memories - for all you taught me - for the life we shared. My husband, best friend and lover - forever in my heart.
There is a hole in my heart - a hole that can never be filled. A void that will be there forever. It matters not the healing - you will never be forgotten. No person can ever fill that hole. The smallest things are what I remember most and what I miss every day. Hugs from behind while washing dishes. Kisses in the morning. Hearing your laughter in the other room. Long legs and bony knees poking me in bed at night. Boxer shorts. Down vests. Black Levis. A tall husband who could reach anything. Unconditional love - life's greatest gift.
Now I have my precious memories and a heart with an everlasting hole.
This afternoon, I just feel a low grade weepy. Crap. What a very long and exhausting path this journey is.........
I miss my husband, I miss the life we shared. I miss TOM'S HUMANITY. Your laugh. I miss your appetite for good food. I miss your kisses. I miss your hugs. I miss my tall husband. I miss you, Tom.
What is Paradise? Love? Literature? Dreams? Striving to understand the mysteries of life?
Just here. Making meaning from profound loss.
Grief lived faithfully heals itself
in time not fully.
Where once an open wound burned
unbearably
now a thin, transparent scar.
Still I know that till
the hour of my own death
the scar glows
and now and then bad weather
will come and waken the same old ache.
A scar is a now and then throb
that dies only with one’s own death.
My Sweet Baby Darling - 10 months today since your body took its leave. The golden light that shined from your eyes at the moment your spirit took flight is always in my heart. This weekend on our wedding anniversary, I sent all my heart, my soul and my love to you. How can it be? I am healing, I am grateful for your love, for our life. Oh Tom, my life will NEVER be the same without you. Baby steps to a future I didn't plan for - baby steps to a future without your sweet smile, your loving arms, your strength and your unconditional love. I miss so many things - more than I can list - they are engraved upon my heart. My darling, my husband, my best friend -- my love flies out to you. To you Tom - my strength and my guide.
Congratulations on your blog birthday. It really is quite a trip, isn't it? Meeting friends, getting to know new people we'd never have met in real life. It opens up an adventure of a different sort
ReplyDeleteblogging truly does invite people into our lives to share our journey. from that we learn more about each other and ourselves, feel supported and heard, and enjoy another avenue of the human connection. yours has been such an amazing journey, and now it is time for me to share it with a new friend whose husband died unexpectedly on may 30th of a heart attack. i hope she will find strength in reading your story, knowing there is another who really does understand her loss, another who has created a new life while honoring the past one, who has forged through the pain and the unknown territory born from the loss to find new meanings in life.
ReplyDeletehappy, happy blogging birthday, suzann! it has been such a joy meeting you here and sharing your journey. :)
big hugs!
Congratulations, dear Suzann. Three years! WOW! And you have come so far in the time I have been reading you....! I wish you only 'the best', dear Suzann, and a continuing journey to this New Life that has already begu and seems to be doing very very well!
ReplyDeleteYou are a great joy to read, my dear.
What you here writes shows the importance of openess related to what you have gone thrugh (and still are).
ReplyDeleteI did not realize how important it is to write down your grief, sorrow and missing until the death of my oldest son.
It's really like bringing a grain off your pain for each post and positive comment received.
I do think you have come a long way back to what your dear husband would have liked to see: The charming and vivid wife he adored and loved.
You have also, like me, found out that the blogosphere is very important for us as individuals.
And that you have friends the Globe around. Friends you did not even existed. But they do.
As said before, I would like to visit the "Norse" America. Before it's too late.
Congratulations on your blogging birthday, dear Suzann! Cheers!
ReplyDelete