A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

Moving On At All

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Reflections by Jack Maloney
Reflections by Jack Maloney

I have always tried to be strong… but I’m not.  Somethings in life are just inconceivable even when you realize they are staring you down.  When we experience the things that cut us off at the knees its hard to think straight let alone be strong.  At one point as Jack’s life was winding down I lay crying in bed and for the first time he said to me in his weakened voice, “No more tears!”  But I couldn’t stop crying…

When I thought I couldn’t cry any more… I’d cry again.  In my heart though I knew Jack didn’t want me to mourn his death. He wanted me to move on with my life.  He wanted me to cherish our good times and put the bad times and his dying behind me.  As I sit here and write this I remember his courage in the face of death yet I’m still crying.

I miss him.  I miss sitting in the living room, side by side, comfortable in our silence.  I miss him starting his day off reading photography blogs because I knew whatever nugget he gleaned from them would be implemented in a photo.  I miss him chopping up vegetables and us cooking together.

I don’t miss his suffering and I’d would never have wanted him to stay with me and suffer.  And the end of his life was all suffering.  I don’t want to remember the suffering.  When I have a bad memory of the last few weeks of his life I stop myself and shift my thoughts to a better time.  Reliving that pain serves no purpose for me… and now it is all about my life and moving on.

I know for me moving on doesn’t mean that I leave Jack or his memory behind.  He remains embedded in my soul.  I have to take what he has given me and use that strength to create what my life is to become.  Some call it finding “new normal” but there is nothing “normal” about all this, yet.

My life isn’t over because my husband died.  Instead a new life is beginning.  My family has longevity which means I could live another 30+ years… almost as long as Jack & I were married.  That’s a long time and I know I don’t want to stay in my sadness for the rest of my days.

We each get to decide what we want for whatever time we have left on this earth.  We each get to take a step forward… or to pause and gain our strength.  It is our choice to make.  Whatever you choose to do… do it for you, for your happiness, for your own soul. Because at the moment that’s all you need to do.

With love, Cheryl

Surviving Our Worst Nightmares

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Fotolia_39873238_Subscription_XLFor the last few months I’ve been living my worst nightmare.  For most of that time Jack didn’t want anyone to know.  He never wanted his life to be about having cancer and I respected his wishes. When he died though I was grateful for the support of family and friends who grieved with me and held me up when I just wanted to curl up in a ball and die too.

Every day is different.  I am grateful for the life I had with Jack and I know that focusing on all the good things will always make me feel better than thinking about my loss.   The days though that I spend alone are the roughest because I do think about all I’ve lost and of all the things I have to do alone now.  And it’s hard… very hard.

When I’m around others my grief doesn’t go away but I am able to focus on something else if only for a little while.  It is those times that enable me to realize that I will survive despite the intense pain and sorrow I feel.

What I’m learning is to allow myself to feel every emotion I have and to let it all out in a manner in which I feel safe and comfortable.  Sometimes that is when I’m alone. Other times it’s when I’m with those friends and family who are also grieving.  Once I let it all out the weight is lifted off my shoulders at least for a little while.  It is then that I can see beyond the now… and there is hope in being able to do so.

Being distracted by anything enables me to begin living my life again.  And I feel better when I do.  I’ve even laughed a time or two.  Jack would never wanted me to endlessly mourn his passing and I don’t want to stay there either.  For me that means that I need to move beyond my grief… at my own pace… and to allow myself to experiencing whatever comes my way.  It means saying “Yes” to new adventures and “No” when that is right for me.

Whatever I do honors both Jack & me because it’s always been about the choices we make.  I’m choosing to find a happier place in life despite living my worst nightmare at the moment.  And I know that Jack would be proud of me for doing so.  So along with having hope there is peace in that knowledge.  That makes happiness possible again… and it also means I will survive my worst nightmare.

And you will survive yours too. When time has passed and we’ve moved beyond the here and now we’ll be able to look back and acknowledged our strength.  Then we can make yet another choice… to not just be a survivor… but to thrive.  To find the joy in life.   Because joy is there… waiting for us to be ready to live in it.

With love, Cheryl

When You Don’t Have A Choice

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Fotolia_54804996_Subscription_XXLThere are times in life when you don’t have a choice.  My husband died.  I don’t have a choice but to live without him.  Perhaps you find yourself divorced when you thought you’d always be together or your company chose to downsize and you were suddenly out of work.  There are just times in life when regardless of what we do we find ourselves in a place we never wanted or even thought we’d ever be… even if we saw it coming.

Jack & I had been on his cancer journey for the last 4 years but it was only the last couple months that we realized he was at the end of his life.  It’s easy… and natural to wish this was all a bad dream but instead it is my journey.  There are times it is incredibly hard and other times when it seems surreal but my bottom line is one of Jack’s favorite phrases, “It is what it is.”

If you are finding yourself in a place that you hate, regret or just don’t want to be what you do now or next is totally up to you.  In your heart you know you don’t want to stay in a place of misery yet sometimes you’ll find yourself there.

You’re going to mourn your loss and that’s ok.  I find that a good hard cry lets out all the emotions that need to flow.  You’re going to have times where you ask yourself what you could have done differently.  I call these the “If only’s.”  If only we had or hadn’t done something maybe this would never have happened.  You’re going to get angry.  You’re going to think “why me” even if you never say that out loud.  You’re just going to be sad.  And it’s ok to feel all these things and more.  This is not the time to berate yourself for how you feel… that only makes you feel worse and that’s not what you want.

When however you realize you want a happier life from here on out it’s time to let it sink in that you do have choices, now.  I have the choice to celebrate 36 years of marriage to the love of my life.  I have the choice to say “yes” to friends invitations and to enjoy their company.  I have the choice to make decisions about what I want for my life.  We can be grateful for all of the wonderful times we’ve had in life and for having choices moving forward.

No, we don’t have to like the ending… but if we give ourselves the chance to appreciate our new beginning we can move ourselves into a place of hope and happiness… one step at a time.  You deserve to be happy and it’s your choice to move in that direction.  Embrace it… because you can!

With love, Cheryl

Read more from Cheryl on here blog here.

Reflections – Winter 2014

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It seems like I’ve lived my life on a roller coaster of emotion. Up one day, down the next. Sometimes twisting around curves certain that at the other end is an experience so worrisome that I didn’t even notice where I really was at that given moment.

Whether we’re having the same experience over and over again, or it feels like the other shoe is about to drop, we want off this ride. Where is the peace, the joy, the wonderful life that we are meant to have?

What I’ve come to realize is that when I quit focusing on what isn’t going the way I thought it should, I can actually see what is. We didn’t come here to live the perfect life. We had that before we were born. (Okay, that assumes you believe that you’re a soul having a human experience.) What we have is the ability to experience the miracle of being human, and being human means there is joy and pain, happiness and misery, suffering and relief. None of those conditions are permanent anymore than life is.

If we choose to appreciate the experience, regardless of whether we consider it “good” or “bad,” we discover that life isn’t a roller coaster. It’s an amazing journey and exactly what we hoped for.

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