A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

When What You’ve Lost Is More Than You Can Bear

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Couple Holding HandsI’ve been doing my best to get out and walk every evening.  Jack & I use to do that all that time.  We’d walk around our neighborhood, holding hands, and we were the cute couple.  It breaks my heart to not have my hand in his.  But I keep moving… because I know it’s what I need to do for me.

When you find yourself without what use to be your life it really is more than anyone should have to bear.  I don’t care if it’s a spouse, a child or a career.  When something means so much to you that it hurts to be without it it’s hard to even think about going on… but we do.

Last week I saw a friend for the first time since Jack died.  He looked at me and commented about all of the stress being gone from my face.  And it is in that I am not longer on an endless heighten alert for fear Jack would fall or not be able to keep his food down.  Gone is the stress about what would happen to me without him.  It’s painful to be without him but I’m still able to function and care for myself.  Because that’s what I do.

Grief and the pain of major life challenges are somethings we all will go through whether we want to or not.  And some events are more horrific than others but… as they say… this is life.

You may not have experienced any of this yet.. but when you do I hope you’ll remember this.  You will get through it… and yes it will tear at your soul and break your heart… but you will heal.  It takes time.  And you’re still living so you have that on your side.  Allow it all to be as it is then allow yourself to find peace. Because you will.

With love, Cheryl

Profoundly Human

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LonelinessFor the last 10 days I’ve been training for my job, far away from my home.  At some point I had to become gainfully employed to support myself.  I know it was the best thing for me to do.

I feel lucky that my instructors are fun, kind and compassionate people.  They’ve made this trip more bearable because being away from home is just not what I wanted or needed so shortly after Jack’s death.  But life goes on and sometimes we have to pull on our big girl (or boy) pants and go on with it.

Being in a hotel room has amplified my sadness.  I can’t pick up the phone or Skype with Jack about my day, laugh about teaching an old dog new tricks or even complain about the heat.  We use to talk about everything and like any long-married couple we understood each other. But I can’t talk to him… and my loneliness is heartbreaking even to me.  So I cry.

The truth is that I am OK with my tears, with my sadness and even with being alone.  I had a wonderful marriage to the love of my life.  I was blessed and am blessed for having Jack in my life for 36 years.  What I am experiencing now is, well, just part of life.   And isn’t that why we are here in the first place?  To have this physical experience?  There was never a promise that this life would be all roses and sunshine anymore that it would be all doom and gloom.

I need to glean every bit of experience that I can in this lifetime and my pain is part of that.  I don’t have to like it but somehow I’m going to figure out how to appreciate it.  At some point I’ll be grateful for all of it… the tears, the sadness, and the loneliness… even if at the moment I cuss the seemingly unfairness of it.

As I sit here, alone,  at this moment my promise to myself is that I won’t stop living because I’ve loved and lost.  I will live because I was blessed to have Jack in my life and to witness the courage of his life.   I will live because that is what I came here to do. I will be happy again because I know that is the choice I will make for me.  All of this makes me profoundly human.  And I’m OK with that too.

As always, Cheryl

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

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