A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

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

It’s Not About What We’ve Lost

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JACKCJ1The sound of Jack’s voice, his presence in the room, being able to tell him what I discovered… just being able to talk to him.  There are just no substitutes for what I miss the most.  I have wonderful friends and family… but calling them to talk about seeing my old neighborhood or that I had lunch at Pei Wei just isn’t as satisfying as having the conversation with Jack.  (And I know they understand that.)

It’s hard not to cry every time I miss what I had with him.  That doesn’t mean I’m focusing on all I’ve lost.  It means I miss my husband.  But then that shouldn’t surprise anyone… including me. As I sit here in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas.  I feel profoundly alone.  And I am… compared to what my life was.

I don’t feel sorry for myself.  Everyone in this life has or will go through some life changing event. And at this very moment according to the world clock nearly 111,000 people have died today. I’m not alone.  Some may have died suddenly and their loved ones are reeling from the shock.  Some suffered like Jack did and their family feels gratitude that the suffering is over.  For all of the people who died there are millions of us who are dealing with living after their deaths. We are not alone.

We can miss what we’ve lost without living in the past.  We can be sad because we won’t be able to hear their voices.  We can cry because we are alone.  But none of that means we’re living for what we’ve lost.  It just means we’re grieving… and that’s a part of life.

Tonight I’ll cry because I need to.  Tomorrow I’ll get up and drive south to visit my family and be grateful for their love and kindness.  I’ll give thanks for what I have and I’ll give thanks for what I had. And my life will go on.

We go on because as Jack would say, “It is what it is.”  And I know if our roles had been reversed he’d feel the way I do now.  But just like him I’ll have the courage to keep putting one foot in front of the other, do the best I can and give thanks for every day, for every moment, of my life.  And that’s where we can all find our peace.

With love, Cheryl

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