A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

There Is A Time For Everything

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Have you lost someone or something in your life?  Is your grief overwhelming and you feel like you’ll never get past it?  Are you willing to entertain the belief, just for a moment, that you will get past it? If you are then in that moment I’m going to ask you to just do one thing.  Recognize where you are is a just part of your journey.  You know in your heart that life goes on and so will you.

If you entertain the thought that your life will go on then you can also realize that right now might be the time you need to wallow in your sorrow. Your sorrow is as much a part of your life’s journey as being happy, excited, inspired or any more positive experience. Let it be what it is… part.

Not the whole, part.
Not the end, a view point.
When you tire of the view you can and will move on.

How do you move on?  Let your next step be about what you don’t do instead of what you do.  It’s somewhat easier that way. As someone who is learning to live again after Jack’s death here are something things I know if you’ll stop doing you’ll actually allow yourself to move beyond where you are now.

  • Stop focusing on your life without.  For example there is longevity in my family and when I really am in pain I think about living the next 30 years without Jack.  That’s a gut wrenching thought. If instead I shift my thoughts to having 36 great years with him the pain is less intense.
  • Stop listening to music that brings you down.  “See You Again” by Charlie Puth is a wonderful song that brings me to tears every time.  There is an attraction to feeling the pain of this loss but changing the station helps me more.
  • Stop spending time with your “misery loves company” friends or friends who want to talk about how great their life is.  Instead spend time with friends who make you laugh.

It’s easy to feel the pain.  It’s hard to make it stop.  It’s simple to choose something that feels just a little bit better and right now that is as good as it needs to be.

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

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

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.

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