Grief is Like Learning to Live with an Amputation – A Man’s Journey Through Grief, continued, #13
Sunday: This morning I awoke, made a coffee and stumbled into my recliner. I looked around the condo and realized more clearly than I had that Mary Helen’s death meant I had to remake my life.
My life is like a condo that has suddenly been destroyed by a hurricane and has to be rebuilt, re-roofed and re-wired. The concrete pad is left, but the rest needs to be re-built from the ground up. That is me.
I am no longer one of a couple. I am a single, bereaved man. The structure of life that we had built together is fractured. The comfortableness we had developed with each other is shattered. The pattern of our days is gone; a new pattern must be developed. The instinctive understanding we shared on issues is no more. With whom can I talk who will be able to finish my sentences and understand my view. No one? How do I live with that emptiness?
Who will be my social convenor? Who will keep me from wearing clashing clothes? Who will help me overcome my reserve so I fit in to a group? Who will rescue me from verbal gaffes? “Oh, Eric didn’t mean that. He just plays the devil’s advocate.” Who will instinctively attract others to her warm and friendly person? She would joke that she was known as “Eric’s wife” because I was the one on the platform preaching and teaching. But in reality, in any social group, I was “Mary Helen’s husband.” Now I’m just that overlying serious guy on the fringes. Okay, I’m feeling sorry for myself again, but really, how do I rebuild my life when I’m not even half of a couple—more like one quarter or a fifth?
It’s not as if we were separate entities and I can just take up as an individual where we left off. As the Bible says about marriage, “the two shall be one flesh.” We were. I almost feel as if our grey matter, our nerves and arteries were inter-connected. Now they are torn apart. How do I piece together one life from what was a compound life?
To use another comparison, marriage is a symbiosis which is defined as; the “interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.” Out of two distinct people, a man and a woman, God had helped us to become a symbiosis—become one in so many ways of doing and thinking. I have been crashing into those ways throughout the past months and often not knowing what to do.
I’m still a father and a grandfather. But even here things have to be rebuilt. I love my family more than anything except God, but Mary Helen was the one who was naturally a vibrant focus of any family gathering. I’m more awkward than she was, even with those I love so deeply. Somehow, I have to develop new and deep relationships even with family. But they all live such busy and fulfilling lives. Maybe it’s my old-school reserve, but I feel that I could easily be intruding. They have satisfying lives with each other.
Events at church this morning made this re-building of my life more urgent. From Mary Helen I’ve learned to single out those who are alone or new and try to get to know them. Every Sunday we would ask the Lord to help us be a blessing to someone and to help us connect with someone new. We’d introduce ourselves, ask their names and listen as they answered our general questions about their lives. We’d also chat with those who had become friends. I’ve continued to try and do that. But it has become scary. And I’m often unsuccessful. I found this morning’s gathering particularly difficult.
I almost left. Then I looked around the congregation and realized that I was too focused on myself. There were families trying to control fidgety children. One woman was dealing with the husband’s Alzheimer’s. Another wife had had to leave her sick husband at home so she could attend. And in a row in front of me there must have been 3 or 4 widows, one who became a widow at the same time as Mary Helen died. They must be dealing with similar issues. I must look beyond myself.
I don’t know the answer to my life at this point, except to keep on slowly keeping on doing what I as a Christian should do. Spending time in prayer and study. Making new friends as I can. Being interested in others enough to listen to their stories. Trying to be salt and light here in the condo community where I live. Writing out our story in the hopes that the writing will help me—and maybe help others. But, Lord, it seems so hard. It’s like I’ve had an amputation; like one leg has been sawed off and I’m hobbling around with crutches. And I don’t know how to use the crutches. I keep falling. Please help me learn!
Looking back a couple of days later; I did know it was not good to sit at the computer and brood. So, I went out for a steak dinner. It was tender and tasty. And I invited someone in for dinner the next night.
(Compared to the suffering of many in our world, my passage through grief is a minor and common experience. I present these musings in the hope that someone going through a similar experience may find encouragement that they are not alone. And so that others looking on might understand more about grief. )
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