It doesn't get better, it just gets different.

This morning I read a blog post by Jessica Denis of the Huffington Post. It had been posted to +The After Loss. Denis was questioning, when does the easier part start? She concludes that it doesn’t get easier, it just gets different.

I completely agree. After the death of my husband 18 months ago, my friend Joni told me, "it doesn't ever get better, we just get better at dealing with it." With tears in her eyes, Joni just showed up on my doorstep the day Jim died. I don’t even know how she knew, she just was there. Joni is a high school friend and her husband had died almost 10 years ago, leaving her alone to raise her two young boys. I knew she wasn’t lying, I had seen her slowly emerge from the depths that grief drags us down. But however much I trusted her, I could not imagine her being right. How could I possibly get better at handling the raw, wrenching pain that I felt? She didn’t push the point and just held me as we cried together.

As the days wore on, others assured me it would get easier. I could not ever imagine that ever being true. I would never stop grieving. It would never be okay. Days became weeks. I still cried every day. I sobbed every Monday, reliving the night Jim stopped breathing. I mourned every Wednesday morning, remembering that sunny Wednesday morning when I said good morning to Jim for the last time.  

Weeks became months. The 19th of every month was the marker of another month I had somehow managed to get through without my husband. I missed him so. Sometimes I could scarcely breathe.

I was coming up what I called “my season of firsts' : September ... our wedding anniversary ...October ... my birthday ...In November it would be hard to feel thankful with so much sadness in my heart  ...Christmas … I could not even imagine it...New Year’s  ...So hard to look ahead with so much left behind ...Finally February 19th would bring the first anniversary of Jim’s death.

As the anniversary neared, my grief counselor and I discussed my fears and my plans for getting through it.  While Jim and I were living through what would be his last month, everything was moving and changing so fast. But in retrospect I could remember and re-live again, and again, the horrible details of that month. It was like some Kafka-esque slow motion replay of the anguish, suffering and roller coaster ride of the last month of Jim's life. February 19th came and despite my expectations, of course I survived...What else could I do. Life wants to live. And so, that morning, as I have every other since the morning after he died, I told myself, " if you don't get up now, you never will". And do you know what?  I cannot fully explain it but something magical did happen, after that sad day passed, I did feel lighter! As if a load had lifted off my shoulders. I had lived in such dread of that day, and I survived!

So as much as I’d like it to be different, to believe that someday it will get better, easier...I don’t buy it. Yes, living will get easier, but the loss, the emptiness, the sadness, will not get better. But I am getting better at living with the grief. The blanket of grief once wrapped around me like a blanket, comforting in some odd way, is now more often laid aside, available when needed. Hickman, in her book, Healing after Loss, writes,

We may be afraid to lose the intensity of love for the one we have lost. At first these two, the grief and the love, are so wedded to each other that we cannot separate them. We may cling to the grief in desperation, so we will be sure not to lose the love. 

My grief is a connection to Jim. A connection I do not want to lose.

We are all on a Journey

In those early months after Jim died, as I did what I call the zombie walk, I wondered how the world could keep turning, how people could continue to go on with their mundane activities. I could scarcely breathe!  Later I realized, people all around us are each on their own journey out of their own valley. We each just have to keep getting up. We are all suffering and so, for me, I have learned to be more forgiving, more accepting. Because of my grief, I am able to feel deeper and have more compassion for all souls. 

Along the way, I may recognize a fellow traveler, still on their way out of the valley. I’m not out of my valley yet, and I may never be. In this second year, I am simply sad. Sometimes I stumble or double back.That blanket of grief is still available to me, but like a child starting their first day of school, I can leave it at home (or stash it in my backpack), secure it the knowledge it is there for me when I need it. Though I did not think it possible, I have moved forward and upward. My load is made lighter by the things I can let go of, by the support I get along the way, and the days are getting brighter. But my journey continues. I wake up every morning, I still have to decide to get up and go on. With the help of my family, friends and my grief support team, I know I am not alone on my journey.

In the fall of 2014, a little over six months after Jim's death, a friend of mine had arranged tickets for us to see Oprah. I was reluctant to go at that time in my life, but decided to embrace the opportunity. We were challenged to write about our own vision of “The Life You Want”.… 

This vision continues to be my goal.  … here's part of my vision statement: My life is filled with joy and I am at peace. I feel and share the love of my family, both my family of choice and my family of birth..... I am mindful and aware... My life has meaning. My grief and loss have made me a stronger, deeper, more compassionate person. My fear is done. I have no anger. I am present. My heart is open and I am connected to the world.  I trust. I matter.  I am truly blessed.  I choose gratitude. I choose happiness. I choose life.


And so, here I am, a short 27 months after my husband was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. I am able to share our story and live my life in a way I never dreamed possible. May you, too, choose gratitude, choose happiness, choose life.

Get Busy Living

It has been 18 months since my husband, Jim, died. We were together 18 years. It is strange how I find solace in number patterns. It takes 9 months for a baby to come into the world. Jim lived for 9 months with his cancer diagnosis, and with his death I was ushered, unwillingly, into a new world. A dear friend recently posted to my Facebook wall, “It's so nice to see you living life to the fullest and enjoying yourself. You deserve it!!!”  And that got me thinking about what has changed.

When Jim was struggling for those last breaths before the ventilator, I told him I would be his breath. That has taken on new meaning for me now as I realize I am living for both of us now. He would not want me to sit and mope. He would want me to seize the day and make the most out of every moment. He would give anything to have a few more days, so I owe it to him, and to me, to make the most out of my time, whether it's just one more day or another thirty years. And so, I choose life.

My encore career is that of an educator. I was teaching 5th grade when Jim was diagnosed and I took some time off when he died. I made the decision to go back and finish the school year. I felt the kids needed a lesson in resilience and I needed some structure during those numbing months. The next year I returned to my classroom and every day was a struggle. During my first career in hi-tech, if I was having a bad day I could stay home or at least just shut the door to my office, not answer the phone. But with 30 little darlings expecting me to be on, I could not easily not show up. Somehow I got through the year, but decided to take this year off. Jim and I worked hard to save for our future and his death brought about an urgency to live life to its fullest.

Unthinking friends say, “how lucky” I am to be able to take a leave from work. They don’t understand I would give it all up in a heartbeat to have Jim back. I would work every day for the rest of my life. But he wouldn’t want that, and doing so would not bring him back. It’s not luck, it was hard work and we made sacrifices all along the way.

In that first year I barely wanted to leave the house. And I still find it difficult, but know it’s time “to get busy living or get busy dying.” (Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption) Many of my adventures are a tribute to Jim, a trip to Yosemite in his sports car, travelling to the Midwest for his sister’s 50th birthday. But I am, finally, finding joy in my new life. I am doing my best to honor Jim the best way I can, by living life abundantly and with gratitude and grace. We all should be living life to the fullest. We all deserve it!