Life after the death of your husband requires big questions of
yourself – e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. you thought you believed, knew, and had settled
in your mind & heart is suddenly in chaos.
When Bob was here on Earth, with me, I KNEW who I was, what I
believed about my existence, what I envisioned Heaven to be based on what
Scripture told me about that place beyond the clouds, & how things would be
when one of us stepped of this planet and was whisked to our final life
destiny.
Some of these questions, with forgone and satisfactory conclusions
have not changed – I still believe what I have always believed, and I know what
I have always known.
But …
I don’t truthfully know what Heaven actually looks like because
I, personally, have never been there.
And though Bob can see me; he is forbidden to communicate with
me – the gulf between here and there is not accessible to us.
And I, likewise, am forbidden to communicate with him, directly.
I can think about him. My heart can miss him. I can listen to
music that reminds me of him …
... and of those delightful afternoons and sultry nights making love with him. I can talk about, and around him; but I unequivocally am not allowed to talk directly TO him. THAT is forbidden to me by my Faith.
We always understood that aspect of our Faith.
We always understood that aspect of our Faith.
But I am unprepared for the t.o.t.a.l.s.i.l.e.n.c.e. that echoes
louder than constant and continual chatter.
I MISS talking with him.
I have small snippets of video that I can bring up to hear his
voice; but it is not the same ...
I am merely listening to my husband’s
voice so I never forget what he sounded like.
I miss talking WITH him.
I can look up to the sky and say, “I miss you Baby”, but I can’t
ask him, anymore, for specific input into my life moving forward into my
future.
That is taboo.
And more than a little scary.
I am still facing big time decisions, and for 3/4ths of my life,
Bob has been my sounding board – we bounced decisions back and forth like one
of those turbo powered tiny rubber balls: in 45 years of knowing each other, and
44 years of marriage, there was never a decision made in either of our lives
that was not a joint venture. Making solo decisions now is kinda scary – not freak-out-I-need-meds-scary
… just “Yeshua, help me” stepping out in faith scary.
And maybe, that is a good thing, all things considered.
People tell me I need to re-create myself.
Do I want to do that? I mean, do I really WANT to DO that?
CAN I do that?
I liked the me I was when Bob was a present entity in my life.
I am at loose ends now … but, am I truly ready to chuck my “old”
life and jump into a new life, vastly and irrevocably altered from the one I am
familiar with – the one I am reluctant to let go of?
I don’t know.
And I can’t discuss those {needful} changes with Bob. HE is the
REASON for those needful changes; but, according to our Faith, discussion along
those lines with him is strictly forbidden.
It’s a scary place to be.
This tightwire walk I am attempting to do.
Though, admittedly, my feet are never off terra firma – the walk
I now do solo is disorienting and dizzying. My thoughts are in a constant
swirl.
Though Christians do not mourn as the world mourns, grief is just
as gutting. We, just like everyone else, have to learn to live with the relentless
ache in the heart and the heaviness of spirit that it takes enormous strength to
overcome. I never felt so tired in all my life! Trying to maintain every second
of every hour of every day is draining.
And the overwhelming “missingness”! There are no words that
adequately define that emotion that seems to invade every cell in your body and
shroud every aspect of your life in widowhood. After 9 months/13 days/& 9
hours of widowhood, I don’t burst into tears as easily as I did those first raw
months – but still, the emptiness is always present. It surrounds me like a vague
mist and walks with me every waking moment.
I feel rootless: as if a strong gust off the river could just upend
me and blow me away.
But I know, given all the time we spent in the mountains during
our lifetime together, that living things can take root in hostile alpine
environments and thrive in seemingly ‘empty’ spaces. And, I know – instinctively
– that if I am to survive … and thrive … I have GOT to rebuild my life; and
make it purposeful.
So.
Despite the emptiness I inherited when I was bumped in a
heartbeat from wife to widow, I KNOW I AM:
A Daughter of The Most High God – I carry that title proudly, with no
apologies. I may at times, appear to be a questionable daughter in the eyes of
people watching me, but He will never let me go: nothing will ever change that.
A Wife – I will always be Bob’s wife: nothing will ever change that.
A Widow – I will remain Bob’s widow as long as I live: nothing will
ever change that.
A Mother – admittedly, a distant mother (my children’s choices);
but a mother just the same: nothing will ever change that.
A Grandmother – THAT title, in itself, is miraculous as our
daughter was told she would never have natural children of her own; Creator Yeshua
laughed … and blessed me TWICE; exactly 18 years apart: nothing will ever
change that.
A Sister – I will always be the oldest sibling of 5: nothing will ever
change that.
A Friend – my friends are far and few between, but I do have some; and I
am thankful for them: nothing will ever change that.
These titles do not adequately describe me though – I am much
more than these descriptions of me; and my life is lived beyond the confining
lines of said descriptions. Anyone who looks beyond the lines will see a lively
62-year-old who refuses to be pigeon-holed, and resents the hell out of this
crippling grief that threatens to strangle and/or hog-tie her; I am fighting to
regain my solid footing and once I do … I will be off and running, dusting
anyone and everything that threatens to stop me. I may be aging, but age will
not whip me ;-)
I am a fighter. I fight to win - I do not accept defeat at any time. For any reason.
And I have traveled life solo before.
Before Bob – Bob was the only person I ever let get close enough
to me to hem me in. And I didn’t mind Bob shortening my tether, because I never
wanted to stray away from him.
But, now, Bob is not here – there is nothing to hold me back.
Except fear of the unknown.
And I refuse to let fear get a grip on me.
I WILL BE victorious because I have to be.
There is no alternative.
And my husband told me, while he was dying, that he had faith in
me that I would eventually rise to the challenge and learn to fly again; and
because he believed it, I believe it. Bob was always the wind beneath my wings.
He still is.
Widowhood, for me, began to sneak up on us one hot Summer day –
and finished its life-sucking cycle in the cold of Winter; in a hospital, in
another State, where loneliness surrounded me on all sides. I woke up August 29th,
asking my husband what he’d like to do for his birthday the following day … and
was facing the Spector of Widowhood 24 hours later:
Widowhood became a reality
3 months/15 days/& 20 hours later ...
(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2018/12/pancreatic-nightmare.html).
Bob digesting the news we had been told - that he was dying. Hard news.
(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2018/12/pancreatic-nightmare.html).
I lived those hours, and I STILL can’t wrap my mind around the finality:
it still seems surreal to me.
Bob breathed out his last breath on December 14th,
2018 – a Friday: the Shabbat. It really was a blessing; and Elohim was honoring
my husband in this respect. I was thankful. I was truly joyful knowing that my
husband had shed his seriously compromised and useless earthen vessel, and was immediately
clothed in his new heavenly body as he was whisked off beyond the clouds to his
permanent celestial home. I remember watching his spirit leave him, and
thinking “what remains looks like he is just sleeping”. There was no flailing.
There was no mask of deathly horror. Bob looked peaceful. Bob looked like he
looked every night I watched him sleeping for 44 years, lying next to me. But
this time, his eyes would never open again. His chest would never rise again,
His long, tall frame would never again get up out of bed. Bob – the Bob I knew
and loved – was irrevocably gone. Never to return:
(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2018_12_15_archive.html).
(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2018_12_15_archive.html).
Bob’s final hours that last day – his spirit slipped away so
peacefully, there was no change at all in his countenance …
Because I am a shortie, I grabbed a chair and brought it close
to the bedside, where I climbed up on it and bent over the bedside to kiss the
lips I had kissed for 45 years – the bed was too high for me to sprawl across. Bob’s
spirit was no longer housed in that body he had worn for 69 years, but I wanted
to kiss the lips I knew. I wanted to touch the face that was so familiar to me.
I wanted to stroke the thin wisps of hair that had regrown on the head he had
kept bald for 3 decades (it was white – WHEN had his hair turned white?)
I remember I was stunned to see white whips; we never saw ourselves as old –
and I will always now, in my mind’s eye, see Bob as he was when we married. He
has a healthy, strong body now; so, remembering him at 24 is how I chose to
think of him now – I don’t know if that is an accurate image; but I don’t care:
it is MY image of him; again, it is a familiar thing to me. I wanted to
run my fingertips over his chest, down his arm, and off his long fingertips.
Even though my husband was no longer in the room with me, I wanted to honor his
cast-off shell of what he was with my last touching of it ...
Me, 17; Bob 24
I NEEDED that for me.
Still, I am left wanting more.
What to do with all that ‘wanting’?
Bob was my “Mr. Big”.
Bob completed me.
Bob was the period at the end of the sentence of my life; as I
knew it with him in it.
I have loved Bob ever since he walked past me one afternoon on
the school grounds in 1966:
Three quarters of my life.
This new life that has been thrust on me feels uncomfortable to
me.
I do not like it.
At all.
Not even a little bit.
But, this is my life now.
I have to reshape it to fit who I am now.
I have to define who I am now.
I can never again be the me I used to be. I am different now;
and I cannot continue living a cheap imitation of my old life – a life that is
so very far removed from what it used to be.
But …
In reshaping my new life, I can salvage some of the shattered
pieces of it and try to meld those pieces with a new blueprint of who and what
I am becoming. It is a work in progress because I have no fricking idea who or
what I am becoming – I just know I am “becoming”.
Something.
Different than I was.
Nothing at all like I imagined I would be when my life wrapped
up. I always kinda hoped Bob & I would exit this life together.
Despite the 7 year gap in our ages, I never … not even once …
entertained the notion that I would be a widow. Left behind.
I am stunned.
It all seems so surreal to me.
I don’t recognize my life in the moment and I have no idea where
I am headed at any given second of any given day; or what my life will look
like when I rebuild it.
All I know for sure is that I am doing what my husband expects
me to do: I am living. The best way I know how, without him.
To reshape, and rebuild a purposeful life, I have bandaged my
broken heart with flexi-bandaids to keep the shattered pieces in place while it
heals as it haltingly pulsates with a limping life. I let tears freely wash
away the sadness in my eyes. Instead of honing in on the ruin of my old life, I
choose instead to focus on the beauty among the ashes.
I don’t have any solidifying answers yet. I may never have
concrete answers concerning my life again. It is a process in action – and every
day I have to jump-start it; and reshape it. I want my new life to honor my
husband and the life he blessed me with – I do believe the 2 can be woven
together to create a beautiful tapestry to strengthen what remains.
Bob came into my life and with his love, taught me how to fully live
because he loved me unconditionally and never put a restraining leash on me. He
gave me the freedom to grow and explore. Life with Bob was always an adventure –
always an exciting learning experience. And, in death, as in life, Bob was the
perfect example for me to look to.
So, I do.
I cannot commune with him directly, but I CAN sort through the
memories of our life together and pull on those examples and his words of
wisdom to help me lay a firm foundation, frame, and rebuild my life. I have
learned to solo like I used to do before there was Bob in my life: I am solo
adventuring. I am making friends – solo style. And always I hear past echoes of
Bob’s encouragements cheering me on.
Moving into the future I will always know that Bob is with me in
spirit, watching me, feeling him smile with approval at my small steps forward,
and laughing with me as I exalt in my small victories.
This remote approval, I believe, will be sanctioned by Elohim.
And we will both find favor in His eyes.
L’Chaim!
