The Courage to Risk Anew

As a widow, when I mention that I want someone to share my life with, to have passion in my life, it is often assumed that I am panicking about being lonely. I don’t need to be in a panic state to want passion, to want to feel that someone wants to be with me – not just anyone – but with ME. I want to be needed in someone’s life, to find someone that is open to receiving what I have to give, what I want to share. I am seeking a partner, a lifemate because I plan on sticking around this beautiful, amazing world for a while.

I want someone in my life who enjoys spending time with me and I enjoy being with them, who will join me in growing and learning. I want someone around to watch each other’s backs, witnesses to each other’s life with an intimacy that is at a higher level than sexual.

I miss the gentle touch on the way by as we pass each other in the kitchen or hallway, the quiet hand on my lower back that says so much. “I am here. I’ve got your six.” I miss having the type of intimacy where you can place tired feet and legs on someone’s lap and they place a warm hand on your skin, an electricity of wordless oneness circulates between two. Your lips can’t help but smile, your heart to sigh.

I am alone, yes, and, sure, on occasion lonely. I don’t dwell on the constant absence of a significant other in my life; however, I certainly miss having an Other. There is something in this kind of relationship that is different than a friendship, something that touches deeper. There is something that awakens your soul in a new way to make you stronger and more, well, You than you have ever been.

I am still who I became through love. The love has not gone away, so why would who I have grown into from that love? I have; however, grown even farther beyond that after a loss. Love has given me confidence. I know that I am capable of such loyal, giving, soul-changing love for another. I went well beyond my comfort zone through love and I continue to seek new boundaries. On the flip side, the loss has made me less quick to anger, more forgiving of others and myself. I am more adaptable to change, to make space for new people. Yet, I can also more easily let them go if it is time for us to part ways if we have learned all we need to learn from each other.

People usually assume that I am missing my husband, that I just want him back. Would I prefer that he didn’t die? Of course I do! That’s just a ridiculous question (and I have actually been asked that question!). But do I wish him back? No. How would focusing on what cannot happen help in my situation? He is not coming back and that is okay. It is alright to move forward in my life. Catherine Tidd of her blog says it best: “If that person was your soulmate then and now you’re a different person…who’s to say you won’t find the soulmate for the person you’ve become?” – Catherine Tidd, Widow Chick

So, when I say that I am ready to move forward, don’t you dare question my decision. We have had many private, deep, late-night discussions, my heart and I. My logical head and my passionate heart are aligned with peace, clarity and purpose. We do not fear the pain of heartbreak and loss, for we have not just survived but returned stronger than before! Once more unto the breach, dear heart!

 

“To have your heart ripped out and to then find the courage to risk it anew is to teach a powerful lesson about how we should live.” – Will Kearney, Marking Our Territory

 

The drowning of a widowed heart

Christmastime is upon us and, while many shop and gather together in friendship, I stand alone. Partly because I have been left alone by those I care about as they spend time with their close(r) friends and family. Also partly because I choose to be alone. I carry a sorrow that I cannot (and do not wish) to share. Even in my sadness, I wish for others to experience the happiness I had.

This time last year, my spouse, James, was in and out of hospitals dealing with chemo, blood transfusions, seizures and medications that carried him away down a river more quickly than expected, more quickly than I could follow. By January, he was gone, swept around the bend, out of sight for now.

Here I languish. I bob along with a slower flow, occasionally struggling against the current, often just floating, occasionally face up, often face down. Dead man’s float. I bide my time until it is my turn to be swept around the bend. Like a discarded, plastic soda bottle – empty, with no means to steer my own course.

For me, the holidays were always a time of intense loneliness, even in the crowd of my big family with tons of aunts, uncles, cousins gathered in a small farmhouse heated by a wood stove and bodies. Music from accordion, fiddle, and harmonica would tumble out the windows opened to let in crisp, snow-scented air. A cacophony of voices from a myriad of conversations would fight for position – federal and local politics, health of a grand-uncle in Boston, what a wayward cousin has been up to lately, where to place the still-warm rabbit pie on an already groaning table. Words and noise piling up, up, up towards the smoke-hazed light on the ceiling. I should have been happy. Even as a small child, I knew that I was unusual in my seclusion in a crowd. It made me feel that much more alone. Every so often I would slip off to another room or out to a corner of the barn to release the tears. Then I would readjust my mask and return to the noisy fold. No one ever noticed.

Twelve years ago all that changed in an amazing way. I met James on the eve of Christmas Eve, or Tibb’s Eve as it may be called by some. December 23rd, a day that is forever etched in my heart. December 26th was our first date. By New Year’s Eve, we just knew – this was It. We had found each other at long last. I didn’t have another lonely Christmas again until this year. So much love, joy and laughter in the too few years we had together.

The sudden absence of that happiness now creating a sucking whirlpool. It’s like all the loneliness and sorrow that I used to carry at Christmas was just off to the side, building itself up, biding its time, waiting to pounce. It’s back eleven-fold.

There is a saying, “Laugh now, cry later.” I never knew what that meant until now. The yin-yang yo-yo of life has flung me off the other way. I’m underwater, trying to get my bearings, grabbing at rocks and branches, but nothing is solid, no thing to stop the swirling and spiralling. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks.

I won’t be by myself this holiday season. My family will see to that. Sighing, I cling to the flotsam of a dusty, aged crate and dig through the memories it contains.

Ah, my mask. Here it is. It still fits.

Because no else should have to walk in these shoes

I am participating in Strides for Melanoma Walk for Awareness to help raise funds towards melanoma patient support, prevention efforts and education. Melanoma is a serious and potentially deadly form of skin cancer. In North America, one person dies from melanoma every hour. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.

My husband, James, was initially diagnosed with melanoma in June 2014. By the time it was diagnosed, it was Stage III and already traveling outside the primary site. Surgery removed the tumour on his face and 42 lymph nodes in his neck. By August 2016, it had metastasized to his brain, liver and bowel with a terminal prognosis. In an effort to buy time, James suffered multiple hospital stays, surgeries, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation treatments, post-seizure ambulance trips, and multiple blood transfusions. Our last (and last) anniversary together was spent in a hospital room. All this, James did with his typical positive attitude and jokes. James, succumbed to this dreadful disease in January this year, just 2 weeks before his 40th birthday.

He left us to carry on without him and I struggle every day with this profound loss. As part of my grieving and healing process, I work to raise awareness around the prevention and diagnosis of melanoma. If James’s primary lesion had been caught sooner, if the metastatic tumours had been caught sooner, he might still be here or at least have had a better chance.

I was witness to James’s cancer journey from the beginning in 2014 to his very last breath. I would never wish this suffering, his or mine, on anyone. If I can play a small part in the fight against melanoma then it I must do it. It is what James wanted.

We hold on (posted Oct 9, 2016)

For more information visit (and support!) one or all of the following:

Melanoma Network of Canada

Melanoma Research Foundation

AIM at Melanoma

Undone by a breeze

I can sometimes go a few days to a week with smiles and a few responses of, “Oh, yes, I’m fine.” Then, unexpectedly, I can be undone by a breeze.

Tonight, as I was walking to my car after work, a gentle breeze caused me to slow my step. The breeze smelled of the sea, of hope and a promise. It was a quiet sigh against the back of my neck and raised small, damp hairs on this muggy, summer’s day.

It felt like you were touching my forearm like you often did at night before taking me in your embrace, my back against your chest. As you took me into the enveloping warmth and safety of your trust and love, I would close my eyes, complete and content. I would drift off to sleep as you whispered, “I’ll never leave you.” Your breath on my neck was a gentle exhale that smelled of mint, of hope and a promise.

Another breeze and flashes of every time I was in your arms – the night we met and danced, our first kiss, our wedding as we danced to Feels Like Home, our last (and last) anniversary spooning in your hospital bed. “I’ll never leave you.”

Tonight, I was undone by a breeze. It was all I could do to get to my car before the first tear fell.

The beauty of old things (or What the driftwood taught me)

I was walking along a rocky beach with a friend on her 49th birthday. We were enjoying a girls’ weekend at a cottage with BBQ, wine and hiking. We had celebrated my 49th the month before. As we picked our way over shifting stones, trying not to roll an ankle or stumble headlong into the line of driftwood at the high-tide mark, we discussed how we would be turning 50 the next year.

Fifty. That number, that age, is weighted with tears and laughter, music and silence, pauses and experiences. Some scars and wrinkles we bear with shame, some with pride.

As I stop to get my bearing, I balance on two semi-solid, salt-grey stones. I notice a long, slim piece of driftwood a little ahead of me and to my right. I step carefully, making my way over to pick it up. I examine it as I lean on it for balance. I am 5’8″ and it reaches my armpit. A slight notch at the top fits my hand comfortably.

It is warm from the mid-morning sun and beautifully marked as if some master craftsman had delicately and lovingly attended each part to make it so. I test its strength and it is sturdy and unbending, slightly bowed as if honouring the wind that once tickled its leaves. It is capable enough to bear my ample weight as I try to balance on the wobbly rocks. It’s solid enough to steady me even when my leg betrays me, the one that had been broken and fixed with a plate and screws 16 years before. It’s strong in spite of all that it must have been through on its journey to meet me on this beach on this day as I contemplate my own age and weathered frame.

The face of the wood is partly smoothed by sea, sand and stone, while artfully etched and aesthetically scraped in random spots. It was once young and supple supporting leaves, perhaps fruit, and woodland creatures. It gave and received life until, felled by an axe or storm, it landed in the sea and was tossed about on the waves. It had been bleached by burning salt and sun, ignored by the sea that beat it about. The sea’s strange creatures were oblivious to the existence of this forlorn stick. It wandered adrift and alone without the anchoring roots that once nourished and provided support. It had made its way up a rocky shore to be battered, reshaped and cast down. The cold, churning water left it there, foaming and roaming off to find another body to break, unaware of the mess it leaves in its wake. I don’t know how long the stick had remained here. I found it this day among the flotsam and jetsam. With the other driftwood and castoffs of humankind, it waited. As it wept the loss of its roots and leaves and woodland friends, it lingered.

We meet on that shore, the steadying driftwood and I. Subconsciously, I recognize a weary soul in need of purpose, lost and still adrift on solid land. The rest of the walk is stepped with more confidence. When my friend and I arrive back at the cottage and start packing the car for the trip home, I cannot leave this driftwood behind. I feel a need of it, even though my walk on the beach is done. So home it came with me, to stand in the corner of the room where I get ready for work each day.

Maybe it knew something I did not at the time in the way that loss and sorrow can attune one to the cosmic way of things. It may be, somehow, it was aware that in one month’s time my husband would start to get headaches, that the cancer he fought two years before had returned. Perhaps it knew that, even as I walked on that lovely beach, laughing with my friend, the metastatic melanoma was growing inside my love’s right frontal lobe.

That beautiful piece of driftwood had been one of the first things I saw as I prepared myself for each day of the next seven months until my husband was gone. He has been gone six months and it has stood silently in support as I continue to grieve.

I am weathering the storm of sickness and loss with the help of a silly stick. It reminds me each morning that, in spite of age, of storms, of drifting without touching ground, through waves of pain and love and sorrow, the seasickness of hope and despair, that this old body and heart can offer strength and balance to another, to myself. I still have a beauty and a purpose, though I will always mourn the loss of my nourishing roots and my wind-tickled leaves.