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Written Wednesday, December 18, 2019 / Day 128 / Late Evening There is nothing like finishing a project. Actually there is nothing like just finishing things - period. That sense of accomplishment is built into us - setting a goal and then completing it is something we experience throughout our lives. Now there are those times we become distracted - we might “tune out” for a while - perhaps not caring at all if anything gets done. But for the most part - being able to tick off the box “completed” is satisfying. In this state of grief we experience a new sad wrinkle of this part of our lives. For me it has manifested itself in various subtle ways. Sort of a round-about way. I am constantly bombarded with memories of the past - either shared experiences, past plans and reminders of goals yet to be completed. Today all the various elements converged in my mind - they chose to come together while I was trying to get to bed for the day. And as they came together they informed me of what they really are. Unfinished business. Oh great - now another feeling to manage. That’s how it is - I have taken a more active role in trying to steer certain though patterns away from their seemingly obvious destinations. I challenge them to be meaningful or at least helpful in this nebulous tunnel I must live through. This tunnel that leads somewhere that I really could not care any less about - but am traveling through relentlessly. One of the many paradoxes that is now my life. To now look at my world in this new light - the light of unfinished business - gives me a different option to help me decide how to manage the moment. Ok, so it’s unfinished business - so? What am I suppose to do with that? By its very nature it is unfinished business so there you go. It just is not going to happen. Well that’s fine on the analytical level. Click. Check. Done. But there is another side to consider. The emotional side. Now on the emotional side - there is no telling what might happen. This unfinished business - whatever it might be at the moment has a powerful core - that of my dear sweetie. How do I separate her from the unfinished business? How do I close the books on these things as they appear. Apparently, with tears. Recently I have declared that unnecessary sadness - that is where I just pull off the highway of life and have a good emotional breakdown - are over. If there is no emotional payoff here - why bother? The only problem is that knowing what constitutes an emotional payoff and what that would mean just isn’t possible. There’s no telling if those tears are helping or just “dead-end” tears as I am starting to call them. But in the unfinished business department I may have a slight idea, a small, tiny advantage I never realized I had before. This unfinished business can be finished. Sadly each one is collateral damage from the initial loss. A secondary death. That business envisioned will never happen. So when the unfinished business appears - I have to have a moment to finish it. To declare it dead. To bury the potential that it once had. If I do not take this approach - I’ll never be free of the pain. In a larger sense I’m not kidding myself here - there will always be pain associated with my current state. But the intensity of that pain - as I have been seeing - has been diminishing. So that is something. Now I just have to face these moments of realization for the unfinished business. It’s as small as that bottle of hot pepper flakes she used to season her food. I will never use it. So it’s work here is done. I won’t throw it away or anything. I just have to settle the reminder it gives me. I just have to tell it to “shush”. And it’s as large as the bigger projects that were on the agenda that for me right now - no longer matter and in my mind will never be done. So in one sense I have a handle on something. It’s not a very powerful one. It does not stop the emotion that seems to be required to address it - but it at least makes me seem to have a more active role in settling each item as it manifests itself. My prayer has continued to be that God turns my grief into strength. And in the strength department I at least feel less weak. In no way do I have any strength. But I know someone who does. And it is His strength that seems to be carrying me through this. I now realize I have to finish this work. The work of settling what has happened and all the damage it has done. I have to finish these things despite how much it tears me up to deal with whatever the issue of the moment is. They have to be settled. Put to rest. I know that in this new reality - for me - I am to be here, by myself. That hurts beyond hurt but I have to embrace that fact. I am now single - that is difficult to wrap my head around but it is now reality. And there is some type of life - distasteful as that idea is at the moment - ahead of me. Finishing up this work then consists of so many of these unfinished elements that present themselves to me. Some days everywhere I turn there is some reminder of an unfinished something. But no matter how many of them that there are - I will finish them. Because in reality - they already have been finished by what has happened. I just have to get with the program and catch up. Jesus told his disciples that they would have trials and sorrows in this world. It’s broken and we suffer because of that. But His sacrifice has paved the way for us because He has overcome this world (John 16:33). He is greater than anything that can come against us. Even grief. Even death. So I claim that power and strength.I claim it because He is greater than anything I am experiencing right now. Even grief and death - with all of their power that I have seen ravaging through my life - all that is no match for what Christ has done. So I now rest in that sacrifice as I never had before. Christ finished His work. And that will enable me to finish mine.

Written Sunday, December 15, 2019 / Day 125 / Late Afternoon Growing up I remember being the best sleeper. When my head hit that pillow it was all over until the morning. It was a straight shot through to the next day. As we pile on the miles through the years a new reality emerges. Sleep becomes a little more involved. For me it was the gradual change in the time I “had” to go to bed or else face a following day of struggling to stay together. Over the years that time kept inching further and further backwards. Midnight for a long time, then 11:30, 11:00 pm - that threshold just kept moving on. And if that wasn’t bad enough - there were times that sleep would be interrupted. Either by bodily functions or just a moment of surfacing for some reason before diving back to resume the trip. Sleep then, became more of an art that it used to be. We were dealing with those realities as a couple as our lives moved on. Once the new realities of cancer appeared - there was a new wrinkle. Some of it - initially not particularly caused by the cancer itself - but man’s medicine. The solution unfortunately to cut out offending segments of the body and permanently disrupt others to achieve their goals. Thanks so much for your help - but now I’m damaged in a new way. Right, but at least you are still alive - medicine might say. All that to say that sleep became a greater challenge going forward. We needed more of it. My sweetie needed more of it. I always told her she wasn’t a farmer’s wife (and fortunately I am not a farmer!). Her engines would kick in later in the day. I told her that her bodily clock was set at the factory and it wasn’t set in the traditional cycle. Her mother would say that even as a toddler - she had trouble going to sleep and would be wide awake in the wee hours of the night. Those factory settings were certainly different. As we navigated through the years coping with the direction we were going - after the horrid - unexpected months of 2015 when the worst of the worst pain came and miraculously finding by the fall that the rampaging cancer encountered in April had vanished from the CT scans. We rejoiced in that time - and hobbled back to a semblance of a pattern of life. Now older and her somewhat damaged from 2 surgeries that had left much more damage than relief. So as the caregiver during those tumultuous times - I constantly remember - in those rare moments like now where I dare venture back - that the most comforting moments for me was when my sweetie was sleeping. I was strengthened by the sound of her gentle sleep - free for the moment with contending with whatever the issue of that moment would be. My prayers would be that each comforting breath I heard would strengthen her. It was always my prayer. When it was clear - to me, and I know I was the only one who saw the coming trajectory - that we were headed to the worst place I ever wanted to go - those times of her at rest were my times of peace and comfort. Writing about this right now is more difficult than I imagined - but this needs to be written. What I am about to write is a result of what God had given us in our 24 years of Bible Study together. She was a voracious Bible reader and had multiple versions of the Bible by her spot on the kitchen table (all of which are there and will remain there for the immediate future that I am around), We talked and talked and God strengthened both of us throughout those years with each other and His word. As I have mentioned in previous essays, the Bible (not denominations, nor Christian culture) tells us that those who have died are “asleep”. Jesus Himself refers to death as sleeping as does Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and other passages as well. Death is so terrible - and those of us in grief will tell you - that we needed a Savior and though His death and resurrection - we have the victory over death that we long for in this life but will not yet see the fullness of that victory until His return. In the meantime, as Jesus told the man who’s daughter had died (Matthew 9:24), “The girl is not dead, but asleep.” Our precious loved ones are awaiting their moment just like my dear sweetie is awaiting hers (read 1 Thessalonians 4:16). I was privileged to be with my sweetheart when God took over for me. She was aware of all of this. She was strong in her belief - apprehensive as we all would be having to go down that path - just as she knew Jesus was as He carried that cross to its destination. I was able to embrace her - knowing that at that moment she fell asleep and was no longer contending with what the awful, broken world made her endure - the sin that is at the root of all that is in this broken place. And now - in a strange and comforting way - I know she is all right. She is in the hands of the one she gave her life to - the best hands that any of us can be in. We will share in His glory so unfortunately in this life we will have to share in His suffering. She experienced that suffering. I am experiencing that suffering. You the reader, I am sad to say are also experiencing it for the time being. But my heart is lifted - even though it is profoundly crumpled and in pieces at the moment - that despite all the suffering I now face - that she is at rest. Awaiting that day when God’s plan will continue and all of us will continue in that incredible plan. Until then even though I am a mess more often than I want to be. My hope is as strong as it can be. Because my sweetie is alright until I see her again - see her again on that great day. She is now at rest. She is sleeping.

Written Saturday, December 14, 2019 / Day 124 / Evening Part of my new reality is disposing of the past. We all keep things around - some of us for too long. In my case I attach significance to things which can lead to accumulating this and that. My sweetie was like that as well. She was a researcher in a sense - always interested in exploring new ideas in health - we weren’t distilled water / raw milk people by any means - but an awareness of what we were eating was a passion of hers since soon after we got together in the mid 1970’s. That pesky reality is now with me and it tells me to throw out what no one else would ever want or care about. I know my son will not want a lot of this material - so as the weeks unfold - I am gathering the material and sorting though it to perhaps find something of the family history buried in there with the other items. This of course has led to a general quest for certain things I remember having but have no idea of where they actually are. This is, in effect, a subtle way to actually categorize the other items I am finding on the way to the elusive materials I know are out there. So it’s sort of a two-for-one deal. In searching for what I am looking for - I am also preparing other items for their final disposition. What I am finding - when I actually am sorting through the items of the moment - is how settling it is to throw things away. Not seeing a future for an item - which is ironic that the judge is one who has no future at the moment - it is sent on its way to the recycling bin. Finding those items that bring up moments of the family history are especially encouraging. I know they will help me tell the story I have begun to construct. Either as an item that can be included in the actual narrative or that can be used to accompany the material is a related scrapbook - those finds are a small bright spot in a generally not so bright existence. An unexpected additional comfort was that certain items have personal information on them so to insure privacy I have to shred them. Well shredding has turned out to be as comforting as a medicine for some reason. Medical records are especially exciting to shred. I think the finality that shredding brings to a document - and our shredder is one of those ‘cross-cut” shredders that turns the strips into little chunks of paper that can never be reassembled - is a declaration of some kind to my subconscious. There’s a finality in that I am finding strangely comforting. Perhaps it’s a tiny power that I have to declare the last word on whatever the document had to do with. The medical documents are especially comforting. I don’t want to live or remember those times at the moment. So shredding the documents seems to bring me a sense that I am eliminating a way to ever bring that particular memory back to life - in that way at least. This might seem a little trivial to you - but to me in this relatively hopeless place of grief - any small - even symbolic gesture - of giving some unwanted aspect of the past a finality that cannot be reversed is a pleasure I never expected. Find a document. Oh good, it’s a medical folder. Shred. Shred. Shred. Ahhh…..bye bye. Perhaps I’m making too big a deal about this discovery. But clearing up the past even in a small way - just seems to be pleasing in some strange way. Greeting cards are another thing. There is not as much satisfaction in parting with many of them. You will be shocked to know we kept almost all we have ever received. I don’t know why. It’s that attachment thing again - I’m sure. But reviewing ones from people who are no longer here to other people who are no longer here brings a weird feeling that cannot be articulated. Perhaps several emotions are colliding together here and no particular one seems to emerge as the winner. Saving them seems fruitless - there is no one to care in a sense. I am for now keeping all the anniversary, birthday, etc. cards from my wife. I’ll need those for a while I believe. But those others - their season has come and gone. The wishes were appreciated. The handwritten notes also a nice touch. But the season is gone so they have to move on as well. So as time marches on - dragging me along behind it for now - I will continue the quest and continue to settle the past. Who knew the shredder would be the tool that would help settle it.

Written Friday, December 13, 2019 / Day 123 / Early Morning When you think of leftovers the idea is rather depressing. Usually the first thing that comes to mind is leftover food. The reason is that leftover food is just not as great as when it was initially prepared. Sure it is the same meal you had - but the fact that the food is being eaten again just has a negative connotation. But there are so many leftover in our life we really do not recognize them all. The most exciting one can be if you planned to spend a certain amount of money on something and through a combination of circumstances do not have to use all that money that you had budgeted. That’s a great leftover. While I was working, the next best leftover was when we though that I had used up my vacation time but then found out that there was extra time available. Those were extra times we could share and that was a wonderful leftover. In a greater sense - when my dear sweetie had her miracle in 2015, the miracle of stage 4 metastatic breast cancer disappearing from her CT scans - we both experienced the greatest leftover imaginable. It was not easy living on afterwards in many ways but it was a tremendous gift. A leftover of supreme magnitude. A chance to live and share our love for just a little longer. We always appreciated that gift. Now in the present I am faced with a new world of leftovers. There are so many categories of them that I am overwhelmed at times. They are everywhere I look - and they are in so many thoughts that I have. And thankfully they do not bite me as they used to. They do not gang up on me and knock me around like they used to do. My continual prayer is that the sadness becomes a catalyst for joy. And although I seem to be a long way from that goal - I am also a ways down the road from the extreme sadness that these leftovers used to invoke. I was in the small bath that is attached to our bedroom - it is just a half-bath - there is a rather oversized walk-in shower in it. She used that since it was easier than using the bath tub and so much safer. I was at the sink and noticed the soap dish. It struck me - there is the soap that she had been using. A leftover. At least I didn’t cry. This time. There are several things around the house I have changed subtly. There are others that have been untouched. Unmoved. Undisturbed. And for now they will remain that way. Perhaps I will be strong enough to face them at some point. But for now they will remain where they are. Leftovers to that time I struggle with wanting to accept but not really wanting to playback the moments that they represent. Then there are some - a few - very few at this point, leftovers that no longer draw out strong emotions. Those are welcome leftovers. They are ones I recognize. Note. Reflect on perhaps for a moment - then move on. Gentle reminders that don’t give me a kick when I run into them. Some I approach preparing myself for that benign experience but find that lurking behind them is the munitions dump of raw emotions. I quickly retreat before I cause an explosion. I have lived through too many of those to want to start another - so I retreat. Their day will come. But that day is not today. So it is with the leftovers of my life. They are there and will remain that way. I long for the day that I can enjoy those leftovers without getting a stomach ache. I know that day will come. They will be the best leftovers I could ever have.

This is Volume 5 of Essays on Grief. How could this be Volume 5? To think that are now over 100 Essays on Grief amazes me. Each of these essays is a gift from somewhere beyond me. I have repeatedly reported that I cannot write them on purpose. They seem to arrive on their own schedule and when they arrive, I must put them down. These essays are now the basis of the essaysongroef.org website. This site contains all the essays and a bit more content. The scope and depth of these messages continues to stun me. I will finish writing one and reflect on how amazing what I just wrote seems to be. Am I a bit biased by that? Who knows. All I know that these essays have been my constant companion on this journey. I am no judge of anything right now - other than God continues to bless me with the ability to move on from day to day. You who are sitting with me at this point are my special heroes. How could you want to do this with me? As I have finished the last few volumes I have thought - wow, how could this become any more intense? And before you know it, a new essay in the next volume takes my breath away. I would ask at this point for your feedback. Feedback on what essays particularly touch you and why. This would be a great gift you could give me. Thank you for your continued courage and strength being with me on this journey.

Written Wednesday, February 12, 2020 / Day 184 / Evening Had you told me at the beginning of this journey that there would be 6 volumes of these essays I would not have believed you. If you told me that each volume would become increasingly poignant, touching and powerful (to me at least) - I would have doubted your vision. And yet here we are. We have arrived at the 129th essay. I am staggered at this moment. Since January 12th, the direction of this journey is now on a new path. That path I have dreaded because - in my mind - it takes me away from everything that I feel is me. Yet as I have been seeing - I am being led to that future point without my agreement. The change is obvious. I just look away from what I see happening. But know that at some point I will know when the new world has been reached. I have fought writing many of these essays in this Volume 6 - their power quite unlike anything I have encountered so far. Dare I say what I have been saying at the end of each volume? How could this become any more powerful than what has been written up to this point? I am intrigued as anyone as to the answer to that question. All I know is that there will be an answer to that question. We will see if there is a Volume 7.

Written Wednesday, February 12, 2020 / Day 184 / Morning Time is one of those things we think we understand. Turns out we really do not have a clue. Think about it. We have this idea we can measure it. We most likely have more time telling devices around us than we realize. They tell us of the moment. We use them to plan our future moments. We use time to track our past activities. But that’s about it. Time really does not have any other measurable component to it - other than we can see it’s progression. Time does not “feel” like anything. Teaching time to a child gives us a clue to this idea. As much as you try to teach them - they just do not get it. And when they do get it - time becomes a barrier to some activity they want to participate in but cannot because it is not yet “time” for that activity to take place. Children really live in the moment. We interrupt them continually for the mechanics of life. But to them, "I’m playing here - does [whatever is interrupting me] really have to happen right now?" They question our interruptions until that day when they join us in the time tracking club where our life’s activities are segmented into specific moments when they are allowed to occur. Other than that - time is really just a concept. Today is the sixth month moment in my journey. Although I see the number, see the date on the calendar - none of that really sinks in at all. Those of us in grief lose our ability to care a lot about time anyway. Except for the obligations of life that do have a time component to them - we just drift from moment to moment. What day is it? What month? In one sense while we are keenly aware of the excruciatingly painful life of emptiness we must live - in these moments - which are many - there really is not any time. Our bodies may remind us that we need to eat something. The darkness outside reminds us that we have to sleep. But time itself - as much as we measure it - really has nothing to offer. Today is six months. So? What does that mean? So many days have passed. Okay. Right. The calendar now says February - it used to say August. There is no feedback from time. No feedback because in reality our life is not subject to time. Now our bodies are. These containers that reflect how broken our world is and as a side effect of that - reflect how the broken world keeps breaking us a bit at a time. But inside us - inside where “you” are - there is no time. You “feel” - apart from your bodily interference - young (whatever that feels like). Your spirit is beyond time. Perhaps that is why time is only an attribute and not really anything more. A measurement of the physical while what makes us “us” is beyond anything in our reality. In grief, I constantly ask the same questions over and over. I know the answers to many of them. But I keep asking them anyway. Maybe to hear myself talk? Who knows? So while to the analytically minded a “milestone” has been achieved - it is quite a bitter measurement. One I’d rather not bask in. Like the sports commentators who review the statistics and performance of the teams in the game - I look back and see this past month of the grief game as having been quite intense. Actually beyond intense. Yet today I have a strange neutrality to this moment. It is really significant only for those who measure things. That is a part of my personality so that part is enjoying the analytical achievement. But my heart - that heart that has been crushed by the weight of reality - that heart is rather quiet today. Quite still. So I will let it rest in where I am at the moment. As has been the case - the significance of any moment is never really known until we are past the moment. Seems like I can know the time. But not really see what it will mean until that moment becomes history.

Written Tuesday, February 11, 2020 / Day 183 / Morning For someone who has no opinion about anything at the moment, no interests and no active future - the one element that does seem to get me going is this concept of “Moving On”. To the unemotionally involved observers and those who look at life through knowledge without deep empathy - it is just a reality that is part of their perspective on grief. As if the grief that is bring experienced is just a broken dish that can be repaired, an error that can be corrected - a temporary diversion in a life. I am here to provide my observations on what I have experienced in grief. And as usual - the world in general, in its superficial - almost childish way of looking at deeper topics of meaning - has it all wrong. Lest it appear that I am just going to blame “the world”, rest assured that I have vast experience in living in the superficial view of all of this. In my “pre-grief” life - I exhibited all of the attributes about the understandings of the world of grief that I now hold in disdain. In that sense I am a recovering “grief-denier”. Now that was not an activist mentality in any way - what I am referencing here is the fact that those outside of the grief experience just have no way of really knowing. It’s like trying to explain about sky diving (which I have never done but the example fits this topic quite nicely). Someone can explain all they want about the experience. They can even show you a video of their latest jump. You can even go to the airport and see the environment associated with all that is being explained to you. But no matter how much you can know - how much you can study - how much you can learn - there is just one element that is missing. The actual experience. That actual experience of jumping out of a flying aircraft and falling towards the earth until that parachute opens. Then - and only then - can you really understand. Understanding grief has that same paradox. Now do not be depressed that unless you have experienced grief you have no way to help us in this place. You do have a way. You can help us. Perhaps the best way to help any grieving person is to never, ever try to “fix them”. You cannot fix us. We are broken. Damaged. That’s all there is to it. Yet we will recover. We just do not need someone giving us a trip-tik to direct us on our future. That is not the help we need. I rarely use the internet for grief research but when I do I cringe at the information that reaches out to me. Like a carnival hawker beckoning to the passing crowd - “5 Tips on Overcoming Grief!”, “How to Get Your Life back to Normal” - and on it goes. Like laboratory animals, those of us in grief have been studied and analyzed. Being a recovering over-active systems analyst myself - I truly understand the need of some to quantify, see patterns and trends and make pronouncements based on the information at hand. Perhaps my very analytical nature rejects the knowledge-based perspectives of looking at grief. Sure some knowledge is fine - but the stage we are playing on is an emotional one. Knowledge has no real contribution to what is taking place here. In retrospect you can quantify some of what has taken place in your grief experience. But for the day-to-day, hour by hour reality - knowing anything about even what I am directly facing does not do anything to lessen the effects of that experience. The idea that you will distance yourself from the pain of the past and somehow activate a new life - is not possible. As in any demographic group - there are some perhaps who can make that happen. Some people do it all the time - I’m sure. But while we are in this valley there is little that can be done to minimize the sting of what brought us here. In the cosmic scheme of things - we functionally do not really “move on” from anything. The harsh reality is that at the point of loss - at that exact moment - life and everything associated with it “Moved On”. It moved on to a reality that is now missing something to which your life was inextricably linked. Like a terrible automobile accident that leaves you paralyzed and unable to walk - the “accident” that enrolled you into the state of grief catapulted you into a trauma that is complete and all encompassing. The magnitude of that trauma in direct relationship to how connected - how blended - how together you were on a daily basis with the person who is lost. As I face yet another marker on my journey of months past my moment - I am at my usual juncture of emptiness, duty and numbness. I can declare that knowledge has not helped me on this journey. If that was the case I could declare how I got myself out of this mess. No, knowledge has not aided me nor comforted me in any way. What has made a difference - and the difference has always been small - very small - were in those times in which I have reached out to my Savior and know that He has reached back. My grief has been conquered - the fulfillment of that victory awaiting a future date when death will be eliminated. This current suffering all of us contend with in the grief experience - is a reality that also must be faced in this life until that future time arrives. Like an addict who will reference themselves with a “recovering…[whatever the problem is]” label - we will always be - at least in this life for the present - a “grieving person”. Our loss - that moment when the world gave us a kick down the stairs and smartly walked on leaving us in a pile at the bottom of the stairs - ever with us. And why the endless contention in our hearts? The empty days - the empty hours? Why does it just hurt so much? You see in our grief - wrapped up inside of it - at the very core of all that it represents - is the person we have lost. My sensibilities are attacked when I hear that I will somehow “Move On” from that. “Move On”? Are you kidding? You mean - “Move On” from what made my world what it was? “Move On” from what gave my life meaning? “Moving On” is what those who have no emotional ties to the loss will tell you. They have no choice really. And they are wrong in their observation. Completely - absolutely wrong. “Moving On” has already taken place. And we were left behind. What I have come to understand in this past month - is that I have a lot of my sweetie with me. Not just those “memories” - but how she actually thought - the way she looked at life - all of that is entangled in my thinking - in my very being. Witnessing her endless love to everyone is a constant reminder of her outlook and a constant reminder to me to follow in her steps. All of what we shared - both good and not so good - part of the foundation that is my life. I know how she looked at life - at God and our future in His Kingdom. I have all of that with me. So in the end - those of us in grief can not - will not “Move On”. We can’t do it. We will not leave what made our life our life. We are taking that with us. In that sense we are “catching up”. We will live to a point where our “physical therapy” - in whatever way that works for our situation - enables us to take those steps forward. There is no timetable. There is no deadline. But we will continue on. If for nothing more than to show the world what we have lost. To teach them about the love that we actively do not have on a daily basis - but have been blessed to have in our very beings - reflected in our actions that celebrate their influence on our lives. To leave that legacy about our loss - so those around us can know why our grief is so profound. So devastating. So disarming. Rather than keep our grief inside - we must let it out. We must let the grief we have remind us to let our loved ones live through us. So the world can see the immeasurable gift we were given. It will never stop hurting. Neither will we ever stop loving those now awaiting their future. I have prayed from the beginning that my grief will be turned into strength. This is perhaps the beginning of the answer to that prayer. I will not be “Moving On” any time soon. Probably never. But that precious love we had - that gift from God that we let flow though us - it will be the catalyst that takes us who grieve to the life ahead. The life that has already “Moved On” without us. But has left us with the most immeasurable gift we could ever have. That gift of our love for them. That gift we will gladly share - in so many ways - with all of those we encounter as we live each day without them.

Written Monday, February 10, 2020 / Day 182 / Evening The landscape of grief has been littered with emotional wreckage. In this past month - since the direction of this journey changed on January 12th (Read Volume 5 Essay #19 - “Newness”), the changes have been vast. The emotional vistas reached an all time high. The artifacts of changes in the netherworld of grief have been undeniable. Still the base level of life is as empty as ever. The sadness - while lessened - has been unescapable. Like a volatile stock market - the leading indicators have been at every high and low there could be. After the 5th week of the new world - a decidedly empty Sunday afternoon emerged. The closest to what I might label a “depressed” state that I can remember. My pace stalled - my momentum halted. Seemingly a dead spot in the engine of life - everything seemed to stop for a time. And I could not have cared any less about any of it. Emerging in a new day this morning a very short but disturbing dream became known to me. It was unusual because it was about Joann. Except for early on in the journey - I have no recollection of ever dreaming about her at all. In this dream we were with a group - it seemed to be a restaurant. She was sitting on a long bench seat awaiting others to join the party. I was across the room - I made a totally irrational move (in the dream logic at least) where I approached her. I came up to her - embraced her completely and kissed her repeatedly. I stopped and looked at her and said, “I’m better take the opportunity to kiss you - while there is still time.” Then I awoke. Once I realized what the dream had been I was upset. This was not a comforting dream for me - it made me more upset than comforted. Why did I dream this? I was quite upset about the entire episode and regretted that I would remember something that seemed on the surface to me - quite hurtful. Whether this was the theme of the day or not - I had an unusually forlorn day. It was a cloudy day as well. The mood a bit somber. Something was unsettled. But on with the day I went. A little lunch. A little laundry. A little of this and a little of that. Later in the afternoon I was looking at the upcoming birthday list for March. I had wanted to check on what cards I might have for the future events as March has quite a few of them. I wanted to check to see what cards I should purchase. Joann had two card storage boxes. In one are cards by category - Birthday, Thank You, etc. The other has events and also months. I was checking out the topical cards and then went through the months. I saw that there were a lot of cards for the last few months of last year. As I checked the months and examined the cards I had no idea of what was coming. When I sorted through the November tab and looked at the cards - one jumped out at me. It was an Anniversary card. Our Anniversary is November 9th. This card was unmistakably the card she had purchased for our Anniversary. Her card to me. As it turned out - her last card to me. The one I had never known about - until now. The card? Front cover: “Always and Forever” with a large heart on the card above the words. Inside: “That’s how long I’ll love you.” It is difficult to even write this. Here was yet another goodbye. Could I withstand yet another one? By the flow of tears and emotion - the answer was I could not. And yet - it was like one last affirmation. Not from my memory - or even from the love we shared for all of those years. It was the last unfulfilled act that became fulfilled today. On this date. In this month of goodbye - a message in a bottle - from the one I love with all of my heart - and always will. This was in her heart to give to me on our Anniversary. And she did. Message delivered. Message received. But I cannot let you go. Looks like I won’t have to. God has gracefully swept you away to wait for our moment in the future. Until then I look back to that dream and remember - perhaps this is just what I needed for what is next. Right now I do not know. All I know is that I am grateful for this most touching moment from my sweetie. Her last goodbye. For now.

Written Sunday, February 9, 2020 / Day 181 / Afternoon Last Friday was two weeks since I wrote “the letters” (Volume 6 - Essay #7 “Dear Stephen” and Essay #8 “Dear Joann”). I was in the process of transferring the essays over to their web site (essaysongrief.org) and as a part of that transfer - I must read each essay to insure the text is transferred correctly. In completing that task I had to read this group of the most intense, profound and meaningful essays that have been written yet. Essays written on topics I would rather not relive. Essays that surprised me in their content. All of them taking me to a new altitude in this journey. Dare I think this could continue at this pace? I completed the exercise and read all of what had been written up to that point. In all of this I have realized that I am being transformed into some thing new. A new person. One person. Ironically I had been one person - but this was a title I shared with another. You see both of us were one person. One in shared experiences - one in navigating life’s trials - one in a love that was beyond anything we could have ever imagined - one in a shared destiny led by the One who has made our future possible. A relationship of learning to be One Person for 47 years. That achievement, that reality was to end August 12, 2019. That One Person relegated to eternity. To history. To yesterday. Leaving in its midst a part of that One Person. After sharing such a life there is little doubt that leaving that former state is nothing more than impossible. In our own strength. The fragments of that One Person falling amidst the brokenness of this world - this current age - this current reality. Pieces of love. Fragments of caring. Shards of what was and would no longer be. How does this go on? The only answer is day by day. Hour by hour. Minute by minute. Since January 12th - when the direction of everything took an imperceptible slant towards something else - something unknown - something out past the horizon - since that time the forces of grief have been in flux. From this vantage point - as unknowable as always - yet leaving some dust of something else. It remains to be seem what that is. Other than it will be. There is a renewed sense of the neutral. All of the usual soup of contention slowing simmering as it always does. Slowly forming - ever slowly though - is that newness. It is as painful as it is eventual. It is coming. Shadows of a loving past now being displaced by the shadow of something else. Something not wanted nor desired. Something that can wait - but won’t. On that horizon - farther than can be seen at the moment - is something. It is what will be. That future - that newness - that inevitable moment. When the future will overtake the wreckage of that One Person that will no longer be - and embrace it with what God is creating. Creating in that new unwanted reality - that One Person who will go on to live in it.