Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Tom. I think of him when I wake and he is on my mind as I lay my head down for the night. My grief, while a constant in my life, doesn’t control me throughout the day like it once did. Yes, there are still moments that I am stopped in my tracks and sometimes brought to me knees but I recover from the anxiety and heartbreak faster now than a year ago, because I have been working through the grief as it comes. I have acknowledged it, sat and listened to it, all in order to understand and be present in it so I could just process it.
I wanted to process Tom’s death differently than I processed the 2nd trimester loss of our twin girls and our son so many years ago because let’s face it, I didn’t process their loss. I ignored it. I stayed busy. I drove Tom crazy trying to have another baby and when that baby came so very early, I was able to again, ignore my grief and concentrate on my tiny, 24 weeker. I had the twins in 2000. Our son came in 2001 and Trey was born in 2002. It was in 2010, I couldn’t take the incredible sadness any longer so I found help in grief counseling. I learned I had been stuck in my grief and for a long time it is where I though I belonged. Frankly, it was a comfortable place, until it wasn’t. After being in therapy for awhile, I started to come out of the darkness to a whole new world of amazing experiences. I let my stuck grief control me for years.
So with the reality of Tom’s diagnosis, I knew early on, that I could not lose another 10 years to grief. Tom knew it as well, and we talked about a time when he would not be here. Since his death, I have been in counseling working on understanding my grief and the trauma that caregiving left me with. Even with the hard work, sometimes I feel like I am spinning my wheels. The second year has been hard, in fact, from mid October through early December, I have struggled big time with anxiety and this restlessness that is hard to describe. A week ago, I posted about my new found love/love relationship with Tom’s hot tub. I have been in that hot tub every morning since just before Christmas. In the early hours of the morning, I feel nothing but peace as I wait to greet the day. Not every morning have I been able to have some amazing meditation experience, but when that’s hard to do, I sit quietly and just sit in mindfulness.
In the last few days, I have had two primary thoughts that I am working through. A few days ago, as I gazed at a star, my mind was quiet in the sense that I didn’t care what star that was, or what constellation it was in. I didn’t care or want to grab my phone with my constellation tracker app. I just sat there and admired it for what it is, a star. That thought had me thinking of other aspects of my life. That some things are just what they are-nothing more, nothing less, they just are. In therapy, I was enlightened to the idea that when we wonder about something and we don’t have the answers, we fill in the blanks. This mostly happens with the people around us. Ever thought to yourself, “why would they say this or do that”, we reason why by filling in the blanks, but not really knowing the real reason. Seeing that star for what is was, just a star reinforced the practice of mindfulness and has brought me to the thinking that I want to live this new journey of healing not filling in the blanks, just being present, accepting and wanting things for exactly what they are.
The other thought happened this morning. Since I was again having a hard time with meditation (they call it practice for a reason), I decided to do a guided meditation. In this one, it is a series on resiliency with the first meditation on acceptance. First, that is a big, hard word for me. When we lost our babies, I vowed I would never accept what had happened, that acceptance meant I was okay with their loss. In my pain and at the age of 30 that is where I was. I have never said the words, acceptance and pregnancy loss together. This morning’s guided meditation actually had me thinking about how do I fit acceptance into my grief journey with Tom. What does that mean to me? I can tell you I am more willing to sit in acceptance of this new life because honestly, the only choices are to accept the new life or keep fighting it and living in grief. I decided I would work on it as part of my healing journey.
I now see that possibly the anxiety and restlessness I have been feeling just may be the fear of transitioning from grieving to healing. Am I ready to leave my grief? I know there will always be a part of me that continues to grieve for Tom just as I do for our twin girls and our son. I can’t even begin to tell you how I am really ready to feel something more than sadness and the incredible weight of losing my husband. In the quiet this morning, I had a talk with Tom, don’t worry he did not answer back, but he did listen to me as I discussed all the feelings I was having. I told him that I love him but I am going to really buckle down and start the healing process. I don’t want to lose another 10 years. I want to live a vibrant, happy, peaceful life. I want laughter and excitement again. But they won’t come until I am ready to let them in. My morning hot tub time is helping me to quiet the noise in my head to understand what I want and what I need to do to achieve those things so I can let them in. I know because of conversations Tom and I had, this is what he wanted for me and so in the quiet this morning, I imagined him smiling that smile of his that reached those beautiful green eyes.
So, as I head into 2024, I am grateful for the journey in 2023. Every tear, every fear I had, and all the hard work has led me to today. A place that instead of looking at another year, as just another year, I am open to what may be waiting for me. I am grateful for listening to a friend that said, try the hot tub in the morning and for being open to getting up early to experience peace just outside my front door. I will continue to put the hard work in to ensure I continue to process my grief. I will work to find those things in my life I need to continue to heal because all I want is to be present for a future with peace, excitement, hope, love and some amazing adventures!