There are so many phases and stages of the grief process that it makes my head spin. My husband was at the Mayo clinic in Rochester Mn and was in his last days on this planet. I had to go home quickly to make some arrangements and tie up some loose ends. I was in a fog, and I know you all understand that. I sat in his chair..a quiet moment and I realized that my life would be changing profoundly. I remember thinking to myself the next time I would be in my home I would be a widow. His chair was comforting to me and I took very deep breaths to get through the moment. What I didn’t realize that the changes would be subtle but they would continue for a long time. One of the things I didn’t know was that people in my life would not understand the changes. I became stronger through the process but yet weaker. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream trying to wrap myself around the new me. But now “I like the new me”. The toilets I fixed, the bills I learned to pay, the art of saying “no” when it was best for me and the ability to say “yes” when I needed to accept help. Changes; they aren’t always accepted by those who I love in my life who are confused by the metamorphosis they don’t understand. But..it’s OK..I am not about pleasing them and I must believe that in time they will trust that I am perfectly imperfect because I am weathering the storm..learning to be comfortable in the change is the key to healing..and moving on.
Loved this post. Thank you. I am still in the redefining who I am without my spouse. Some of it involves the practical stuff you mentioned, like fixing toilets and paying bills. A lot of it is becoming reacquainted with me as a person. My analogy is one of dance. When you marry, you start a dance together and at first you step on one another’s toes and lose the rhythm. Then you begin to move as one. When your spouse leaves you alone on the dance floor, you are not sure how to continue the dance of life. You aren’t even sure who you are any more.