Ready

For almost seven years, I’ve been trying to figure out how to move forward with grief. 

I’ve been walking into rooms with it. Bringing it to work with me. Walking down the grocery aisle with it. Sitting on the couch with it. I have even brought grief with me on dates, which went as awkwardly as you are imagining. 

I’ve been donning its weight like a cloak. Like an identity because somehow that felt like I was honoring his life  – proving how much I love and miss him. Assuring myself with every second, that I am not forgetting my husband. 

I have dutifully and relentlessly cried myself to sleep. I have refused to make friends. Refused to build professional community at work. Refused to be part of my church community. I told myself I could no longer participate in things that produce joy, happiness, or any sense of belonging. A widow mourns the love of her life; she does not go about enjoying things. 

I have done everything worthy of suffering the greatest loss of my life, but none of it  – not a single act – has brought me any healing. Rather, it has only ensured deep, painful loneliness and an isolation I never thought imaginable. 

I do not know why grievers do this, but I know I am not the first. I do not know how long it was supposed to take to realize that this is not the way JD would have wanted me to honor his life, only that it took me almost seven years. Perhaps for others it took less time. For some, it may take longer. Perhaps there are even those who will grieve this way forever. For each of us, the pilgrimage of grief winds differently. 

What I do know, finally, is this: 

I know what it feels like to be ready for something different.

What it feels like to remove the cloak of grief without forgetting it. 

What it feels like to be ready to live again.

I am ready. 

I am ready to heal and mature in Christ so much that He’s able to use me and my testimony to help others. 

I am ready to have so many friendships that it doesn’t seem real or possible to have this many friends. I am ready for community at work, with my church, and with my family. 

I am ready. 

I am done feeling jaded, and cynical, and negative, and resentful, and forsaken. 

I am ready to embrace good things. I am ready to smile about the wonderful life I had the blessing of experiencing with my husband as we raised our children and navigated life together. 

I am ready to make new memories.

I am ready to move forward in a different way. Not as a woman whose identity rests in the title of widow, but as a woman who loves God, loves people, and helps others access joy, even when joy feels impossible to regain.

I am ready.