7/7/2001. Twenty years ago today Steve and I got married on a sun-drenched veranda overlooking the hills , under a rose-embellished gazebo, witnessed by 210 of our closest friends, family, and absolute strangers (aka our parents’ friends we’d never met or who claimed to know us when we were in diapers). July 7th. Lucky 7’s. As a young couple who loved taking road trips to Las Vegas, it was the perfect date to commemorate our union as husband and wife. The newly introduced Mr. and Mrs. Sung banking on our fairy tale happily ever after.

Fairy tales, however, are either the happy fantastical stories popularized by and for the mainstream audience or the Grimm ones fraught with trauma and imperfect resolutions in the end. These latter tales are meant to show that there is still life after tragedy even if that life is different than it was before.

My fourteen year marriage follows that literary theme to a tee and it, along with the years since, has taught me profound life lessons I reflect on today on what would have been my 20th platinum wedding anniversary:
Watching my husband, my once-best-friend, lose an ugly battle to mental illness was traumatic. I don’t and I can’t sugarcoat that.
I’ve envied other widows who’ve progressively lost their husbands to physical illnesses that allowed for heartfelt final words and goodbyes, which is the most ridiculous enviable point, I know.
I’m most proud of the resilience and grace personified in our two teenage children.
Gratitude begets forgiveness, enlivens the good times and reminds me the reasons our paths crossed to begin with.

Twenty years ago, once upon a time, I got married with the intention of forever. Nobody ever marries thinking it will end prematurely, right? Divorce? Nah, we were going to be on the SUCCESS side of that 50% statistic and make it til death do us part. And that “death do us part” clause wasn’t supposed to hit us until we were so old and senile, we’d be shamelessly flirting with each other like two strangers across the table in the old folks’ home our callous children put us in. Or so went the joke. My favorite was when Steve would tease me with, “If I die, who’s going to drive you crazy with obnoxious, inappropriate jokes and eat your half of the dessert?” My plot twist has me missing his jokes with the ridiculous Russian accent and hating having to eat all of the creme brulee by myself.

The widow’s tale is painfully hard to live. Healing is never a linear path and though I often stumble, I choose to stay the course. I have hope that in the end, it will be my love story because one day I’ll know without a doubt how loss and grief taught me to deepen the love I feel for others and for myself.

 

 

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Lisa Kumagai

After losing her husband of 14 years to suicide, Lisa Kumagai Sung inadvertently embarked on her widow’s journey in late 2015. Healing from the trauma of loss is challenging. The complexities of mental illness that contributed to a violent end to what was, at one point, a hopeful and beautiful once-upon-a-time add layers that make the path back to peace often tortuous. Still, through somatic therapy, spiritual practices like yoga, meditation, and Reiki as well as the love and support of family and friends, Lisa chooses to see this phase of her life as a late-blooming, coming-of-age journey that sometimes awkwardly parallels her two teenage children’s lives, especially in matters of finding herself and love again. Through writing and sharing her story, Lisa hopes to connect and build community with others traversing their journey through loss, healing, and transformation.

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