Opposites

I write this blog because I want to share what it’s like to be a widow.  I’ve wanted to show what it’s like to be a widow at every stage.

These days, I’m doing pretty good.  It’s springtime.  Baseball has started.  I have a house to distract me.  I’m noticing that I actually feel happy sometimes.

So what’s weird is that I’m noticing that part of this whole “widow-ness” is the way that I can feel two exactly opposing feelings at the same time. 

It’s like the stuff with the house.  It makes me so happy and excited, and also just devastatingly sad that Sawan doesn’t get to be here.

Here’s the newest thing:  I’m going to have both of my sisters living in my town again in just a couple of weeks.  Yippee!  Fist pump!  The possibility of having my brother and his family here too is out there, so the fantasy of us “all being together” has occurred to me.  I get so excited.  And I truly am thrilled.  And then I realize that it’s not a reality.  That we’ll not “all be together” ever again, because part of “all” of us is gone forever.  And then I get so, so sad.  And then I beat myself up for not just enjoying the fact that I’m going to have my girls here again.  This has been a very difficult stage for me to be gracious and gentle with myself in the grieving process for some reason.

These last couple of weeks I’m feeling again, like I did in the beginning, that I just wish I could have one little break.  I think it may be one of the grieving steps: bargaining.  I know I can’t have him back forever, but if he could just come for the weekend.  If I could just have a little rest from grieving then I think I could do it.  But I know I don’t get to bargain, and I really can do it anyway, I just don’t want to.