THE YEAR OF GRACE - GRIEF AND HOPE

The caregiving is over. The memorial service planned and delivered. The flowers wilted and gone except for a single lavender rose that I pressed in her Bible. The kids have returned to their homes in Seattle. Her family returned to their homes in Florida and Georgia and Arkansas. Its quiet in the house. I can't watch TV or listen to music or read a paper. I need the stillness as if I too am dead. When they found the tumor 10 months ago we had hope. We believed we could fight and manage the cancer and live for years as so many of our neighbors and friends have done. But hers was aggressive and unbending. She was courageous in the fight, never gave up hope, always believed and was determined to the end. And she did it all with such elegance, poise, grace and will. Her will to live, her will to retain her dignity was the strongest thing I have ever witnessed and probably ever will. It inspired me and I wanted to do everything for her, to help her and to make the most out of every precious moment we had left. But even the moments dwindled away too fast and time was escaping; sand in an hourglass that appears to slide through the passageway at an ever escalating speed until the last grains literally rush to the end. The journey was full of lessons but lessons I would have preferred to learn some other way. Looking back it was a year of trial and unending challenges that tested our faith, strength and endurance in every way. On November 14th I promised her I would be there, with her, holding her hand at every moment, every step every minute of every day and I held true to that promise. I gave my best and I delivered my service and love to her with gentleness, kindness, respect and the tenderness that she deserved. Now I am in a fog, in a maze of grief, that seems to ebb and flow at some uneven pace. I do not know how to manage this pain other than to just step forward one step at a time and embrace hope and give of myself to others with kindness and understanding. Maybe that is the test of this time, for me, through this experience to prove myself a better man than I was and to take the lessons she taught me, especially in this last year of Grace, to renew my own days with grace and goodness. As painful as it is I sense that by enduring the pain ( not denying it) will steel me for the future, will soften that part of my heart that otherwise would be hardened. And so I will grieve and let the waves of sadness wash over me yet continue to swim in the waters of life ever determined to stay afloat and be a survivor for myself, for others, and maybe some day, for another.