10 Days
In 10 days I will hand my keys to Raffaele, the handsome leasing agent at the Chapman, and leave Virginia, the state where I met, married and buried my husband. In 10 days the person that I am now will cease to exist.
Today I attended my last Toastmasters event, a two-hour presentation by Craig Valentine, who won the World Championship of Public Speaking 10 years ago and since then has had a very successful public speaking career. It was worth the hour’s drive to Richmond.
Three fellow club members were there, which was a little awkward because I’ve already said goodbye to them and then saw them last Saturday at a Toastmasters event. After the presentation I spent a few minutes wondering whether I should find each of the three for another goodbye; I decided to leave, then stood at my truck, considering going back inside the hotel. I thought I might cry all the way home thinking about how I’ll never see them again, but I didn’t.
About halfway home I noticed that the “check engine” light was on. I don’t know how long it’s been on, because I can’t see it in my normal driving position. I’m worried now that my truck will die before I get to Denver and I won’t be able to buy a new vehicle.
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I’ve been thinking that I need to cry over losing Hal, my mother and Cyd, that I can’t move on with my life until I do that. I thought I had to get this done before I left Virginia, so I was surprised when the need seemed to evaporate. Now I think that it wasn’t the deaths of the people I loved I needed to cry about–I’ve already done that. What I needed was to say goodbye to my life.
I’ve spent my entire adult life, almost 30 years, getting to where I wanted to be. I was happy with who I was, where I was and what I was doing. Then Hal died. I not only lost my husband but myself. I was Hal’s wife; if Hal was dead, then who was I?
It’s taken me two years to finally decide that in a way that seems very real to me, I died with Hal. Although I didn’t actually bury Hal in Virginia (his ashes will be next to me in the truck when I drive to Colorado), this state has become a cemetery to me. What I know now is that I’m also resting in that cemetery.
So here’s today’s food for thought: A person who loses someone she loves has to mourn two people: her loved one and herself–the person she was when her spouse, her parent, her child or her friend was alive. Maybe that’s why people who are grieving sometimes think of suicide. They know, deep down, that they’ve died and are just a little confused about the difference between a metaphorical death and a real one.
In any case, if you are trying to help someone who is grieving, help her understand that she needs to mourn herself as well, and that after doing so, she has to make a decision about who she will be in the future. This is the good news among all the bad for a grieving person: she has the opportunity to decide who she wants to be. She may never have a better opportunity to remake herself.
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about who I want to be and how I’m going to go about becoming that person. I imagine that this is one of the things I’ll be talking about on my new blog.
