Bitter-Sweetness

One of the great paradoxes of being human, is that we can experience our circumstances as both bitter and sweet at the same time…and for a long time. It’s something a person must accept and get comfortable with or a life can get stuck in in one or the other…growing bitterness or sweet, superficial denial.

Today is the 10-year anniversary of my husband, Craig’s, sudden passing. I woke up at 6:00 and realized 45 minutes later that 10 years ago he would have been waking me from a deep sleep to tell me he wanted to go to the ER. That moment, until they rolled him into the ambulance, is a very hard memory. I absolutely hate that memory. I just couldn’t dwell on it again so early in the day, so I decided to go outside and walk the grounds to see what the overnight storm had wrought.

Around 8:00, I again realized this would have been about the time I arrived at the hospital alone, and told by the man I thought was escorting me to see my husband that he was clergy. No one knows how deeply my heart and soul sank in that moment. It must have been the self-protective hope we hold in those after-moments that kept me from dropping to my knees. It was a nightmare. I wanted it to be a nightmare so I could wake up from it. I hate the whole of that hospital memory the most.

The last thing I remember, before my good friend drove me home in her car, was standing in between two pillars, after exiting the sliding glass doors. I looked out at the sea of cars in the parking lot, or out over the city at the cars moving like ants, or the buildings of brick and concrete. I honestly don’t remember. All I really saw was a life without my true companion. I stared straight ahead and said to my friend, “What do I do now?”

I’m sure I meant it as a question for the immediate. Do I need to go to a funeral home and make arrangements? What kind of arrangements? Who do I need to call? Can I please just go home and dissolve into a puddle of tears? But “what do I do now” is a question I think I have asked myself every day for the last ten years, either verbally or in my head. It’s not any easy one to answer, either.

Those were the deeply bitter parts. Even as the sweetness of family, friends and a few strangers walked beside me and held me up through the process of putting my favorite person and our wonderful life into history.

Today is the bitter-sweeter part. I chose to acknowledge my husband by sorting through various boxes where I kept cards, letters and notes from family, friends. There are two special boxes for the ones Craig and I gave to each other over our three decades of life together. What I gleaned, in between times of laughter, feeling humbled, and tears, was that we had a full, rich life, with extremely supportive friends, and ever-loving family members.

As I’ve written and said over the years, “They all saved my life.”

But after reading through hundreds of missives and putting them away in brand new decorative storage boxes, the question remains. It would be an easy one to answer if I was younger and carried around all the passionate interests one has in their 20’s and on into their 50’s. But on the threshold of 70 in one month, I’m not sure if I have any more passions left, or if the ones I do have, contain enough energy stored in them to manifest. One thing you begin to notice when you hit sixty is how tired you can get doing exactly what you used to do so easily. Reading through all the cards made me realize how different my life is now compared to the one where Craig and I sparked one another’s ideas and made them happen; a life filled with guests and good food, travels and deep discussions, serving others and fun. Those things happen much less frequently now. Is it age? Is it being single? Is it the absence of wind beneath my wings? Is it still grief? Honestly, I'm not sure.

I keep coming back to the same thought each time I get twisted up in this…I can at least put truth and beauty into the world, even if I can’t practically change it. I can continue to be honest with myself and with others. And I can still write a poem or story, craft an essay, plant an oak tree, though I know I will never see its acorns. But someone will. And something else will eat them one day.

So, until I wake up one day jazzed out of my mind to do this or that…you will find me in the yard planting something beautiful or sitting at my computer doing this. Or writing a letter to a friend. All with the hope that even small acts can expand the goodness in the world. Often the small, glitter-covered cards I opened and read, contained some of the deepest wisdom and most loving encouragement in just a few short sentences. Truth & Beauty.