TEARDROPS: Moving On But Going Where? - Ulog #7

Read part one first. Read part two second. Then continue... :)

Needless to say, the loss of my wife to cancer was the most difficult event to occur in my life. There just isn't anything that can prepare you for that. Losing any loved one is incredibly difficult and of course and every loss is unique. Losing a spouse is uniquely difficult because that is the one person you expect to spend the rest of your life with. In the normal course of events, your parents will die long before you and your children will grow up and move out perhaps starting their own families. Your spouse is the one you expect to always be there. One of the worst parts is that the person who would normally be there to support you through grief of any other kind is not there for this one. You aren't necessarily alone but you sure feel like it. My kids have their own loss which is difficult for me to even comprehend. My parents are still alive. They lost their mother at ages 5, 9, 14 and 16. The youngest two at least will probably forget much about their mother as the years go by. That thought alone makes me cry.

As for me, one of the many difficult things is the regret and the guilt. Don't get me wrong, we had a wonderful and loving marriage. But it is hard not to think about all the little things that you could have done better. How you took things for granted. Every little argument or thoughtless action or inaction that you can remember becomes a source of regret and despair. All the advice and good council in the world can't teach you what taking something for granted truly is like this kind of loss.

Somewhere I saw someone refer to adapting to such a loss as finding a "new normal". That's a pretty accurate way to put it. Nothing is ever like it was before and what normal is changes dramatically forever. Through the year following her death I suppose I found that new normal. New routines and a completely new experience for sure. Slowly dealing with my own grief as well as the grief of my kids. A difficult task that is equally difficult to put into words.

So what's next for me and my family? That's a question I've been asking myself recently. If you are married and someone asks you if you would remarry if your spouse dies, your answer is almost certainly going to be no. It's hard to even conceive of such a thing if you are in a loving marriage. How can you possibly consider loving someone else in that way? However, after you have been alone for a while after such a loss you start to feel that loneliness ever more strongly. The grief lessens slightly or at least changes but the loneliness grows. Thank God I have kids and other family nearby, otherwise i don't know how I could have survived it. Some people enjoy being alone and I certainly enjoy a certain amount of alone time being shy and an introvert. However, once you fall in love and become accustomed to being with that special person for so long, it is extraordinarily hard to adapt to being alone again. Still, I've been pretty resigned to the fact that I would likely be alone for the rest of my life, at least in that sense. As a 43 year old with four kids (plus the whole shy introvert thing), it doesn't seem terribly likely I would meet someone and even then whether or not I could fall in love with someone again seemed doubtful...

Though they live in Canada and I and the kids in Florida, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are still family and we still keep in touch. They come to visit from time to time and the kids' grandmother will stay for a couple of weeks at a time. The last time she was here was in the first half of November. Though dealing with her own grief (which is another kind of grief I haven't had to deal with in my life and pray I never will, the loss of a child), I think she has been equally concerned about me and the kids.

When she was here she brought up a topic that surprised me a little (ok, a lot). I wish I could remember exactly how she started this conversation but basically she told me she knew this girl in the Philippines she thought I would like. Apparently, this person is a somewhat distant relative that my mother-in-law hasn't actually met in person before. She is something like my wife's 3rd cousin (they did not know each other). I didn't even know what to say to that so I'm sure I didn't say much. I wasn't really sure I was ready for a new relationship or if I would ever be. Never mind the fact that trying to start a long distance relationship with someone who lives in the Philippines sounded like a complication and an emotional strain I really didn't need in my life. And never mind the fact that trying to start a relationship with someone who was a relative of my late wife, however distant, seems a little weird. Completely unrealistic. Seriously, the whole idea was crazy. However, she brings it up again before she leaves so I tell her she can give this person my Facebook contact info and if she wants to chat, so be it and we'll see where things go from there. My mother-in-law was just trying to help after all. I figured there was no harm and had zero expectation that anything would come of it or that I would even hear from her.

Fast forward a month or so (yeah, just a couple of weeks ago) and I get a text via Facebook messenger. "Hi" it says. A day later... "Hi [my name] this is [her name]". I didn't even see the messages until a day or two after the second one was sent. I don't use Messenger much and she wasn't on my friends list so I didn't get a notification. "Hi" I said. "Sorry I didn't respond sooner but I just saw your messages".

I still don't quite understand how I got from there to where I am now less than three weeks later. A loss of sanity, possession and slipping into an alternative reality (perhaps the Twilight Zone) are all things I consider possible at this point. Certainly some sort of weird time dilation is involved. Honestly I'm just praying it's divine intervention. At any rate, to slightly reword the image from the top...

So what came next (so far)? You'll have to wait for the next post...