Endings And Beginnings

Endings and beginnings are themes that permeate dealing with the death of a spouse. It starts, pretty obviously, with the endings. It doesn't matter if you knew it was coming or not, if there was the chance to say goodbye or not. Death is the big ending, at least in this life. (Oh, Lord, help me avoid anything else so cheesy this post!!). Sure, there's the idea that the spirit or soul goes on, that we'll be reunited with our loved ones after it's our turn to go. But, at least in this life, we will not get to see them face-to-face, to hear them, to hold them close again. Add to that, our lives as married people have come to an end, too. If we had kids or grandchildren, then there's the shift of no longer being part of that unit, either. And the person we had been sharing a bed with is gone and so we're no longer a companion for falling asleep or a lover for sharing intimacy. A lot of things are no longer going to be what they were, if they're even going to ever be again.

And then, on the flip side of things, there are a whole lot of things that are beginning. We're getting to do things we either have never done before or haven't done in a long time. For me, it's meant having to remember how to keep track of the bills and make sure they're all paid. Ariel was much better at that than I was, and she did it flawlessly. Given how much else I did, I was good with her taking care of that part of our lives. Not any more. We get to learn what it is to be single, and maybe a single parent or grandparent. Maybe we get to learn how to cry or how to be angry or how to be afraid...perhaps in ways we never knew or even dreamed of before. Maybe we get to go back to work. We get to get used to saying we're single or widowed, depending on which we can deal with right off. We get to deal with noticing people who are attractive and having to learn to not automatically squelch or dismiss such thoughts because we're married. Maybe we're not ready to get into anything yet, but there's no longer that commitment holding us back from anything with someone else.

Endings and beginnings, both are scary. With endings, we have to face letting go of things we've loved and treasured. With a spouse, a lot of our lives and likely at least a decent chunk of our identities have been tied up with them. It hurts to think that any chance for the good times is now gone. For me, it was hard admitting that, even though the good times had been getting fewer and farther between as her depression escalated and her mental health deteriorated. The new beginnings bring....God only knows what. It could be good stuff. After the pain of the loss, though, the idea of dealing with more hurt or confusion is very often overwhelming. It gets very tempting at times to just curl up under the covers and wait for the bad things to pass us by. Even if it means missing out on good stuff, there are times when that option seems awfully tempting. Sometimes we need awhile hiding from those scary new experiences before we're ready to face them, and it has to be with little ones at a time. Sometimes we surprise ourselves with what we're ready to deal with. Regardless, it's always a challenge.

In our calendar year, the one day that most symbolizes endings and beginnings is New Year's Eve / New Year's Day. It's the end of a year. All of the opportunities and events and possibilities of the year are coming to a close. At the same time, we're also facing the opening of a whole new year that could be bringing almost anything with it: New fears. New hurts. New losses  Resurgence of forgotten/repressed anguish.. Chances to do better. Blessings of love and friendship. Unexpected gifts of grace of all kinds. Unknown possibilities and potentials. See, it's easy to write those out in nicely separated categories, good and bad. In dealing with it from the perspective of this kind of loss, though, they almost always show up more like this:

New fears. Chances to do better. New hurts. Blessings of love and friendship. New losses. Unexpected gifts of grace of all kinds. Resurgence of forgotten/repressed anguish. Unknown possibilities and potentials.

What's really hard is that, from an evolutionary standpoint, we're wired up to be more aware of threats and dangers than good things. As a survival trait, that's a good one. If we're not aware of threats, or at least not aware in time, then we're either hurting or dead. For those who're parents, I'd betcha just about anything that you'll wake up more quickly if you hear your kid crying than you will if you hear your kid laughing. When we're already hurting and reeling, even fairly minor things can seem like threats. As for more major issues...forget it. The prospect of driving to a new grocery store can take on the proportions of seeing the Death Star cresting over the horizon. That's where we are for awhile. It makes it more than a little difficult to really celebrate New Year's. It's not that we intentionally go looking for the threats or more depressing ends of things. That's our neurology doing what millennia of evolution's designed it to do, keep us aware of potential threats so we can stay alive.

The funny thing I'm noticing, though, is that the longer I survive, the less it seems like my neurology freaks out and makes things into massive threats. It's a slow change. I think it took me six months before doing the same drive in to work on the freeway every morning didn't make my guts clench and my hands shake. And it's not like it's a particularly bad drive, especially driving away from downtown in the morning and not really having nasty rush hour traffic. This year, the holidays hurt more than they did last year. However, even with that, they don't feel quite like the threat they did last year.

It seems like there's only so long we can sit with endings, not trying to suppress or stuff them, before their urgency and perceived possibility for more harm start to fade. Maybe as that happens, it gets less scary to look at what else there might be to come. 

 I hope so.