It's all so new . . .

So here I sit . . . finally deciding to DO something other than ponder . . . consider . . . fret-over -- yet this blogging stuff is so foreign. I thought it would be more complicated, yet I fear it may be benign. I would prefer complicated over useless. Why write?

Many have insisted that I write. Not encouraged. Insisted. I don't like to write. I need a blazing impetus. The night before my daughter left for the other hemisphere for over 4 months was a blazing impetus. What did I want to say to her? What wisdom (ha ha ha), advice, love could I blanket her with? (oops . . . with which I could blanket her . . . ) I sat down hours before she left and wrote a couple pages of stream of conscious wonderment, if I do say so myself. I have no idea if she's re-read it. I have no idea if she'll save it. I have no idea if it had any impact on her, but when I re-read it before printing, I thought that maybe it had some merit -- some promise. I did the same thing the night before my son left to start college. Hard to know what he will have thought of it -- felt about it. He's all heart, but so cool, so who knows. I had to sit down and write my husband's obituary. His dad helped to get me started with a sort of outline -- but then I just wrote. I wrote until I was finished. It was sort of easy once I got started.

I'm alone in my home. Really alone. For the first time in 25 years. I chose NOT to be alone in life. I got married before my husband was out of college. We were dirt poor and leaned heavily on the love and generosity of our parents. We didn't want to live apart. All of a sudden, I'm an empty-nester. But I was "supposed" to be returning to that "just the two of us" stuff that is the jewel hidden behind the change and the bereavement suffered when your children leave your home. But that's not how things turned out. It's just me and my (yes, adoring) dog.

But not my husband. He died and I miss him. He was part of me. I was defined by my marriage -- by my family. I don't apologize for that or regret that. It's not a bad thing. It's a beautiful thing. I chose it. It is cleaving. But . . . I'm nearing the two-year mark. I've heard that 2 years is a turning point. I don't put much stock in hear-say or what others tell me I "should" be doing or experiencing, but I do sense change in my own momentum -- like an easing of inertia. The gift of kinetic energy creeping-in through my hibernative state. Maybe I'll lose a few pounds.

But why blog? What can I possibly have to offer anyone?

Empathy.

I became a motherless daughter at the age of 19. I have lots to say about that -- a myriad of experience from finishing college without a mom, planning a wedding without a mom, being married without a mom, having babies without a mother (my husband's mother has henceforth been a great mom), enduring and surviving his very long illness and all that it encompassed, his death, and the aftermath. My life -- as it is right now. Without a mother.

I became a fatherless daughter when I was 30. I reached for that phone to call my father for years -- he was my encourager, my biggest cheerleader, and held my heart in his tender hands. More loss abounded -- grandparents -- my dear sister's dear husband who died in the war -- and the losses through fighting that good fight -- brain cancer -- that are less definable, like the changes in character, dreams, reality, physical ability and on and on and on.

Faith in God -- in Jesus, my family, my friends, my church -- and, yes, my own surprising resilience -- brought me through all of this. I'm still vertical. I get up every morning (sometimes not so early . . . ) and go to work. I see my friends. I stay in touch with my sisters so far away. I cook for myself. I BELIEVE that there's something left for me to do -- something at least a little important -- like a blob of muddy clay just waiting to evolve into something beautiful? I don't know about that . . . but I really hope it's something USEFUL. Something with a purpose. Some utility. That's me. Resilient with utility.

I want to be a wife, but I am a widow. So as the days, weeks, months, and now years continue to pass -- totally unconcerned about the state of slow motion in which I have been existing -- I have begun to come out of a sort of fog with an understanding of my reality. I have to uncleave. I have to re-become just me -- alone -- not a wife -- not part of a couple -- half of a marriage. Yuck. But also, as that fog burns-off bit by bit, I can even (surprisingly) sense a flicker of excitement. The unknown. A blank sheet of paper. An empty canvas with a palette of beautiful colors and hues teasing me -- beckoning me to take a step away from the comfortable cave. Helping me to get up off of the sofa :-)

Loss, grief, recovery, survival, hope, family, friendship, love. These are things that I know a lot about. These are things through which I might be able to connect to others. What do you think?