Living in the Moment

So here I am 22 months into this new life as a widowed single mom. I have learned a thing or two about grief and loss since 11:55 pm December 9, 2018 when Glenn took his last human breathe on this earth. There have been some amazing beautiful people and experiences along the way. There have also been some serious disappointments, hurt, anger and heartbreak. I try my best to focus on the former because I truly believe that is what Glenn would do and that is what Glenn would want me to do. You see, I figured something out, Glenn didn’t die. He is right here with me and his girls. I know ,you think I am crazy, it’s okay. Yes, he “ died”, I buried him, his body is in a box under the ground, but let me explain… Glenn speaks to me every day, I hold conversations with him, I seek his guidance as my partner in parenting, I go to him for advice, he tells me to calm down, breathe, stay the course, our girls are going to be okay. I hear him. Do I miss him in his human form? Hell yes! Every single day! I miss his hugs, his touch, his scent. I miss his company, his presence in our lives, his smile, I Miss. Him. Every. Single. Day. But, I am comforted by the knowledge that if I need him, he is there. This is not to be explained, nor to be understood unless you have had the misfortune of losing your partner, your other half. It is my most amazing gift and I only recently accepted it, allowed myself to exhale, drop to my knees, fall into the fetal position, much like a rebirth when I came out of my grief fog…I finally just listened, I stopped trying to control things, and wouldn’t you know it…he was right there with me, helping me off the ground, wiping my tears and letting me know, in a way only Glenn Clark could possibly , that I am not alone. I am never alone. This is the Gift.

The mere fact that I can acknowledge the Gift in my loss is a testament to the human spirit. It occurred to me recently that I really didn’t appreciate my life and all that surrounds me every single minute of every single day! No, Truly, I didn’t appreciate the beautiful life I have. I now do. So this is how grief is. I am sad every day, I will miss Glenn for the rest of my life. But I am also grateful and sometimes quite Happy, I laugh and I cry, I know the darkest pain and I don’t fear The future, I don’t even think about the future. It took Glenn dying for me to appreciate the moments. I have learned that I have to get used to and accept that I will always have moments when I feel so very alone in this world, when I imagine closing my eyes and leaving this world so I can get one last long embrace and kiss from my husband. I will long for that until the day I die, and I know that is Okay because that is my grief , my sadness , my loss. I also have come to understand that the times I am most shaken to my core are not the BIG events like His Birthday or the holidays but rather the small mundane moments like when a picture is crooked on my wall and as I go to straighten it , I am thrown into a grief storm consisting of all the memories of every single time Glenn would go to hang something on our walls over the years, he was so damn precise, measure twice , cut once( okay make a hole in the wall). He would get his level out, measure, I would stand back and tell him if it looked straight or not, he would make the proper adjustments and voila , a perfectly hung picture!! We were quite the household chore team!!

These are the moments when I look to the heavens and ask him” how can you not be on this earth anymore??” I just can’t fathom that he is not driving down a road somewhere just on his way home. That I am going to open my eyes one morning and he will be right there staring back at me, grinning, like this is all just a dream or as if I have been hanging out in this alternate universe, another dimension in time travel and I can just stop and get off this ride. Its all so strange, like magical thinking. This is grief…

So here I am , living in the moment. I’m becoming quite good at it. When I started this blog, I impulsively wrote “I suck at this thing called living”, well almost 2 years out from losing my husband, the father of our 3 daughters, my best friend and soulmate, I can honestly say, I’m getting better at this thing called living. Everyday is a choice, accept the Gift or Deny it.