The Space Between….

Here I sit , 2 years and 16 days post the death of Glenn, my husband…still, yet not. My best friend…still, yet not. My life….still, yet not. So I find myself caught in this new Space, this place between 2 worlds, Life before Glenn died and Life every minute after. Allow me to share some of my most recent inner struggles…

As I sit here this third Christmas without Glenn, I am beginning to open my eyes and soul to this world around me, this world that doesn’t include him, yet perhaps still has something to offer me and our girls. Call it Hope. This is a good thing, I acknowledge this feeling of Hope and it feels good….yet not, as this other feeling seeps in, rears its head and keeps me in the Space Between. This sense of Guilt. Why should I feel hopeful for a life here on this earth that Glenn no longer gets to live on? I know that most of you will be quick to tell me that Glenn would want me to be Hopeful and even Happy, and I am pretty certain you are correct. But this feeling really isn’t about what Glenn would think or say, it’s more about what I am feeling and experiencing and what am I to do with this inner turmoil??

Another thought, as it is the Holiday season and I can’t help but observe couples together. We all know that beautiful unspoken energy that moves into our home, our most intimate moments of True Love towards our partners at this time of year. Despite how many struggles we have had in our marriages over the past year or years, while doing the hard work of raising our kids, the disagreements or in many cases, the fights, the raw, stripped down ugliness of pain and hurt in Marriage. Its there, its always there if your are committed for the long term. It is called Life and it is real and when you get through it, and you sit with your family, your kids, on Christmas morning, it all goes away. For some of us, it goes away for the whole month, for others it may be just a few minutes, sitting with your kids, watching them open some presents, or having some laughs, and you look over at your partner, and you feel it…that knowledge that you are going to be Okay, that you are going to grow old together and these kids will leave, and you will have done the work. You get the best Christmas gift you didn’t even know you needed, you feel the Love… and maybe, just maybe, that is enough to carry you through for yet another year on this wild ride….So here I am, in this Space where that moment is no longer accessible to me, Glenn is gone and I do not get the opportunity to grow old with him….this still stings 3 Christmases later, I am to assume it will always sting, this is called Grief.

This leads me to yet another inner anguish. Can I have this again, this security, this feeling of wanting to grow old with someone, Love? I know I am worthy of it, we all are. I am beginning to understand that what you put out to the Universe is what you get back. I believe I will allow myself the gift of sharing Love with someone again. I will not allow my heart to turn to stone because I lost Glenn. This would only add to the tragedy of his loss. Loss does not have to have a ripple effect, but Oh the mind is such a powerful force. My heart yearns for Love, yet my mind struggles with allowing it in. Each time I close my eyes and practice envisioning a Life beyond this Space Between, an image of a Guillotine comes in and abruptly cuts it off. It is as if my mind and heart have not connected yet, this I believe is called the Labor of Grief.

Another struggle that has surfaced with more clarity this Holiday season is the worry of the future of our girls. I realize that I have been submersed in my own grief these past 2 years, with only small bouts of energy to offer true empathy to the girls. I knew logically that as their Mom, I should and need to be there for them, to settle their anxieties, to nurture their hearts, yet the hard truth is that when you are grieving the loss of your spouse, your life that is never going to happen, you have minimal reserve for assisting anyone else in their own inner storms, even your own children. So with this comes resentment towards me, the person they had always counted on to be there, to make everything right for them, is gone along with their other parent. The girls at 20, 18 and 15 years old have had to figure it out. This was never my intention, quite the opposite. Those of you who really know me, understand how much of a 180 degree turn in parenting style this has been for me. The past few months I have been able to more consciously observe the aftermath of my absentee parenting and although I do at times feel badly that they were thrust into a whole new realm with me, I also know deeply and firmly that there is no going back to that old life. They don’t have a Dad and they no longer have the Mom I was to them. This is on some level is very sad, but I choose to focus on moving forward. There is no going back, the realist in me knows that at every cell of my body. I tell the girls “No one is coming to save us” they must acknowledge their pain and loss in their own individual ways, and then they must find a way, deep within them , to get up and move forward, there quite simply is no other conceivable way. It is my hope and prayer that these dark times will offer them self exploration and access to coping skills, emotional maturity that they may possible have never known they were capable of. Lets face it, we all know many adults in our lives that neve reach any form of self actualization in their lifetime. So although I may not be able to Fix this for them, I believe in my heart and soul that they will dig deep and find their paths, it is their journey to own….again Gifts of Grief and Loss.

As we move into a New Year, my Hope is that we can continue to Live, to Love, to Feel all of it. As life unfolds for all of us, this little Clark family has the gift of understanding that Life is precious, it’s fleeting and its truly up to each of us to grab onto any part of it and make our own stories, because it truly is the stories we tell ourselves that become our reality. So friends, please allow yourselves to tell your heart and mind the Best Stories for your lives, you are all so deserving of this!!

Much Love,

Michelle