I spent a lifetime chasing this statement. 

Sometimes living up to it, sometimes falling short.. always resenting it. 

If I’m accurate in my memories, I don’t believe this statement ever came out of my parent’s mouths, yet I heard it loud and clear my whole life. Perhaps it was my Catholic upbringing, let’s face it , Catholicism is the scapegoat of generations of dysfunction. As a 53 year old woman who has lived what feels like a 100 lifetimes in my short time on this earth, I can adamantly say my journey to being an empowered woman has not come without challenges. It’s downright brutal trying to find your place in this world, to battle your self doubting self deprecating inner voices that are literally in our DNA. From the time we are just little girls, we are already being programmed into submission and guilt. We know at a cellular level that we need to “not say that because it will upset so and so” , don’t make a fuss, be quiet, take the high road, yada yada yada…

As a mom of 3 Gen Z daughters, I am acutely aware of how crucial it is for me to acknowledge my generational dysfunction and make deliberate choices moving forward in this life so as not to pass that shit on. The rate of social, economic and technological change in our world is at warp speed. Trying to navigate parenting, while simultaneously integrating these advances often feels like I’m playing a massive game of dodgeball, whack-a- mole and chess all combined…get out of the way, put out fires and be calculated and thoughtful of your actions and words as you raise the world’s most intelligent generation yet the most fragile, it’s a delicate balancing act of vigilance and humility on a daily basis. 

In this era of meditation, manifestations, shamanic journeys, being Woke, knowing your Dharma, if your head isn’t spinning then you are most likely choosing to turn a blind eye, or maybe you just don’t have a cell phone. However, if you’re trying to even slightly attempt to take on the role of good citizen, good enough parent, then at least some of this should resonate. When looking at how far the pendulum has swung from my generation to today’s, I challenge myself to embrace it. Both as a parent and a person who has to live and thrive in this world, I feel the strong desire to make some connections, so I can carry on what I believe to have been some solid core values that may be lackluster in our society today while attempting to weave these into the current culture and worldview that my children, the generation Z, have been raised in. It’s a balancing act, a work in progress at best.

At 53 years old I can at last say, I am enough. I can stand here and say, that I am good with me. I like me. I have a voice and opinions and I am not afraid to let them be heard. I have zero interest in people who are not authentic. Although I appreciate the occasional small talk, I crave human connection and conversation that speak to my soul. I gravitate to transparency, to the  people who are willing to share their stories and seek answers to questions such as What makes you want to get up and keep going each day? What is your passion? Who do you cherish and why? What scares you? What are you grateful for? What are you curious about? What is your gift? Do you believe in Love?

 To know someone’s story, to hold space for a fellow human’s pain, their tragedy, their Grief, is to be humbled. It is in these moments of stillness, this space between getting things done and planning our next move, it is here where we are most connected to the human race, it is here where we are present , where we are living and able to do what we are meant to do, Love one another. 

The best way to feel better after pain and tragedy inflict us, is to offer your ear and your heart, your compassion to a fellow human. In fact it really is the only way. 

Ramblings from a Woman, Mom, Widow, She/Her/Hers….a Human who is trying..

Much Love to you all❤️

There is a level

Of loneliness

that comes

after losing your spouse

that no words could ever describe. If your determined , you can fill your new life with the most beautiful souls,

You can cultivate new activities or hobbies, you can join a new church or FB group, You can open yourself up to a new love and a new relationship, 

The list goes on, much like time Goes on, and then one day almost 4 years after your spouse is gone from the earth you find yourself alone thinking about times that have passed, you realize that your parents are getting older your kids are getting older and you yourself are getting older. One starts to wonder am I running from something or towards something? am I trying to escape death or am I trying to capture life? My children will, with God‘s grace, immerse themselves in their youth and all that life has to offer despite the loss of their dad. My siblings have their own families and spouses to share their lives with,my parents although elderly have each other to grow old with. And truthfully I have found a wonderful amazing new love to share my life with💕

It’s all there for the taking if you will. Yet at times I still find myself alone, longing for the security of a past life. An imperfect life yet a life that I knew and understood,a life that offered me no surprises,a life that was planned out, signed sealed and delivered. A home that housed a family which is no longer there forever changed with the loss of our Captain. At times as I sit alone and close my eyes I can still hear the sounds of our children’s birthday parties,

Their laughter…

I can still smell the chocolate as we stuffed a hundred Easter eggs for our girls to find in the yard on Easter morning. I can still recall Sunday morning breakfasts that were a staple in our family routine.

So

Today I remember the past. I miss the familiarity of my past life. I often feel like a stranger in my own life someone who’s still trying to fit in and figure out where they belong. I’ve come to accept that I may always feel like a stranger in my own life that getting your life as you know it ripped away in the middle of raising your family at 48 years old, watching your healthy strong husband die a slow painful death for almost a year before he was able to pass on to his next journey. These are the things that break you. these are the things that make you feel like you’ll never be whole again. These are the things that keep you up at 3 o’clock in the morning looking at your phone peeking into other peoples family lives and finding yourself envious and angry. These are also the things that make you want to  be better,

that make you want to get out of bed and remember to take a breath and smile because you get another day. After almost 4 years of running. Running from the trauma of my past life, running from the pain and horrific memories of watching my husband die, I find myself Still these days. I find it necessary to pause more often and take notice of this precious transitionary time. I feel a battle within me I’m trying to push myself into a new version of me with a new life yet not wanting to let go of my past life. No one is telling me I have to let go of my past life but I find a deep burning knowledge that I must let go in order to move forward. Whether I let go or not I’m still moving forward and what I’m finding is much of my past life has already let go of me. I didn’t have to make any decisions about letting go because people just went away along with the memories and the experiences. perhaps my pain and my children’s pain was too much for them to handle perhaps they thought they were bothering me or they didn’t want to be a painful memory for me whatever it is many people have left us,

they’ve let us go. I suppose this is okay, but even if it was not Okay, it has to be okay because I didn’t get a choice. I am familiar with this feeling of not getting a choice in my circumstances or in life circumstances in general. Sometimes the anger in me would like everybody to know what it’s like to not have a choice. That’s the human side of me. The ugly Darkside that we all have, a side that’s not put on social media it’s not on your Instagram feed or your Facebook page but it’s real. Thankfully most days during this pause I am grateful. Grateful for another day to spend with the people I love and the people who love me. Grateful to interact and make connections with other humans who are willing to open them selves to the energy of the human spirit. So I’m transitioning still a bit untethered and it’s OK truly💕

So here I am, 3 years out, 3 years of living life without my husband, 3 years of living life as a widow

3 years of living life as a single parent

3 years…

It’s still so surreal, yet not

They say grief changes, it evolves they say. I say “they” are correct

For me, this time of year will never be the same, but then again, anytime of year, any month, day, hour, minute will ever be the same. Life changes when you lose your partner, everything changes but most of all, YOU change!

I am no longer a wife, I am no longer the woman I was with Glenn. I had no choice but to step out into life and start participating. I have kids, young adults to raise. The girls are now 16, 19 and 21 years young. This means they were 13, 16, and 18 when they lost their Dad. Try and imagine that if you have kids of your own. Think back to when you were a teenager, what was life like for you? Were you close with your parents at this age? Did you want to spend time with your parents? If you’re honest, then most likely you were like any other teenager, figuring out who you were separate from your parents, the natural course of life. Pretty much taking any opportunity you could to get away from your parents, seeking your peers for connections. Then try and imagine your Mom or Dad is gone, never to be seen or heard from again and you have to watch your other parent struggle to just try and function every day, never mind take over every single responsibility of the household overnight. And somewhere in the middle of all of this chaos, you probably feel like you should be feeling sad, perhaps you feel like you should be in your room crying? Or maybe you don’t know what the Hell is going on and you’re just trying to live your life, but somehow you know that something is off and society expects something of you. If you can’t imagine it then good for you, that is excellent! That means you didn’t have to experience it. I can barely imagine it, at 52years old, I still have both my parents on this earth with me. So through all my grief, and all my trauma and all of my loss and trying to figure out how to navigate this new life, I also try to figure out how to best treat/parent my kids. How to give them the space they need to grieve in their own way or maybe not grieve at all because they just don’t know how to yet. Maybe they need to let life happen, unfold and figure things out and not have people set expectations about how they should feel, because one thing teenagers do well is observe. They are smart and they know exactly what is happening. They may not be equipped to talk about it, they may not be well versed in it but they feel it all! What this looks like from a Mom’s perspective is anxiety, depression, low self esteem, and panic attacks. Oh and throw in a pandemic, just for fun, why not, in the middle of your senior year of High School for one of my daughters. At 3 years since my husband died I am tired, so very tired of trying to figure this shit out. I’m tired of trying to be the perfect parent or even a half way good one. I’m tired of worrying about judgement from family members who have long forgotten what my kids voices sound like. I am struggling with raising 3 young adults who lost their Dad in the middle of really not particularly liking him. There I said it….we were not a Hallmark family when my husband got sick with Pancreatic Cancer, suffered for 9 months and died a disgustingly horrific death. We were a family with 3 teenage girls who were already struggling with anxiety and depression, low self esteem and the gamut, not much different from most teens at some point in their development. If you speak with someone today as a seasoned adult and they tell you a story about losing their Dad or Mom at 13 through 18 years old, ask them what those first few years were like? Ask them how they felt, because chances are they won’t remember much but what they will recall is watching the parent left behind. If they were lucky their Mom or Dad was able to find happiness again and that showed them that there is life after loss. Hopefully that showed them what resiliency and strength and courage look like and in the process this gave them something they needed very much….HOPE.

So this is where I am today, 3 years after losing Glenn. I am in the middle of yet another paradigm shift. My focus is on living the best life I can, not just to do well by Glenn but even more important, to do well by my kids.

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift” Steve Prefontaine

This quote was one of Glenn’s favorites, so much so that I had a large poster of Steve Prefontaine running with this quote framed for him and it hung in his office at Salve Regina until the day he died. It now sits on a small ledge along the stairwell to our basement. I have passed it by a thousand times since Glenn left this earth and only recently mustered up the courage to glance at it. It was like looking into my husband’s soul. The very best of Glenn, the dreamer. So full of hope and passion for his life, for our life for all of our plans to be fulfilled. I was angry at this poster, at what it represented to both myself and Glenn. What a sham! A bunch of Bull#%$! really?? You give your best and this is what you get??

At 2 years, 8 months, 10 days since Glenn left this earth, I have had a paradigm shift. I no longer scurry by the poster in my stairwell. Sometimes I even stop, glance at it and touch it lightly as if I could jump into it , transcend space and time and run alongside Steve. Perhaps we could chat for a bit in between me gasping for air, about the Gift of life and how to best accept and use it each and every day we have on this beautiful earth.

When I first started running, I remember my husband would explain to me about the endorphin rush I would eventually feel once I got past a certain point and then my running would just take off. I would feel lighter and there would be an ease about my body. If I kept going, despite the pain in my joints, and the battle of my lungs and body attempting to align into some sort of rhythm, I would eventually feel it, that triumph of the runner’s high and then and only then, I could persevere and finish strong.

Lately I find myself thinking about running again. I really have not run any races or substantial distances since Glenn was diagnosed. The fact that I am contemplating running again is big progress with respect to reengaging in life. Running is actually a perfect metaphor for life. You start down a path, sometimes its smooth and easy, you are enjoying the process and then as you continue, it gets more intense, more labored, you have to focus and make decisions as to how you want to proceed., how you want to expend your energy. Do you want to take a break, maybe walk for a bit? Do you want to keep going, but slow down and take in some of your surroundings? Or maybe you pick up your pace, try and get ahead of the masses, emerge as a leader for a while. Whatever it is you decide, you eventually need to get back on the path, keep going, not for your friends or your family, but ultimately for you. We come into this world alone and we leave it alone,so if you can’t learn to be comfortable with yourself along the way, you will never be comfortable in this life. Running much like living , is an individual practice. It is not a free ride, we have to put the effort in to reap the Gifts.

Lately I want to talk about those Gifts. I want to scream from the rooftops, but instead I keep it close, I protect it with a fierce calculated intensity, because I know how precious it is, and I recognize the Gift. I am coming into my own, putting the work in and opening myself up to new energy. I am in discovery mode and it is surreal at times. I understand about vibrations, frequency and energy. I acknowledge the Gifts presented to me each day and it is good, it is real. But understand, this, all of it , is a choice. I haven’t joined a cult, I haven’t lost my mind. On the contrary, I have learned to BE with myself. I’ve learned the importance of being enough, of being content with the present, no longer always searching for the what ifs or the “maybe someday” mentality. To actually understand that at any moment my life on this earth could no longer exist, and then to take that knowledge and integrate it into a way of life. To ask myself, Am I enough? Have I done enough? How can I perhaps help someone to feel better in a moment in time, to lift their spirits, make them feel heard. What do I want out of this life? What does anyone want? To be heard, to feel connected to another human, to be able to just exhale….Peace.

I grew up Catholic and to be honest so much of what I was exposed to did not resonate with me. However there was a line that the Priest always recited just before we offered a sign of peace to one another. “Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your Apostles: Peace I leave you, my Peace I give you, look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and graciously grant her peace and unity in accordance with your will. Who live and reign for ever and ever.” This line, with the word Peace always sat well with my soul. It was right, it was good, it was Peace. This is something we can offer one another on this earth every day and in doing so, we allow Peace into our own lives. It is simple and yet so often missed.

In the past I never really subscribed to the notion of mantras. I left that to the more evolved spiritual guru types. Yes I just lumped them all together in my mind as “those people”. Lately I imagine “those people” are the tribe of the broken. The people who have experienced pain, loss, grief, trauma and made a choice somewhere along their journey to allow that pain in. To let it absorb into their souls and morph them into a higher state of being.To have the courage and audacity to believe that no matter how much darkness they have observed, there is still light to be found. They had choice in the stories they told themselves. Their mantras were on purpose, they were set to change the wiring of their brains. I recognize that this is work, I choose to believe it is the very best work life has to offer us.

The gifts of this kind of work will show up …..this I believe…..

We are all just one run away from feeling better

Much Love,

Michelle

• 

At almost 2 1/2 years since losing my husband, I am learning to live in this world without him. Some days I feel pretty strong, secure even proud of myself as I Navigate this new life without Glenn by my side. Then there are those days that still strike me down, take me out at my knees and I feel like I can’t breathe all over again. There are some basic things that I had with my husband that I definitely took for granted. One of them is trust. I trusted him and he trusted me. We had our share of struggles being married 21 years and raising 3 kids, that I would never deny. However, I trusted his word, I knew he would not lie to me, nor would I lie to him. This sounds so basic yet as I Navigate this life after Glenn, I am finding that trust is not something that you just give away, it truly does need to be earned. I never had a reason not to trust, so I gave it away. What I am learning is that I have the right to question people and situations and I have to safeguard my trust and only give it to the people who earn it. I always told my kids, “you have my trust unless you give me a reason to not trust you”. Well perhaps in the case of my own kids, I can be more inclined to give my trust away. However, in the case of my own life interactions, I now know that I cannot simply give my trust away, it truly needs to be earned.

Some mornings I wake up to a world that feels right. This is some serious progress. I still maintain contact with one online grief group after dropping more than 3 this past year. The “support” I receive is now carefully hand picked by myself, this new women who I have put my trust into despite not always feeling worthy. I am learning that I have choices each and every day, each and every minute as to how I want to spend my time, how I want to expend my energy, where , what and who I choose to focus on. I must admit, I like having choices, I enjoy making decisions on my own about my life. This independence feels good to me, it feels like I am coming home to a long lost friend and getting to know her all over again, but this time with an incredible perspective, an ability to see things through a lens of gratitude, with this secret knowledge that each and every day is a gift, and our time here on this earth is short, we must live in the moment, love and laugh with wild abandon and cry and hold space for others who are just beginning to Navigate this new territory, life after loss…

Allowing myself to let life, laughter and love back into my life after losing Glenn is a struggle for me. I am thoroughly committed to the process however feelings of guilt will rare their head every now and then and I am not quite sure how to Navigate them. Guilt has always been a theme in my life. Guilt for enjoying myself, being happy, laughing, letting my inhibitions go…this may be a remnant of my way back past which wove itself into my marriage and now continues its journey into my grief life. Only now the guilt is much deeper and complex because Glenn is gone, and I am not, and that is not fair. Why should I be here living, laughing, loving???

To answer that last question, to free myself of guilt, my mind must go to a very dark place, a place of fear, insecurity and confusion. My mind must immerse itself back into the past, which up until now, I have most definitely been unable to Navigate. I must close my eyes and bear witness to a women who took care of her dying husband day in and day out 24 hours a day for 9 months knowing he was going to die yet allowing him to have hope. The pure physical acts of performing his daily ritual of meds, feeding him through trans peritoneal nutrition each and every night which consisted of taking a refrigerated bag of liquid food, infusing it with 2-3 additional vials of vitamins and insulin, mixing it up and hooking it up to his Pic line, which of course had to be flushed with heparin and saline first. This process of prepping the food, setting the machine and hooking him up for the night took approximately 20-25 minutes each night. Then as morning came, the food had to be taken off his Pic line, the line needed to again be flushed with saline, the bag had to be disposed of and the meds needed to be given and set aside for the intervals throughout the day. Glenn had to be bathed, he needed help to ambulate to and from the bathroom, to shower, to change his Fentanyl patch every 72 hours, to shave. All of this while finding the right temperament to Navigate this caregiving process, to walk the fine line of providing care for my husband let allowing him the dignity of choice in each of these moments. To hold space for the absolute overwhelming Elephant in the Room called Terminal Cancer. To have one foot in his world of Hope and vile suffering and another foot in my world of reality, knowing death was near. Add to this that I was working part time as a Physical Therapist which requires providing care and support for people with physical injuries, chronic pain and often attached to this, emotional needs. I was caring for and attempting to parent 3 teenage daughters while being present with the fact that they were watching their Dad die as well. It was insanity and as I allow my mind to wander back to those days, I feel sick. I feel in awe of myself, what I did was superhuman. It truly was not in the human capacity, and of all of it, the most horrific memory always goes back to the fact that I had to watch my husband suffer in the most inhumane, disgusting, horrid, outrageous manner each and every day. Its actually still and probably always will be just too much for my brain to process. So why do I even bother? Mostly , if I am being honest, because of guilt. Guilt for moving on with my life, guilt for laughing, guilt for engaging in living, and most of all guilt for wanting love and intimacy with another person again.

I do believe that some fragment of guilt will always be there for me but I am determined to not live my life by that code. Instead I will choose Gratitude. I will do my best to stay grounded enough to always remember my pain, Glenn’s pain, my loss, Glenn’s loss yet Grateful enough to live a life of love, family, human connections and service to others in need. Losing Glenn and all the life plans that went with him has forever changed me. My goal is to be able to live in the space of humility, where I can honor myself for the love and care I gave my husband yet humble myself to acknowledge that this is not special, this is what God intends for all of us, to serve others and in my case, to honor my vows as a wife, till death do us part.

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

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.

Grief brings up feelings one would never even begin to imagine, why would you? Unless you have lost someone who is an extension of you, of your life story since you can recall. Think of it as one day you wake up on another planet. Everyone looks the same, perhaps even acts the same, but you can’t seem to comprehend anything that is occurring around you. You have to work so hard just to get through each day. Everything is heavier, like you are trudging through this muck that is only present for you. You smile, oblige people, mimic their actions but all the while all you want and desperately need to do each day is make it home to your bed so you can collapse. The problem is even your bed feels different. You can’t seem to sleep, you toss and turn and find yourself exceptionally anxious, you feel like an observer in your own life, an outsider peeking in. You exist, but you are not really sure why or what for. You walk this magical line between acting like you are supposed to be on this planet yet secretly knowing you don’t belong. You try to fit in for fear of being exposed for the true alien you are. You carry this invisible yet extremely taxing appendage called Grief and you are so intensely aware of your dysmorphic state every second of every day yet you also acknowledge the necessity to keep it under wraps to not upset the balance, the tone of this social structure which you come to realize is not really a new planet after all but rather you got knocked off, tossed into the stratosphere and all of this drudgery is the work of attempting to realign with society as the newfound Alien you are.

Carrying grief is personal, it has no manual for how to play it out. Your entire life events, experiences, relationships impact how you will carry your grief. But here’s the crazy thing, you cannot prepare for it. It is not a test. It doesn’t matter if you did everything right, dotted all your I’s, crossed all your T’s, had the deepest faith, the best “everything happens for a reason” attitude. You don’t get to pass to the front of the line, to be the best griever. To do it more efficiently because you did everything right, nope, sorry folks, it doesn’t work that way. Once you experience your loss, your greatest pain, it is like BAM!#! SYSTEM FAIL!#%&!, you are stopped dead in your tracks. Your screen is wiped clean, you lose all your data, there is nothing to save. You are suddenly hurled from all your anchors of false security into the abyss. Planet Grief is your new home. You have to McGyver your way out of this. You search for clues, you grab hold of whatever and whomever you can, you ramble on to strangers, any one who will let you talk, without even recognizing your own words as they spew from your mouth straight from the darkest corners of your soul.

At a year and a half into my own grief abyss, I now have days where my feet are on the ground. I still have days where my entire body is on the ground, when the intensity of my loss drops me to my knees. I am also learning to walk that magical line between the world before Glenn got diagnosed with Cancer, suffered insanely and died and the world I have to live in now where I am all too aware of how little anything we do or don’t do here on this earth really matters. How you can do “everything right” and your future may still not be bright, how we can believe that things will get better but know that they might not, that our best days may have already happened. Once you experience the loss and pain of your person, the luxury of this belief system is no longer afforded to you. Now you may be reading this and be thinking, “oh this poor women is so negative, she needs her faith, etc” but please allow me to finish. My statements are my truth, they are my new reality. They may make you uncomfortable, but please don’t feel sorry for me. I also understand at the most cellular level that every moment is a gift, it is now embedded into my soul to practice the art of gratitude. I long for human connections in a way I could have never imagined. My actions and interactions are more genuine, I feel the earth beneath my feet, the sunlight on my face as I look to the heavens every time I speak to Glenn. How many of you look up each day and acknowledge how very small you are, that we are part of something so much outrageously bigger than our human minds can even allow us to imagine? I do…every day since Glenn left this earth and in that moment, that moment at 11:55 pm December 9th 2018, that he looked me straight in the eyes, into my soul and took his last human breath, I understood in that moment, that his essence, his soul, had to have gone somewhere….So don’t ever feel bad or let down by my words, after all, they are just words, how you decide to interpret them lies in your own life experience. At some point it is inevitable that most of you, if you live long enough, will have to be on this Planet Grief with me someday.

At week 5 of these unprecedented stay at home orders due to Corona Virus Pandemic 2020, I decided I would take on the highly ambitious task of painting my daughter’s room. This may not seem like such a big deal to those of you who have painted a room or several before, but for me, a new widow, who was married to a man who did absolutely everything remotely tied to home repairs for our entire adult lives together, this was a monumental task. For me to even consider painting a room prior to this very week in time was just, well just not even a thought. For the past year, since Glenn died on December 9th 2018 at 11:55 pm(just flows out of my brain forever), my grief has consumed me. My grief took all of my energy or what little energy I had left after working full time, taking over the household in every aspect from bills, the paperwork of death, meals, car repairs, raising 3 teenage daughters and ALL that goes along with that. Leaving myself some corners of time to cry, yell, scream, flounder, drop to my knees, get up again and repeat, yup, Grief consumed me.

So this week, I dug my heels in, watched a few you tube videos: #1 how to prep a room for painting, #2 what kind of brush and technique to use for edging and cutting, #3 how to properly roll out a wall and what type of nap my roll should have. I decided I could do this, and here is why…. The stay at home orders, the loss of my job temporarily, has given me the greatest gift since Glenn died…time and space to breathe, to think, to imagine, to create, to actually believe I can do something that I have never done, that I probably would never even choose to think about doing, because it was not what I did, it was what Glenn did and quite frankly, he was damn good at it, leaving me absolutely no reason for wanting to do it. But yet here I am, this week, 16 months after my husband left this earth FAR TOO SOON, deciding I could paint a room.

So allow me to share some thoughts on painting a room. Stream of consciousness here we go…… tedious, arduous, requiring copious amounts of patience, focus Then, something begins to occur, my college brain kicks in, I recall the process that Csikszentmihalyi coined FLOW, I remember Glenn always played music when he painted, I put music on, I feel an immediate connection to Glenn, its as if he is standing behind me, guiding me with his wisdom. ” Not too fast Michelle, slow down, don’t get sloppy, pay attention to detail, don’t rush”, Breathe, he is with me, he is either proud or just plain goofing on me, “Sure now you decide to help? “. The years of me watching, handing him the damp rag to wipe off the small droplets that got away, moving the tray along as he made his way through the room. It all makes perfect sense right now in this moment, yes this was work, but it was also his relaxation, escape from the constant demands of his job, us, everybody wanting something from him all the time. Here in this room, he could shut off, get lost in the labor of love for his family, his daughters. He could shine as our proud caretaker, Fixer, giving us the gift of his time and talents. Glenn did this year after year, his contributions to us are in every inch of our home. Every wall that has been painted and re-painted because his wife needed a change, every picture and shelf(that he made of course) that is hung on these painted walls, every nail in every project, from counters to decks, Glenn leaves us his legacy, his imprint on our lives, his soul lives on, he will always be our provider. I don’t have to seek his guidance, it simply presents itself as I attempt to tackle the tasks that he so selfishly and lovingly performed during our life together on this earth. I am grateful in this moment, as I paint a room, as I recall Glenn’s gifts, as I feel his presence and essence all around me,flowing through me, he is here, but of course, keep going Michelle, you have this, missed a spot, got it, paint on….

Fear

Isolation

Anxiety

Panic

The Unknown

Something feels awfully familiar……

Today, in this year 2020, 15 months after losing my soulmate, as the world struggles to deal with a pandemic of epic proportion. As I observe all of humanity grappling with these uncertain times, I have a strange sense of dejavu. The anxiety, fear, panic, sleeplessness, the tension arising in chests all over the world, are feelings already known to me. To share in this horror with all you, allows me to exhale, to feel ironically less isolated. Please do not misconstrue my sense of commonality as a lack of compassion. On the contrary, I am overwhelmed with empathy for my fellow humans, particularly the fringes of our population, our elderly and our youth. The reasons are obvious for our older friends and family, they are much more vulnerable to be stricken down by this disease. For our youth, it is simply a loss of innocence. After experiencing this pandemic and all the sequelae that go along with it , there is no going back to the simpler times. Much like children who experienced tragedy or loss at a young age. Like my children who lost their Dad, never will they get to live out their tender youthful years with a carefree spirit, a sense of wild abandon. My heart breaks for all of them.

I have sat on several couches, across from several experts ,as one would have it, on Grief, this past year. I have listened intently, waiting to hear the answer I thought I needed. “ Everything is going to be okay, you will be Okay, you will be Happy again,, blah blah blah” . What I learned is that this answer is elusive. One must learn to live with their grief, and all the questions that go along with it. One must , in order to survive, learn to adapt. Part of that adaption is acceptance of being uncomfortable. Of truly integrating a rhythm of unsteadiness, learning the new dance of your life or rather understanding that some steps can not be learned , there is no choreography to master. To live with grief , loss, heartbreak, is to live with the ability to improvise and embrace the beauty and the pain while Simultaneously allowing things play out , transform into new Life. So as I sit in solitude today , like the 467 days before me, I have grown accustomed to being uncomfortable. I have learned the importance of allowing all the feelings in, the good, the bad , the ugly. To let them pervade my body, mind and soul, percolate and then exit leaving me exhausted , coming out stronger. This is my wish for all of us, to come out of this not only stronger, more resilient , but perhaps more connected as Humans. As we understand the virus attacks on a cellular level , not distinguishing race, gender, social status. I dare to dream of the Altruistic retort of humanity to Break down the walls of divisiveness and go viral with love towards our fellow humans 💕