I started losing "beloved ones" in 2018 when my big brother Melvin died in a tragic motorcycle accident. Then I lost my childhood best friend to cancer in 2020. More losses followed, culminating in my husband Michael's unexpected death from COVID-19 in January 2022. This was during a time when my dearest sister-friend was battling pancreatic cancer, and she, too, died six months later.
To say that I have been mourning for a long time feels like an understatement. I have been devastated by the deaths of some of my most favorite people.
To grieve for my husband while simultaneously grieving my friend's horrific decline and imminent death felt impossible.
I still marvel at the fact that I was able to get out of bed at all in 2022, but I know that my sense of duty to my children is what kept me going. Knowing they needed me to get up and to help them manage their own grief in the midst of school obligations and such was what routinely got me out of bed in the morning.
That said, nothing was "normal". I lost interest in the things I used to enjoy because these were things I enjoyed with my husband. Although I loved cooking, I stopped cooking favorite recipes because they were his favorites. I avoided watching shows we watched together because it felt wrong to watch them without him. Even listening to music was sometimes hard because lyrics were sometimes triggering.
I shut down my artisanal ice cream business, my passion project that I had been building for 5 years. Because I believed that I no longer had any joy in my heart to fuel it. My passion project died the moment Mike died.
I felt exhausted and unwell, but I managed to make myself work for 3 hours a day to run his business, formulating a plan for its graceful shutdown 4 months after his death.
I basically got up in the morning; got the kids to school (sometimes returning to school after an hour to pick up a child who just couldn't stay there); made myself a big cup of coffee; ran my husband's company until noon; ate lunch; crawled in bed and slept/ cried until it was time to pick up the kids from school; tried to manage kid homework; early dinner; early bedtime. Melatonin for everyone. Repeat.
Then one day I decided to make bread. Not challah or a brioche. Not a sourdough loaf. (These were his favorites.) I Googled bread recipes and decided to make a ciabatta bread from Baked by an Introvert. (Thank you, internet!)
It was slow work, with lots of resting time for the dough. According to the recipe, the total resting time should be 23 hours. Mine took 27 hours because I kept forgetting that I was making bread.
When the timer went off at intervals, I would wonder what it was for. I would inevitably discover the bowl of dough an hour later. Or I would turn off the timer and forget which stage of the process I was in. Second rise or third? (I read somewhere that this brain fog is called "widow brain". Go figure.)
When all was said and done, out came two perfectly warm and crusty loaves out of my oven. The aroma of their yeasty goodness sparked a little twinge of pleasure in my heart. For the first time, it seems, I felt a little excited.
I couldn't wait to taste them. I thought, "Screw that!" when I read that I was supposed to wait for them to cool down to room temperature before slicing into them.
I didn't wait. And I wasn't disappointed.
I didn't realize it then, but I know that that was the moment I felt more than a mild, passing interest in something.
Here was something delicious that I made (that did not remind me of Mike) that I could share with others. (People who know me know that my love language is feeding people.)
Here was something I wanted to do again, and not out of a sense of obligation. Because up until this point, practically everything I did was for everyone else. (Even running his business and eventually shutting it down were things I did for him. For his legacy.)
This was how I started to pay attention to the things that make my heart happy.
This is what led me to putting real intentionality into healing.
(Of course, carbs were the key!)
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