My Best Days

With Mike gone, it is sometimes hard not to believe that my best days are behind me.

I think this is a common sentiment for those of us who have lost our great love. W. H. Auden wrote the poem “Funeral Blues” which describes this feeling best:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Truly, I cannot read this poem now without being torn up by it.

Because it is exactly how I have felt, even when powering through my days for the sake of our children.

That said, I have wrestled with such a bleak outlook because frankly, I do not want to live without hope for my future.

And generally speaking, I have never been one to wallow in self-pity.

And so although I have had many uncertainties about my future, I have thought, more than once, “I would really like to love my life again.”

What does this life look like, exactly, if my best days are behind me?

How do I redefine contentment in the absence of my great love?

First, I think, I need to be kind to myself. To acknowledge that my losses have punctured my universe so significantly such that I have lost more than a friend, a lover, and a partner. I have lost validation and emotional security. I have ceased to be seen.

So whose job is it now to see me? Whose job is it to prioritize my happiness?

When someone says, “Your husband would want you to be happy,” it is easy to brush off what they are saying because, duh, of course he would. But actually, taking this to heart is another matter altogether. Because happiness in the midst of grief seems an unreasonable expectation. So unreasonable, in fact, that I immediately reject it.

So let’s forget the word “happy” for a moment, as it is too big and too unreasonable to consider.

Let’s instead think of “love”. As in, “Your husband would want you to love yourself.”

This, I think, is more reasonable.

Also? It is necessary. Because his departure created a noticeable deficit of love in my life.

The job of loving me, while a function my husband served, should not be something I assign to someone other than me. And in truth, this job has always been mine, although easy to neglect when one is a pleaser of other people, and yes, loved well by someone else.

Loving myself, I have come to realize, is primarily about nurturing my self-worth. And by doing so, giving myself permission to pursue joy.

Joy, I have realized, can coexist with grief. Because joy is not a constant. It is a moment.

It is the sound of chimes when the wind blows.

A 5-minute cuddle with my daughter.

A delicious cup of coffee enjoyed in the yard.

A belly laugh when someone tells me a funny story.

It is looking at a piece of art that moves me.

It is Maria’s “Favorite Things”. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, et cetera.

Raindrops on roses. I like to photograph things that bring me joy.

These moments can exist, even in the midst of grief, as I have discovered many times over.

So when will I love my life again?

I think, perhaps, when I have strung together enough moments of joy, I can once again piece together my shattered life.

And more than this, it is in showing up for the possibility of joy and peeling back the scales over my eyes so that I can recognize the source of my joy. In the moment. To savor it. Appreciate it. Be grateful for it.

I think, if I string enough of these joy-filled, gratitude-invoking moments, contentment starts to look achievable. Loving my life again becomes more than a hope.

So yes, I think, I need to declare to myself that I am worthy to pursue joy. Actively. Relentlessly. And without apology.

Relentless pursuit of joy

Because it is true: my husband would want me to be happy.

It may take me a while, but this, to me, sounds like a good plan.

And really? I think this is a lesson I have needed to learn all along, whether I had lost my great love or not.