I am wearing a fragrance that makes me think of chocolate.
It is not one of my
favorites,
but it was one of his.
I am wearing jewelry I
don’t often wear anymore
because he gave it to me
and it seems
disrespectful to my current life.
I am, as I write this,
lunching in a restaurant I
no longer frequent.
I drove through the old
neighborhood earlier.
And I went to the cemetery
to change flowers.
Eight years ago today he
went home.
I no longer grieve in the
way I did on that day
and those anguished days that
followed.
It is different now.
I think grief is much
like marriage itself.
In the beginning, marriage
is new and exciting,
filled with passion and
emotions,
fluttering tummies and
anticipation of
the end of the work day
when you are together
again.
Over time, the passions,
the high emotions
become calmer,
the love becomes quieter
and acquires depth and a
lasting quality
that is missing in the
beginning
before it has some wear.
And when your love is
completed
and one of you celebrates
the ultimate homecoming,
the whole process begins
again,
but with grief.
On this day of Al’s
homecoming,
I feel as I did on our
wedding anniversaries
during his life –
a renewed sense of “honeymoon”
then,
a renewed sense of grief
now.
I want to briefly share a
couple recent conversations.
I share them because
today,
eight years later,
happily remarried,
is hard.
And people don’t
understand why.
And most still won’t.
But I just need to say
it.
Again.
As most of you who are
regular readers know,
I am joyously remarried
to my second great love.
A friend, recently
widowed, asked me with a mix of dread and anticipation,
when I stopped loving Al.
The pain of her beloved’s
death
is so intense that she
wants it to stop.
Her love is so deep and
she fears it will.
I answered emphatically –
NEVER!!!
My love for Al is
complete.
It is no longer a
growing, vibrant thing.
Neither is it dead.
Love is eternal!
I do not simply have a
new great love,
I have two.
The second conversation
is specific to Christians.
1 Thessalonians 4 tells
us that Christians
are not to grieve as
others do
for we have a hope, a
sure knowledge,
that we will meet our
Christian loved ones again
in Heaven.
This passage refers to our
spirits,
our trust and faith in
God.
It does not refer to our
emotional response
to the earthly loss of a
loved one in death.
Recently, someone
intimated
that my Lanny Love and I still
grieve the loss
of our first great loves
because we aren’t, or
they weren’t, Christians.
That opinion was
reiterated over several weeks in letters.
This person has never experienced
an intimate loss.
His wife is living.
All his children are living.
All his grandchildren are
living.
His parents are both
still living.
His siblings are living.
My heart is heavy for the
crisis of faith
that I fear he will experience
when his emotional
response to the death
of one of these people
is grief.
So today, on this eighth homecoming
celebration,
my grief has become noisy
again, new and raw.
It will quiet,
but until then,
I lean into God,
I lean into my Lanny Love
–
who sadly understands.
And I grieve the amputation
that occurred
when the two that became
one
once again became two.
I miss you, Alfie.
Happy homecoming day!
Now is your time of grief,
but I will see you again and you will rejoice,
and no one will take away your joy.
~~ John 16:22 ~~
