Roots

Forgetting isn't the right word.

You most certainly do not forget!

Moving on is definitely not right.

That indicates leaving something behind,

and you take it with you.

Getting over it?

No.

You don't get over it.

Change.

Yes, that is right.

Grief changes.

 

It goes through seasons

like all our emotions.

In the beginning,

the ferocity is all-consuming, overwhelming,

physical in its intensity.

It is a dungeon existence,

a torturous state.

Unsustainable for healthy existence long-term.

 

Then it begins to ease 

and you feel appalled that it has,

you feel as if you are somehow betraying your beloved.

But you aren't.

 

Finally it settles into a permanence

that is mostly comfortable and familiar,

a path with peaks and valleys,

laughter and tears,

ordinary and extra-ordinary.

It is simply a piece of the quilt of your life.

 

Love is the same.

My Lanny Love and I are in our eighth year of marriage.

We don't have the "seven-year-itch"

that some experience with their seventh wedding anniversary

but our relationship is different than it was in those early days.

 

Love, like grief, is all emotion in the beginning.

It's an amusement park,

sparkling lights, dizzying heights, almost overwhelming excitement.

That is not sustainable long term!

 

Then the intensity begins to be replaced

by "like", deep respect, admiration.

Friendship deepens.

"Thrill" gives way to ordinary.

You might think "Uh-oh..."

but no, love is not waning,

emotion is simply calming,

love is strengthening, deepening, enriching!

The roots are improving, stretching, widening.

They are gaining the ability to support the height of true love

through the ordinariness of life,

the storms that are bound to come,

and the softening of emotion that comes with "everyday-ness".

It is in this state that people become appalled,

decide they are no longer in love

when in reality they are no longer at the amusement park

but rather, have come home!

What a tragedy to give up at that point

for this is where love becomes sustainable and permanent!

 

In a couple days,

I will commemorate the 47th anniversary of my wedding to my Al.

On that day so long ago,

I had no inkling that I would some 40 years later

create another wedding anniversary

with another great love.

I was 13 when we met that August Sunday in 1969,

14 the following summer when our love story began to root.

We had known each other for nearly 44 years at the time of his death.

We grew up together.

He knew me inside out, 

    upside down,

        backward and forward.

I will never be known like that again.

Once my Lanny Love and I moved "home",

I missed that.

I loved the excitement of our new and growing love!

But I missed being "known", 

"knowing" deeply for a long, long time.

I missed that instinctual recognition and knowledge of 

    what made me tick,

        what made him tick.

Last year we moved from the home I thought 

would be the one from which I would be buried.

Oh my, how I have longed for that place 

where our love took root!

How I missed knowing all the nooks and crannies,

all the little oddities and delights of the space,

    the double kitchen sinks, 

        the funny attic doors,

            the wonderfully eccentric neighbors,

                the music in the park drifting to the deck,

                    the porch swing and fragrant wisteria,

                        being able to walk around in the dark and not stub my toe.

 

But over the last few months,

that longing has begun to change,

more and more it has become a cauldron of delightful memories

of happy, sad, loving, growing times -

of two truly becoming one -

and the house we now occupy has become home.

I love my custom-to-me kitchen with it's wide counter-top,

    our cozy bedroom with it's intimate dark, twinkling ceiling,

        the cozy nook where I can rock and look out at our birds and "mountain",

            walking around, once again, in the dark without stubbing my toe.

Remarriage from widowhood is like that.

In the early days of my marriage to my Lanny Love,

I missed being "known" well.

And I missed "knowing" well.

I relished the excitement of early love, the amusement park,

but I missed the familiar comfort and contentment of home.

I am an emotion based individual.

As such, I "feel" deeply and have a tendency to

spend too much time at the amusement park of excitement

or in the dungeon of whatever negative emotion I am feeling,

give those places too much importance.

But through the years of two great loves,

two strong marriages,

I have learned.

Home is the best place to be!

 

My Lanny Love and I are home!

We have watered and fertilized our sapling,

it has grown tall and strong with deep, wide roots.

We visit the amusement park a lot,

we each occasionally find ourselves in the darkness for a moment,

but we are home! 

I love being home!