The Whys of This. . .
Even though it should be pretty obvious now that the story ends with Her dying in 2001, you might be wondering why I'm writing this now. Over the past several years I've had a few additional experiences which have assured me of a few things.
The first is that no matter what, I will never actually get over her or this. Over beers with a married friend one night I brought her up again. He asked "You're never going to get over her?". I asked him "Would you ever get over your wife?" I'm not sure he really had thought about it before, but I saw the look in his eye as he said "No." The look behind his eyes was one I understood. The final bit of this realization actually happened a year and a half after She passed. My grandmother died. She was 93 and it wasn't an unexpected event. We went to the funeral. She was to be buried next to her daughter who died in the mid '60s of a bad case of pneumonia. It was in her first year of marriage. Her husband showed up at Grandma's funeral. It was a nice gesture. After everyone left, a few of us stuck around the grave to make sure things got wrapped up before we went for lunch. I turned around saw the husband (the man who would have been my uncle) break down and cry at his dead wife's grave. This was three and a half decades later. I now know exactly what I have to look forward to.
The second thing I realized is that I will always be meeting people with similar experiences. This was driven home this past fall. I essentially volunteer teaching 11 to 12 year old kids. This past fall I discovered that one of my students, a young one at 10, had recently lost her best friend to cancer.
It took a little too long to realize that is not something I will ever actually get over, but only something I can work to live with. But, now that I'm there, I'm going to share my probably unique story in the hope that it will help others to live with their losses.
The first is that no matter what, I will never actually get over her or this. Over beers with a married friend one night I brought her up again. He asked "You're never going to get over her?". I asked him "Would you ever get over your wife?" I'm not sure he really had thought about it before, but I saw the look in his eye as he said "No." The look behind his eyes was one I understood. The final bit of this realization actually happened a year and a half after She passed. My grandmother died. She was 93 and it wasn't an unexpected event. We went to the funeral. She was to be buried next to her daughter who died in the mid '60s of a bad case of pneumonia. It was in her first year of marriage. Her husband showed up at Grandma's funeral. It was a nice gesture. After everyone left, a few of us stuck around the grave to make sure things got wrapped up before we went for lunch. I turned around saw the husband (the man who would have been my uncle) break down and cry at his dead wife's grave. This was three and a half decades later. I now know exactly what I have to look forward to.
The second thing I realized is that I will always be meeting people with similar experiences. This was driven home this past fall. I essentially volunteer teaching 11 to 12 year old kids. This past fall I discovered that one of my students, a young one at 10, had recently lost her best friend to cancer.
It took a little too long to realize that is not something I will ever actually get over, but only something I can work to live with. But, now that I'm there, I'm going to share my probably unique story in the hope that it will help others to live with their losses.
posted by Sad Survivor at 9:25 PM
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