In the early months and initial year following Mark’s death, when all of it seemed like a nightmare I couldn’t wake from, I ceased living and without even knowing entered the existing category. I would show up to work and social occasions with a smile and my I’m-just-fine face and act my way through until it was mercifully over. When I’d get back in the car I would collapse from the mental exhaustion of pretending that, why, of course, I’m rebuilding my life, how lovely of you to ask. In reality I wasn’t rebuilding anything as most times I’d have to give myself a pep talk in the house to go, another in the parking lot to start the car and drive home, and then in the driveway to get out and go back into the house.
There seemed to be no end in sight to the anguish of Mark’s death despite weekly therapy appointments and trial and error with meds for anxiety and depression. I had no choice but to show up in my brokenness to a life I did not recognize. When I did, people seemed genuinely happy to see me and I had no idea why. I had nothing to offer, I was depleted in every way. I devoured grief books, desperate for something to cling to in order to hold it together. In one of them I stumbled across this quote, “There will be more light upon this earth for me.” I typed it out on the notes on my phone and repeated it over and over and over throughout the day.
Therewillbemorelightuponthisearthformetherewillbemorelightuponthisearthformetherewillbemorelightuponthisearthforme.
I did not believe it, but it seemed encouraging and not patronizing, and since nothing else was working I gripped it tightly and started paying attention. This promised light started showing up in small ways – watching my grandkids which made me forget my sorrow, a garden that took off, a new job with some incredible women. It wasn’t even close to what I had but it was drops in the parched well of my life.
When a few years had passed and I started feeling a bit stronger, I decided to dip my toe in the dating pool and the light got squashed like a bug. I met someone who spent two hours telling me how he fixed his toilet, I dated a musician who reeked of weed all the time, and then there was this guy. One day I told my sister all I really wanted was another professor. “I know that world,” I said, “I’m comfortable in it, and besides those guys are really smart.” “I think you only get one of those in life,” she said. She was right, I had had my shot.
After more bad dates with some very questionable men, I said to myself, “Welp, this dating thing isn’t working and needs to go.” My life, I decided, would be as a full-time cat lady who watches true crime dramas mixed in with some decorating shows and occasional trips to Target for a bottle of wine, a candle that masked the smell of depression, and lightweight, clumping litter. I had a plan for my future, albeit a bad one. I opened the app on my phone to figure out how to get rid of it (and the monthly charges) and a face I’d never seen popped onto the screen. I read his bio and said to the cat, “Hmmmmm….. he seems interesting” He was a widower and I messaged him about this nonsense of “starting over.” We messaged back and forth for over a week until he suggested we meet in person. I told him I had no idea of the dating rules when you are of Medicare age but if he wanted to come to my house I’d make us dinner. Was this a bad idea? Of course, but it had the potential of making me the dead star of my own true crime story which seemed especially good for my blog stats.
It was on a Saturday night last September when he arrived at my house with a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers, and by the end of the night I knew that things in my life were going to be going in a different direction. They quickly did and there were aspects of it that were terrifying. When you have experienced a traumatic event in your life, it is difficult to recognize and accept happiness. I often felt like the floor beneath me was going to collapse and I’d be in free fall again. An unanswered text didn’t mean he was busy, it meant that he was dead somewhere and the police were on their way to tell me. It turns out that, like grief, moving forward with someone also requires a lot of emotional work.
Since that initial date, this lovely, kind man and I have cried together many times over our experiences of losing our spouses and how present each of them remains in our lives. We honor the sadness and the joy of our previous lives with enormous gratitude tinged occasionally with guilt for being happy. It is often overwhelming. “I think we are brave,” he said to me one night which made me cry. We are, and I have stopped worrying and wondering how long we’ll have until life has other plans. We have today.
Meet Michael. He works at the same medical center as Mark did, in the same building. He is a professor in the pathology department.
The light is blinding.
**Michael knew Mark during his years at the med center, although not well. He said he and his wife and Mark and I were at the same party once and we all talked but I have no recollection of it.**