Invisible Growth and Healing

Three hundred fifty.  Three hundred and fifty days since Tom died.  It feels like yesterday but almost an entire year has gone by.  A year ago he was in the hospital with pulmonary embolisms.  It was his last hospitalization.  It was an agonizing time.  But interestingly, whenever I would walk into his hospital room, a calmness would come over me.  It felt as if spirit infused his room, and looking back I believe that indeed that was the case, I just didn't realize it at the time.

I've worked hard to move through this grieving process.  I have come a very long way but I have a very very long way to go.  I'm tired of this.  I had a great respite over the holidays but I still I am tired.  I am struggling with things that I was struggling with months ago.  I made progress but I feel like I am going backwards.  I guess that is just the way it goes.  I have to remember "baby steps" but right now I feel like I'm wearing concrete boots.  My body is processing something--I know because my memory is not good and my body is really tired.  It is a pattern I've come to know this last year.

But there is one thing that I haven't lost, and that is hope.  Hope for a happy future.  Hope for a time when I don't feel so terribly weighted down.  Last evening I met my spousal loss bereavement group for our monthly dinner.  It is amazing that this group of people has continued to come together over the last 10 months and support each other through this.  As we sat around the dinner table talking about dating (one member has jumped back in that pool, the rest of us are not there) one member remarked that we should look how far we have come.  Ten months ago we couldn't even consider this conversation.  I look forward to continuing to share my process with these very special people, none of whom I would have ever met had I not become a widow.  And we have scheduled our February get together on Valentines Day.  It is an absolutely brilliant idea.  I can not think of a better way to spend it!

So there is growth, and healing over the last three hundred and fifty days, but most of it feels invisible to me.  It is only in hindsight that one can truly see and measure the changes.  I know that the next few weeks will be really difficult.  I cannot force myself to do the things that I know I need to do and it frustrates me.  Baby steps, again.