It was Sunday, April 28th, 1974, that Kathy and I were married. We were married in our church in Prescott AZ on a Sunday night.
Kathy died 10 years ago. The pastor who married us has died also. Those are two of the reasons why I do not live there anymore.
Life has moved on for me.
The collapse of the Key bridge in Baltimore reminds me a lot of the collapse of my life when my wife died. No one woke up expecting a ship to hit the bridge that day. The ship hit the bridge and it came down fast. The collapse was catastrophic. And the rebuilding cannot begin until hundreds of tons of debris are removed. This is a process that will take a month to clear out and will take years to rebuild.
Kathy’s death was an unexpected shock to me. I knew she was sick, but I had no idea she was life threateningly sick. When she died, I was numb for a while, but the pain and anguish came on me suddenly and I was not prepared for how hard it all hit me. The effect on my life was to hurt me to the core of my being. Everything in my life was shaken to the bedrock of my soul.
It took a long time for me to emerge from the fog of grief. It has taken years to get beyond the heart break of grief. And the life that has emerged is not the life that I had before she died. I am still me, but things have changed. Changing my address was just the latest thing in a long series of changes for me.
I am beginning to take root where I am. I have good friends here. I still have old friends there. I have regained the ability to dream, and to make plans for the future. I can laugh again.
I have found that the only way to lose is to quit.
This subject has come to my mind before and it has risen again in my thoughts. The idea is, why is so much of the grief literature aimed at women and so little for the benefit of men.
What came to my mind recently is the idea that men do not need help. Men are strong and capable. Their job is to protect and provide. They figure things out, they get things done. Also, men are stoic in their emotional makeup. Men don’t cry. Men don’t fall apart emotionally.
This is all fine until men encounter something that is beyond their ability to overcome, such as the death of their spouse. When a part of you is torn away and it is not a clean break. When the jumbled-up cloud of emotions ambushes you, or you weep uncontrollably. When you feel alone and lonely and there is no obvious solution. Those times when you tell people you are fine, and you are lying.
There is no solution to this. The literature that I have read on men grieving focuses on remarriage. I was forced to explore the available resources and get what I could. I am beyond grief now, but I am not who I used to be. My new normal actually seems to be normal now.
From time to time, I think about my move to where I am. Did I do the right thing, did I make a big mistake, etc. And every time I reach the same conclusion. Moving here was the best thing that I could have done. Is it perfect here? Not really. But since you have to live somewhere, here is good enough.
I have reached a point, after living here for three years, that I am surprised when I am still surprised by people or things in this new location. Someone will do something, or I will notice a strange new attitude, or I will read about a new place, or someone will reminisce about things that I know nothing about, and I will be surprised that I am still finding out things that I never knew.
I may never be an expert about this place. I may never learn all that there is to know about these people. But year after year I am becoming more comfortable living in this strange new world.
To add a new wife into this mix might be more than I could handle. To learn a new family and a new person on top of a new city and a new state, might be more than this old heart of mine could take.
So, I keep both eyes open, and my mouth shut, as I try to take in all the strange, new things that this world has to offer.
It was April 28, 1974 that Kathy and I were married. So, this year, 2024, would have marked 50 years of marriage for us. Unfortunately, Kathy died 10 years ago. She didn’t quite make it.
I also noticed that this year our wedding anniversary falls on the same day that we were married on. We were married on a Sunday back then. April 28th is a Sunday again this year.
I wish Kathy were here to celebrate this milestone. But she isn’t. I have moved on in life. But the memories will never fade for me.
There are times when I think it would be good for me to find someone and get married again. My wife has died but I am still a man and I can still appreciate a pretty face. I miss having someone to talk to and someone to share my life with. I still think that if the right person comes along I will respond.
I also have noticed something while talking to my widowed friends who have married again. They tell me that they are happy, but I sense that all is not a bed of roses. There is a definite sense that this current relationship is fine, but it is not the one that they have lost. Also, it seems odd to me now how men cater to their wives about everything, and the focus of their lives is their wives.
The end result seems to me that marriage is a good thing, but I am okay not being married right now. I was married to Kathy for 40 years. Maybe that was enough. Maybe adjusting my life to accommodate another wife is too much to ask of me. Maybe the prize is not worth the price that I have to pay to please and protect a woman anymore. Learning a new history and a new personality is a daunting task that I may not be up to.
I seem to have reached an age where it is not unusual to hear that someone has died. Most of my life was lived without having to deal with death. But since Kathy died I either have become more aware of death around me, or people my age and older are coming to the end of their natural lives at a faster pace than before.
Tonight, we have a memorial service for a lady who recently died. Last night I found out that a man that I used to know has died. I don’t want to seem dark and foreboding, but none of us lives very long.
My mother is the only living adult in my life and she is 89 years old. On days like this I feel older than I am. I am not afraid of death, and hearing of the death of others does not put me in fear. I am sure that it takes more than diet and exercise to live long.
Ageing, I am finding out, has its own unique set of challenges. It is too bad that there are not better resources to help us through the end of life. There is more to retirement than money.
Have you ever seen a total solar eclipse? I have seen eclipses over the years. The eclipse happening today will track just to the north of where I live so I do not have to travel to see it. However, the weather is not cooperating, and it will probably be cloudy as the eclipse happens. It will still get suddenly dark for a few minutes, but there will be very slim chances of looking through special glasses to see the shadow cross the sun.
As I get older it gets harder for me to get excited about anything. There is very little left in life that I could do and that I haven’t done yet. This is a part of aging that no one prepared me for. My examples in life seem to be people just doing over and over what they are good at or what they have already done many times. For some, the biggest challenge left in life has to do with doctors and pills and ailments.
I read about old folks who go back and get a college degree and I wonder, now what? I know old folks who are learning to play a musical instrument and I wonder, why? I wonder today if old King Solomon was right; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
I used to think that social media was ruining society. I thought it was turning a generation of young people’s minds into mush. I thought that only socially inept or weak people would fall for the lies on Instagram. I was only partly right.
Social media today is the same as movies or television was in the past. Media works because some very smart people realized that human behavior could be influenced or manipulated by visual stimulus. People’s fashion sense or buying preferences could be manipulated and human nature could be exploited for financial gain. The love of money really is a root from which all kinds of evil schemes are hatched.
Young people today who have no strong foundations are easily manipulated by Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. Weak or immoral people are easily influenced to do whatever those behind the curtain want them to do. They think life is about content creation and views, while loneliness is sweeping millions of people into despair.
The answer is not as simple as unplug your TV or get a dumb phone. We all need a change of heart and a new mind. Only in Christ will you find what you are looking for. Before you throw your life away, give it to Jesus Christ. He is the answer to a sin weary world.
I had a great time enjoying Easter dinner with family and friends yesterday. I still remember those dark days when I spent every holiday and birthday alone. The loneliness of grief is one of the hardest things that I went through after my wife died.
Moving here was a hard decision that has turned out to be the best thing that I could have done. I hope my life will get easier as time goes by. I know that I have some big decisions still to make in years to come, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it, and not a day before.
Planning is important to living a peaceful life. For me, I cannot thrive in an environment where everything is last minute, or spur of the moment. Most of the time, I would rather do nothing than to drop everything and do something right now.
Finally, I have given up inviting people to my home to visit. It is rare that anyone knocks on my door to visit me. I invite, they may even say yes, but they never come. I am a better guest than host evidently.
My Journey Through Grief And Beyond 