Me, alone. Life after loss.
Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.
~ Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
I don't know about you, but I don't often sit for a while to think. This past year, thinking is something I have often tried to avoid. Thinking is what brought all those feelings I wrote about earlier, sorrow, guilt, and anger.
I have learned throughout my life that if you have a healthy mind, you are responsible for how you react to whatever happens in your life. I knew crying would be OK, but I didn't want thoughts about Errol in ICU to keep repeating in my mind, over and over again. Last year, after the funeral, after family and friends left, after I was alone uninvited thoughts would come into my mind. I would start to relive all the horrors of Errol's last year and I did not want to.
When images of him in that ICU bed would come, I would tell him to go away. I would even ask him to please go and come back in October, a safe several months away, hoping I would be better able to deal with it all by then.
To change the subject a little, it has been interesting to observe myself this past year. I had no time to think of myself or my thoughts for several years. Now that I could, I realized that facing old age alone would give me a chance to observe, without distractions, my feelings and thoughts on this process, so scary to many. Is it to me? Not sure yet.
