Stories from Journeys' Readers

After thirty years of marriage, my husband Jack passed away in June, 2011.  We’d planned to be beachcombers on the Oregon coast this summer.  I love living in the motor home and retreated in the mountain near the stream with occasional trips home to keep in touch.

The usual grief process took hold of me and I could see the different stages of grief occurring.  I read three books on grieving and journaled daily, expressing my feelings and describing my activities.

Each time I went home my mind thought Jack would be there and it was difficult going through the process again of realizing he would never be there.  As fall approached I was dreading my return to our home.

In September I re-read my last six-month’s journaling and intended to discard it as I usually do.  However, I felt unready to let the words go, so I cut out parts that directed me in some way or showed me insights into the process and pasted them on colored paper.

I’d written:

“The world just keeps going and everything is the same except for the big black hole.”

“I feel like and empty peanut shell blowing in the wind with a little hard rock where my heart is.”

“It’s like I’ve been traveling and wake up and wonder where I am.”

“I just need to let the feelings flow through me, and experience this time fully.”

“My life feels like a ribbon that’s been cut into tangled pieces and I’m trying to put it back together again.”

“The grief book says to go from Jack’s presence to his memory, but I’m not ready!!  I don’t WANT to choose that now.  I don’t WANT to adapt to life without Jack.”

“I’m learning to travel alone, eat alone, be alone, I think I can CHOOSE how to view that, to see that I have choices, can do things I want, enjoy the solitude and remember the thirty years we had with gratitude knowing how very lucky I was.  Or I can choose to feel lonesome, abused, angry, deprived and uncomfortable.”

I reread my journaled statements for several days and then sat by the stream feeling more closure than I had before, knowing things are now as they are supposed to be, and that I can live a full productive life again.

I found myself writing the words, “I want to go home.”

Pat Sharp
Great Falls, MT