Moving On

I like to think I am moving on, trekking through the grief, through the sorrows of losing a marriage and a husband to suicide. Some days the light is returning to life, and other days it's two steps back.

Many things factor in, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries all tug at my heart strings. The change in daylight savings time is a challenge. I need the sunlight. I dislike missing the sunset because it's gone down before I get off work. Having it dark when I get home saps my motivation.

I look at couples all the time and wonder how they do it. How do they manage to stay the course and keep the love. Now, I know I'm only looking from the outside in, so what I see may be only a partial truth.  It may not be what it appears, or it may be way more delightful than I can imagine.

The mystery is finding my way through the loss, and still trusting in the future. It's knowing I may be alone from here on out, and making peace with it. I'm not there yet. It's wishing I could have done more, and giving myself credit for all I did do. It's missing the happy man, but not the troubled mentally ill man. He is clearly in a better place, and those remaining have to create their new place in life.

I don't have the magic words for how to do that. I believe faith wraps us up in possibility, and to move on we must surrender to the loss. Acknowledge it, own it, share the pain, cry the tears. To move on we must look forward. We need to honor the past and trust in the future. We have to move, to move on. So staying stuck is not an option. It's hard, it's daunting, and it is part of surviving loss. It's taking it a day at a time, a season at a time, an experience at a time. It's moving when we can, resting when we have to and beginning again. It's as simple and as difficult as that.