Hope

Spring is the time of new beginnings….rebirth….when light returns and awakens the earth and its people.  For me, it’s always been the season of mud and rain…of trying to fit more chores into a schedule that already is overloaded (adding outdoor to indoor)….of allergies and time change….nothing special, really.  (I’m totally a fall girl!)

 

But this year, I’m seeing Spring in a new way – of earth’s reawakening and light…of new beginnings. Of hope.  Hope.  In the dead of winter, I passed the six month mark of Mike’s passing.  It was not an easy one. I’m not sure why six months is so hard….my counselor says that it is the mark where people expect you to be “done” with your grief. It’s where they think you should be “over it” and moving on (and obviously these people have never lost anyone important to them or they couldn’t feel that way).  So, I passed six months in full grief….sad and lost and railing at the unfairness of it all and how my life has changed so dramatically. 

 

But slowly as the days passed into (official, though it didn’t actually feel like it) spring, something in me began to change a little….light began to seep back in.  I began to feel lighter, finding more joy in the days….and then something else: hope.  I felt hope again. I am not sure I can describe how amazing that actually feels….the buoyancy and warmth of hope.  Hope for the future….the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  Not that there is an end of grief; on the contrary, I believe it’s a load you carry all of your days.  It just gets easier to carry, and that is not something you are sure will happen.  But it does.  And you can see a life lived more in contentment and light than in darkness and loss. 

 

The hard part is reconciling that with the depth of your loss. It in no way diminishes it; it in no way means you have or are forgetting; it in no way means the loss means any less or changed your life any differently.

It merely means your heart is healing….it is putting you back together, no longer with tape and glue, but now with love and strength and grit and courage. It is binding the pieces of your heart back together…not into what it once was, as you are forever changed.  But into something new, something better, something stronger and bigger.  I think we feel things more deeply after such a loss - our firsthand knowledge of the frailty and fleetingness of life makes our appreciation for its joys so much keener. 

 

And that is where I find myself now as I pass the eight month mark of my new and changed life.  Hopeful. I see the possibilities in my new life now, instead of only what I am missing. I see that I deserve light and joy and love and laughter, and that life is too short for me not to grab those things every single day.  

 

My grief persists, as I said, it’s a lifelong companion.  But the times of despair and overwhelming sadness are fewer….the moments of appreciation for what I had greater.  And it’s a wonderful feeling, truly – because I really was so lucky to have what I had when I had it. I celebrate that, I am so grateful for it.  I use that gratitude to grab love and joy and laughter.  I truly believe that Mike would not want me to spend my life sad and mourning all the time. He would want me to be happy, he would want me to make our children happy, he would want us to all laugh and love and enjoy our time here.  What better way to honor the love he gave us? I can’t think of a finer way. 

 

So, welcome, Spring….welcome light….welcome rebirth…awakening of the earth and her people….and, especially, welcome hope. I’ve missed you.  Stay a while, won’t you? 

 

 

"Once you choose hope, anything is possible." - Christopher Reeve