Beautiful piece of writing. My wife died three years ago of brain aneurysm. One day she got dizzy, sat down on a bench, and never got up again. Our three year old was with her. The other two were at kindergarten and second grade.
It's interesting that your friends think that you are even more of who you were before, even though certain parts of that person are gone forever. The parts that were from the before times, the parts that were in that relationship with that man that you loved, those parts have been shed. And the memories that you shared with those old people when you were in your 20s, that shared memory is gone forever.
There's a saying that when a person dies, a library burns. So much that I relied on her I needed to figure out. I call it being part of the unchosen single parent club. It's more than that because that shared identity that we had made together was abruptly cut off.
Figuring out who I had become, I actually found to be really life affirming. I was a new person and it was clear that I was a better person. I was a couple years older than you are, but it did feel like it would have been time to have a shedding and rebirth anyway that was triggered by this experience but somehow distinct from it.
Looking back, the experience was actually kind of fun. Fun like running a marathon is fun or like a long hike camping in the rain and eating terrible food, shivering around the fire is fun. Fun when you look back at it and fun in the sense that you're glad you had that experience but pretty miserable any given moment of the time when it was actually happening.
What really worked for me was to go deep into any of the feelings that were happening, not avoiding them, but really trying to inhabit them fully and learn whatever they were trying to teach me or witness whatever it was that I was seeing. Writing is super helpful, though I didn't publish anything. I just woke up at four o'clock in the morning and let out whatever was itching in my mind onto the page and just getting everything out. That was my process of mourning the person who I used to be, trying to discover the new and frankly better person that I had become.
Enjoy the little one. People always surprised that I was able to get up out of bed and do stuff. And I would reply that you pretty much have to get up out of bed when three little kids have crawled in and kick you in the head squirming around. New life. It's so fun to watch as they explore and discover the world and you get to do it again through their eyes.
I learned a tremendous amount and there's one bit of advice that I could pass on, it's always be kind to yourself.
Beautiful piece of writing. My wife died three years ago of brain aneurysm. One day she got dizzy, sat down on a bench, and never got up again. Our three year old was with her. The other two were at kindergarten and second grade.
It's interesting that your friends think that you are even more of who you were before, even though certain parts of that person are gone forever. The parts that were from the before times, the parts that were in that relationship with that man that you loved, those parts have been shed. And the memories that you shared with those old people when you were in your 20s, that shared memory is gone forever.
There's a saying that when a person dies, a library burns. So much that I relied on her I needed to figure out. I call it being part of the unchosen single parent club. It's more than that because that shared identity that we had made together was abruptly cut off.
Figuring out who I had become, I actually found to be really life affirming. I was a new person and it was clear that I was a better person. I was a couple years older than you are, but it did feel like it would have been time to have a shedding and rebirth anyway that was triggered by this experience but somehow distinct from it.
Looking back, the experience was actually kind of fun. Fun like running a marathon is fun or like a long hike camping in the rain and eating terrible food, shivering around the fire is fun. Fun when you look back at it and fun in the sense that you're glad you had that experience but pretty miserable any given moment of the time when it was actually happening.
What really worked for me was to go deep into any of the feelings that were happening, not avoiding them, but really trying to inhabit them fully and learn whatever they were trying to teach me or witness whatever it was that I was seeing. Writing is super helpful, though I didn't publish anything. I just woke up at four o'clock in the morning and let out whatever was itching in my mind onto the page and just getting everything out. That was my process of mourning the person who I used to be, trying to discover the new and frankly better person that I had become.
Enjoy the little one. People always surprised that I was able to get up out of bed and do stuff. And I would reply that you pretty much have to get up out of bed when three little kids have crawled in and kick you in the head squirming around. New life. It's so fun to watch as they explore and discover the world and you get to do it again through their eyes.
I learned a tremendous amount and there's one bit of advice that I could pass on, it's always be kind to yourself.
The cruel beauty of your words is just shattering. May sweetness and peace find you with the same singularity of purpose.