Five days from now will be the second anniversary of my husband’s death. The reality of it is starting to sink in. I don’t think anyone can comprehend what losing your life partner is like unless you’ve been through it. I experienced my grandparents passing when I was younger. I watched my parents pass away in 2009 and 2012. But none of that prepared me for losing my husband.

We were married for 37 years, had raised 3 children, and we’d been through all kind’s of high’s and low’s together. Everything we did revolved around each other and our family. We worked toward goals together and weathered storms together. We fought and struggled but were always loyal and faithful to each other and our ideals.

Even while he was sick with cancer I could not imagine what I would experience after he was gone. Grief has no timeline, it can’t be measured, quantified or qualified. It is whatever it is for the person going through it.

After two years it feels more difficult and painful than it did in the beginning. I think there was a period of shock at first. I believe I was experiencing fight, flight and freeze all at once. Possibly even denial on some level. Now I feel a sense of reality is returning and it’s unsetteling. There is no such thing as normal and I don’t think there ever has been. I just have to find my way through this.

Releasing Pain Creatively

Feeling overwhelmed with sadness this morning I decided to express my pain through a collage. I had no plan, I just sensed it would help me. As I found the images and put them together I began to feel calmer. I could not have painted or drawn an image like the one above because the images are found not imagined or planned. Collage is magical like that, the found images and objects stimulate the creative expression. I could not have expressed my feelings better in any other way.

I started the collage with the thought of grief on my mind, and even named it that before I selected the first image. I felt a sense of release and relief after creating it. The strange thing is, this coming week’s Intuitive Collage prompt word is “Released”. It’s as if my subconscious mind wanted me to release some of the feelings of grief that are surfacing now at this 2 year anniversary.

Supported

Last week the collage prompt was “Supported”. Since my husband passed away the cycle of life, including death, is much more obvious. Our fate is to be born, to live, and to die and everything exists in support of this process. The “living” part is the only part we have an influence over. We get to choose how, and where, and what we are living for. Even if our choices are limited by external factors, we still have a choice of how to relate to those limitations. We decide the kind of person we want to be.

I see that life is designed to support us, and we are designed to support each other and our environment. I’ve always felt that angels or spirit beings are helping me, and nature grounds and recharges me. Life is fragile and beautiful while being relentlessly resiliant because it’s designed to be a supportive inter-dependent system of relationships.