The Land of the Living


Land of the Living 

This is how I perceived my life for much of the time since my beloved Susan left this life:

I was sure my life was over once
With a backward glance
I watched all my dreams dissolve and fall apart
Lost the thread, I dropped out of the race
When I lost my place
IN the center of her heart…

EPITAPH FOR LOVE
BETH NIELSEN-CHAPMAN

I occupied some weird and mysterious space somewhere between life and death. I got up every day and went through the motions, for all intents and purposes, a zombie with a distaste for brains. And yet throughout that time, there was some sort of flame flickering in the depths of my consciousness. I would not relent, would not submit to the darkness that I so desperately craved.

And then, as I detailed in a previous essay, my daughter-in-law told me she did not think I had a will to live. She was correct.  Wisdom and self-awareness often come in small pearls and often some time and some assembly is required. When my dear friend Bob had once asked me why my life could not be as good as when my beloved Susan was alive, I was probably not ready to hear it in my heart of hearts. But put together with my daughter-in-law’s fears, and my own low-level flame burning away, I was finally able to see what was happening.

And I have thus chosen to rejoin the land of the living.  I have decided that it is OK for me to have my own wants and desires; to live the kind of life that might bring, if not happiness, then at least contentment. It is difficult for me to explain the magnitude of this, given that for so many decades of my life, I could not even identify or specify what I might want from life. I have lived my life by and large in service if others. That is the way I was raised, and the way I was educated. To make ‘home’ with my wife and my step-kids was a life that I relished and enjoyed.

But that life is gone. The kids are grown and making their own way in the world. Susan is gone, as is my entire family of origin. As the Brits say, it’s down to me.

I have actually identified some things I’d like to do. I want to travel. I want to retrieve my music skills. I want to be a super grandpa. And I want to keep working and taking care of my customers.  So that is what I plan to do.  My health is reasonably good, and since the first of the year, I have improved my diet and have begun exercising daily. Imagine that! Acting like a real-live human being!

It was easy to be disabled by grief. It was easy to ask the rhetorical question: “What’s the Point?”.

But one need not stay in that unhealthy place. It requires some work, some self-care and some measure of courage, but as I have experienced, it is do-able.

So, I plan to travel while I can, to treat myself with the same respect and love with which I treat others and keep engaging with all my many friends and family members and enjoy whatever time I have remaining on this mortal coil.

MPC
02-15-2019

   












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