That doesn't mean one has to mope around moaning "oh man, I'm going to die some day so why even try?"
Nope. The statement I made about the reality of dying is because I have to realize that while I want to live every day to the fullest and be 86 or 94 or old enough to be a "Good morning America" birthday shout-out from the crew...the reality is that I don't want to outlive those I love. Because grieving is, in my 2¢, the most difficult journey to navigate.
This past week it truly was a frozen tundra here in my home town. So, I resorted to going through closets and drawers and tossing old "too big" clothes and filling a couple of bins with clothes to donate and books to sell. One of the "too big" clothes is an old comfy nightgown. One that my sister Dorene wore the last months of her life. Yes, it has been washed a cajillion times since those days.
I would put on that nightgown whenever life seems too painful to bear and imagine her hugging me. Thing is, I think I can let it go now, so off to the "donate" bin it goes.
That memory of her in the nightgown made me ponder on where I would be if I had truly lived a life where everyone I loved still lived. And I didn't like it one bit. Here is why:
- Would I have found home and this old house with the greatest porch to talk to God?
- Would I have returned to college and graduated summa cum laude?
- Learned how to quilt?
- Found and survived my own battle with cancer?
- Seen the Northern Lights?
- Get to see my beloved Twins up close?
- Gone to a writer's conference as a story teller, wow the crowd, win awards and then decide I truly wanted to be a lawyer?
- Packed up the aging cat and car and moved 800 miles away to follow a dream?
- Realized its true that eating healthy and exercising is not only good for one's "looks" and "health" but actually feels good?
- Spent late nights laughing with the dearest friends I could never have imagined?
- Come to appreciate my Scandinavian heritage while infusing a ton of southern charm into the living?
- Seen the whales off the coast of Nova Scotia and climb a mountain in Newfoundland?
- Would I have learned that each day I wake is another gift and if I screw it up that forgiveness is for the asking?
I have navigated several grieving journeys, and while each one is full of its own pitfalls / pain/ obstacles, I have come to learn this about myself:
I will never stop waking up each day grateful to take in those first sips of good coffee as I head to whatever "porch" is around to talk to God and get the day moving.
Mostly, no matter what grieving journey I am thrown into, volunteer for or stumble across, I will be okay.
First, gotta retrieve that old nightgown from the donate bin...
