Who says time machines don’t exist? Say that to a widowed person, and they’ll beg to differ.
One thing I never knew about widowhood: triggers. I knew certain dates, like anniversaries and holidays would hurt.
But things like skimming past writings and journal entries I’ve scribbled when he was alive, visiting a restaurant we used to frequent, hearing a song, even a visit to the ocean sends me back in time to the time he was sick, to the time he was on hospice and passed away next to the bed I lay in every night.
They’re there, and unless I make an intergalactic move, I’m stuck here facing these triggers that pop up like whack-a-mole.
Being sucker punched by something that isn’t even living is hard to live with. Since I can’t bulldoze the restaurant in our city we would eat at, I avoid them. But it only lasts so long.
I will drive by there again. I will hear that song again. And I will somehow end up at the beach following a dinner with a friend.
Facing them again, this time when you’re ready, requires a huge amount of self awareness.
Sometimes I’m just not ready. Sometimes I am. The only way to know is to try.
I tried a few weeks ago. Went to a restaurant that was one of our favorites with a dear friend of mine. She and I ate in a different area, had tapas and sangria, and it felt…wonderful.
In fact, I thought of him not at all. I simply enjoyed our food and our drinks and swapped stories of life together.
What I left with was a wonderful experience and a new cognitive connection. That place, where we discussed his firm’s policies on disability leave right on the heels of his diagnosis had become a safe place where I could freely speak about my life without the very man who sat 20 feet away, telling me we would get through it so many years ago.
We did. I did.
It may be one place, but it was one that now has more than the memories of a man passed. Memories of connection, acceptance, laughter and disbelief at our lives as widowed mothers.
I can plan and prepare for the obvious triggers, but sometimes – just sometimes – we’re able to visit that one place used to be ours and then, after a time, make it just mine. 💙