B,
I love!!! the way you express your feelings!!!, TUTTAM!!! I can relate to much of what you said. I love how uplifting and positive this post is. Life will always be so over the top bittersweet, but, and this is another one of those really BIG!!! BUTS!!!, life is a gift. As TGW know all too well, a gift that can be taken from us at any second. I think of Bob 24/7, and can (almost) hear him saying to me every morning, when I wake up, "As long as I'm on the right side of the dirt, it's a good day."
I'm constantly changing and morphing into the person who I think I'm meant to become. I've learned lots about myself not only from being Bob's full time caregiver, being with him during the very worst moments of both of our lives, living through the still, over the top horrendous memories!!!, TUTTAM!!!, of his last 24 hours on earth, and most recently the over the top frightening car accident. I know I'm very fortunate to have been able to walk out of that wreck. I'm no longer the person I once was. I now value life in an entirely new way, wanting to experience so much more, saying yes to life," (thanks, Tom Zuba!!!) much more often, before it's my time to be reunited with Bob.
Tomorrow should have been our wedding anniversary, a time for celebration... A day that once was filled with so much happiness, the promise of so many wonderful adventures, special moments, still ahead of us, now filled with a sadness, a loneliness, that will NEVER!!! go away. However, unlike last year, this year I'm determined to make tomorrow a day filled with happiness, not just tears... I've been thinking about how I want to spend tomorrow. I've been invited to a Halloween party, but I'm not going. I don't feel like spending it with others, I need to be alone... If I had a car (long story, but it should be here soon), I would drive to one of our very favorite spots, one of the places that made us want to move here, and reflect on the wonderful life, that I was fortunate enough to have been able to share with Bob, my knight in shining armor...
Without a car, if Mother Nature decides to be kind to my little corner of the world, I think I'm going to take a long hike, find a place in the woods to sit, bring a small notepad and a pen, and put my thoughts into words, thoughts I wish so much I could say to Bob in person... I'm going to try to write him a poem. I don't feel like my all of my creativity has returned, but it's the first time, in such a long time, that I feel like writing. I know I'm not ready to share anything that I'm going to attempt to write, but I think it would make Bob happy if he knew I finally want to try to write again. I'm going to save this (hopefully) soon to be poem, and take it out next year, reread it, and try to keep this new tradition going.
Sadly, I still have trouble listening to music, but yesterday, my very good widowed friend and I, enjoyed a very relaxing, leisurely lunch, outside by the ocean, at a restaurant on the Island. Although it wasn't one that Bob and I had been to before, this is a step forward for me. We spent the entire afternoon on the Island, a place that I once thought I NEVER!!! would be able to go to again, without Bob (physically) with me. For the first time since Bob's death, I remembered why we fell in love with this area so many years ago... I walked along the shoreline, breathed in the ocean air, and felt a sense of calm... a sense of calm that I haven't felt in way too long a time... A sense of calm that I thought I would NEVER!!! be able to feel again..., not in this place, a place that holds so many wonderful, special memories, of times spent with Bob and my children, and times spent with just Bob...
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