Let Memory Lighten Grief

I will be on a short hiatus on iPhonePhotoMaven and AnotherBoomerBlog.  Just long enough to screw my head on straight again.

In November of 2012 my former husband suffered a massive stroke while in South Africa. His SO ever so kindly did not inform me until well after the fact. In fact, she chose to remove him from supportive medical care. I had to involve the American Embassy. Subsequently, he suffered a heart attack and died. I do not know how competent he was at the time of his death. I pray he did not suffer. I fear that he was terrified and in pain.

I will never understand why he did what he did ~ ultimately, I don’t have to understand ~ that is between him and his Higher Power.

I do ask all of you who love or have loved someone, even if they are unloving towards you, even if you are angry, to remember that life is very, very short. I’ve lost so many people in my life – my beloved mother who died before my daughter was born, my Dad to extreme old age. I now have a clean sweep – there is no one I can look to in order to share early memories. I can’t even have a fight with them.

It’s like looking back at a minefield with bodies lying everywhere. It is like going through a war and realizing you are the last person standing – your squad is all gone. All the people you faced the world with are gone – like a puff of smoke. You find yourself on your knees trying to pick up pieces of people.

So look at your wife or husband or lover and realize what a great gift you have.  Even if they are being a jerk right now.  Because when they’re gone they are gone forever. Extinction: Forever – and there will never be any more.  Maybe some of you are happy an abuser is gone.  I hope you have someone else who was not an abuser to hold close and remember “when.”

Below are virtually the last words I said to my husband.  Consider them today and each and every day you see someone you love – or think you used to love – that brother or sister or parent you’re estranged from, that significant other you’d like to club, that adult child you’re frustrated with.

You might be surprised how everything else dies, but love never dies. And those who you think you’re so angry with are only people you’re angry with because down there is heap of hurt and loss and love.  If you didn’t love, you wouldn’t care at all, would you?