On the flight back from Christmas vacation in Colorado with Mike, I was hitting the back button on my portable CD player to hear "Take My Hand" just one more time as I feverishly scribbled a journal entry describing my overwhelming desire to start a new life with Mike in Colorado. We fell in love with Colorado the first time we went there; on this, our second trip, we made our nuptial vows with the state. I was excitedly writing about the decision, describing my trepidation and fears of leaving my home state of Ohio and all my friends and family. Yet, I reported in this journal entry, I knew this was something that would make the quality of our lives better. We wanted to live there. It was our nirvana.
"Take My Hand" hummed an air of mystery and excitement that I was feeling for the unknown future. For the first time in my life, I felt I was headed on a road into something less secure than I ever knew. I was alive with this feeling. I made analogies to the original settlers of the West, to conquering the great mysterious frontier. If you've ever been to Colorado, you know that it still feels like the old west out there in many ways. It feels unconquered, wild, and it invites new settlers to its enchanted lands. I fancied myself a pioneer, arriving there on my wagon with my husband in arm, ready to take on the trials of making a life in a new settlement in a wild part of the country.
There are a very few times in my life where I feel "called" to do something. Going to Hiram was one of those moments. The first time I set foot on that campus, my soul tingled with the foreknowledge that this was the place where I had to go to school. Not everyone gets this sort of emotional response about where they choose to attend school. They are more practical, selecting by major or location or affordability. It wasn't like that for me. Major decisions in my life are always led by "gut feelings." When I'm on my mark, when I'm full of life, I'm in tune enough with myself that I can feel what I need to do. I felt like that about Colorado too.
Of course you're saying, "But you came back!"
Yes. Because by the time I did finally move to Colorado, my husband was dead and the moment was gone. I was following the echo of an expired call and it misled me in that moment. My ears were deaf to the calls urging me at that time, those that probably told me all the reasons I had to stay in Ohio. I needed to heal. But in the first wave of grief, you struggle to put together the pieces of the life you had, as if you can just continue with it sans the one you love. Grief is the refusal to look at the facts of how your life has unalterably changed. Grief is trying desperately to hold all of the shattered pieces of your old life, struggling to put it all back together with crazy glue (and crazy being the operative word), while pieces are sliding through your fingers and embracing arms. It takes a long time to learn that you have to let go of that old life, define a new one, and begin creating it.
This morning, I pulled out a bunch of CDs to listen to on the way to work and I grabbed No Angel. I purposely listened to "Take My Hand" to see if I could recapture any of that old feeling. After Mike died, this song made me cry because I could still see myself in that airplane seat, scribbling that journal entry with inspired fury. I could still taste the hope in that memory. Through anger and undulating sadness, I looked back at that memory and burned with envy for the moment in my life when anything seemed possible.
The song doesn't phase me in the least anymore. It's a great song and I still love it. But the melody doesn't vibrate beneath my skin, calling me home to my nirvana like it used to. I look at the memory of myself on that plane ride home as though I'm watching an actor in the play of someone else's life. I'm separate from it. The song no longer echoes the old call.
Yet, there's something still familiar in that song. Something on the tip of my senses that reminds me of who I was in that period of time. It's like remembering an instance of my childhood. Vague feelings of desire tingle the veins in my arms--not enough to raise goosebumps, just enough to stir the vestiges of those lost feelings.
I'm letting go and I can feel it. Time continues to pass and my life is diverging further and further from what I was with him. It's neither good nor bad; it's different and it's the way it is. As the years between my life with him and my life without him widen, I find myself loosening my grip on those pieces of that old life and feeling less emotional about doing so. It's becoming natural. In the beginning, I would have barbecued anyone alive with my eyes for telling me that this would happen. I needed to ease into it myself. Time heals open wounds.
Not that the wounds can't be prodded from time to time. My empathy is still connected closely to the raw emotion of loss. I feel it when I watch a movie in which a character dies or someone I know is going through loss. Grief can slam into me at unexpected moments (other songs that still evoke emotion). I embrace it for moments--examine it, understand it, live it, love it, hate it, cry with it. But I know how to let it go when it is not being productive to my empathetic responses, when it is too closely influencing my thoughts and pulling me back under. I couldn't do that years ago. Now, I can feel it and let it go.
It's really hard for me to write these words. I don't want to admit to them. I don't want others to think I've "moved on" (oh, how I hate, hate, hate that term). I've learned to live with it. I've let go of its negative aspects. In a way, I guess, I have moved on (though I will slap you if you use that term with me).
Grief did one good thing to me: it taught me to love deeper, live stronger, feel deeply. It made me much more compassionate than I ever could be. That scar will always be there. It will help me help others, even if I never do anything other than assist people in hospice or as a pastoral care associate in my church. However, grief will no longer hold me down and keep me from hearing a new calling.
It's a weird experience to watch your fingers slackening hold on the pieces of a life you hold so dear and, most importantly, to realize that you've come to a place where it doesn't hurt to let them drop to the floor. "Take My Hand" no longer angers me. I identify the song in a nostalgic way that reminds me of a period in my life. Like when I listen to that song from high school that reminds me of a guy I had a horrible crush on ("Joy Ride" by Roxette), or that song from college my friends and I ravenously danced to for stress relief ("My Sharona" by the Knack). It's an interesting piece of my history that causes reflection on a warm spot in my life, but I know I can't go back to it so there's no sense it letting it hurt me.
I pray that Mike does not hate me for letting go. I hope that he doesn't feel I've forgotten him or our love. I pray that he knows I will always love him, that a piece of my heart is always occupied by him. Because of him, I've grown. Because of his death, I've continued to grow. It's the contradicting duality we widows hate to admit to, but experience nonetheless. I pray that Mike sees how I've changed and embraces it. I hope he's proud of how I've decided to turn the tragedy of his death into a positive reality for me in my future work with the hospice and my church. Though I've started to put together a new life of my own, I do not forget from where I've come. He's helped shape the foundation of what I've started, but now I'm molding my life into something all my own. I pray he understands the goodness in all this. I'm sure he wouldn't want me to live the sorrow of his loss forever; at the same time, I don't want him to mourn the loss of my devotion. But I can't keep him close when we're separated by these realms of life and death. I'm alive and I have to submit to life.
"Take My Hand" by Dido
Touch my skin, and tell me what you're thinking
Take my hand and show me where we're going
Lie down next to me, look into my eyes and tell me,
Oh tell me what you're seeing
So sit on top of the world and tell me how you're feeling
What you feel now is what I feel for you
Take my hand and if I'm lying to you
I'll always be alone
If I'm lying to you
See my eyes, they carry your reflection
Watch my lips and hear the words I'm telling you
Give your trust to me and look into my heart and show me,
Show me what you're doing
So sit on top of the world and tell me how you're feeling
What you feel now is what
I feel for you
Take my hand and if I'm lying to you
I'll always be alone
If I'm lying to you
Take your time, if I'm lying to you
I know you'll find that you believe me
You believe me
Feel the sun on your face and tell me what you're thinking
Catch the snow on your tongue and show me how it tastes
Take my hand and if I'm lying to you
I'll always be alone
If I'm lying to you
Take your time, if I'm lying to you
I know you'll find that you believe me
You believe me
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