February had some brutally cold days and I was not able to clean up the graveside for Les’ birthday until March. It’s been over 7 years. I still kiss the headstone each time I go, I still miss him and I still cry. But life continues moving. A few months after he died, I met a woman who had lost two husbands. Another widow told me shortly after her husband died that she wanted to and planned to remarry. I found it shocking that she could be so brave and so confident in her decision. I was equally the opposite- I was not about to risk such heartbreak again. I felt more like Charles Dickens’ Miss Havisham. In Great Expectations, Amelia Havisham’s heart is broken when she is left at the altar. She is crippled by the weight of her loss and the grief causes her to pretty much cease living. She stops the clocks in her house and wears her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She stayed tethered to the past.
After years of experience, education and counseling, I now understand that it is OK to move on from the past, live in the present and plan for the future. It is possible to be complete with loss. That does not mean that sadness never returns or that the loss is forgotten. It means not letting the past keep me from pursuing new opportunities. It means freedom from guilt, pain and regrets in order to be able to experience joy, peace, and pleasure. It means that even though I wish he were still alive and that we were still married, it is right to continue to live. It is being able to live unconstrained by grief, even allowing myself the freedom to love again.