Craig’s Blog

Three years to the day

February 4th, 2007 at 10:41pm craig

Three years ago I lay on the bed next to Maria, my wife, holding her hand, as she slipped away from mortality. The intervening three years have been difficult and turbulent years for me as I have grappled with deal with life without her.

The first year actually passed very quickly and with little difficulty. Her brave struggle with stomach cancer had occupied the bulk of the previous two years but we knew from the outset that the prospects were not good. In addition in a strange way I had been granted an insight many years before I even met Maria that I would lose my first wife and end up getting remarried. So while her death was a very sad time for me, I was blessed with a calm peace that this was a natural part of my life that I needed to go through. As such I had expected to find another companion relatively soon and for my life to naturally move on. The first year was also a busy one with moving over to the USA and going back to college.

Then just before the first anniversary of her death a close neighbor lost her husband unexpectedly. They had two daughters friends with my own oldest daughter. It was a poignant reminder of the experiences I had gone through the year before. As I attended his funeral and burial services I was filled grief, not for him, but for the lost of my own Maria (I remember feeling guilty about that at the time). It was the first time since her passing that I had really grieved for her.

The second year onward was a lot more difficult to bear. Gone was the feeling this was a natural transition in my life. In came the feeling of why had I not found another companion yet, some one to fill the void left in my life. Some one to love and be loved by. I almost felt abandoned and it was a struggle to solider on and deal with the challenges life brought.

This last year has been another turbulent year for me with much heart ache. One that has seen me risk all and lose all for the sake of love. (But that is another story for another time. This story is about my feelings relating to Maria.) As the anniversary of Maria’s death approached my mind has wondered how I would cope. Would I fall back in to grieving? In January another neighbor lost his wife who left behind her three young children and my heart went out to him. Again I anticipated that event generating deep feeling of grief again as I remembered my own very similar circumstances.

As today has come and gone, however, I have remained fairly composed and almost distant from my feelings. True there has been feelings of sadness and reflection but the grieving was not there. Instead just a contemplation on where life has led me these past three years and how much I have missed Maria and what she had meant to me.

When Maria passed I had felt ready to move on straight away, to find new companionship. But now I wonder if I really was ready. Was there an important process I had to go through? I do not know the answer to that, but what I do know is that I am glad the grieving is over. Perhaps now I am really able to move on.

Entry Filed under: General