I can admit it. I do a lot of complaining. I've heard people say you become selfish in times of trouble. In times of grief. As much as I don't like to admit it, I know in many ways I have. When the need strikes it strikes. And it hurts that people are not always there and waiting for you. Kurt would have been.... That they can't drop their lives to tend to mine. Kurt would have...
Often times its frightening. The intensity of the emotions which strikes with little warning, when you least expect it, when there's no one there to help. Its isolating. And yes, its lonely.
But that does not mean I am always alone....
People tend to focus on what is absent rather than what is present. I don't think I'm unique there - I believe that is a general trend amongst many. So while I bemoan those who have disappeared, or who for whatever reason remain silent, I fail to give equal attention to the other side.
I know I am not always alone as I feel. There are many people throughout the last year and a half that have held me up when I couldn't stand on my own.
First off, there is an amazing online community of people much like myself - young men and women who have lost their spouses while still in the prime of their life. Its an underworld of sorts - you don't know it exists until you need it. Until you search it out. Until they catch wind of you and bring you in... But they are always there nonetheless. They are my 3 a.m. go-to support. My "no one will understand this but you". My voice to vent when I think the "real" world has gone haywire. My place to cry when the intensity of the emotions are too much for even me. And as they stretch in numbers around the world, I know they are always there. Their hugs are virtual, but plentiful. And their doors never close. I don't believe I have ever before been an indebted to a group of virtual strangers, nor that I have ever felt as close to someone I have not met as I do many of them. They know more secrets than most people I see on a daily basis. They have seen parts of my soul I'm not sure I even knew existed. Though strangers, they are my friends.
Then there are those in my every day. People I have known since I was a child. People I met just last week. These are the people who drive across town to respond to my desperate plea. Who receive my desperate text messages when I don't know what I feel. Who watch my son when I need to go and visit my husband. Who sit with me when I am either afraid or unwilling to be alone. Their hugs are physical. They have held me when I cried. They have felt my tears. They don't have all the answers, and may never have felt the pain. But when I need them, when I am brave enough to open up and let it out, they are there. And when they are unable to be there in person, they are still silently offering their support from the sidelines - the relief player ready to jump in when needed, when called upon.
John Donne told us that "No man is an island." I feel like one. Floating alone, surrounded by an ocean fuelled by my sadness, by my tears. But I know there are people, on life rafts, always near by, ready to pick me up should I fall in or start to drown.
When you spend a lot of time taking stock of what is missing, its easy to miss what you have. So before that wave of loneliness strikes again, before the blinders again come up and the isolation and sadness take over, let this stand as my public thank you to all of those people. I don't need to name them. They know who they are.
And so do I.......
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