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Picking Up The Pieces

Tragic events don't end your life; they become a part of your life. PK

A death feels like something has been stolen from us. It has! The person, the intact family, the way we were together: all gone. Abrupt. Cruel. Final.

And yet, though it may feel like a thoughtless insult, in a very real and undeniable way something has also been added to your life. When you gain the perspective that distance and healing provides, you will realize that you are not the same person you were when you lost your loved one. In fact, you will never be that person again. And that, strange though it may seem, can be a good thing.

It's hard to imagine that something good can come from something tragic. We don't want to believe it. It seems so unfair and wrong. We may convince ourselves that if we buy into this belief, we could even attract disaster to us. Can this really be the way life works?

And, if something good is meant to come, then how do we handle such intense and disturbing feelings? Perhaps, instead of struggling to be rid of our pain, we need to figure out where it belongs in our lives. (Stay with me here, I know this is hard to accept.)

Is it possible to heal and even accept our pain? Can this life-altering anguish actually transform me into a better person? Even though it sounds cliché, I wonder if this horror will be an opportunity for growth and rebirth.

Defining and Honoring Loss

The act of defining and honoring loss changes the way I look at the world. The grief process forces me to deal with myself and to see myself in a new light. Pain causes me to grow by stripping away the unnecessary parts of who I am. I have no room or patience in my life now for fluff. I have to be focused. I need all the mettle of my being to survive. And, in the process of surviving, I am coincidentally discarding my baggage and slimming down for the battle.

The loss of my husband has become as much a part of my personal history as our marriage was. I have somehow integrated both our life together and his sudden death into the fabric of who I am, and I am transformed. It has happened in some ways so gradually as to be hardly noticeable and in other ways like major surgery.

In a mystical process, the architect of which must surely be a higher power, my life has been changed. How am I a different and better person? I really don't know and I'm not sure that I need to. I just know I'm not the same, and that is a good thing.