Your New Life Is Waiting
My mom died suddenly a few weeks ago. I am still trying to absorb the reality that she is gone. The loss of her is hitting me way differently than I expected it to. Loss does that. It stirs up all the emotional silt under our feet that has been forming over time. And sudden loss has a unique way of jolting you! It’s different than the long goodbye that gives a person a chance to process what is coming, and it robs them of the opportunities to say, and do all the things that only hindsight affords.
The post goes up on social media and all sorts of messages like, “I’m sorry” start gracing your page, your inbox, your text messages; Each and every gesture so greatly appreciated. A simple signal of, “I’m here. I see you.”
But unlike my mom’s death, when I experienced sudden loss with my husband's betrayal, there was no fanfare. There was no gathering of the welldoers. There were no flowers of solace, or meals of consolation; No unique gifts as a memorial of the life once lived.
If you are like me, there was loneliness, embarrassment, monumental insecurity and a complete devastation of my life landscape, that held little to no hope of changing. Grief can be a luxury when it is a public event. People give you the space and the grace to function at less than full capacity. But when you are suffering from the private death of your happy-ever-after, you are required to not only function, but over function.
There are no slideshows with sappy music reminding the world of how short and beautiful life is, because every picture is now tainted with questions, and with pangs of wondering what was real and what wasn’t.
In case you are wondering, it was all real. Every picture was either taken of, or taken by a woman who had yet to know her real resilience, her stubborn strength and her true tenacity. His actions don’t change the reality of your life already lived. It changes the reality of the marriage and man you thought you had, but that relationship is only part of your life, not the entirety of it.
The same goes for recovering from his betrayal. He is a part of the healing, but not the entirety of it. We can’t expect the very thing that broke us to heal us. I’ve had one marriage that healed, and one that did not. Looking back, the common denominator in the loss of both relationships was a woman who, despite not wanting to wake up some mornings, did not give up on herself and her healing process.
Healing brings new life. Your new life is waiting. As was my mom’s on January 29, 2023.
