This photo came up in my Facebook memories today – one of dozens of wedding photos Sara shared 5 years ago with our families and friends. It stood out to me; I really like this picture of me… and I also miss the me that existed in that picture. This picture reminds me that grief is not just grieving for our lost loved one(s), but also grieving the versions of us who existed in relationship with them.
I was SO HAPPY in that picture. The me in that picture was in love and excited about the future I saw ahead of me with the person I’d chosen to be my romantic/domestic partner. I knew we would face difficult times – everyone does at some point, but I knew I’d chosen a partner whose personality, ethics, and beliefs were compatible with mine, which would make getting through the difficult times a little easier. While the me in that picture had known loss, I hadn’t known the type of loss that settles in your bones, that eventually settles into every cell in your body. I was a person for whom life had generally always worked out.
I’m not that person anymore. I feel like I say this in every post, in one way or another, but Sara and George’s deaths changed me to my very core. In this picture, it’s the specific look in my eyes – that joyful twinkle that has a lightness to it that I don’t know that I’ll ever see from my own eyes again. I still find love and joy and happiness and even peace at times. With the new baby about 2 months out from expected arrival, I am looking forward to the laughter and smiles and the love that will be there between the tears and the sleep-deprived nights and the tantrums as baby gets older. But… I just don’t know that I’ll get that specific look back. There’s a weight to my existence now, a heaviness that comes with certain types of experiences, including the type of losses I went through.
I am simultaneously excited about the future I am actively working on building, while also missing the me that existed in that photo and grieving for the future that me was pouring his heart into at the time. Some days holding both of these feelings feels relatively effortless and natural, and other days it is a definite struggle. As I continue along I’m regularly reminded that my relationship with my grief is one that I really do have to actively tend. It will continue to evolve and change as I do, and if I neglect it too much, that’s when the relationship gets the most difficult. May I continue to learn how to tend this relationship effectively and with love as a foundation, as this new future unfolds.