Ten months. Easter Sunday is JJ’s 10 month birthday. We are in freaking double digits! 303 days since I was forced to say goodbye to my beautiful and beloved Shar. Like sands in an hour glass time moves steadily on. As is typically the case the time has both felt like a blink of an eye and slogging through the hours as if I’m stuck in tar.
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| Easter 2015 |
Spring historically is my favorite season. It brings warmth, color, light and life. This spring most days after work we go on JJ and daddy hikes exploring the beautiful red rocks of southern Utah. I’m sincerely loving my job where I feel so fulfilled and supported. Nights however can very much still be a struggle. It’s ironic, compared to winter, but as there is more and more sunlight throughout the day when the sun sets I can feel ever more poignantly the weight of loss, darkness, grief and despair in the center of my chest.
Fortunately I have a pair of terrific supports (among a host of others) in my life that are helping me manage and deal with this darkness. They include an insightful and compassionate therapist who I see monthly and an intuitive and energetic spiritual guide. This spring, independent of one another, they have both challenged me to embrace creativity and curiosity. To wonder. After nearly 12 years of confidently knowing the direction and purpose of life, that is sharing the day to day adventure with Shar cherishing all the beautiful ups and depressing downs. I no longer feel that spark and meaning in my heart. I grasp to KNOW of things that humans simply cannot know. So I hope and now I wonder.
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| Shar at art festival 2015 |
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| art festival |
Instead of fearing and agonizing over what the utterly blank future holds. I wonder what students I may be able to help, what adventures JJ and I will go on, what beautiful souls I’ll get to meet and learn from. Instead of fearing the unknown, if Sharry and God do literally exist, I choose to be grateful she was mine and I was hers for 12 amazing years. To choose hope, belief and wonder. What is she is doing now and if she gets to be our guardian angel? To wonder what if Jesus lived and died that we may overcome the grave? To wonder what if the Buddha lived and awoke to share a message that is the key to overcoming suffering? Instead of a host of other negative places to which my mind so readily returns, I worry, I fear, I don’t know, I am not good enough...etc. I am trying to embrace my inherent curiosity and wonder what life (here and in the next) have in store. I wonder if this will work haha but wish me luck!
This is what the philosopher and the poet share in common: both are concerned with the marvelous. Amazement is the beginning of philosophy. Wonder is a kind of desire in knowing. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery. -Thomas Aquinas
Continuing the "wonder" theme with one of our fave baby songs
Jared, my heart writhed in misery as I listened to your story on the Strangers podcast. I am so sorry for the loss of your beautiful Sharry. The pain and sense of loss is hard to even comprehend. It is terrible knowing that you are forced to move on in life without your amazing friend, lover, mate, cohort. With such a vital connection severed, the darkness of that pain must feel so oppressive. Grief is a long road . . . let the love and loss, all the agony and tears, flow through and out of you. It hurts too much to keep it in.
ReplyDeleteMay you feel those faint glimmers of love and hope throughout the tsunami of grief. Hug that little fella, and don't be upset with yourself when you lose patience or feel frustrated. That is a normal part of parenting, but I can see where that might cause even more pain in the grieving process.
Take care.(((Cyber-hug)))
From far-off,
Shawna in MN
Jared,
ReplyDeleteThis morning while looking at the news on the internet I randomly thought of you (I promise I'm not being creepy!! Haha) I recalled reading about your family last year and I wondered what had become of you boys. The gravity of your loss touched me then in a way that has resonated ever since. Today you were on my mind and doing a Google search brought me here to your blog.
This post is so heart-wrenching and yet is also reassuring that you're doing well and making strides in your new life with sweet baby JJ. I can't begin to imagine losing your love while simultaneously gaining a new love. Your strength and devotion to JJ are apparent through your writings and I am in awe of that.
I am a mother baby nurse who has seen the dynamic of loss too many times in the birthing process and each time I feel blessed to be given the opportunity to be by these families' side as they navigate the first few days of their new lives. There is no script, no short cut, for the new path your life is on and, in many ways, that's unfair. If there were a manual then it takes that wonder you reference and guess work out and streamlines the process. I wish I could reach out and hold your hand as I do the other families and look you in the eyes and tell you how you're doing it all right and that JJ is a lucky boy and your beautiful Sharry was a lucky woman to be so loved by you.
I would love to talk more if you're at all interested, have time, and obviously don't find me too creepy. haha
Good luck in your future, my dear. As a single mommy of 2 young boys I know it's an often lonely and stressful job but gracious the rewards of their love is SO worth it!!
Warmly,
Melissa - Raleigh, NC
M.cornetti@yahoo.com