Starting Over….

In my last blog I wrote about the path or more apropos, the journey of recovering from loss. As we know, the grieving process and how you move forward is an individual choice. There are no full proof step by step handbooks, although Lord knows they have been written. Some people have made up their own rules in their heads and believe that it’s the appropriate path you should take in healing.

To reuse the phrase from the last blog, quoting author Megan Devine, “Some things cannot be fixed, they can only be carried. Grief like yours, love like yours, can only be carried.” Forward we go…..

I wanted to spend time in this blog to talk about something very personal. I’m writing about it to hopefully help others as they deal with their own doubts, questions and insecurities as they contemplate how to move forward.

I’m speaking of dating. Starting to become a social creature again, perhaps jut seeking a connection with another human being for companionship and someone to share some moments with. For those of you who don’t know my history with my wife, we began dating each other Freshman year in high school. We went to the same Catholic grammar school, so technically we knew each other since first grade. I guess I began to notice her differently in 7th grade, as young teenagers are apt to do. I remember telling her I liked her (coaxed by another girl in the class) on our school trip that year, an eighth grade tradition, spending the day in Rye Beach Playland, NY.

Without getting into a longer detailed story, we dated from that point forward. There was a brief bump in the road in our senior year of college where we broke up for 57 days 8 hours and 12 minutes. But who was counting? We were engaged in October of 1983 and married by November of 1984.

For many years I believe we had a fairytale type of marriage. We brought two beautiful children into the world and we both had successful careers, each making various sacrifices for the other along the way. In truth, much of it was pretty amazing. We hit some issues later in the marriage that we were dealing with when she was stricken with her illness. It suddenly became the perfect storm. Our lives were unravelling, as she was fighting for hers and I sought to find ways to do something positive for her, but often finding a feeling of helplessness.

My wife lost her courageous battle a little more than 4 years after her initial diagnosis. That’s not really what this blog is about, but I’m just setting the stage. That whole process will perhaps one day be in a book I hope to write.

I learned in the initial months after her passing, how tough it was going to be for me to suddenly be living alone. I had never lived solo for any length of time, other than when my wife was hospitalized at various lengths.

Putting the key in the door that first day after coming back from a day at work and knowing nobody would be on the other side of the door, was such an overwhelming feeling. I ran the gamut of emotions. From an empty lonely feeling, to a sadness so deep, knowing this was forever. She wasn’t coming back.

The finality of death can be a very difficult thing to absorb. It gets more acceptable with time or you notice it less, but it never totally goes away. It’s like having a pebble in your shoe and you have to keep walking and you can never remove it. At first, it’s all you think about and feel. How do I get rid of this rock in my shoe? There’s no way I can keep walking with this. Then hours and days and weeks go by and you realize less and less the pebble is there. When you do, it hurts again for that moment, but then you go on with the business of your day and ignore the discomfort. I know……if only the pain was just from a pebble, but I hope you get the idea.

In the early days after losing my wife, I tried to stay busy. I went back to work after 10 days, in retrospect probably too soon, but it was the only thing I had that really was the same and unchanged. She was never at my work, so for me this was the one place I was not reminded of her. Hence the reason I found comfort going back to work.

At home I would spend a lot of time crying and drinking myself to sleep on the weekends. I was and still am extremely blessed with some amazingly beautiful and loving friends, and they, beside my kids and immediate family, kept me afloat. I cannot emphasize enough to anyone suffering, to not be afraid to be honest with a friend or friends you trust. It might feel uncomfortable at first. Some friends may balk and create a little distance, but most are likely to be there for you in support. Again, I am wonderfully fortunate to have the posse I have. So if you’re reading this guys, thank you….THANK you…….THANK YOU!!!

I know I was supposed to be talking about getting into the dating world again in this blog, but I got sidetracked to things that I think are important elements in telling the story.

Let me leave it with a tease. A year after my wife passing, people started approaching me with possible partners. My first reaction was to recoil and I usually quickly responded with a quick “I’m not quite ready yet”.

I was at a weather conference for NBC in Chicago and met a woman at the wine bar in the hotel on my last evening there. We started talking and we discovered we were both from NYC. She was a mother of a teenage daughter yet never married. I shared my story and the conversation flowed easily. I can’t say I was or was not attracted to her. It was the classic dimly lit bar thing. We exchanged phone numbers and said good night, promising to catch up at some point when we both got back to New York.

We texted back and forth a few times. I finally decided to pull the trigger and have lunch with her. She was a professor at NYU and we met at a place of her choice near the university. I really didn’t have any great expectations and the whole idea of dating was so foreign to me, the whole thing felt a bit surreal. I calmed my nerves by telling myself this was just a lunch with a potential new friend. No pressure. No big deal. Now I just had to convince my thumping heart and sweaty palms to relax.

To be continued……

Sunshine Always! Stay safe everyone!