I’m a few months into my second year as a widow, and overall things are going so much better than year one. However, there are still areas where I struggle. Mainly, I struggle with guilt. It’s often sparked by moments where I recognize my progress and my happiness.
Although I know my husband would want me to carry on, find joy, and live my life, it feels terrible in contrast to how overwhelmed, sad and just downright terrible life felt when he was sick. Somehow being happy now feels like a betrayal to him. How could I have been miserable when he was here with me and sometimes happy now without him? The rational part of me knows I shouldn’t feel this way. But can we really just decide NOT to feel something?
I know back when things were a different kind of awful, I wasn’t miserable with him. Back when I was a different kind of overwhelmed and stressed, it wasn’t with him, but with what was happening TO him. What was happening to us. It was the disease causing us pain and misery, not him. But yet, I remember being so sad, so overwhelmed with all of it, and so I feel guilt sometimes when I catch myself feeling normal and happy now. It doesn’t seem fair to him that I could be happy without him.
I can understand how easy it would be to become “stuck” in grief for this very reason. Luckily, I know this isn’t accurate thinking. I know with certainty how much my husband loved me. I know he’d want me to find joy in the life I have left. And I know he wouldn’t want me to feel guilty about anything. He was so forgiving and understanding.
Nevertheless, I sometimes have great remorse for all the ways I fell short for him. I occasionally feel terrible inside of the good moments. Oh, grief is such a tricky thing, isn’t it?!
It’s sort of like a woman carrying two pails full of water, one on each side of a pole. She is trying to balance this as she carefully moves forward. Except our buckets aren’t filled with water, but with heavy emotions. In one bucket we carry grief. The other bucket contains our joy and our hope.
Sometimes as the woman walks the unpaved path, and water splashes out of one of her buckets, the weight of the buckets she’s carrying becomes uneven, making it harder to carry. For us, that means for a while our grief weighs more than our happiness. We too become off-balance and walk slower and with more difficulty until the buckets are evened up again.
This is the best way for me to understand the yo-yo emotions of grief. It helps me to visualize my feelings as weights I’m carrying forward. When one bucket weighs more than the other, I spin in circles until there’s balance again.
I wish we didn’t have to carry the grief bucket at all, but it’s part of who we are now. We HAVE to learn how to carry both buckets at once now. Sometimes they won’t be even and we’ll slow down long enough to rebalance. And then, as soon as we are able, as soon as we balance out, we’ll move forward again.
Ignoring the imbalance in the buckets isn’t going to help. So I have to address it, fill up the lesser bucket with whatever it’s begging for. And then I can carry the load of grief mixed with hope and joy once again. For me, God is the equalizer when my weights are off. I turn to him when I need to top off one of my buckets. His word sometimes fills the void, or allows me the rest I need before I can move ahead again. He’s with us when our buckets are lopsided and we can’t seem to carry forward, and He’s with us when they’re perfectly balanced and we are making progress. He’s with us. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but it means we can be assured we have help with the heavy load.
Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Extra Grace,
Jodi
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- Source – Ariel Javellana/DER/ADB
So wonderfully expressed… you have beautifully expressed how I feel as well. Thank you.
This is exactly how I feel and what I’m experiencing. The 2 year mark of losing my husband is approaching, and like you, this 2nd year has been entirely different from the terrible 1st year. I don’t fall apart as much and I’m able to cope better as I navigate these days without him.
Thank you for your words….they help me to know I’m certainly not alone on this journey of loss & grief. God is my equalizer and my strength!
The bucket metaphor is great, I love it. I suppose both grief and happiness weigh the same, but when we add guilt to the grief bucket that’s when it gets unbalanced. Nicely done. Karl Jung’s big theory is balance and wholeness, so you are in good company with assessing the dysfunction of being out of balance….. I suppose the goal is to be rid of the balancing act entirely and just walk the road in the moment free of any burdens or buckets. Maybe….. Grace and Peace, Sister.
I feel exactly like this. I’m getting close to my second year anniversary and the second year has been easier than that terrible first year. Thank you for putting into words what I’m feeling.
I am coming up on the 2nd anniversary, so just finishing my second year. I did not find it easier than the first. But it was not hard in the same ways either. Just different. I love the lopsided bucket analogy. I don’t deal with guilt in the mix all that much—at least not for how I did or handled things in the midst. I do deal with it now. How I’m responding to things now, how I’m dealing now. It’s hard not to compare and I have to give myself little speeches about that often.
Well said! Coming to terms with the dichotomy between happy and sad, joy and pain, guilt and praise is most definitely a balancing act. I still struggle with this four years out. Rebalancing is key. Thanks for reminding us ❤.
Jodi……..I don’t know how you do it but you always seem to know exactly how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking. My husband died quite suddenly on February 16th and any time I do anything that brings me any enjoyment I feel such overwhelming guilt! Everywhere I go and everything I do reminds me of him and reminds me that he will never have the opportunity to go and do those things again. He was the most wonderful, loving, giving person and I know he would want me to be happy and enjoy life and wouldn’t want me struggling with these feelings but I know it takes time! Your blog has been an unbelievable source of strength for me and with the continued support of friends, family and this online community, I know I will get through this.
Like some of the rest of you .. I am also getting close to my second year anniversary. The forst year I was just numb.. and the second year I have felt so much .. the reality of life alone. I have really struggled and found it so much more difficult. I’m trying to figure out how to move forward without him.. I keep trying and fighting to move forward but .. I suppose I am a fighter, but oh it is so difficult
You do express many times in your posts what I am feeling. You put into words those desperate emotions that seem to have no words to define them. You have a gift For writing.. and expressing life’s difficulties. Your blog helps me feel right and ok.. I look forward to each one… and sometimes am able to express myself and my place in life to others by sharing the things you share with us. Thank you.
“Nevertheless, I sometimes have great remorse for all the ways I fell short for him. I occasionally feel terrible inside of the good moments. Oh, grief is such a tricky thing, isn’t it?!”
Jodi, this totally describes how I feel at times. Grief surely is tricky. It’s been almost 20 months for me and some days I feel the 2nd year is harder, in that I realize that this IS my new life. It takes getting use to-trial and error. At times I learn how “not to do things” before learning how to do them correclty. Things I never thought that I’d be taking over in his absence.. But life has a funny way of going on with or without our loved ones.
I do find I’m moving forward, taking fewer steps back, but some days I do the widows “cha-cha” and miss him in ways I never thought of. I never thought I’d miss his snoring. Lol, but I’d give anything to have him next to me again.
Thanks for sharing your writing with us. It’s nice to know that “we” are not alone. You “get it” as only someone that has been through it can understand.