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13. Lessons of Completeness

Written Monday May 18, 2020 / Day 280 / Wee Hours of the Morning

Death is messy. It just is. So much is left undone - unsaid - unresolved. It is the nature of the beast. Part of this broken world.

At one level or another we have learned in this life that we can ignore reality. Realities of relationships that have not turned out the way we wanted. Deficiencies within ourselves that manifest themselves in so many ways - deficiencies that we would rather not acknowledge. Situations that are not optimal for us that we choose to minimize and explain away - so we do not have to face them.

And we are good at it. Denial is perhaps one of the least understood aspects of our human condition. There seems to be infinite flavors and aspects of denial - of which we embrace either consciously or unconsciously.

So along comes death. And death - unlike anything else that can come against us brings along with it this ultimate truth.

You will have to deal with me.

No games. No hiding from me. When I show up - I show up.

And when I do - you will never be the same - whether you want to accept that or not.

So this grief journey then - mine in particular - as I look back at it over these past 280 days - it has been a study in coming to grips with all that death injects into our world.

And until the disruption to your world is direct and destructive - you float around in this state of ignorance. Ignorance of the fact that this death is something you will actually have to acknowledge at some point.

You just will.

Have to acknowledge it.

But you won’t. Because that is how we are. We just will not face it.

Not for the reasons you may think - even if you think you are dealing with death you really cannot acknowledge it

Because at our core we are incapable of dealing with death.

Death is too final, too real - too absolute for our natures that have been trained to ignore it along with all those other topics from which we are hiding.

And the farther away death is from you directly - the easier the ignorance can be.

But when you have a direct hit into your life - your day to day life - your pattern of living - the one you cannot ignore - the one that changes every waking moment of your life - you then face the devastation that death brings in its full fury.

It is bitter. It is harsh. It is unrelenting.

Because it cannot be ignored. It will always be in the background - even if you do not want to accept the fact that it is there.

Looking back on my journey, I see specific moments where reality was able to get to me. To make me see what was really happening - and for as much as I am aware - face that reality and deal with it.

However, it is not until you reach a certain part of the journey that you realize you have not accepted what you think you have accepted. Even though there are elements of reality that you have accepted.

Because there are rather significant aspects of the new reality that cry out to be addressed that you have not yet addressed. And until you do - you will never reach the full acceptance of the reality of which you despise. That reality which is now your new environment. Your new life. The life that is missing what made it your life.

Call it completeness. That time in which not only the gravity of the situation has been recognized - but also the peripheral aspects of that situation that have been ignored or denied.

Denied because that is what we do. That is our nature. In one way or another - the denial that is just part of this human life.

And death makes you have to face that reality.

And you must in order to live fully again.

So it was on a day, just like any other day in grief - yesterday, the 279th day - that my reckoning came. The incomplete taking a step towards the elusive reality of grasping all that death had brought to my life.

Now I had a string of what I would call “successes” as I look into the rear-view mirror. Dates and situations that were truly steps in facing death. To me, with my analytical nature, seeing patterns and events fall into an orderly display of pure precision. A precision that makes me see that I have been guided along this journey in a powerful way.

Yet none of the revelations of the past providing the “completeness” that was necessary. A completeness that cannot be seen by those struggling to face all the ramifications of a destroyed life. But when that completeness arrives in it’s full measure - a moment that cannot be ignored for all that it means.

Since March 1st - when everything changed (Volume 7 - Essay #9 “The Answer”) - miraculous events have been taking place in my life (Volume 8 - Essay #3 “Lessons from March, 2020”).

“Progress” - whatever that means - had been taking place. The environment of grief had been changing dramatically.

The early morning of day 279 was contentious. The struggle was against the feeling that something was blocking me. My prayer was to receive help to let me see what that impediment was. To help me past whatever was really behind this struggle.

So the time had come. A breakthrough was ahead.

As has been the case in my journey, I went through my day as I have every day - it was Sunday and time to go to “virtual church” due to the current lockdown of society that was being gradually released.

I had awakened with a sort of resolve I had not experienced before. Nothing I could really identify other than things felt “different”. Little did I know how different the day would turn out.

Throughout the house - there have been things of Joann’s that I had just not addressed. Most of them because I would have a toxic reaction to attempting to deal with them in the past. Over the months they just became the background elements of my life. Everywhere I went they were there. Piles of her clothes in the bedroom next to her dresser. Shoes, and her pillows on the couch among other things.

After ending a phone call in the late afternoon - I was just sitting there when it hit. Nothing dramatic. But a force none the less.

I played a song that was particularly meaningful to me that I have been listening to for the past month - I walked over to the couch - and slowly as the music played in the background - I took each of her pillows off the couch. Pillows that had been there since we left on that early August evening - her last time on that couch.

I embraced each pillow as the music played. Tears falling on each one until all of them were now off the couch and in my embrace. The stack I lovingly placed on the swivel chair that has been my home all these past months.

Looking at the empty section of the couch now - I felt a strange type of calm amidst the trauma of what I had just done. I then went to every place where there were visible remnants of her - and made the choices that needed to be made.

What could be given away - what had to go. Then organized all of the items based on their disposition. Interestingly it was trash night - so their flights were booked.

After that initial time with the couch pillows - those other items did not create intense emotions as I dealt with them.

Something was going on here. Something big. Something of significance. Something of completeness.

Denial was being challenged. And it could no longer have it’s place in my life. It was going to the trash bin as well.

In God’s realm of significance - numbers play a prominent role. Particularly meaningful in my journey has been the number 12.

12 is a number that has many meanings - one is that it is a perfect number. Another of its many meanings is - one of completeness.

Consider the message then that I received when I lined all these 12’s up.

My life ended on a 12 - August 12. It signaled my wife’s race was complete. Something we had actually talked about.

She was born on a 12 - June 12th.

And each month as I lived through another 12 - each one - marked a step I was taking.

And on this day - on this 279th day since my life ended - it has been 12 weeks since God intervened to change my life beginning on March 1st.

All of what had been unnoticed - or unacknowledged by me for all those days was finally acknowledged. Finally addressed. Finally settled.

It was a day of relief. And at that moment - the moment in which I reached out and faced what I had not been previously able to address - now providing the opportunity for me to step through the doorway to the future. The doorway that has been waiting for me to go through it.

Now I could - because completeness had now entered my life.

And as that completeness continues to unfold in the days and weeks ahead - the lessons it will teach me will become the foundation for the journey that lies ahead.

13. Lessons of Completeness

Written Monday May 18, 2020 / Day 280 / Wee Hours of the Morning

Death is messy. It just is. So much is left undone - unsaid - unresolved. It is the nature of the beast. Part of this broken world.

And we are good at it. Denial is perhaps one of the least understood aspects of our human condition. There seems to be infinite flavors and aspects of denial - of which we embrace either consciously or unconsciously.

So along comes death. And death - unlike anything else that can come against us brings along with it this ultimate truth.

You will have to deal with me.

No games. No hiding from me. When I show up - I show up.

And when I do - you will never be the same - whether you want to accept that or not.

So this grief journey then - mine in particular - as I look back at it over these past 280 days - it has been a study in coming to grips with all that death injects into our world.

And until the disruption to your world is direct and destructive - you float around in this state of ignorance. Ignorance of the fact that this death is something you will actually have to acknowledge at some point.

You just will.

Have to acknowledge it.

But you won’t. Because that is how we are. We just will not face it.

Not for the reasons you may think - even if you think you are dealing with death you really cannot acknowledge it

Because at our core we are incapable of dealing with death.

Death is too final, too real - too absolute for our natures that have been trained to ignore it along with all those other topics from which we are hiding.

And the farther away death is from you directly - the easier the ignorance can be.

But when you have a direct hit into your life - your day to day life - your pattern of living - the one you cannot ignore - the one that changes every waking moment of your life - you then face the devastation that death brings in its full fury.

It is bitter. It is harsh. It is unrelenting.

Because it cannot be ignored. It will always be in the background - even if you do not want to accept the fact that it is there.

Looking back on my journey, I see specific moments where reality was able to get to me. To make me see what was really happening - and for as much as I am aware - face that reality and deal with it.

However, it is not until you reach a certain part of the journey that you realize you have not accepted what you think you have accepted. Even though there are elements of reality that you have accepted.

Call it completeness. That time in which not only the gravity of the situation has been recognized - but also the peripheral aspects of that situation that have been ignored or denied.

Denied because that is what we do. That is our nature. In one way or another - the denial that is just part of this human life.

And death makes you have to face that reality.

And you must in order to live fully again.

So it was on a day, just like any other day in grief - yesterday, the 279th day - that my reckoning came. The incomplete taking a step towards the elusive reality of grasping all that death had brought to my life.

Since March 1st - when everything changed (Volume 7 - Essay #9 “The Answer”) - miraculous events have been taking place in my life (Volume 8 - Essay #3 “Lessons from March, 2020”).

“Progress” - whatever that means - had been taking place. The environment of grief had been changing dramatically.

The early morning of day 279 was contentious. The struggle was against the feeling that something was blocking me. My prayer was to receive help to let me see what that impediment was. To help me past whatever was really behind this struggle.

So the time had come. A breakthrough was ahead.

As has been the case in my journey, I went through my day as I have every day - it was Sunday and time to go to “virtual church” due to the current lockdown of society that was being gradually released.

I had awakened with a sort of resolve I had not experienced before. Nothing I could really identify other than things felt “different”. Little did I know how different the day would turn out.

After ending a phone call in the late afternoon - I was just sitting there when it hit. Nothing dramatic. But a force none the less.

I embraced each pillow as the music played. Tears falling on each one until all of them were now off the couch and in my embrace. The stack I lovingly placed on the swivel chair that has been my home all these past months.

Looking at the empty section of the couch now - I felt a strange type of calm amidst the trauma of what I had just done. I then went to every place where there were visible remnants of her - and made the choices that needed to be made.

What could be given away - what had to go. Then organized all of the items based on their disposition. Interestingly it was trash night - so their flights were booked.

After that initial time with the couch pillows - those other items did not create intense emotions as I dealt with them.

Something was going on here. Something big. Something of significance. Something of completeness.

Denial was being challenged. And it could no longer have it’s place in my life. It was going to the trash bin as well.

In God’s realm of significance - numbers play a prominent role. Particularly meaningful in my journey has been the number 12.

12 is a number that has many meanings - one is that it is a perfect number. Another of its many meanings is - one of completeness.

Consider the message then that I received when I lined all these 12’s up.

My life ended on a 12 - August 12. It signaled my wife’s race was complete. Something we had actually talked about.

She was born on a 12 - June 12th.

And each month as I lived through another 12 - each one - marked a step I was taking.

And on this day - on this 279th day since my life ended - it has been 12 weeks since God intervened to change my life beginning on March 1st.

All of what had been unnoticed - or unacknowledged by me for all those days was finally acknowledged. Finally addressed. Finally settled.

It was a day of relief. And at that moment - the moment in which I reached out and faced what I had not been previously able to address - now providing the opportunity for me to step through the doorway to the future. The doorway that has been waiting for me to go through it.

Now I could - because completeness had now entered my life.

And as that completeness continues to unfold in the days and weeks ahead - the lessons it will teach me will become the foundation for the journey that lies ahead.

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