4 min read

7. Inventory of Death

There's more to what happened than what happened.

Written Monday, September 23, 2019 / Day 42 / Morning

I don’t want this essay to sound overly morbid - but a significant concept hit me this morning on my way to doing something else. It was so strong that this essay was the result.

When my family was forced to move away from our hometown of Tonawanda, New York due to unemployment - it was the most traumatic event we had ever faced. And that is saying a lot because of our tumultuous family issues that we lived with over the years.

We had to leave everything behind and in the course of 8 months, made two total household moves. A move to Ohio from Buffalo, New York, then a move from Ohio to Virginia. We had no choice. We had pursued all the employment options at home for 6 months and nothing happened.

When an opportunity arose out of state - it was so all-encompassing and empowering we had to take advantage of it - even though it meant leaving everything we knew and everyone we loved behind.

That, we found was the deepest and most overwhelming aspect of that time and even years and decades later we were never really quite the same.

Years into our move, one of our dear friends back “home” told us why we were suffering.

They said we were mourning the loss of everything we knew. What a revelation that was to us!

We had in a sense “lost” everything. Our familiar surroundings, the activities we did and most importantly all those who we loved so dearly.

Now in my present state of grief - I can see that we were grieving our losses.

In that context though, we had a pattern of our lives we had to lead. We had each other. We had a new church family to take us in. We did have something.

We had just lost everything else that had mattered to us. That was a part of our very spirits.

No wonder we never got “over it” as they would say. We were in a grief state we never realized. Because once you have lost something - the loss is permanent. It is always with you.

It was always with us, decades later.

What a revelation.

Well, todays revelation is just as significant.

Except for me quite depressing.

Another bit of reality showing up.

As I have written in past essays, the loss of my dear wife has ended our relationship and all that it meant - and means - to me. The plans, the dreams - all of that is over.

I cannot totally get that as of yet - but it is reality.

I was evaluating the house today, thinking about all that we had envisioned for it while I was doing my current limited routine. Then it struck me - I do not want to pursue any of the plans we had for it. We had a few projects in mind. There is one that is structural so I’ll probably deal with that some time. But the plans we had - they just don’t make sense to me.

Why bother? I thought - who would these improvements be for? Me?

Then it hit. All of this is also part of the death. Not only my wife died, but as a result all that we were going to do and everything related to it - also died.

Right now, I cannot truly see the point in doing anything.

There’s that “future” again. What future? A future without her is really no future at all to me.

So any of the elements of that future - as far as I am concerned, I’ve just lost interest in them as well.

They are dead.

I don’t know if anything can be any more sobering in the state I am in where everything is empty and somewhat meaningless for the moment. The thought that all that surrounds me has also died is quite a realization.

My broken heart is not into anything that would have to do with that future.

Of course, I’ll keep things up, that’s the administrative life I now live.

That’s why settling the physical things will be an intermediate goal.

As I contemplate that - all of how I was operating begins to unravel. That is quite unsettling. Unsettling because I need to unravel everything I have been doing.

Shopping, planning, all of the things I would do around the house - all of that is now dead.

That’s a lot to take.

I keep acting like everything is still the way it was before everything changed - and it is not. It has died.

I relate to several companies I had worked for that had been acquired by other companies. Technically the companies were now owned by a new management structure. A structure with new goals, missions and principles.

What was interesting was that how long it took the new company’s culture to replace the previous one. The company would mandate a new way - but in reality the staff still operated in the old way. Depending upon how entrenched the old culture was - and by extension how much the staff had the culture in their hearts - the time for that to change could literally be years.

Why? Because the old culture had become a part of the staff’s values. Especially if it was a smaller company with more emotional connections that came along with the business values.

This is exactly what I am facing now. My old “culture” was based on my wife being in my life - not only in it - but it!

Now that there is a new “owner” in a sense - now ownership created by the absence of the old owner - I am still operating under the old way of thinking.

This is something you cannot change overnight.

But being aware of what I am facing does give me a small, small bit of comfort.

Now, however, I have to take apart each item of my life. I have to test it and determine where it needs to change - or if it needs to change at all. There are so many elements as I am seeing. Well, just about everything that was my pre-grief life is on the table.

It’s quite a list. A sad list. Because each item is to be changed because the old one has died.

7. Inventory of Death

Written Monday, September 23, 2019 / Day 42 / Morning

I don’t want this essay to sound overly morbid - but a significant concept hit me this morning on my way to doing something else. It was so strong that this essay was the result.

When my family was forced to move away from our hometown of Tonawanda, New York due to unemployment - it was the most traumatic event we had ever faced. And that is saying a lot because of our tumultuous family issues that we lived with over the years.

We had to leave everything behind and in the course of 8 months, made two total household moves. A move to Ohio from Buffalo, New York, then a move from Ohio to Virginia. We had no choice. We had pursued all the employment options at home for 6 months and nothing happened.

When an opportunity arose out of state - it was so all-encompassing and empowering we had to take advantage of it - even though it meant leaving everything we knew and everyone we loved behind.

That, we found was the deepest and most overwhelming aspect of that time and even years and decades later we were never really quite the same.

Years into our move, one of our dear friends back “home” told us why we were suffering.

They said we were mourning the loss of everything we knew. What a revelation that was to us!

We had in a sense “lost” everything. Our familiar surroundings, the activities we did and most importantly all those who we loved so dearly.

Now in my present state of grief - I can see that we were grieving our losses.

In that context though, we had a pattern of our lives we had to lead. We had each other. We had a new church family to take us in. We did have something.

We had just lost everything else that had mattered to us. That was a part of our very spirits.

No wonder we never got “over it” as they would say. We were in a grief state we never realized. Because once you have lost something - the loss is permanent. It is always with you.

It was always with us, decades later.

What a revelation.

Well, todays revelation is just as significant.

Except for me quite depressing.

Another bit of reality showing up.

As I have written in past essays, the loss of my dear wife has ended our relationship and all that it meant - and means - to me. The plans, the dreams - all of that is over.

I cannot totally get that as of yet - but it is reality.

Why bother? I thought - who would these improvements be for? Me?

Then it hit. All of this is also part of the death. Not only my wife died, but as a result all that we were going to do and everything related to it - also died.

Right now, I cannot truly see the point in doing anything.

There’s that “future” again. What future? A future without her is really no future at all to me.

So any of the elements of that future - as far as I am concerned, I’ve just lost interest in them as well.

They are dead.

I don’t know if anything can be any more sobering in the state I am in where everything is empty and somewhat meaningless for the moment. The thought that all that surrounds me has also died is quite a realization.

My broken heart is not into anything that would have to do with that future.

Of course, I’ll keep things up, that’s the administrative life I now live.

That’s why settling the physical things will be an intermediate goal.

As I contemplate that - all of how I was operating begins to unravel. That is quite unsettling. Unsettling because I need to unravel everything I have been doing.

Shopping, planning, all of the things I would do around the house - all of that is now dead.

That’s a lot to take.

I keep acting like everything is still the way it was before everything changed - and it is not. It has died.

I relate to several companies I had worked for that had been acquired by other companies. Technically the companies were now owned by a new management structure. A structure with new goals, missions and principles.

Why? Because the old culture had become a part of the staff’s values. Especially if it was a smaller company with more emotional connections that came along with the business values.

This is exactly what I am facing now. My old “culture” was based on my wife being in my life - not only in it - but it!

Now that there is a new “owner” in a sense - now ownership created by the absence of the old owner - I am still operating under the old way of thinking.

This is something you cannot change overnight.

But being aware of what I am facing does give me a small, small bit of comfort.

Now, however, I have to take apart each item of my life. I have to test it and determine where it needs to change - or if it needs to change at all. There are so many elements as I am seeing. Well, just about everything that was my pre-grief life is on the table.

It’s quite a list. A sad list. Because each item is to be changed because the old one has died.

Now I at least am aware of what I am dealing with in a clearer way.

It is still painful - but a necessary exercise.

The inventory of my life has just became clear.

It is not a pretty sight - but it is reality.

God help me to embrace it.

Recent Posts

Comentarios