A Different Kind of Happiness

Driving down the half-mile, single-lane, dirt road with Lac Des Iles sparkling blue on one side and the  Laurentian forest shimmering green on the other, I couldn't help but feel wistful. Here we were arriving at the lake house built by Ken's great-grandfather, where Ken and his brothers spent time every summer, where Ken's mother spent her summers, Ken's grandmother and so on. And now we were traveling the winding country roads in rural Quebec toward this special place, but without Ken for the seventh year running.

Returning brought on a sense of longing for what is gone, for something lost that cannot return; a lingering, used up sadness. That's the way I'd been feeling leading up to this trip, to this place, one of my favorites of anywhere I've been in the world with its pure, cool, silky lake, its quiet, its enduring tradition. Why wouldn't I feel wistful heading toward a place that held such joy for Ken, a place I wouldn't have known without him?

But then, in just a day or two,  the beauty of it got a hold of me: the clear, black lake, the sweet air, the loons crying and the visitors arriving by canoe or breaststroke.  Ken said that memories of the  Lake could bring him happiness during his arduous stem cell transplant.

I realized in this heavenly place that I didn't want to feel wistful about my life anymore. I didn't want to keep longing for what could never be: the life I had with Ken.  In fact, as the days of this vacation went by, I felt very happy, perhaps happier than I've felt in years. Even my laugh had taken on a new, heartier sound.

I've shed another layer of sorrow and taken on a new dimension of joy, that comes from surviving loss and being grateful for what simply is. It could be so easy for me to dwell in the state of wistfulness indefinitely, but I don't want to anymore. Instead, I think I've found a different kind of happiness.

This different happiness doesn't have anything definite attached to it. It isn't predicated on any particular outcome or end goal. It contains no certainty about what comes next. And it isn't counting on everything going just right, or perfectly, or without a hitch. I don't even believe in that kind of happiness anymore.

Today I'm happy just to have a greater understanding of my own essential nature, and to follow it where it takes me. I'm happy to be open to experience and to be open-minded about what it means to work, to love, to serve and to grow.

When I lost Ken, I lost my fairytale, my happy ending, our nuclear family, but to my surprise, eventually,  I found a different kind of happiness that might just be fueled by uncertainty, surprise, the unexpected and the unknown. It took a while to get here, about 50 years. I'd like to stay for a while.

Twelve Tips for Widows Feeling Down

1. Ask someone to do something for you. I think people really like to help each other; often, they just don't know what the hell to do. Here are some examples:

Could you please clean my grill?
I want to go on a date. Do you know anybody?
Can I drop my kids off at your house for a couple of hours while I take care of a few things?
Hey, what are you doing tonight? Can I come over?
Would you come with me to this doctor appointment?
Will you help me figure out what's going on with my furnace?
Will you show me how to unclog my own toilet?


2. What is something you actually like doing all by yourself? Do it. Then do it again. I love sitting in a coffee shop writing in my notebook. I also like going for a solo walk around the neighborhood. Even though your spouse is gone, you can still like those things that you've always enjoyed doing alone.

3. Make a list of everything you've done since your spouse died that shows how strong you are.

4. Imagine how your situation could actually be worse than it is right now. I don't know if this kind of thinking works for everyone, but I find it helpful to know that I do not live in a mud hut in an impoverished, war torn nation.

5. Do you know anyone who really makes you laugh hard? Try to get together with that person more often.

6. Rent TV show series on DVDs. Start watching from season one until the very last season. Since my husband died,  I finished the Sopranos without him (we started it together), and then I moved on to Six Feet Under, Project Runway, In Treatment, The Gilmore Girls, Mad Men, and currently watching Friday Night Lights. If you find a series you like, it's a reliable way to be happily entertained. Plus, the people in the series start to feel a little bit like friends.

7. Pamper yourself. Take a nap. Get a pedicure. Get a massage. Come home early from work. Go shopping. Take an exercise class. You're lucky you're alive so let your body know you appreciate all of its hard work in your service.

8. Have a good book on hand at all times.

9. Remind yourself of who you were before you met your husband. You were somebody once without him. You're different now. You're still changing. But you did have a life before you were married and you still have one. It's just different. It will be different again in a few months.

10. If you are having really terrible feelings of despair, write them down. Keep a journal for this. You're going to need one. Writing out your deepest, darkest feelings can help you move through them faster.

11. Reach out to people. Many, many widows feel as though they have been forgotten by friends or by couples. I think there's actually some truth to this! We do get forgotten and we don't go out with couples the way we used to. But despite this, reach out to people. Feeling victimized doesn't make you feel better anyway. Having a change this big in your life can actually lead to your making new contacts, connections and friends. Give it a try.

12. If you've lost your spouse, you've gone through one of the most stressful life events you or anyone else will ever encounter. Be proud that you've survived. You are stronger now. Be proud of yourself. Keep doing things that will make you feel proud of yourself. A life change as enormous as this one is opportunity for growth, even if you can't even imagine that yet.

Growing Anyway

Call me irrepressibly optimistic or call me nuts, but if I'm going to have to be widowed, I might as well try to make the best of it. In the early days, months and even years after losing a wonderful husband or wife, hurt predominates. I was there for a long, long time. But I hope that for others, as it FINALLY is for me (5 years since being widowed), there will come a time when you can find and make good in the new life you have been forced to create. I had a very happy marriage and I used to feel guilty even acknowledging that I could be happy without my husband, but the guilt is gone now and I can just be happy. It feels wonderful.

Before Ken died, I said to him, "I don't want to go through all the pain I'm going to feel when you're gone." But, I've done it. I've worked it. And now after all my hard work is done, I am finally experiencing some of the reward.

I once read a description of "the dandelion child". The description of this type of child has always inspired me. A dandelion child is a kid who thrives even in the worst of circumstances--like a dandelion that springs up through cracks in hard, barren concrete. 

I used to think it would be unbearably sad to reach a place where I could feel good again. Weird, right? Sad to be happy. Back when I couldn't imagine it, I felt like being happy again would mean that I was negating Ken, leaving him behind. And that felt, at the time, impossibly sad. Today I know that having Ken die,  losing him, losing the dream of being a husband and wife raising our two children together, will always, always, be sad. But happiness can grow out of sadness if you let it.

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Here are some good new things in my life that wouldn't be here if I hadn't been widowed:

I really and fully appreciate being healthy and I no longer consider it to be self-indulgent to exercise, go to yoga, meditate, eat good food, or get a massage. After seeing my once healthy husband suffer from cancer and cancer treatment, I completely understand that having a healthy strong body is an amazing gift and something to cherish.

I love making decisions and acting on them without having to always consult someone else. I feel more capable and powerful than I've ever felt in my life before because I have no choice but to make major and minor decisions for myself and my children all the time. It has been quite empowering for me.

I enjoy having a new man in my life who is not a husband. He has his own household and I have my own household and when we are together our time is not spent on domestic activities or chores. There is time for simply connecting and enjoying one another that isn't complicated by household tasks or shared responsibilities. Yes, we love helping one another out, but there is something to be said for time apart as well as time together, and even for time just appreciating what we are creating without necessarily knowing how it will all turn out.

I feel less fear in general. Now that I have survived one of the worst events that can happen to a person, I approach smaller obstacles with greater ease. This makes life so much more enjoyable and a lot less stressful.

I have more to give to others in wisdom, time and energy than ever before. Nothing matters more to me than my connections with others. I feel a greater desire to share what I know and to give what I can.

On the other hand, I am more comfortable being alone. I understand that loss prevails in the end, and I am learning to accept change and loss with more grace.


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Take 5 minutes to write about the good you have discovered growing from your loss. Or, if you're not  at that point yet, write about the good you imagine or hope for yourself in the future. Or, if you can't imagine ever feeling happy again, write about that.

After the Fairytale, A Different Story.

Hey! I was reading that!

Once upon a time I was part of a certain type of family: we were a happily married couple with our two kids, a house and a dog. We lived in a neighborhood with other families like ours. We had a lucky partnership with a full future ahead of us. Together we would love and influence our children, return to our twosome when they left home, and then enjoy the gifts of later life.  It was the kind of family that I came from myself; the only kind I had ever imagined. A great classic tale.

But then the twist to the story (a horror story?) -- the big bad cancer wolf showed up at our house, started eating up the book, tearing away at the pages. He ate up the husband and father completely, but he spared the rest of us so that we could figure out how to write a whole new chapter.

How do you start a new family story when you're a widow and a single parent of young children? When you're married with kids, there are typically two different choices you have.  Either you stay married, or you give up on that and you get divorced. But when you're divorced or widowed, you have a whole slew of different options.

You could try marriage again. It's what many of us worked toward in our 20s, 30s and sometimes 40s back when we first entered the search for a partner or potential future co-parent. Yes, you can do that again, move in together, figure out how to blend your families, share, divide, sell, and rearrange the accumulated stuff every older adult has put together over the years. After my husband died five years ago, that's what I felt I needed to do to have a full and complete life once again. My kids need a father! I need a husband who lives here with me and shares my bed! I need it now! (My kids, however, were not so interested in reading THAT classic tale over again.)

Nine months ago, I started seeing somebody new. He has his own form of gobbled up family -- his was eaten alive by divorce, mine by death. Either way, our nuclear families have been blown apart. The story of each of our lives shredded mid-way through the book.

Suddenly, I'm not so sure about how it all ends...the story, I mean. Back THEN, before the wolf came around, I was confident I knew just what was going to happen. I liked knowing the ending. Since that wolf came around, though,  I have switched genres completely. I'm not reading fairytales at the moment.  Now I'm engrossed in a mystery. Surprisingly I like it. I have no idea how it ends.

Restoration

Why is it that just as I have acknowledged, felt, reached a new sense of contentment in my life -- a contentment I have found within myself, ALL ALONE, while planting peas in my garden, or successfully completing a home renovation project, or writing, or not being concerned about whether or not I stay at home on a Saturday night or a Friday night, or a Sunday night,

Why, just as I feel this sweet peace of a contentment with less, with all that I do have, I am then plunged into a deep well of sorrow, a sorrow that skims the cream of my contentment and sits there floating across everything? At any moment, the spark of Ken's premature death can take the picture of my peaceful, quiet forest of solitude and start a little fire raging at the edge of it, curling the corners until it's all just nothing but grey ash and emptiness all over again.

This week I went to Ukrainian village to visit the grand, three story, 1890 redstone apartment building that you bought about 100 years after it was built, about three years before we met, a courageous, urban-pioneering moment in your life as a single, social worker in his 30s. Little did you know that the risk you took back then would become a key foundation of support for your young family living alone without you.

Now I dream of restoring it, piece by piece, this building that has come to sit in a relatively new historic district of Chicago owned now by me who never would have taken the risk that you did. There is peeling paint on crumbling stone, rickety steps in need of replacement, soft brick in need of tuckpointing so the moisture cannot do its damage. I can restore and build upon your dream. I can take something in danger of becoming run down and renew it. You started this. I can keep it moving forward. I am growing stronger though I can still cave in from the devastation of your disappearance.

You were so proud of the building you bought and you loved watching the neighborhood transform around you from dangerous to impossibly hip. Today young people live in the building just like we did....they meet, they move in together, eventually some of them marry. Today I went over to the building to meet with a tree trimmer named Sy. He's going to remove a dead maple tree and trim the dawn redwood that you planted about 20 years ago, and the locust tree that has become simply huge. After Sy left, I met with a young woman who will become a new tenant in May. She's about to begin her job as a medical resident at Rush, and she's moving in with her boyfriend for the first time. She told me they're talking about a ring.

A dead tree will come down. A young woman will begin her career and a new love right here in our building where we were married. I'm thinking renewal. Tomorrow I'm meeting with an architect who knows the area, knows our building, and appreciates restoration work.

I never imagined I'd be doing any of this. Like our building, I've been worn down by what life has rained upon me. But I'm coming back. I'm taking the building with me. We're going to get better. I wish I believed you could see me now. But when I asked you if I should work on restoring the building, I told myself that you said, "go for it."

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Take 5 minutes and write about restoration. Or if you'd rather, write about what's been destroyed.

Grief Meet Hope

Grief and hope try to be friends, but it isn't easy. Grief pulls back, gets scared, loses its mind in the past. Hope moves forward quickly, not even imagining all the trouble that might lie in wait up ahead. Hope is full of energy. Hope wants to branch out, try something new, get out and get going.

Grief takes a big long nap and is grateful for the quiet. Grief needs to lose weight and feels too heavy to get up and start all over again. Grief holds on tight to what is known. Grief demands an accounting of all that's been lost for fear that it will disappear altogether.

Hope says, "Fine, let it all come along for the ride. There's plenty of room. All are welcome here."

Grief wants very badly to believe that Hope can be trusted. Can they really co-exist? If they get together, will they be betraying anyone else?

Hope sings, voices echoing into the future, moving with confidence into unknown territory. Grief mutters in the background. Grief is simply exhausted and needs something to lean on.

"Lean on me", says Hope. I will always be outside your door and if you let me I will help you. It's what I'm here to do.

Grief rests her head on the pillow and pulls the covers up under her chin. She closes her eyes, invigorated by the darkness. She could stay here forever imagining how it used to be, how it could have been, how everything is alien now.

Hope sits on the screened front porch basking in the filtered warm sun, holding a cup of tea. Grief lumbers in, squints uncomfortably in the light. but takes a seat anyway.

"This feels like a good beginning for us," says Grief.

"No hurry," says Hope. "We can get up whenever you're ready to go."