Last night, November 26th, 2013, I discovered something about myself. This discovery didn't happen by accident, but rather thanks to the gentle listening ear of a very very good friend. Before I tell you what I discovered about myself, let me give you a little bit of background about the situation.
In December 2010, the one that I was going to spend the rest of my life with went to heaven. The year that followed was a very difficult one, and I won't deny that for second. For if I did, I would be fooling myself and you. However, that first year was almost 2 years ago now and while there are still moments where I want to scream, cry, or throw things because I miss him so much, I have moved forward by leaps and bounds in my opinion. You can read about my lack of intention to move on and how I chose to look at my life during those first 14 months after he entered the house of the Lord in this post.
My revelation last night while my good friend sat there listening was the fact that I'm no longer grieving the fact that he's no longer here in the physical world, but rather the unrealized dreams. All the things that we could have had, should have had, and would have had by now had our plans matched up with God's plans. For instance, we wanted to have a townhome by now in which our Personal Care Attendants could've lived in the lower level, and we would've lived upstairs. As we were living in this townhome, there would have been plans to build our own house. The house would have been completely accessible and built to our specifications. Who knows, maybe by now we would be living in this house because it would be complete.
If the house were complete and we were living in it, we surely would have had a REAL Christmas tree to celebrate the season! This was his favorite time of year by far! Now that I think about it, even if we were still living in the townhome, we would've had a real one. I enjoy them very much and I don't think he would've had it any other way!
I know that we would have done one thing by now for sure: I would have officially taken his last name without hesitation and we would have gone on a honeymoon to Hawaii!
It's the things that will never happen that I'm grieving now, and as I was talking this through with my good friend, I realized that everyone who has lost someone has unrealized dreams to some degree. Maybe a sister has lost her brother who she wanted to see get married, maybe a mother has lost a son who she dreamed of walking down the aisle, maybe a friend has lost their best friend who they dreamed about being able to talk about having kids with. It could be that someone dreamed of picking all of their pizza toppings off their pizza and giving them to the person they're eating with, while the person they're eating with wants to give them all their crusts. It could be that both of them dreamed of being able to do this well into adulthood, but that just didn't happen.
It could be any number of scenarios. I think I can safely say, though, that everyone who has lost someone has unrealized dreams either for themselves and that person, or that person alone.
I hope that if you are in that place in the grieving process right now, this post helps you to understand that it's okay to grieve those unrealized dreams, and that you likely will grieve them for the rest of your days here on earth… Until the moment you're reunited with whoever it is that you've lost. The entire grieving process is a very personal thing and you shouldn't ever feel like you have to meet someone else's expectations while going through it! If you're at this stage where you're grieving those unrealized dreams, grieve them at your own pace, cry when you want to, laugh when you can!
May each of you who are in any stage of the grieving process find something or someone who brings you inner peace this season, and may you never, ever, ever, ever feel the need to rise to someone else's expectations as they try to tell you how to grieve and/or when to be "done". As I mentioned in my other post above, grieving isn't linear, and I hope that no one in your life ever makes you feel as though it should be!
If you're missing someone or multiple people, I hope you have the happiest holiday season possible and are able to remember them with only the fondest memories and not spend too much time looking back on the sad ones. I know that's what Cullen would want! :-)
