Who Am I?

I miss my person. I miss my husband every minute of every day. And I will continue to do so. After ten weeks of a grief support group and ongoing grief care I now understand that my grief will not shrink. It will stay the size it was the day my husband left this earth. A large mass in the pit of my stomach. A cold hand with my heart in a grip so tight sometimes I can't catch my breath. A gray mist invading my brain, creating a fog of monumental proportions that threatens to pull me under a dark blanket of memory loss and confusion. And a pain that snakes it's way through my body, turning me into a much older woman who feels as though she is walking through sludge on a daily basis. No, my grief will not shrink. The key to this journey, apparently, is understanding that while my grief will not shrink, my life will grow around it. My body, brain and world will grow over time in such a way as to make space for the grief. I am told that as this happens I will feel better. I won't ever be over it, but I will be OK. And I am clinging to that notion with every fiber of my being.

While I believe this to be true, I know it doesn't just happen spontaneously. I have to put in the work. I have to be the one to grow my world big enough to hold grief and happiness and fulfillment at the same time. And I am working on that. Boy, am I working on that. It feels like a full time job where I am on a hamster's exercise wheel unable to stop running, even for a moment to catch my breath. The work is being done.

But one thought keeps popping into my mind. Who am I now? Who am I going to be? Who do I want to be? I knew who I was with Brad. I was a beloved wife in a caring and typical marriage. I was one half of a parenting duo to two amazing and full of needs boys. I was part of a couple that loved each other through infertility, rounds of IVF, long adoption processes, years of questioning God, adopting boys from around the world, job losses, financial insecurity, 4 big household moves, raising kids with attachment disorders, fetal alcohol and food insecurities, and countless daily aggravations.

I was an independent and confident woman, secure in the knowledge that I had backup at home. I was a corporate ladder climber, successful in my long career. I was the Chief Home Officer, keeping our house running, clean, the refrigerator full and homemade meals on the dinner table. I managed the family schedule, the social commitments, the boys' school and extra curricular activities. I was both a modern woman and a traditional one, a foot in the corporate world and a foot in the family homestead, as so many women are these days. And I kept all those balls in the air with the practiced efficiency of someone with years of experience.

I was a wife who had future travel plans with her husband. Future retirement plans with her husband. Future financial plans with her husband. A future, with her husband.

I was a partner who had routines with her person. Breakfast and time together in the living room before work, listening to a book and doing Wordle as the sun shone in the windows and the dog napped on the sofa. Cooking shows and coffee on Saturday mornings in the family room, with my husband commenting on what he would be willing to try if I made any of the recipes the Food Network chefs were preparing. I was a mom who ate breakfast every Sunday of a Cleveland Browns home game at Jennifer's restaurant with her husband and boys, before they headed off to their season ticket seats in the stadium and I headed off to church or coffee with a friend. I was a poor sleeper who had a partner who would lie next to me in bed, rubbing my back and creatively telling me to put my worries and anxieties into my imaginary file cabinet and let my imaginary guard, Jim, watch over them for the night. I was a thankful mother when Brad would take the boys off on an adventure so I could have a moment to breath in peace. I was so many things, when I was a wife.

I was secure in who I was and I was good at it.

But now who am I? I am a woman who no longer likes to travel alone, despite having spent years of my life traveling around the country for work. I am a woman who has to become the financial guru of my own world and not only keep myself afloat but continue my boys' financial educations that my husband started. I still feel married but I am a widow. I am a single mom who feels very much still part of a parenting team and who has to learn how to handle every single aspect of raising my teenage boys alone with no sounding board or differing opinion to consider. I am no longer a part of Corporate America but I am not fully retired, so I must find my way through work hours and non work hours in my new employment status.

Am I third wheel when I go out with my couple friends?

I am not the confident woman I once was, able to handle pretty much anything, knowing my back up and cheerleader was waiting in the wings should I fall. Who picks me up now when I fall? Can I still fall?

Am I a plant person? I did recently fill my living room with plants. Am I a dog person? I did add a puppy to our home that already had a young dog. Am I a writer? Am I spiritual now? Am I a person who suddenly likes the coastal grandmother look and wears white linen pants when shopping for a new washing machine? I was that person today at least. Am I truly semi-retired or is this simply a stop along my journey? Am I a person who likes to wander through gardens and then have coffee on a patio while other patrons tell my pups how sweet they are and offer belly rubs? Am I really someone who uses a dog stroller because the puppy can't walk in a straight line and, because I am there alone, keeps tangling herself up with other dogs at the farmer's market? I don't know.

What I do know is this; who I am, without my person, is a true work in progress. But I do know that the first step is learning to reshape the routines that we had. The simple dances of making dinner and cleaning it up, of running errands. The jars he would open for me and the shoes I would tie for him. Where we sat in church or at the movies. Who we were as a couple, a team and how we were intertwined in every aspect of each other's lives and days we were. New routines and rituals need to be made and my world has to grow to accommodate it all- the old routines, the memories, the new rituals and the grief. I have to grow my body, brain and world bigger so the new life and the old grief can coexist without killing me. So I guess, for now, that is who I am; a person working on growing big enough to make space for the old me and the new me, together.