Well, it is that time again. Time to pick up stakes and head off for another unknown. Time to clean out the closets and leave friends behind. It has been a perfect brisk spring day. The windows are open. I'm listening to good music and cooking one of our favorite dinners. Finn Sisu and I used to have our best conversations in the kitchen cooking together at the end of the day. Tonight I was hit by a wave of deep sorrow. He was supposed to be here for this. The prime of our lives.
I have an uncle who passed about a year after Finn Sisu. His only daughter often posts on her Facebook page how much she misses him and adored him. I don't feel I have the same freedom to express my feelings. I think a child's grief over losing a parent is so much more acceptable and understandable to society, than that of a woman who loses her life's partner. A widow's pain makes other people uncomfortable, especially when her peers are just getting their kids to move out of the house.
It was a dilemma I faced when I first arrived. Are you single or are you married? What to tell people who ask all about who you are? Do you tell them everything? That can be entirely too heavy for new acquaintances, but I am not whole without him so how is it possible to not mention him? I think I balanced it as well as I could have. Those who are only acquaintances have made their own assumption that I am divorced, but those who know me well know how very much he means to me. I tell them stories all the time.
My closest colleague and friend here probably knows more than anyone how much I love him and miss him. She said she's heard so much about him that she thinks she knows him. I know for a fact he would have loved her and her beautiful son.
So tonight, as I cry because I miss him so badly and have such sorrow for the adventures he will miss out on, I take comfort in knowing that I have honored him by living as he would have wanted me to; that others who never met him appreciate him, his humor and his outlook on life because I will never stop talking about him.
He truly was an amazing man. Those who knew him are better for it...and those who never met him - well, they will know they have really missed out on something great.
I have an uncle who passed about a year after Finn Sisu. His only daughter often posts on her Facebook page how much she misses him and adored him. I don't feel I have the same freedom to express my feelings. I think a child's grief over losing a parent is so much more acceptable and understandable to society, than that of a woman who loses her life's partner. A widow's pain makes other people uncomfortable, especially when her peers are just getting their kids to move out of the house.
It was a dilemma I faced when I first arrived. Are you single or are you married? What to tell people who ask all about who you are? Do you tell them everything? That can be entirely too heavy for new acquaintances, but I am not whole without him so how is it possible to not mention him? I think I balanced it as well as I could have. Those who are only acquaintances have made their own assumption that I am divorced, but those who know me well know how very much he means to me. I tell them stories all the time.
My closest colleague and friend here probably knows more than anyone how much I love him and miss him. She said she's heard so much about him that she thinks she knows him. I know for a fact he would have loved her and her beautiful son.
So tonight, as I cry because I miss him so badly and have such sorrow for the adventures he will miss out on, I take comfort in knowing that I have honored him by living as he would have wanted me to; that others who never met him appreciate him, his humor and his outlook on life because I will never stop talking about him.
He truly was an amazing man. Those who knew him are better for it...and those who never met him - well, they will know they have really missed out on something great.
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