I've flipped the lens on loss

I have a lot of interesting posts and reels that show up on my Instagram feed. Funny stuff, motivational quotes, stuff that’s supposed to inspire me to be a better human being (good luck with that one). I also get a few posts that try and put a different spin on grief. 

Some make me stop and watch. It’s a good way to kill time. Having said that, every once in awhile, I watch a reel and get stopped in my track. Recently, it was a  message with a new twist on something I thought I could teach a masterclass on: my grief.

“Someone once told me, you may not have got to spend the rest of your life with them but they got to spend the rest of their life with you. And there’s beauty in that."

This simple yet powerful message made me sit down; made me hit replay repeatedly. It made me cry — at first, soft tears that gave way to sobbing gulps. I wept for what seemed like an eternity but, in reality, was only minutes but I wept until I was spent.

I cried for so many reasons. I felt ashamed that when My Favourite Husband died, I was angry I didn’t die first. I was ashamed I was so greedy that I couldn’t imagine wanting to live a life he wasn’t part of. I howled because, well, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and that didn’t happen. I cried because I had made it all about me. 

I never flipped the lens. I never looked at it from the viewpoint that he got to spend the rest of his life with me. I never accepted the gift that I could find peace if I showed myself grace and allowed myself the comfort that would come by acknowledging he got to live out his life with me. That we were together. 

I never released myself from the guilt that sometimes comes from continually building a beautiful life and moving forward. I never gave myself the release that comes from knowing it’s OK to not spend the rest of my life with him. 

I can’t make the impossible possible. But what I can do is acknowledge that I got to spend that chapter with him. And although my life may have many more years in it and he won’t be a part of those chapters physically, he will be in spirit. 

I calmed myself. Smiled a little. Thought about the promise of until death do you part. Realized it had parted us and that only one of us would get the gift of having spent the rest of our life with the other but that the one that was left behind — me — got the gift of giving that gift.

And there truly is beauty in that.