I’m starting to understand why the Victorians and Edwardians set aside a year of mourning. It seems an arbitrary time frame, but in retrospect it’s not. It takes time to adjust, to change, to redefine. It takes time to create new patterns, habits, and plans. After a year, you start feeling kind of normal. Oh, not the way you used to feel normal, but normal for this newness of being.
In some ways it stinks. Well, in most ways it stinks. Old ‘us’ plans and dreams give way to new ‘just me’ plans. Dreams are still in the future, though. Planning is hard enough. It’s been 1 year and 23 days now – and that alone shows the newness. I’m not someone who remembers numbers. I always had to ask Steve what date my dad died! (Now I have to go look it up.) But I know what date, about what time, and even what day of the week Steve died. Ugh.
I’m getting better. I can focus on a book or project for more than 10 minutes at a time now. I’m getting involved with new, not-us activities, like line dancing classes and teaching youth Sunday school. But it’s still difficult on an everyday level. I can’t just turn to someone in the morning and say ‘Let’s drive down to the shore, (or the mall, or wherever,)’ anymore. Now I have to decide to either go by myself or plan ahead with someone. That, too, is the newness of not-us.
God has been faithful. He has brought friends alongside to take care of what I couldn’t, and some things i still can’t. He has given me people who call and say “Let’s go out.” He has given me Himself, most importantly, and put up with me when I can’t seem to focus on His word. But He is ever there with His peace.
So thank you to everyone who has stepped in and stepped up. Thank you for caring, for loving, for just being there, And thank you, dearest Lord, for Your ever-present comfort.
