And It's Not Easy to Be Me...

It's so obvious. I look in the mirror, study my face, and I see the grief…

In some cultures, women mourning their husbands weren't supposed to look in a mirror for two years. I always thought it was because, at a time of significant loss, vanity shouldn't be a priority. My grandmother did it when my grandfather died, along with wearing all black clothing and a black veil to hide her face. I never met my grandfather, but my grandmother told me about it many years later, in one of her most vulnerable moments.

Now that I'm experiencing grief, I think avoiding mirrors is done more to protect the mourner from seeing themselves, someone they may no longer recognize.

I notice the deepening lines, the downtrodden expression, and the melancholy clearly visible on my face. When I meet a fellow widow or widower, it jumps out at me. We all wear similar expressions. Some are closer to the surface, but those who hide their feelings deep in their souls might be the ones experiencing grief even more intensely.

This bronze sculpture, named "Melancholy", was created by Hungarian Sculptor Albert Gyorgy. It depicts a figure sitting on a bench with a large hole in its center, representing the emptiness and void caused by profound grief, a feeling the artist expressed after the loss of his wife. It's located on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in a park along the Quai du Mont Blanc. 

I'm not sure that in the time I have left, I'll see anybody else in the mirror. It's always a sad, expressionless person staring back at me. I don't shave as often as I used to, and I only comb my hair out of habit. I'm no longer as concerned with how I look, perhaps sending my own vanity into exile. 

When I hear good news, I smile and am truly happy, but it's not the same smile I had before becoming a widower. I'm forever changed, and what makes it more complicated is I'm fully aware of it…

When the Red Sox clinched a playoff berth Friday night, when Marcus Jones returned a punt 87 yards for a Patriots touchdown on Sunday, when I successfully changed the jockey pulleys on one of my bicycles without removing the chain, when I published a blog that urged my readers think, feel, laugh, and cry, my goal as a writer, I did experience a sense of joy. But now it's become short-lived, and I quickly become engulfed in a heavy cloak of sadness.

Each day, I feel grief piling on, like a bully, sneaking up on me and kicking my ass and taking my lunch money, preventing me from feeling uncompromised joy. Since Susan's passing, there's been an incredible void that can never be filled, and that's exactly where grief sets up house.

I'll keep working on me, and it's not gonna be easy, but I know it's what Susan would want me to do…

I can't stand to fly 

I'm not that naive 

I'm just out to find 

The better part of me  

I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane

 I'm more than some pretty face beside a train

 And it's not easy to be me…

The Beginning…