When I first started this blog, I posted about my favorite widow book, "Companion Through the Darkness." The author became a widow while pregnant, and I could relate to so many of her definitions of words. I came across the old entry tonight, and was happy to see that I no longer could relate to many of the definitions. Here is the old list, with my updates in color:

Grief:
The act of accepting forced change;
a constant state of my existence,
in varying degrees from white hot to disgruntlement;
a sign that I am truly alive.
I can't say that I am still grieving the way I once was. The kind of grieving that stays with you from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, and even once you are asleep, it haunts you in your dreams. I grieve still, but it comes in spurts. It hits me when I least expect it, and it leaves me just as quickly as it hits me. And I am so grateful for that.

Cognizance:
A momentary lapse into sanity,
where I realized that my insanity is a sane reaction
to an utterly insane event.
You'll have to tell me if I still am acting crazy.

Inertia:
The place I find myself caught in;
not the past, not the present, and not yet the future.
Utter emptiness.
I no longer feel empty. I feel like I'm really, truly living, and loving life.

Hanging on:
Something I do,
but I don't know why.
I remember feeling this way. I don't feel this way anymore.

Mourning:
The total insanity
that followed in the months after he died,
from which I have emerged different,
taller, stronger, more armored, more soft;
the process of sorting the seeds
into manageable, orderly piles.
Love this one.

Mystery:
The maze of thoughts
I have about where you went.
Yep.

Happiness:
A state of being
that I don't believe
will ever come to me again.
I am happy.

Rage:
The state I use to survive
seemingly endless moments
of intolerable pain.
Went through that.

Gratitude:
The feeling I have now for even the smallest progress,
for my expectations are so low I am difficult to disappoint.
I do feel like I appreciate things that most take for granted. I hope I do, anyways.

Envy:
When I forget that to trade places
with another is simply to trade problems;
the state I find myself in
when I think that my pain, my tragedy
is greater than anyone else's.
I still struggle with this. I have a great deal of trouble sympathizing with those losing a loved one that is older, that has lived his/her life. I just don't feel the sympathy that I used to feel. I wish this wasn't so.

Child:
The life you left behind to keep me living.
My boys.

Pity:
The rasp that opens my shameful wound;
the look on people's faces
where they haven't a clue what to say to me,
and when (I suspect) they want to believe
that it will never happen to them.
This still happens, but much less frequently.

Transitional Lover:
A person who took me across the gulf
between your death and my life.
I've had a few of those.

Epiphany:
The moment I realized
he was never coming home again.
Still haven't really realized that yet. Four years later, and his bathrobe is still hanging in the closet. He might need it you know.

Magic:
Something that still exists
if I listen
and follow the signs.
Something that breathes hope into me
when I least expect it.
Oh yes, I believe.

-b