A beautiful imperfection..

“Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death... OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it..

 But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it.

The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life." - Dean Kootz

 

These words echo a perspective that has formed in the losing that I have endured and in the moments of grief.

Oh....perspective. 

Perspective. Defined as the way of regarding or viewing something. 
Perspective is costly.
She demands a high price. She is a costly companion.

I have perspective.

She is a companion I now carry through these days.
I had to pay the costly price... oh, how difficult that cost.

This new found perspective places a freshly formed veil over how I view the interactions and the experiences that are before me.

Every event that I step into- I take Lady Perspective with me.

Every precious moment. There she is.
In the mundane- she can't flee. She is bound to me.
She was born out of the chaos of those dying days.
She was forged from the metal of the battle days- those days where the fight against the foe of cancer and his leaving us raged.
She was found in the deep seated grief of saying goodbye.
She was heard in the thud of earth being poured onto that polished timber casket.

That's where she comes from.

And now- in all that I do and all that I put my hand to- she whispers her song of new reality.

My world- Touched and tinged with perspective.

 

I have a new perspective about love and relationship. 

I think back to the Suz of our early married days. She didn't carry this perspective. 
She took him for granted. 
She took being loved and wanted for granted.
She raged against his long work hours and didn't lean into him when things got rough. She put mammoth expectations on him- to be perfect and constantly, perfectly attentive. Oh... if I could offer her just a sliver of this perspective. 

"Love him fiercely...imperfectly even. Just the way he is. He's trying his very best." I would whisper to her. 

Perspective. It strips away the unimportant, the ridiculous.

Perspective. It peels back the superficial to expose the true meaning of these days.

Just lean into each other- that one person who is your person.

Just value the mistakes as moments to garner a second chance.
Just relish, revel and be present in each day.

If you can learn from my hard won perspective- learn this lesson: don’t rush through each day striving for a perfect tomorrow. Be present in the imperfections of today.

Listen- I know.

I was that exhausted, cranky mummy of babies. Wishing their baby days away. You- tired mumma: Look around at the baby days of your children and smile at the beauty of mess and chaos. It’s messy and it’s tiring as hell- but that’s where the magnificent beauty of your life lies- in the imperfection of now. I was that wife of a workaholic husband, always feeling like I came in a poor second place to the demands of his career. And instead of providing a safe haven for him to retreat to from the rough demands of his work day, I was cold and prickly and mean. Oh- if I could share this perspective with that me of then.

Just stop. That is the message of this perspective. Just stop and be present in the imperfection of your now. Let second chances and fierce love be the way you live and love. And laugh more.

That is this perspective and her lessons.

 

This is a letter to you- the community of readers who have watched me attain this perspective.
You - well, you have watched this birth of perspective.
You saw perspective rise up in those battle days.
You heard our grief song in the dying days.
You watched me come to terms with a world without his grand physicality.

I have written of this perspective in these words.

And you have watched her, this Lady Perspective, unfold in this story.

I read back- to the start of this blog.

92 posts ago.
1305 days ago.
31, 320 hours ago.

 

I was sitting in yet another waiting room, waiting… always waiting. This time I was waiting for yet another PET scan to be done. We were newly acquainted with the phrase, “I’m sorry, but you have cancer” and I felt like I was tail spinning somewhat.

I had a coffee in hand and I was studying my shoes against the nondescript carpet of the waiting room. My phone was alerting me that I was receiving messages of love and support and that tentative querying about how things were going.

I wondered at a way to let everyone in our world know what we were living through. How we were coping with this “and then suddenly” tidal wave that had hit us.

And because I’m a storyteller- well… weaving those days and these days into our tale was what needed to happen.

 

You have been with me.

    
You have read what I have offered.
You have cried when the days were just so very lamentably sad.
You celebrated and cheered in your offices and lounge rooms when we had a breakthrough or got another bit of time to be with him in his grand physicality.

I have heard from all the corners of the world- stories that mirror our own.

I have read each message and it buoyed my heart to have contact in the valley of the shadowed place we walked through.

Community matters.

And you- the readers who have taken time to pause in your days and partake of our world- you have been a part of the community that sustained us.

 

And now- the story that was him and his valiant end is reaching for that final page.
He stands, perfect and whole, on that distant shore.
He has heaven and we have these days.

 

And now- we tenderly hold the echo of his laugh and the reminder of his bristly whiskers and we face the next days.
Days that are going to be like so many we have had since he left.
Days that will be shrouded in perspective. 
Days that are beautiful in the way they arrive with the sun- hues of pink and silver through my bedroom window.

Days that are heartbreaking when I see his sons turn their head to seek him still.

But they are our days.
And there is no timeline for this grief.
There is no expectation that I foster for how this grief will play out.

It will just play out.

And I’m ok with that.

 The chapters that have come before these days are never nullified.

Never quieted. 
Never blemished in value and adoration.
They are the days and hours that created who we are.
He is never nullified- not one iota or atom of him is nullified or quieted as we walk into the next chapter.
He is present.

I hear him.

I see him.
In the curve of his son’s brows.
That’s where I see him.

 

When I tiptoe into the darkened rooms each night to slip a gentle kiss on their brows- that’s when I hear him. Whisper soft. In the brush of my lips against their little heads- that’s the whisper of him. I carry that. I carry him with me. I carry the soft goodnight kiss that was his to give and is now mine alone. And he is there.

 

He will always be there.

 

And now- I look to the future and I smile.
I grin in eager expectation for what is to come.
The desert years of loss and devastation are behind me- I look with eager expectation to the coming days.
What has been stolen will be righted.
What grief has shattered and left torn will be mended and restored.

 

I just had a lovely conversation with a work colleague at lunchtime. She has been in our battle corner and a part of this amazing community throughout the ups and the valley-lows.
We were talking about how the boys handled Father’s Day and the one year anniversary of his goodbye.

I was telling her about how they are just so sad.

“As a mum, I want to protect them- to make sure that they never hurt…that they are never this sad again.”

She looked at me. She gently placed her hand over mine and she replied, “They need to grieve. They need to go there to those places of immense loss… And those sad feelings? They can visit. But they aren’t welcome to move in.”
Yes. Sadness will always visit. But it can’t move in. Go back to what Dean says at the start of this letter:  And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life..

Life is beautiful. Imperfectly beautiful.

It has to be.
It is magnificent and tragic and sorrowful.
There is the grand tale of redemption and second chances being played out every day.
Lady Perspective has painted a new way for us to value these new chances to smile and hold a loved one’s hand.
We have endured the rending of deaths goodbye, but we still know the magnificent gift of this life.

Yes.

I smile with expectation at what is coming.

Yes.

I smile with gratitude at what has been mine.

Yes- I have a heart full of gratitude for what this storm was unable to shake: the strength of community… the kindness of others.

Thank you- my community of load bearers and support givers.

Thank you for listening and hearing what this heart needed to say.
Thanks for pausing in your days to partake of ours.
You have given a stunning and generous layer of kindness to this story.

 

This has been a long letter- but it is the last one in this chapter.

I will continue to write- but in a new chapter- watch this space for details and links.

I have loved and hated writing to you.
It has been cathartic and painful.
I have become accustomed to typing through the sobs.
And now- this chapter is coming to a close.

 

I leave you with this thought-

 

Sheldon heard the faint whispers of Heaven in the days leading up to the completion of his earthly lot.
He leant in and his spirit humbled.
His heart, always generous and unfaltering in good intentions, grew evermore determined to face the end with dignity and strength.

It astounded me- the way that he so resolutely and stoically met his last breath.

Here’s what he taught me- this great man that I so fiercely loved:

 

This is life.

Imperfectly beautiful life.

It is a breath and a heartbeat.
It is the joy of a touch and a smile.
It is the opportunity to face whatever comes with the strength of togetherness.
It is the ebb and flow of liking and hating the very nature of each other. Of loving sometimes imperfectly. 
It is the morning, fresh with the first soft ray of dawn. Fresh with a new beginning and a second chance to maybe be a better version of yourself than you were at yesterday’s dusk.
It is the night, the dim stars appearing as though they are woken from a deep slumber. A chance to rest and retire from the chaos of the day’s demands.
It is hello- the pleasure of meeting.
It is goodbye- to rend asunder and be absent from.
It is the grief and the majesty of a privileged love.
It is the turning page of a new chapter.
It is beautiful, and horrendous and stunning and sorrowful.
It is the magnificent tension that we walk. Yes- a magnificent tension.

A tensioned line that stretches out between this life and the distant shores of Heaven.

And there he stands.
Perfect and whole.
Vital and at peace.

Where once he caught the faint of echo of Heaven’s shores as he laboured in a failing earthly shell, there he stands now and he catches instead the echo of us.

He tilts his healed and beautifully whole head to the side and he hears us- the laughter of his sons as they grow into men that will mirror him. The soft sobs that still shake our grief struck hearts. He hears our echo.

Oh… that distant shore.

Hold safe my loves and let them be assured that we who are left will smile at the future.

He has Heaven and we have these days.

These beautiful, imperfect days.