New Love & Old Grief

I'm not sure there's any single event that has taught me more, prompted more growth or forced me to embrace ongoing discomfort than the death of my husband. 

So much so that it's resulted in more than 200 pages of journaling, and a weekly grief blog. I guess I have quite a bit to say about death & its aftermath.

If this is the first post you're reading, let me provide the highlights.

My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in June, 2022 and died 65 days later...in August. I was widowed at 47 years old with a 17 year old daughter and 15 year old son. 

I felt incredibly exposed & unhinged from my comfortable life for a long time. So I hiked, listened to music, grew my faith, walked, began writing, did yoga and spent gobs of time alone. I didn't really know it then, but these things were strengthening my spirit & paving a new path back to the light.

I dipped my toe into online dating, and after a few months, I met Jeff Heald. It was the scariest- and easiest- relationship I ever curated. Jeff was also raised in Michigan, and there was an instant familiarity about him that made him feel very much like home. 

Roughly 14 months after meeting, we left California and have moved back to west Michigan. We bought a house, and moved everything we loved across the country. That was about 3 weeks ago. 

Since then, we've been decorating a new house, spreading more mulch than I thought humanly possible, restocking a pantry & fridge from scratch (soooo many condiments & spices!), looking for lightning bugs in our backyard, waking up together every morning and learning how we like our clothes folded & put away. 

When you build a life with someone, you know all their quirks & habits.

• Does the toilet paper get loaded over or under?
• What clothes get air dried?
• What kind of mayonaise do they prefer?
• Poop schedules 
• What "little things" get under their skin?
• Dishwasher loading & organization? 
• How do bills get paid?

The actual list is incredibly long, but the thing is, I knew all these things about Geoff without hesitation.

Because I was his witness. 

I was the witness to everything in his life, no matter the importance. And that's really the beauty of marriage. You agree to care about everything in someone else's life. To listen to all the complaints, the dreams, the stories, the regrets. 

When you suddenly lose your witness- without consent- it's a wound that never heals. The edges soften, but that hole will remain sacredly empty for a lifetime. I think this is a huge piece of the grief pain. You no longer have that person who serves as safe harbor, as memory keeper, as cheerleader, as protector. 

It's you. Alone. Drifting.

If you have lost your witness, I know how completely disorienting this is. I also know I can only speak of grief from my own lens, and everyone has a different, unique experience. I had to remind myself the discomfort was part of the healing. 

I reminded myself often that I had a beautiful marriage that ended because death arrived. That great marriage wasn't luck. It was the result of a lot of hard work and commitment. I loved being married. I built it once, and I could do it again. 

Please don't misunderstand that last part. I didn't set out to find a new husband. It didn't become a repeated prayer or life goal. I just knew- deep in my heart- that I had the capacity to love someone again, and I was gonna love myself enough to be ready when opportunity knocked. 

So here we are. Learning the quirks & secrets of daily life. The ones reserved for family. Most of the time, I'm so aware of God's hand in all of this. I've said often I can't really grasp how fortunate I am to have had great love grace my life...not once, but twice. It's not lost on me how rare & special that is.

Yet.

There are moments when I ache for Geoff. Despite the palpable peace I feel blanketed in, the hole of his absence is still very present...because new love does nothing to erase old grief. 

It seems to magnify in moments when parenting becomes hard. 

This week, Gwen was in a car accident. She wasn't injured, but her car was pretty smashed up. I had plenty of support & was pretty collected as we navigated the incident. When we got home & the dust settled, I wanted my witness. I wanted the only other person who knew my daughter like I did. I wanted his sturdy protection. I craved his voice telling me it was all going to be fine. I wished I could hear him tell me how proud he was of Gwen for keeping such a level head. 

Nobody is going to parent & love your children like them...ever.

And the harsh reality I continue to bump into is this- I never get to have conversations or arguments about parenting with their dad again. And that will never not sting. 

I will hit 2 years of grieving Geoff this summer, and how I grieve now isn't how it was in the beginning. I explained it last week like a video game. 

It seems you work really hard to integrate- or master- the suffocating grief.  There's relief...sort of like a new level on a video game. And when you gain a smidge of confidence about how to navigate your grief, you "level up" and it's a whole new game, with new pitfalls, new triggers, and new traps. 

I feel all of this. I prayed relentlessly for the life I'm currently living. Specifically, I prayed for peace & calm, and it's arrived. Yet new grief triggers surface. There's comfort in a familiar life, and navigating the newness of all the good that's arrived is pretty exhausting. 

I should also mention there's a guilt I carry because of the duality of these emotions. I guess I cling to some imagined expectation that should be elated and oozing joy 24/7. And I'm not.

• I still have balled-up-on-the-floor moments of grief in this new life. 
• The tears of missing Geoff continue to fall. 
• The demand this move has put on my emotions has manifested in a body that is both fatigued & sore. 

I carry a lot of shame over these. I want to be excited & energetic...now. For now, I must make room for stillness, for restoration, for healing. 

As I navigate a summer of learning how Jeff likes his morning oatmeal & how to drive to the gym without Google maps backing me up, I wish for my readers to focus on hope...because none of what I've written about in this post is possible without it. 

I miss Geoff. I will always miss him, love him, and look for him in the world.

I also love Jeff. I love his gentleness, his steady patience, and his quiet acceptance. 

I know that Geoff hated mayonaise, loved a basic white t-shirt more than anything, and could never resist a box of vanilla wafters. 

Now it's Jeff's turn. I will take the same mental notes & tuck them into my heart the way I did 20+ years ago. Because my heart has room for more notes. More quirky habits. More secrets. 

But I didn't know any of that 22 months ago. All I knew then was how lost & painfully sad life was without my witness. Time did pass, but it wasn't the healer. 

I was. 

And in that healing I discovered an expanded heart, built one moment at a time with hard fought hope & God reminding me that I was never alone. He knew what was coming the whole time. 

Summer of hope. I like the sound of that. 

keep going