I try not to complain on this site, because there is enough of that in day-to-day living. Quite frankly, with the world situation right now, I honestly don’t have anything worth complaining about when I compare the dignified, quiet, “as controlled as one can get it” death that ended my husband’s life to what is going on in Europe right now. I watch with a heavy heart and a sinking spirit the events that unfold in Ukraine day after day, and I cannot even phantom the depth of sorrow and pain that families are enduring there right now. It almost makes me physically sick to think about the wives, mothers, siblings, children that must flee to safety, saying tearful goodbyes, crowded together in train cars, small hands of confused children plastered against train windows stealing one last touch of a family member’s hand through cold, clouded glass. I see their innocent faces peering for perhaps the last time at their father on the other side of the glass; the wives with tears in their eyes, a heart which I am sure must be breaking, wondering not only if they will ever see their husband alive again, but also if they will even know when and where he died; whether his body will ever be identified or recovered. So, yes, when I compare my loss to theirs, I am almost ashamed that I feel so sad and lonely sometimes. I was blessed. I was able to bring my husband home, to our house, to familiar sounds and all that he knew well, to be surrounded by love as he slipped quietly from this world into the next, leaving behind all of his pain, all of his losses . . . all of those of us who love him. And, while that is all true, still, my pain is real and I cannot deny it. The void in my life will not be ignored, and the sadness in my heart cannot be discounted. So, today, for me, for those of you reading this blog who are here because you grieve as well, and for all of those people in the world, wherever they may be, who are suffering the loss of someone they love, I invite you to come on the voyage of grief with me. Together we will all try to make a course correction towards calmer waters and build a life with our Love in our hearts instead of at our side.

The Voyage of Grief

I have lost track of time . . . over and over and over.

On a repetitive, unending loop, minutes have turned into hours .

Hours transformed into days.

Days morphed into months, seemingly much longer than they were before . .

Before . . . in the before you died time . . .

the before when you were more than a memory time.

The before time when I could hold you, touch you, share my life with you.

The before time when I was not alone.

But these are the Now times . . . the times when I am often a stranger in my own life,

adrift on an unknown sea, conscripted to a voyage I never wanted to take,

on a sea of grief, besought with waves of confusion

and loneliness that continually wash over me . . .

No matter where I stand. No matter how hard I try to avoid them.

Oh, that there was an avenue of escape . . .

some way to circumvent the storm of emotions that all too often rage around me . . .

if there were only some way to find the secret passage home. . .

Somewhere to feel alive. Somewhere to feel loved.

Somewhere besides adrift on this sea of grief.

March 7, 2022 Julieanne Gentz