The seventh horrible anniversary

Today is the seventh anniversary of the day I lost my husband, best friend, and soulmate, Nigel. It’s been a varied journey, and sometimes a rough one, which is true for most such journeys. The past couple years have often had among the most difficult patches I’ve faced, which underscores something I’ve often pointed out: We don’t grow out of our grief, we grow with our grief and it becomes a part of us.

I recently saw a video that pretty much encapsulates what I mean. Four years ago, actor Andrew Garfield appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Garfield was promoting what was then his new film, Tick, Tick... Boom! After a commercial break, Colbert asked Garfield about the recent death of his mother, and he said that his grief “is all the unexpressed love”, and I literally said to the screen, “Exactly!” He also said, “I hope this grief stays with me, because it’s all the unexpressed love I didn’t get to tell her, and I told her every day.” He then talked about how his art was related to that, which made perfect sense to me. [You watch the segment on YouTube, and while the link is cued to the part I’m talking about, you can re-set it to the beginning of that particular YouTube video).

From time to time I read a quote that matches exactly the way I see grief. Garfield’s description is what I was getting at in a post from six years ago, “Love has everywhere to go”, and it’s still the way I see it. But none of that is meant to suggest that the pain stays with us, because it usually softens over time (most of the time), but the grief itself is always there.

This also has very little to do with happiness in the future. Some grieving people find it, others don’t and some, like me, aren’t trying to find it. Some nine months into my journey I wrote, “I came to realise something very important about my future: I don’t have to be happy, I just have to be content. Finding happiness is beyond my control—some people spend their entire lives looking for happiness, never finding it. But the latter? That’s something I can help along.”

I think that many seem to think that people are either happy or unhappy, but there’s a third option: Neither, and that’s where I’m at. I suppose it’s possible that happiness could be a continuum, at least for many people, but if so, I think it’s also possible to be outside of that continuum in “contentment”.

All of which is precisely why I memorialise that day in 2019: Everything changed that day, and I did, too. This anniversary is a time I set aside to remember, and, more importantly to feel. I also check-in with myself to assess where my journey is.

Most of important of all, though, is that it gives me get another, and very specific, chance to send out more love. As I said in last year’s post:

September 20, the day Nigel drew his final breath, is the lowest point of my personal year, and probably always will be, but there’s an important thing about that: To have been so utterly and profoundly affected and changed by this one person and his love is a treasure I can carry with me forever. There’s the saying that goes, "with great love comes great pain", and that’s absolutely true.

However, I’ve come to understand that great love is worth it, despite the possibility of great pain. Most days, it’s the great love that’s front of mind, other days, like September 20, the great pain reminds me that the great love is still there. But, through it all, it’s the love that endures.

Always.