Why am I sharing my grief?

Why am I sharing so much of my grief through these posts? What do I hope to achieve or get by penning my thoughts, or to be exact, keyboard-tapping them as one hardly writes on paper these days? In so doing am I not exposing myself too much? How would Jenny feel if she had known that I am baring so much of our past lives together, after all she was very much a private person, a shrinking violet, if you knew her.

It’s been some weeks since I started this journal. I have never in the past had the habit of keeping any kind of a diary. Writing is usually only something I need to do at work, crafting emails  or drafting policy or procedural papers and so on.

But losing a spouse is a life-changing event. The days after the funeral, after all the hugs and words of sympathy were all made and spoken, in the quiet of my now single-occupancy room, I had felt more isolated and alone than ever.  The kids could only spend so much time to keep me company as they needed space and time on their own too.

To be truthful, there were concerned friends who took time and trouble to meet up. They bought me lunch, joined me for walks in the nature reserve and I had offers to go for runs together also, though I never could keep pace and huff-and-puff alongside other runners these days without losing breath. But face to face even with the closest of friends, there was only so much I could openly share without turning the social occasion into a tearful therapy session. It would be awkward of me to wholeheartedly pour out my misery and break into tears in their presence. Not in the restaurant settings, where we would meet and risk inviting stares from curious on-lookers.  It is also to spare my friends from the stress of finding the right words to say. How would they comfort me up and save their old buddy from crumbling before their eyes?

My trusted friends were already kind enough to make time to support me, to expect any more help from them would be most unfair.

So in my own quiet time, writing my thoughts was a way to express myself, say the words I find hard to verbalise and relieve my inner pain.  The pain of losing Jenny was a pain unlike any I had felt in the past.  Looking back, I cannot recall anything of a heartbreak that came close to the tsunami of anguish that swept into my life. It is the first real personal tragedy that I had experienced and I cannot imagine going through a bigger one in my life. If I had other heartaches before, they were merely pin-pricks.

And worst of all, it was hard for me to really talk about it to anyone. Likewise I think it is also hard for anyone to understand the agony I am in.  Not unless, God-forbid, they too have lost a spouse of many loving years together.

But indeed there are many others who have lost their spouses and are sharing their personal grief through blog-sites.  Trawl the net and quite a few such sites would pop up.  Some have stated their blogs were put up to help others in similar situations.  I must confess that it was helpful reading about their plight and how they dealt with their problems. Shared misery is a misery distilled and lightened. Reading through their sites, made me feel less isolated, more “normal” to some extent.

But I cannot in all honesty claim that in making each post, I have such noble intentions of helping others. To be true to myself, I write really for myself. I am the reader and I am writing to take care of my own healing.

I write also with the future in mind. 

The future is uncertain as Jenny’s sudden claim by cancer has taught me. And I am not sure what the future has in store for me. I guess nobody would.  But should the years ahead be kind to me, I would not want to forget this important phase in my life, traumatic as it has been. Does this sound ironical? Here I am, going thru the worst part of my life but instead of wanting to bury it, trying to blank  it out and tuck away the entire doleful experience into the backwoods of some remote corner in my brain, I am bashing away my computer to document it all.

And why not? I could only lose Jenny once. Time would surely heal and memories of the pain would fade. But forgetting this part of my life seemed to mean losing her for good. And that for me, is unthinkable.

Jenny might not be pleased that I am giving her this much of attention.  It is strange that women might invest so much to make themselves look attractive (Jenny is ever perked up to make sure she looked pretty in public) but would feel uncomfortable when placed under the spot-light. But my poor Jen is no more here to know about it. Why do I then feel the need to write so much about her and about the time we spent together and how I feel about losing her? These are personal feelings after all, exposed and laid bare. It is not like me to do this. Not in the past at least. Am I embarking on a guilt trip, to fill in a void of unrequited love? Am I trying to re-create my passion for her and dedicate a fresh tribute to my wife, the one and most important person in my life and sadly whom I now feel I have not shown enough of my appreciation and love  over our 30 years together? To make up for what I had failed to do?

Perhaps that might be the subject for yet another post. Another reason to write again, some other time and place?