“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.” –Erica Jong
“Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
Picked up a notebook the other day. It was from 1996. Three widows born in a plane crash moment. The quote from A was, “I don’t know what I need; I’ve never been a widow before.” Then I remembered what B said when we first met her all those years ago. Her husband had recently died and here she was at a scoring conference. “Get yourselves some girlfriends is all I can say. The two of us did everything together—everything. Get yourselves some girlfriends.” More recently I have heard enough advice to fill a few swimming pools, but what it all comes down to fits in a tear: there is no right way to grieve. C called and said, “Don’t let anyone tell you how to do this. Make yourself feel better however you can. I still have [his] clothes in the closet.” It’s been eight years for her.
The first day I left my house and went into the world was terrifying. I went into the shop and told D how guilty I felt for being alive, for walking around doing “normal” things. She looked at me indignantly and said, “Who the hell do you think you were married to? You have no right to stop living.”
The first time I left my cell phone more than three feet away from me, I told E I was going to join the gym because that’s what “normal” people do. She said, “You’ve been talking about what normal people do all day. I gotta warn you—you were never that normal to begin with.” And we laughed.
The first day I realized that I hadn’t cried yet I remembered what F told me. “Back to normal?” she said, “No. That’s not going to happen. You have to create a new normal.”
Sandra Cisneros’ Rachel was right. Here’s to onions and sweaters and little girls. Here’s to how we all feel when we wish we were a hundred and two.
I think today I will walk outside and just sniff at spring for a bit.
“I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.”
-Bertrand Russell
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