Last night as I was making myself dinner, I listened to an interview with one of my favorite authors, Joyce Carol Oates. She recently penned a memoir: On Becoming a Widow. It has been three years since her husband died. She talked about the empty place in her life that was left with his death.
It seems trite to use words like best friends or soul mates to describe a marriage. Her marriage was clearly so much more than those words can convey, as is mine. Listening to her, I naturally thought about what it would be like to be without Bill. My eyes begin to sting even as I type the words.
Just a year after we got married, seven years into our relationship, Bill got very sick. I remember waiting in the sterile hospital waiting room while he had surgery. Anyone who has ever waited in one of these rooms surely knows just how alone one can be in a cloud of people. I remember sitting there, thinking: I cannot go on without him. I literally could not imagine my life without him in it.
Last night as I listened to Joyce Carol Oates talk about the day her husband passed and how certain she was that her own life was over, I realized how much I have changed since that day in the waiting room. I have learned to live with pain. I am less inclined to resist and avoid. I choose to feel. That choice is a road of opportunity. I am learning to take care of myself. The writing is a good example. I have found a companion in the empty page.
Joyce Carol Oates fell in love again and got remarried two years after the death of her husband. Our stories just keep changing and evolving...
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