Changes

I've changed and am changing since Faye died. And I'm a little concerned about some of that.

I'm worried that, without Faye in my life, I'm slipping back into single guy selfishness. Faye, my outspoken, outgoing wife, did not let me get away with being self absorbed. And I grew in unselfishness in our 24 years.

I was living intimately with someone else. And that someone was servant hearted. But she's gone. I really need to be careful about this.

Faye also helped ensure I maintained discipline--at least in terms of work that had to be done.

If it is to be it's now up to me.

Growing together

I've often commented about how different Faye and I were. She was an extroverted, high-energy workaholic. I am an introverted, lower energy, and much more inclined to chilling out.

I like spicy food, Faye did not. Faye was frugal, I was much less so. Faye was earnest about everything she did. I have an unfortunate tendency toward being flippant.

Our differences led to clashes from time. Faye rarely let me win an argument.

Over time, however, God worked in our lives to smooth those differences. Looking back over the past few years and I see us being much more alike than different.

Yes, our personalities remained different; however, our mutual faith was much more important than differences.

We both had a love for stretching and growing as people and a dislike for complacency in our lives.

Faye was often teased for being my food nazi. And, yes, she was far more disciplined in her eating habits than I am but we really shared a desire to be healthy and to further our health by our nutritional choices.

We both had an appreciation for entrepreneurship. We both value family and church.

God had us move steadily along the same path.

And so I press on.

The body

I often find myself on the outside looking in at myself in this process of grief recovery. One thing that particularly interests me, and yes I do find myself interested by this, is the connection between the body and emotional recovery.

On July 17, six months to the day I found my Faye gone, I went into a massive back spasm that had me in severe pain for several weeks.

Tuesday, on the day of my first birthday celebrated without Faye in 25 years, I had another back spasm (not nearly as bad but still a spasm nonetheless).

My chiropractor has told me that men feel stress in their hips and lower back, which is where I felt my pain, while women tend to feel stress in their shoulders. I have no idea if that is true but it certainly seems to be true for me.

And it makes me think that as good as I'm starting to feel I have still have grief working its way on my body.

That makes sense to me. I firmly believe emotional healing is strongly connected to physical well being and physical well being is strongly connected to emotional well being.

So I am committed to caring for my body. As I pray, and seek God, and trust Him I also care for the body He has given to me.

God created the physical universe and called it good. Our bodies matter to God and how we treat them matters to Him.

Eating right and exercise and getting proper rest are vital.

I will press on.

Makes me smile

It's odd the things that make me think about Faye and miss her. For instance, I always think of her when I make a particularly good dinner. I find myself wishing she was enjoying it with me.

On Sunday I did a rib eye steak in my smoker and it turned out really well. In fact I would honestly say the steak was spectacular. And, as always happens, I found myself wishing I could share it with Faye.

But she probably would have insisted one steak is enough for both of us. In fact, she may well have decided it was enough for three dinners. ;)

Nobody's perfect.

Light is shining

Today is my 65th birthday and my Faye is not here to celebrate with me.

That aside, I'm feeling better than I have since the day she died. I know more ups and downs will come--but something has changed and I'm grateful and enjoying it today.

Pressing on.

Feeling restless

I've begun to feel a strange restlessness, or a sense of being unsettled or even slightly uncomfortable with my world as it stands right now. The world doesn't seem quite right to me. And this isn't all about the loss of Faye or grief.

Rather than being a grief symptom this restlessness is more like the way a wound starts itching as it heals. The reality is that I will have more ups and downs and low points as time moves on but I think this strange new feeling is about healing and recovery, not about grief directly.

I'm getting ready to embrace something new, but what? I for sure don't know right now but I'm being prepared.

Pressing on to my high call.

Multi level grief

I'm working through a book called The Grief Recovery Handbook and I'm finding it to be very helpful.

One of the exercises is a grief timeline, which I did a few days ago. A second exercise could be called  completing relationship.

As grieving people explore their grief timeline they may be surprised at how often they have been struck by grief. It will not only be about the death of people they love but a lot of other stressful, grieving situations.

Let's see there could be divorce, rejection, business failure and moves away from friends and family.

My discovery is that grief is multi-layered. As sharp and painful as Faye's death has been it is layered with times I have experience rejection and stress of many kinds.

Final healing is not possible with incomplete relationships still in your life. Completing those relationships may not be a long or difficult ordeal but it does need to be done.

Pressing on.