The Why

My story begins where it feels like it ended: 8:46 am, November 1st, 2019, though I didn’t know it until about 40 minutes later when I picked up my phone and saw that my wife, Teresa, had sent me a text. It was her 42 birthday that day and she had taken the day off as our two boys, 8 and 11 at the time, also had the day off from school.

I was at work when I saw that she had sent me that text. I am an accountant at a property management company and, in addition to it being the day I needed to process payroll, we had also just taken over management of six new properties. My plan was to work in the morning to make sure that payroll was done and everything was in order on my end for the new properties and then I would rush out to find a gift for my wife’s birthday. I had a card for her in my laptop bag but needed to write a note in it still.

The text wasn’t from my wife but was sent by my youngest son from her phone.

The card is still in my laptop bag.

Still unsigned.

Almost two and a-half years later I’m starting to understand that beginnings and endings aren’t so clearly delineated.

Born out of the grief of my wife’s passing I began my journey as a single father; as a widower; as a soul separated shockingly fast from the beautiful soul who chose to bring peace, safety and love to my life and who had chosen to be in my life for 20 years despite my many and varied flaws.

The weight of her absence, particularly when all of our family had gone back home and my kids started going back to school, was so heavy and dense that, at times, while I sat at the makeshift office that was my kitchen table, I wasn’t certain I would be able to move from where I sat let alone be able to handle this weight for the next 17 years when the kids would both be 25 and, according to my newly written will, would both be of the age where they could take care of themselves and not have to be raised by others.

I didn’t know.

Until that time I didn’t really believe the idea that someone could die of a broken heart: could sadness really kill someone?

I get it now.

Sitting at that table attempting to work, or cancelling my wife’s credit cards, removing her from our bank accounts, feeling like I was erasing one piece of her existence at a time from this life, I felt how one could die from heartache. There is a place I touched on a couple of occasions that I knew I wouldn’t come back from if I went any further.

Maybe it was in those moments that the story of my journey began.

Or maybe it was in the time after her death when I noticed that I wasn’t running from dealing with the hard things anymore but was facing them and handling them in the best way I could.

Or when I learned how to take the boys on a vacation, just the three of us, and make new memories, despite the deep ache of Teresa’s absence that I felt in my heart, in my stomach, in my soul.

When I cancelled those credit cards.

When I sought out help from someone for myself.

When I started to learn that it was okay to ask friends and family for help, and it was okay to be away from the kids.

When I came to understand that it would be okay to be happy again; to not hold on to regrets but to use them as a guide for the future.

Maybe it was when I decided I needed to explore yoga and mediation as a way to better myself, to be more present for the kids.

Maybe the story hasn’t yet begun or ended.

I could point to a lot of places along these last two years that felt like a beginning or an ending but, as I reflect back on the last two years, I see that they were only moments on the time line. No beginning, no ending.

In the end we have moments, moments that tell stories about us, stories of grief, of joy and of anger. Stories that tell of our anxiety, our frustration and our happiness. Stories of passion (our inner passion and those moments shared with others). Stories of love. Stories that make up our lives and can only be told by us if at all.

We’re often told that stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end, but, in life, it’s not that simple. It would be much less messy if that were the case but life is messy. Life isn’t made up of sentence structure and punctuation marks, its made of the moments where we repeat failures of the past. It’s made of moments where we are so focused on the future we don’t see what is happening now. It’s made of the moments that we don’t see happening as we grow, learn and become; moments that are so imperceptible that it isn’t until we stop and notice that we see the changes and believe that we grew, learned and became something new in just that very moment.

Life is also made up of moments of beauty, peace, kindness and love. Moments where we are wholly there and relish all that is, all that we are and all that we have.

In this space I want the messiness to be seen in all of its iterations. I want to share my journey through grief, through learning, through hope in the best way that I can.

In this space I hope to also share the stories of some who have helped me on this journey, so that their stories can be told as well. In addition to giving those who have dedicated their lives to helping others a space to tell their own stories, I hope that by hearing their stories, how they came to do the work that they do, that their stories may inspire others to do the same kind of work or help others understand what the various modalities of healing that may not always be seen as mainstream, are really about and what they may offer us in our own unique needs.

In this space I hope that others may be willing to share the stories of their lives, their journeys, their healing so that we can have another reminder that we are not alone. Our suffering, our anxiety, our joys may be uniquely felt by us individually, but the feeling itself is not unique to life itself.

I hope that this can be a space where stories are told. Where stories are read and maybe heard. A space where, through stories, we learn more about who we are collectively and individually and feel safe to explore and be heard.

Our stories all deserve to be heard and held in a safe and sacred space, may this space be just one of many to provide that.

-Nathan