I don’t think you “get over” the loss of a spouse to cancer.
In the time since I lost my Uyen, I have experienced three phases
of grief.
The first phase following Uyen’s passing was a kind of mix between
numbness and a weird, almost romanticized, state where I felt as if captured in
a sad movie. The near constant attention
from friends and family helped.
My next phase was anger.
Big anger.
My sweet girl suffered pain and wholesale indignity in her last
weeks. How was that possible? No.
Why so? What kind of wrongly
twisted reality allowed for that?
I was consumed by these questions for nearly a full year.
The third stage—the place where I am now—is acceptance without,
for lack of a better term, judgement. More
importantly, the anger and hurt is gone.
When I think of Uyen, I am thankful for all the years we shared. I often catch myself smiling. Sometimes, I mutter “thank you” aloud.
It has been nearly nine years.
Even given that, a thought or two of Uyen strikes me virtually every
day. We spent nearly thirty years
together. Much of my life was shaped
around her.
Night before last, a sudden and enormous grief struck me as I
walked back toward my bedroom. I stopped
at the door to the room Uyen called her “recovery room.” The room started as a spare bedroom, became
Uyen’s craft room, her recovery room, and is now mostly used as my business file
room and library.
Obviously, Uyen did not recover.
She drew her last breathe in that room and left Helen and me standing
there.
All three phases of grief impaled me on the spot as I stood at the
door. Staggered by sheer emotion, I
leaned inside the room.
Just simple darkness and tears on my face.
—Mitchell Hegman
I realized upon reading this that I only knew your Uyen in the time that she was using that room as a crafting room and that around the time the Etsy groups disappeared (without any explanation really, they just went away along with the forums as the site grew and grew) was when I lost track of her. I still am processing the fact that I found you under completely different circumstances and had no idea that your Uyen was THE Uyen I knew but I suspect she had a hand in it, for certain.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange (but cool) that our paths crossed in a completely different way after Uyen's passing. The craft room and Etsy gave her great fulfillment in her last years. For all of that, you have my unending thanks. You were a profound and wholly positive influence on Uyen's life. In my eyes, you did something very meaningful for me as well. Thanks again.
ReplyDelete