Recalled to Life

 “Buried how long?” 

 The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.”

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?”

“Long ago.”

“You know that you are recalled to life?”

“They tell me so.”

“I hope you care to live?”

 “I can’t say.”

~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 

I know grief and loss. The dark nights of anguish. The questioning. The anger. The despair. I know the endless days when it feels like you're losing your mind. I know the weeks that flash by when you just know you have.

I'm no psychologist. I'm not a counselor or clergy.  I'm educated in nothing therapeutic. I'm a career military and security professional. I'm a political scientist, a father, and a self-described a semi-kosher Zen Methodist. 

And I'm a widower.  A younger widower.  My Beloved Bride passed away 19 months ago.  I didn't sign up for this club willingly. I was drafted entirely against my will. I've become the most reluctant subject matter expert in the history of subjects, matter, or experts. I share my experience freely for those in the same leaky, terrible boat and those looking on safely from the shore. I'm sometimes funny, often inappropriate, but always touched with a little sadness.  I'm a clown on fire. Kinda funny. Kinda horrible. Kinda hard to stop watching. 

I've experienced grief in most varieties; anticipatory, complicated and most shades in between. In the five and a half years after my Bride's cancer metastasized, we lost her mother, father, and grandmother.  I retired early from my dream job to become a caregiver.  Last month my Grandma died. Hell, three weeks ago I had to put down the family dog who'd been with us since 2001.  I'm not sure what I've done to piss of the LORD, but I am truly sorry (did I mention I'm sometimes inappropriate?).

19 months on and I can function some days. I even manage a sort of happiness for brief periods. But if this is my "New Normal", I don't care for it at all.  I'm being recalled to life. I'm being recalled and I go kicking and screaming. Do I care to live? It's still too early to say.