A TERRIBLE-BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE

Who Knew?
Following the Little Sparks
A Companion to Twice Widowed

There were times after Darrell died when the idea of taking up a new interest would have been absurd. I was overloaded. Life was already giving my brain and body more than they could easily absorb. Getting through what was in front of me required what I had.

And then, at other times, little things began to catch my attention. I started painting pictures. My mother taught me to crochet, although I didn't keep that one up. I took a dance class once. I traveled and visited old friends. I planted an herb garden. I studied nutrition. I even became interested in space science.

Space science. Who knew?

For the first time in my life, I also began collecting music. My Apple Music library now has hundreds of songs. That surprised me for another reason. Darrell had very specific tastes in music, and strong opinions about what he liked. His preferences tended to fill that part of our shared life. I hadn't really had much room to discover what I liked.

After he died, I did. I began choosing music for myself. One song led to another, then another. I wasn't trying to establish my independence or reclaim something that had been denied me. I was simply discovering my own taste in a place where, for years, I had mostly known ours through his.

Widowhood had taken the person I loved from me. But in the life that followed, I sometimes encountered parts of myself I hadn't known separately from him.

And there were other surprises that weren't things I did at all. I laughed more. I had always admired people who laughed easily. It wasn't that I hadn't laughed before. I had. I could be funny myself. But something about my laughter felt different now. It came more easily. It felt real. And I wasn't the only one who noticed. Other people began telling me I laughed more.

I hadn't tried to become more joyful. I hadn't worked on laughing. It was simply something I noticed about myself. Another little clue.

A Brain Learning a Changed World

Earlier in this companion, we looked at some of what can happen in the brain and body after profound loss. The brain isn't simply dealing with sadness. It is trying to take in a reality that may contradict what years of living have taught it to expect.

After Darrell died, I knew he was dead. But knowing and assimilating that reality were not the same thing. So much of what my brain knew had been learned in a world in which Darrell existed. Ordinary life kept giving me new information about a world in which he didn't.

Research on bereavement describes some of this as new learning. The brain has to keep encountering and incorporating information that does not match what it previously knew. New lived experiences become part of that information. They don't erase what happened or replace the life that came before. They give the brain more experience of the world as it is now.

I had traveled without Darrell. I had made things with my hands. I had chosen music according to my own taste. I had tried something and decided not to continue. I had become fascinated by something I never would have predicted.

And sometimes a new experience contradicted what fear might have predicted: I can do this. I can make a choice. This is difficult, but I can tolerate it. This moment is not the same as another terrible moment.

Not conclusions to memorize. Experiences actually lived.

But I want to be careful here, because there were also times when none of this would have been possible for me.

When There Is No Room

There were times when I had no room for another experience. I didn't need a hobby. I didn't need someone telling me to get out more, learn something, take a class, or discover a new interest. I was overloaded.

When so much of my capacity was already occupied by what had happened and by what life still required of me, adding something new would not have felt interesting. It would have felt like one more demand.

So this isn't a prescription for what to do with grief. I didn't go looking for most of these things because they were good for my brain. I didn't know the research then. I lived first. Much later, the research helped me understand something about what I had experienced.

The little sparks came when there was room for them.

Those Little Sparks Are Clues

That's what interests me now. Those little sparks are clues. Not instructions. Not assignments. Not evidence that grief is over or that you are doing it well. Clues.

A song you want to hear again. Something you keep reading about. A place you wonder about visiting. Something you want to make, grow, learn, taste, hear, or understand. An old interest returning. A completely new one appearing from nowhere.

Or the clue may be closer to home. Something you once shared with your spouse may feel different when you encounter it on your own. You may discover that you have tastes and preferences there too. Not because the shared life was wrong, but because now there is room to hear your own response.

And sometimes the clue isn't something out in the world at all. It is something you notice in yourself: I laughed. I liked that. I want to hear that again. I wonder about that. I tried it once. Once was enough. I didn't know that was in me.

A clue doesn't tell you who you are supposed to become. It doesn't even tell you that you should follow it. It simply tells you that something caught your attention.

And if nothing is catching your attention right now, there is nothing you need to go looking for. There were times when I had no room for this either. A clue is something you notice when it appears, not something you are required to produce.

Who Knew?

I couldn't have predicted the woman who would paint pictures, take one dance class, plant herbs, collect hundreds of songs, study nutrition, travel to see old friends, briefly crochet, and become interested in space science. I couldn't have predicted that I would laugh more either.

I wasn't assembling myself according to a plan. I was living-and sometimes encountering myself in the process. Some things stayed. Some didn't. Some introduced me to parts of myself I hadn't known before. Some simply gave me an afternoon, a song, an experience, or a story. They didn't have to become more than that.

A Scribble of Your Own

Has anything caught your attention lately-even something small, strange, impractical, or completely unexpected?

Something I keep looking at...

Something I wonder about...

Something I might like to try once...

Something I've noticed about myself...

Or simply: Who knew I might be interested in ______________________________?

You don't have to turn the answer into a plan. You can simply notice the clue.

Meeting Yourself Here

Near the beginning of this companion, I asked you to write down some of what felt different or difficult to reach in yourself. Then I asked you to leave a second set of lines blank until you had read the last piece. You're here.

What do you see now?

When I was writing Twice Widowed, I didn't know who I would meet at the end of my writing. I only knew I was looking forward to meeting myself there.

A Quiet Truth to Carry