Epilogue
So why is it still so painful? Anne, my counselor thinks there is unfinished business; things I didn’t get to say, things I’m feeling that I just can’t get past because when they come up I turn away from the pain rather than facing it and walking through it. I think she’s right.
That’s why I’ve written this down.
I never got to say good-bye. I never told him what I was thinking that no matter what happened I would love him forever, my "Prince Charles". Like the characters from On Golden Pond, he was my knight in shining armor, my protector, my light.
In those last months, Charles told a friend that I was his angel that he never would have made it without me, without my courage. He credited me with saving his life. In January after I’d had to use the Heimlich Maneuver to keep him from choking, he said: "Doris, I don’t care what you do for the rest of your life, as far as I’m concerned, you can do no wrong. Whatever you do for the rest of your life, it’s OK with me…. You’ve saved my life two times. Once when you took me to Mexico and now, by saving me from choking." I can’t get past the pain of that; it hurts too much to know that someone who felt that way about me is gone to a place where I can’t see him any more, or touch him.
So somehow, I have to move forward from this. Maybe someday the good days will be more frequent and the painful days less painful. Until then, I just wait.
Heartfelt Reminders
In February of 1996 I did find a way to express some of what I was experiencing in my attempt to recover.
Patricia, one of my dearest friends, and I kept talking about the lack of understanding of grief in our society. Gone are the days of black armbands and the wearing of black or white to signify mourning. In our society it’s "get back to work, it’ll be good for you" or "stay busy" or "you need to get out, be with people". Unless you have walked in the shoes, you cannot possibly know.
I work in a corporate environment and am well known in the Company from my days as a Computer Instructor. I knew there were people whom I saw every day who had no idea I had lost my husband. And I knew there were people who did know, who still had no idea of the level of my grief. I felt an enormous void. I kept feeling that there needed to be a visual reminder to show that someone is grieving. Something to remind others that maybe you might not be at your best today, that you are laboring under extenuating, emotional circumstances.
The pin and bookmark are the result of that feeling. My hope is that the pin will become a universal symbol for those who are in grief and that it will foster a greater spirit of understanding of the process of grieving.
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