Hard to Accept

I have a new life.  It is hard to accept.  I don't want to accept it.  I want my old life back.  I am now using Ray's set of keys as my own.  It somehow helps me feel a connection to him.  When I was using them today I looked at  the "Ritz Carlton Keychain" (a souvenir he received when he was part of the Ritz's opening team in Dearborn, Michigan) and the loss of him hit me in the face like a soaking wet towel.  The keys are a connection but also a dose of reality. 

Today I read from my daily meditations for working through grief.  Sometimes when I can't even express to myself how I feel - I find my feelings expressed for me in these daily readings.  Today's reading hit so close to my heart that I wanted to share it.  I have edited it somewhat and put it in first person.

"There is no way out, only a way forward." - Michael Hollings

"Is there no relief from this wound? I wonder.  "Is there nowhere I can go to turn aside, to get away?"

What I would like to do, often, is go back.  Go back before the illness.

But that world no longer exists.  My grief experience is a watershed and it has cut me off forever from the world which now seems so simple and almost idyllic (though I know better) - the life I knew with Ray, the life Before This Happened.

Still I keep trying, remembering, wishing until the thought pattern is established in my brain:  this is my world now; this is what my life is like.

Convinced, bit by bit, I try going forward - into a new sense of time and relationships, including a new relationship with Ray, and a new relationship with myself.

My other available choice is to stand still, and I try it for a while.  But I know I will turn to stone if I let that happen.  No, I must keep moving, and in the ONLY direction that is open to me - forward.  Forward into new land, into unknown adventure, unknown territory.

I stand at the threshold of new life.  What will I do?  I can stand still.  Or I can go forward.  Those are my choices.

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But, I don't want to do that.  I don't want a new life.  A new life means the acceptance of the reality of Ray's death.  I know this reality.  I know I have to go forward...I just don't want to.  I laugh.  I cry.  I perform my daily duties and routines.  I'm moving forward....but it's a long road.  - Jimmy