I’m Sorry I Didn’t Respond to Your Email, My Husband Coughed to Death Two Years Ago -- Rachel Ward

"I’m missing him. Obviously. A lot. BUT: I have a cousin who’s also a widow, and she told my sister that she’s not sure if she’d bring her husband back. Which sounds TOTALLY CRAZY to other people, BUT: When you experience a loss like this, you get to see a really wild new amount of life. Suddenly the range of the type of sad you can feel, to the type of happy you can feel, is busted open. The spectrum from happy to sad isn’t a foot wide anymore — it’s as far as your arms can stretch and then to the edges of the room and then up the block and over into the next neighborhood. So I am not happy that Steve died. But I am happy a lot of the time, which I didn’t really anticipate on this day two years ago....

Probably the biggest finding of the past two years for me is that being comfortable being uncomfortable is a very effective way to be a human.
I am constantly trying to teach myself to watch my feelings as they pass through me, rather than chasing them away with Manhattans or Ambien or Netflix. I often fail at this. I am trying harder to engage with people as they are — not being afraid of strangers, asking better questions, really listening to the answers, not being afraid to go to a second location, being less judgmental.

Basically, I’m trying to have an open heart. I’ve learned that it’s really hard to do, but I think it’s probably the Step 1 of any attempt to really be alive, following something like this."


I’m Sorry I Didn’t Respond to Your Email, My Husband Coughed to Death Two Years Ago



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