Left Behind

I remember Glen telling me shortly after he was diagnosed with the lung cancer, it would be more difficult for me than for him because I would still be here.

On 6/3/08 after reading The Time Traveler’s Wife I wrote:

I find myself thinking about being left being left behind which was the main theme of the book... I do not want to go to this place - the void without Glen...I feel I am in a place now where Claire was whenever Henry would disappear and she is waiting for him...uncertain if he will return. So I sit and wait - not knowing whether I will be left behind.

Glen had been dead for 4 months when on 7/18/09 I wrote:

I feel the loss of the love of my life and still cannot believe fully that life is worth going on without him with me...it continues to be very difficult to fill the hours, let alone the day.

On 1/1/10 I wrote:

Now I must find a way to live a “me” life because the “we” part of my life has ended. My hope for 2010 is that I will find a way to begin creating the rest of my life without the love of my life to share the adventure.

On 1/31/10 I began to make this shift when I wrote:

I was totally unprepared for life without Glen...I was thrown into a state of grief so intense I was unable to think..Slowly you move from grief to mourning. I believe I have begun to mourn...I can see myself in the future instead of only in the past. I know I will live.

Grief is about being left behind, in the empty space of living; grief shifts to mourning when you begin to see a way to live.