Your Dying Spouse 136 - Saying Goodbye.

We're linked to Messy Marriage's Wedded Wednesday - please visit Beth for some great marriage resources!

The question becomes clearer...how does one say goodbye, when the process of leaving has been so long?

It's not easy, by any means. The months, and now years have taken a toll, and most of the grief - on both sides - has been exhausted.

Or so we think.

The truth is that the anticipation of separation only feels like the separation has taken place. yet all the pieces are still on the board, moving slowly from square to square, it's true...but still moving.

One day, they won't be. One day the game will really be going on short one chessman, and only then will the loss become apparent in its full flavour.

But still...one wants to just get it over with.

Give me the grief now, so I can deal with it, and move on.

But it doesn't work that way. Time does heal wounds, or at least it attenuates the pain, but it can't be paid in advance.

So how does one say goodbye before the fact?

By embracing the presence that's still here, that's how. By living each moment as well as it can be lived, not thinking of the loss, but because each moment is worth it in its own right.

The only real way to say goodbye is to say hello, while you still can.

It works for the caregiver, and for the dying. I am trying to appreciate and fully understand the life I still have, and to keep before myself the truth that it's not about what I achieve or accomplish, but about how fully present I can still be.

Please pardon the brevity of this post. On top of everything else, I've had a relapse of this particularly nasty flu. I mean, you'd think that I'd be immune, everything else considered...

But noooo.....

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