I AM NOT UNIQUE, OR DIFFERENT, OR SPECIAL

As a young mother I took a workshop on how to best communicate with my children.  During the course of the workshop I was presented with the idea that no matter how unique you think you are, or how special, if your eyes are open and you look around you will see, even in the dark, you are not alone where you stand.

To prove the point, the instructor shared the story about how he decided to order these very special red glasses.  He desired to stand out…be different…a one-of-a-kind man.  “How many times do you see red eye glasses on anyone?” he said.  He searched and searched until he found just the right ones.  Spending good money for these one and only kind of glasses they finally arrived.  To his amazement after a couple of weeks he began to notice others had the same red pair of glasses.  How come he didn’t see this before?

I equate this same phenomenon with cars.  I cannot tell one new car from another.  Not like the old days when a Mustang or Corvette looked like a one and only.  Or my favorite, a Thunderbird.

So you go out and buy that one car that calls your name.  What happens?  Suddenly you notice that car everywhere.  You see them in all colors, on every street.  Yet before purchasing it myself I could not see my car anywhere….that I noticed.

So here I am today…a widow.  Looking back on life we had family members die.  But as a young person you grieved and then quickly got back into the rhythm of living.  Gone but not forgotten are those that had passed on.  

Today, I feel like I am living a cascading event of people passing away all around me.  Yes, I do live in an “active adult community”.  But I have noticed since I became “one”…a widow…that it is not unique, or different, or special…and even in the dark, I am not alone in this journey.  I am one of many and a continuing growing community.  

I am not sure how I am suppose to feel about all this.  I know the world pushes me to say, “get on with it”, but no matter what we think we know about “getting on with it”, when it is our turn we each have to find our own way through the loss, grief, and new growth that will eventually follow.  

I know one thing, I am more keenly aware of those around me.  In a crowd, I watch couples and find myself even wanting to go up to them and say, “hold tight to each other, for these moments are as fleeting as it was when raising your family.”  When I hear a couple bicker, I want to ask them, “Is this really worth the pain you are causing each other?”

But I know this is just life…just as the life I lived and took for granted.   The good thing about this realization, is accepting the fact, that I do not stand alone in the dark as I once thought I did.  And this is a good thing.