Aloneness.......

Daniel and I shared a space for 42 years. Even when we were not together it seemed as though we were connected. I remember telling other people that I wouldn't have any trouble living alone. I knew how to entertain myself. I loved to read etc....
I was clueless!
The day Daniel died a void came into my space where he had been. I noticed it almost immediately. I sat in the living room listening to the silence. Thinking how strange it was not to hear anyone else moving around in the house. How foreign it was to not feel the presence of someone else there.
A few days later, I was getting in my car and the older gentleman from across the way begin to ask about Daniel. I told him what had happened. He said something that really hit home with me. He said his wife had passed away 10 years ago, and the hard part was the silence. He said turning on the TV doesn't help. He was so right. The noise of the TV or radio does not fill that void.
Daniel had an artificial heart valve. His heart beat sounded like the ticking of a clock. I could hear him anywhere in the house. I found myself listening for the sound of that ticking. Only silence. I was alone.
How do you deal with being alone when you have been a couple for that long?
Again....I was clueless
Everything about my life had changed. When I went grocery shopping for the first time, I bought my usual things. Then I realized I bought those foods because that was what Daniel liked or the foods he could have. It took months before I began to change the way I shopped for food.
There is no one to talk to.
No one to tell the days events to.
No one to bounce ideas off of.
No one to give you their opinion on things.
My pastor came to visit me a few months after Daniel's death. I talked the poor man's ear off.
I remember another friend, who lost his wife to breast cancer, saying to me, "If I just had another woman to talk to." I thought that was a strange thing to say at the time. A few months later when my husband died, I knew exactly what he was feeling and why he said that.
There is a difference between aloneness and loneliness. I think aloneness leads to loneliness for some folks causing them to enter into another relationship too soon after the loss of a mate. That is not always the answer.
Then what is the answer? I have to say I don't know. I can tell you what I did. I started a journal. I began to write as though I was talking to Daniel. I told him everything I would have told him if he were here in person. I talked about the weather, the news, the grand kids, the bills, anything that came to mind. It really helped me.
There were days I would just set in my chair and cry. There were days I felt like God had abandoned me. I want to share this Psalm with you that says exactly what I was feeling.
Psalm 22:1-2
My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me,and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent."He heard me. In my darkest nights He would send a friend to talk me through it. I had a friend back east. She was a night person. Even with the time difference, me on the west coast,and her in the Midwest. I would get on the computer and there she would be. She would talk to me or pray with me until peace came. There were family members that I could talk to as well.
Aloneness can take you to a very dark place if you let it. Reach out! Cry out! Talk to someone.
I have started this blog to share with you what I have experienced along this journey. If you need someone to talk to, you can use the e-mail address at the bottom of the page. I will be happy to talk to you. Don't give up on God! He is there by your side.