Permission to Live
After watching the movie "School of Learning", I had a revelation. It made me realize that I have wasted the past five years of my life. I have been feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in self pity because my future dreams and my future life died when Tom died. I was suffocated with guild because I survived my cancer and Tom did not. I was angry because the last two years Tom and I spent together was as cancer patients, each of us trying to survive our cancer.
Tom died and I lived. While fighting for his life, as did the teacher in the movie, people and life itself were the most important. They did not get a second chance, but I did. I had a life threatening disease and I survived it. I have a chance to do more with my life than I accomplished before my cancer.
Grief is a powerful thing. It can control your entire life and ruin it if you let it. It is true that each person takes their own time to grieve, but sometimes people need a kick start to come back to reality, especially when that reality is not the one they want to face.
My changed reality was much more than losing my husband. It was also the loss of some of my physical abilities, the loss of an income making status and loss of total identity. I was angry, lonely, sad, afraid, and displaced in my own existence.
An individual does not live life solely for their own gain, whether it be fame, monetary wealth or personal comforts. Being a part of something greater than ourselves is the true existence of people.