Life, Selfishness and Loss

My wife passed away on Saturday, March 31^st 2012. Thursday night we went to the Emergency Room at Providence Novi. They gave her a CT scan and said there was nothing wrong with her. The doctor prescribed some pain killers and sent her home. She was still in pain Friday morning. I wouldn't let her go to work and we went to Providence Southfield Emergency Room. They admitted her and I went home for the night.

The next morning she was dead.

I sat in the hospital room and posted this on Facebook before I called anyone and let them know.

"After my son Billy died I tried to read a book about grief. It was so narcissistic. Why me? Waste of time. Things don't happen to me, they just happen and so many people are involved I can't believe books were written to help people focus on what happened to them. When anything happens it happens to all of us. People react differently, have different levels of involvment, but whatever happebs has happened to everyone.

Yeah, I wasn't spelling very well at that moment. Easy to make typos on a phone keyboard.

The hospital sent a pastor by to speak with me and all the pastor wanted to know was what funeral home I was sending my wife to. My 47 year old wife with a stomach ache had been gone about an hour and all this guy was interested in was what funeral home. How would I know that?

I packed up her things and left. My youngest son spent the day driving around letting people know what happened and working with our pastor and the UMW to decide when to have the memorial service. Along the way we figured out what funeral home to use.

My oldest son died in 1999 and I tried to read one of those stupid books on grief. The whole book was clueless. “Why did this happen to ME”, “this isn't fair”, wah, wah, wah. Someone really needs a clue because a death does not occur to any one person. It happens to everyone around the person who died. Some people are affected to a greater or lesser extent, but, it has happened to many people.

At the memorial one of my wife's friends had our old pastor read something he wrote, “I miss my friend”. I hate that kind of crap. It literally makes me sick. Me, My, I. When my ex-wife's mother died the whole family was Me, Me, Me. For some people a death becomes some kind of pissing match about who is who. Sick fricking people.

We all do things together. No one really does anything alone. Even someone masturbating is at least thinking about others and masturbation is about the most self centered, me, my, I, thing I can think of.(okay, suicide ranks right up there too)

My wife used to say things like “my husband” or “my friend 'so and so' “. We do things like this to communicate a sense of importance, or priority, about a person. Sometimes that sense of priority is returned and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes people feel good about being prioritized in someone else's life. Other times they don't. I understand how words like "I miss you" or "I love you" can be used to communicate a sense of priority and I do appreciate the feelings even if I don't really approve of the use some people put them to.

When it comes down to brass tacks it is not so much about how any individual feels. I have seen people profess love to those who do not love them. I have seen people profess love to each other and share wonderful times. I have seen people hurt by people they love whether the abuser loves them or not.

Love can be a very selfish emotion. I love You. I miss you. These are all about the feelings of an individual.

Love can be something more, should be something more. We love each other.

We love.

It is true that I miss my wife. It is even more true that we miss someone we love.

Love is not about "me, my, I". Love is "we, us, our".

Communicating love is important and it almost always starts with the exchange of "I love you". When it grows it is about "We Love each other".

"me, my, I" is masturbation.

"we, us, our" is true love.