Saudade ... the Love that Remains

The polaroid we are holding in this photo, at our wedding, now sits in my bedroom. A snapshot in time from a beautiful, joy-filled day that perfectly defines my saudade.

The absence of my husband has been a very physical sensation over the past few days.  It's as if my body is aware on a cellular level that his isn't here any more. I've been longing to be near him.

I'm not talking about sex, it's that so-hard-to-describe feeling that would come over me when I was in his presence. Like a mixture of safety, calm, tingling with excitement that he was mine, feeling confident and accepted. It was like being home.

Even when he hasn't been on my mind this week, I've noticed that my arms have been yearning to hold him and my head really wants to rest on his chest. My ears are straining to hear his laugh and my eyes are missing seeing him walk in to the room.

My fingers are stretching out to his hand that is no longer here to hold. As I wander around our house I find myself running my finger tips over his things, like I'm sub-consciously trying to connect with the items that he used to touch.  

Walking down our staircase my mind drifts to all the times I followed him up and down it.  The day we moved into our home when, while carrying furniture upstairs with my brother-in-law, they put a couple of dints in the wall. I touch these marks now and still overheard Dan say 'don't worry mate, I'll tell her in was my fault.' He was my person and I couldn't be annoyed with him. Also, I was just too happy to be starting our life together in our new home to care about the damage. 

I think about that very last time he walked down the stairs and into our kitchen where I was making his breakfast, waiting to say goodbye as he left for work. I try again, for the millionth time, to get in to his head that morning and my heart cries out 'why didn't you talk to me. Please come home.'

I haven't had this particular 'physical ache' type of missing him for a long time. I felt like this constantly in the first year but more recently, the missing him has been one of the many other variations - missing having my life partner / companion / team mate; missing the life we were supposed to be living right now, the child we were planning on welcoming in to our happy life; missing that person who I could completely let my walls down with, who embraced and adored every last flaw.

Again, I'm reminded how complicated grief is and marvel that it still has the ability to catch me unaware when it manifests in a different way.  Usually, just as I've started to get comfortable with it.

One of the ladies in my on-line support group here in Australia recently introduced me to the term 'saudade'.  There is no English equivalent to this Portuguese word, however loosely translated it describes a melancholic incompleteness or nostalgic longing for something or someone who is absent.

It's the repressed knowledge that the much-loved object of longing may never return - whether it be a homeland far away, a happy moment in time that can never be relived, a lost lover, or a family member who has died.

Saudade has also been described as the love that remains after someone is gone. The recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, happiness and a sense of well-being, but which now trigger a sense of emptiness. That feeling when someone who should be there in a particular moment is missing. 

It brings together 'sad' and 'happy'. Sadness for the sense of what is missing and happiness for having known the experience in the first place.  

I like this word, for I feel like it sees my soul and says 'I know'.  

Today, I'm pausing and sitting in this moment. 

Today, I saudade my husband.

Hope and Healing at Camp Widow

Photo booth shenanigans with new friends 

By all accounts, I really should be feeling pretty awful right now.  This past Tuesday marked my first birthday since Dan died (turning 34, his forever age) and coming up this Thursday, July 24, is the first anniversary of his death.  This is a tough time of year, there's no two ways about it.  It sucks, it hurts and it's freaking unfair.

But in a really weird way, I feel suspended from the weight of the grief at the moment.  I know it's there, lurking... most likely waiting to strike when I arrive home from my USA holiday on Wednesday, all jet-lagged and grumpy (maybe it will even hit on the 13-hour-trip home which will be fun for the people sitting around me). 

I'm pretty good at tapping in to my grief and leaning in to it when I need to rather than pushing it aside and playing the denial game, so I was thinking today, why do I feel 'ok' right now?  Where did this 'good vibe' buzz come from?  And the only thing I can really put it down to is Camp Widow.

It feels like attending this event last weekend was some kind of turning point in my grief journey.  I arrived in San Diego on Thursday afternoon so excited and bouncing with enthusiasm. I'd heard the stories from other people who'd left Camp Widow feeling like they could take on the world and I couldn't wait to feel that too.  Bring it on!

Then Friday morning arrived, I jumped out of bed and walked up to the registration desk, ready to get started.  That's when it hit me.  What the hell was I doing?!  How on earth did I think I could travel half way across the world on my own, waltz in to a conference of 250 people I'd never met, let down all the walls I carefully maintain to keep myself protected and composed and talk to strangers about Dan's death!?  

I felt so vulnerable and naive and promptly started freaking out.  I had made a serious mistake and couldn't do this - I was way out of my depth.  Before I had the chance to flee I was ushered in to the 'new campers' workshop by a friendly volunteer, where I sat with tears running down my face, carefully noting my nearest exit route and avoiding all eye contact.

After an introduction and run down by one of the Soaring Spirits board members we were instructed to turn to the person next to us and introduce ourselves. Oh shit, crunch time - this is it Rebecca, you finally have to turn up and start playing.  So I paired up with a lovely lady called Angela from Northern California and after blurting out my name, said I'd lost my husband Daniel just under a year ago and broke down in tears.  Once I calmed down and confessed to how nervous I was feeling, I realised Angela was tearing up too.  She assured me it was ok and pointed out that we weren't the only ones in the room crying, I looked around and she was right, I wasn't the 'weird crying woman' at this event, we were all in the same boat.  This really was a safe place and no one was going to point and stare at me. 

Over the next two days my confidence slowly grew.  I started feeling connected to these strangers and felt more comfortable opening up.  I sat and listened to other people's stories - their fears and their pain along with their triumphs and goals.  I cried with them and I cheered for them.  I heard presentations from widows who are further down their path than I am and who have managed to make sense of their grief and even build something positive from their pain.  Many of them had even remarried and I was fascinated that they had found happiness again with partners who embraced their grief so fully that some had even attended Camp Widow with them! 

I danced.  Now that is huge.  I am not really a dancer at the best of times and haven't danced since my wedding in June last year, six weeks before Dan died.  I put on silly props and posed for photos with my arms around women I had only met two days earlier (I'd seen the photo booth photos from previous camps and thought 'seriously, I can NOT imagine feeling comfortable enough with these grieving strangers to pose for laughing photos together' - but it happened!).  

And when it came time to say goodbye, I cried.  I cried because I would really miss these new friends whom I cared about deeply.  I cried because Camp Widow made me feel so happy and normal and actually excited about a life that lay before me, I was scared to leave in case I left those feelings behind.  

I cried because I still missed Dan and I wanted to tell him about my amazing weekend, but I realised that the pain I felt at losing my Great Love (my kryptonite as Michele so eloquently put it in her key note address) could also be my super power, as I carried that love forward with me, propelled by the knowledge that my time with him was a wonderful gift that I am still receiving by being the woman he saw in me, by being the better person he made me and by growing through this horrible life experience.  Love never dies and his love will be my super power as I live the rest of my life. 

This is something I NEVER thought I'd say, but I left Camp Widow feeling proud to be a widow.  How crazy is that!?  I felt proud of the resilience I'd developed, of the compassion I felt for others, and of the strength I never knew I had.   I felt proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these incredible men and women who had also left their homes alone, travelled to an event where they knew no one and let their own walls done in the hope that there was more.

I am now trying to work out if I can make it back to the USA or Canada for Camp Widow next year and anyone else who is considering making the journey, I can't recommend it enough.  There is more for us, there is hope.  This situation may not be what we WANT and it's still certainly not fair on any level, but we don't have to settle for a life that is less than.