The Challenge of Change
I’ve never readily embraced change. Admittedly, some changes are more difficult than others.
As a teacher, autumn meant gearing up for a new school year. No matter how long I taught, each year I approached the first day of school with anxiety and a touch of panic. And yet, by the time the first day was half over, I wondered what all the fuss was about.
When my husband fell ill, the thought of losing him filled me with sheer terror. We soldiered on, always hopeful and together, but when he left, I stood at the edge of an abyss the likes of which I hadn’t envisioned. The winds of change engulfed me in a whirlwind of fear, despair, and longing.
Somehow, I endured to find myself on a windswept plateau, significantly changed and mostly at peace. I can feel gratitude for what we had together, honor his life, and rediscover what life now holds for me.
While navigating the darkness of acute grief, I never expected to find myself in such a light-filled place. It took time, many wrong turns, and perseverance, but here I am.
I created this piece almost two years ago when I felt on the cusp of positive change. As I walked, an oak leaf fell in my path, and I carried it home with me. It became the focal point for this little canvas. The cranes, representing flight and growth, are cut from beautiful Japanese paper. I saw myself as the solitary crane below, hopefully venturing out on my own in the unfamiliar new world in which I had found myself.
2 thoughts on “The Challenge of Change”
This theme is very familiar to me! Shortly after my husband was diagnosed with his final illness, I heard from our landlady that basically she had messed upon her taxes for our house and wanted to sell it to recoup her losses. She actually wanted me to have people touring the house while my husband was in home hospice care! I put my foot down about that and she held off for about six months. But as soon as he was in the ground she sold the place and gave us 15 days to move out.
We were lucky that we quickly found a place that was half again more than we had been paying in rent but had room for all of us and all our stuff. (My husband approved it – I knew this from the baseball I found in the front shrubbery that had our initial on it.) It turned out to be an ideal place for recovery from our double trauma, convenient to our jobs but very secluded and peaceful. This helped our healing a lot. Granted there are still a lot of boxes of my husband’s belongings that I can’t face going through yet, but just being able to sit out on the deck in the wilderness of our back yard and take a few minutes to just breathe helped divorce ourselves from the turmoil and still our emotions and overactive minds.
Thank you for your honest response to this post. The amount of change you had to confront all at once, especially while dealing with your husband’s illness, is more than most people could ever anticipate.
I’m so glad you’ve found a peaceful refuge to heal and reflect, and you received a sign from your husband to let you know he approves.
Do you feel stronger after reflecting on how you survived this challenge?
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