The Puzzle Pieces of Life

If you could see the future, and choose to know how life ends up ahead of time, would you make that choice? Many would, but I am one that would never want to know the future. While it might be fun to know in advance the winning numbers of the lottery, I cannot imagine knowing in advance the sadness, or tragedy that might be waiting around the corner. My wife and I talked about this very thing after her stroke and cancer diagnosis. As much of a jolt and shock that her diagnosis was, I cannot imagine knowing years in advance that my loved one would suffer a serious illness. 

While we all worry about the health and welfare of our children, parents, and loved ones, having advance knowledge would be a terrible weight to carry. Having foreknowledge would be carrying around impending doom and heartache. We would be incapable of enjoying life because we would always be waiting for that dreadful day to arrive.

It is hard to allow life to naturally unfold because it means we encounter life as it comes, and not any earlier. We will have wonderful moments of surprise, but we are also going to endure unbelievable loss, shock, and heartache. Thankfully, when we are children, we do not have an ability to see 50 years into the future. What an unbearable weight a child would have to carry if this was the case. It is not until the right moment that the pieces fall into place. 

In many ways life is like a puzzle, and it takes an entire lifetime for this puzzle to come into full view, because the pieces are not given to us until the perfect moment. After a loss, there is not only the grief, but there is also massive confusion because the most significant person in life is gone. Life has instantly changed forever, and it is so difficult to determine what the future will look like. All those beautiful puzzle pieces we imagined being placed and added are now sitting in a pile to never be used. The plans that were talked about will never come to reality. Therefore, we all try to understand the new normal, and what life will look like in the future, because while life goes on for everyone around you, life for the grieving is turned on its side, and nothing is recognizable for a period.

Since Lyn’s passing, I have a heart for people that have experienced loss and have grief of any kind. I have spoken to so many about their loss, grief, and moving forward in life after the passing of their spouse, friend, or loved one. Most that I have spoken with have told me that there is confusion, shock, and a mental fog over what just happened. Some have told me the fog lasted for many years. I was fortunate that in my case, it was about three to four months before the haze began to clear, and I was able to start focusing on the future and moving forward. It is important to note, that I do not mean that I was, “fine” or “better,” because there are so many sides to grief, and I had no idea what grief was like until I started to work through it on a daily basis.

Therefore, after about four months I started to wonder about my career, and what I wanted to do in the future. I wondered about my home, and if it was a place I wanted to continue to live. I thought about taking trips. I also considered if I was open to a future relationship. Others I have spoken with in my situation stated that they have had similar thoughts. It is natural to contemplate just about everything, because one does not recognize this new life that is suddenly upon them. For me, I was trying to find out what was the new normal.

When my wife passed, my grandmother sat down with me. At the time she was 96 years old, and my grandfather had passed nearly 30 years earlier. My grandmother told me two valuable things. She said, “Jeffrey, you are going to be sad for a long while, and it will be lonely at times. When your grandfather passed away, it was difficult. The nights were the worst for me.” The second thing she told me was, “When people ask you to do something, you need to take them up on the offer. If you don’t, people will stop offering. I am thankful for my friends that call to take me into town, to church, and to senior coffee.” This was wise advice, that I embraced. Having friends in my life truly helped in my healing process.

It takes time to work through the initial shock, and then the process of grieving starts. The working through grief is critical, because it allows the rough road to be repaired with new pavement. This road repair created a new path leading toward growth and healing. There is no shortcut on this path, and before one can even fathom the future, and move in a healthy direction, the fog must clear. For me, once the fog started to clear, the sunshine appeared, and new pieces to my life puzzle were starting to show up. 

The emerging clarity allowed me to focus on living my life and look to the future. I started planning solo trips, volunteered more, played golf, did special things with my children, and started writing this blog about our journey. While I started forging ahead, it was still a very strange stage of life as I tried to figure out the new normal, and make decisions as a single person, after nearly 30 years of marriage. 

This new normal hit when I had to check the box on a government form that said, “Single.” It was a very strange feeling once I realized that I was single for the first time in 30 years! I recall thinking to myself, “Well, I guess I will be single forever,” because I could not fathom what a new relationship would look like, or how to even pursue a relationship! For me, checking that first box of, “Single,” was a bit sobering! But in all honesty, it started to make me think about the future and if I was open to a relationship.

I recall Hospice sending me information about loss, grief, healing, and the future. In one written piece, there was an article about future relationships. The article I read pointed out that future relationships, and the time it takes to even consider a relationship differs. For a minority, the answer was, “Never,” for a variety of great reasons. For many, it took several years to even ponder the mere thought of a relationship, because they had much grief to work through first. A large number took from several months to a couple of years to consider a relationship.

After a number of months, and life became a bit clearer, I realized that I was at least open to the idea of a relationship in the future. I came to understand that it was okay to focus on selfcare, happiness, and the future. I went over conversations that Lyn and I had throughout our decades together, and we had discussed what would happen if one of us passed before the other.

In blog post #20 (Moving Forward), I wrote that six months before Lyn’s passing, we had an emotional talk about moving forward in life. As previously noted, at the time I was confused on the because during her illness, we had talked about moving forward hundreds of times. By moving forward, what I mean is that we were determined to not allow cancer to stop us from enjoying life. This could mean taking trips, watching a sunset, laughing with friends, or just enjoying life with our children. Our interpretation of “moving forward” was “living and enjoying life, now and into the future!”

However, it was not until months after her passing I started to understand what Lyn meant. In this conversation she meant, “You need to keep moving forward in life. I want to beat this cancer, but it is relentless, and you might need to continue to move forward without me on this side of sunshine.” For me, this was a point that allowed me to truly start writing new and beautiful chapters in life. It was time to embrace the gift of that puzzle piece and place it on the puzzle board.

In January 2020, a new chapter of life began to be written. God handed me a puzzle piece. To be honest, it was a bit of a shock how it all emerged. For me, it was like turning the page in a good book, and there is that epiphany moment when things become clear. My relationship came completely out of left field. It was nothing that either one of us sought after. Yes, at that time, both of us were open to the thought of a relationship, but the way it came together was so organic, and it was simply amazing. 

There is a picture we like, and it is of a puzzle piece, followed by a quote by musician Toby Mac (Speak Life Quote) that says, “It might not make sense right now, but someday you’ll see how he [God] was putting the pieces together all along.” At first, it made no sense how our relationship emerged, but we soon recognized that it happened because it was the perfect time in life for it to happen. We could not have seen this coming, because until it was the right moment in life, we could not be handed this beautiful puzzle piece to place on our puzzle board. 

When the gift of our relationship emerged, all we could say was, “This is crazy.” It was crazy because we did nothing to pursue it. We were simply handed the next piece of the puzzle. Since that time, we have merged our two distinct puzzles, and combined them into one new beautiful life story. We are taking all our life experiences and blending them, and our families, and creating something new.

In my journey, the timing was perfect, however, for others, it will be different because not all grief is the same, and the circumstances in life differ. For instance, in my case, as noted in previous posts, my grief did not begin at Lyn’s passing, but started years earlier when she became ill. Obviously, someone that loses a partner suddenly, their grief will be different than my journey. And for families that have younger children, it will be different than our family situation. In our journey, all our children were adults, and had developed their own lives. My children were honest that while it was going to be “different” seeing me with someone else, they were supportive because they knew it was important to move forward in life—just as Lyn wanted. 

When our relationship started, I learned from my partner (now my spouse) an important thing about love. Early on I told her that I will always have a bit of heartache and grief, and also have love for Lyn. Rose told me, “Jeff, love is not pie.” When she told me this, it made sense, and I had never thought of love in that way. Thankfully love does not only have eight slices. Love is endless. It is okay to love that which has been lost, and to also love again. Rose’s words helped me to see things in a new and clear way, which paved the way to building something new and beautiful. 

Wherever you are in your journey, those puzzle pieces will appear at just the right moment, and a new picture will emerge. However, my life, journey and puzzle will obviously look different, because this is my journey. You have a journey, and it is important to realize that the timing will be different. Grief has no formula or timetable. What doesn’t make sense now, will someday be made clear, and a new and beautiful picture will appear, given time.