Taking Off My Rings

I did it last night. During my GriefShare group we watched a video about Heaven. In the video, they discussed that it's important to be careful to not pretend that you have an ongoing relationship with the person who died. The example given was talking to the person out loud or in your head. Not something that is necessarily wrong (if you also acknowledge that they can't actually hear you but it helps you to do so) but something that can hinder your healing process. It avoids facing the reality that that person is no longer here and you can no longer have a relationship with them. It prevents you from leaning on God and others who are living.

As I listened, I looked down at my wedding and engagement rings. I've been wrestling with what to do with them for a while now. They represent a reality that just isn't a reality anymore. Yet, to take them off felt so wrong - like I was saying that I was accepting, and therefore okay with, G's death.

But last night's video made me realize that they were allowing me to live in a pretend reality. An old reality where I was married, "off the market", spoken for, being cared for by my spouse. Instead of my new reality in which my spouse has died. I am alone. I am no longer married.

In every area of my life, it is time to face that truth. Time to let myself move forward. Time to make choices that I want and need to make to take care of myself. Time to own my life, my growth, my progress and my decisions. Time to face the reality that G wasn't perfect and that I am enjoying the freedom I am living in now compared to the exhaustion of having a very ill spouse. It all feels so disloyal. And it would probably be disloyal if G was living - but he is not.

So I played around with different positions of my rings and came up with one I feel comfortable with. My beautiful engagement ring that G spent a whole summer working to earn - the one that was just so perfect for me and was giving to me right before our first kiss - that one is being stored. Maybe someday P will want it - to give to a fiance. Maybe I will have a step-daughter someday who will enjoy the beautiful ring. Who can say?

My wedding band is now on my right hand ring finger, next to the birthstone ring that G gave me on my second Mother's Day. It feels right to have "my boyz" represented on that finger together.

What does this mean for me? I am moving forward. I am open to moving forward. My life did not die when G died.

Lord, help me embrace what ever it is that you have for me.