I continue to support this blog, but I still have trouble coming up with new content.

Today’s update is what I call “Re-Emergence.” I title this “Re-Emergence” because I truly feel like an adult emerging from a chrysalis. My chrysalis was a protective shell in which I encased myself during what was the worst part of my life.

In case you missed it, my husband died in January, 2021, after a six-month battle with treatments for pancreatic cancer. The chemotherapy treatments administered two years ago (this month), could not be tolerated. Chemo intolerance led to getting an infection and resulted in multiple organ failure.

Since his death, I went into an extended period of grieving. I had a lot of support from my family and close friends, as well as opportunities to serve my community as a volunteer to keep busy and do things to honor my husband.

The process of grief…

… goes through an initial five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages of grief were defined in a seminal work On Death and Dying by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and co-author Dr. David Kessler.

In a follow-up work, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, Dr. Kessler describes that “meaning” is a way of “remembering those who have died with more love than pain and shows us how to move forward in a way that honors our loved ones.”

Since that fateful day of January 5, 2021, when my husband died and my soul was ripped from my body, I have experienced, worked through, and back-and-forthed some (since the grief process is *not* linear) — all of these stages of grief.

My bereavement support group and my close friends & family are witnesses to how I have dealt with the pain, grieved, remembered, grieved some more — yet have risen to a new life in which I am comfortable just being me. Just me. Looking back with fond memories and living forward with a new life of unimaginable beauty to behold.

Woops — there I go again — being the “perpetual optimist.” My husband usually expected the worst, while I was the opposite, expecting the best (sometimes, admittedly, with a lot of innocent naiveté.)

Yes, I think I have found meaning. The meaning of my new life is growing, evolving, and is exciting to me to be a part of.

I also credit having the new man in my life for expediting my personal growth and re-emergence as well.

As I have worked through grief, I finally felt that I could open my heart. My new man stepped in. Feels good. Feels right. Just feeling again after almost two years of numbness is… well… just.plain.nice.

Life is short: live brightly with a smile from a service-driven heart.