My future self?

Long-term grievers have decisions to make

Yesterday I walked into a small, neighborhood restaurant in my community for a lunch meeting with a well-connected local leader whose diligent work is in the social justice space. I was a couple of minutes early, so while I waited I glanced around the room, humming with energy from the conversations at several of the tables near me.

In the center of the space two tables had been pulled together to accommodate a gathering of about ten retired women. Their animated faces and chortling voices provided the background buzz. There were several tables with two people sharing lunch together, their conversations more hushed in quiet exchange. At the register was a growing line of those ordering their lunch items.

And then I saw him. An older gentleman, back to the rest of the restaurant, gazing out the window, eating his lunch all alone. There was something familiar to me in his build: his balding pate surrounded by wisps of grey, his large stature reminiscent of Viking ancestors, his serene presence.

Note: this image is AI-generated, not an actual photo

At about the time I was prepared to remember how I might know him, my lunch partner arrived. We ordered our food and found a table, which happened to be near the gentleman I had spotted minutes before. As we prepared to sit down he was standing up.

Seeing his face, I immediately recognized him as one of the grief support group participants I met late last Fall. I greeted him by name, and we made mutual inquiries in the Minnesota way: “How are you doing?” And received, also in the Minnesota way, the usual: “Pretty well. Nice to see you.” Our exchange was brief, appropriate to the situation, but also haunting.

In a split second of humbling awareness, I asked myself: “Is this your future self?” In twenty years, will I be this balding, quiet, old man eating lunch alone in a cozy neighborhood restaurant?

Because he and I were together in a support group for several weeks, I knew too much of his back story to allow myself to believe he was contentedly widowed. He had been married twice as long as Claudia and I were, and he had endured the long whittling away of his wife’s existence from a gut-wrenching late-in-life brain disease. By the time death relieved her and her family of the misery, he had come to a place of serenity, although he missed her desperately.

Based on what I knew, my acquaintance is not socially isolating, has others in his life and finds great solace in faith, so I am not worried about him at a basic level. Knowing, however, the ways my life has been so upended since Claudia’s death, I understand his nights are probably quite lonely, and that his days (as a retired person) require intention to do more than simply eke out an existence day by day.

And yet, even with these positive factors in place, I know he must have shadowed days, because I do as well. I know he must long to be reunited with his life partner, because I also have those moments.

I am more than twenty years his junior, so according to actuarial schedules I will have many more years than he to reconstruct my life and make sense of this still new world. At this point, fourteen months after my loss, I am in a better place with it all. I am young enough to do many of the things I want to do. I am purposefully and happily employed. I have connections with my adult children and their children, as well as with extended family. I am continuing to learn what navigating this unexpected life looks like.

I recognize that I am in a good-enough place in my life not because it simple happens day by day. I am in this place because I make deliberate choices to reconstruct my life. I continue to choose each step of the way to make the most I can of what I have. This is not the easy path, but the journey to new life is always filled with challenges.

I am reminded again after my brief encounter yesterday that I, like any who grieve the loss of a significant other, have decisions to make each day. The Old Testament reading this morning from my Daily Office says something similar. Love’s promise to those who choose life is this:

I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you. ¹⁰You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. ¹¹I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. ¹²And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. (Leviticus 26:9-12).

What is my future self? Who will I become?

Only Love knows, and I will know only as I trust Love’s guidance to choose life. Even in the face of death’s ravages, I choose life.