Honoring Your Lost Love: The First Step in Healing
I remember when Kim, my wife of 17 years, died; I was hit with a multitude of emotions that all came crashing down at the same time. Every image of us together, from the good, the bad, and the ugly, was fully displayed in my mind.
Shifting thoughts of loss into a tribute of honor is challenging but becomes beneficial when you decide to do so.
It is too easy for the mind to assault you mentally at this vulnerable stage. The mourning period is always challenging. You feel you are emotionally being pulled in every direction, which eventually leads you down a rabbit hole to hell if you allow it. Do not let your mind take this kind of control. It is not easy to stop, but resisting is another step taken in the process of honoring the one you have lost.
Your spouse would not want to see you in disarray over them. Remember, they loved you just as much as you did them and appreciate you missing them, but they do not want to know that they cause your pain. Since now you are in this state of misery, and the hurt is constant, it can unfold into an opportunity to display your strength in the wake of horror from the loss. Deciding to honor the person you lost instead of letting the grief anchor you down becomes a benefit to your mind, body, and soul. Vitas Healthcare, an organization specializing in palliative and hospice care, wrote an article on its website discussing various ways to honor a lost spouse or partner.
Their suggestions were creative and are a memorial to the person lost. They offered eight creative ways to keep the memory of your loved one alive. The list included the following:
Preserve a loved one’s handwriting by framing notes or recipes or by having something they’ve written engraved onto jewelry.
Create a shadow box using personal items that once belonged to your loved one or mementoes from places you visited together.
Wear their favorite perfume or cologne or spray it into the air to remind you of when they used to be near.
Invite others who miss your loved one to watch your loved one’s favorite movie and share stories.
Set a place for your loved one at holiday dinners or other special occasions, complete with their picture and their favorite food or flower.
Finish a project they started. If it’s a craft, such as knitting or woodworking, learn how as a way to share something they loved.
Donate to their favorite charity or volunteer in their place.
Visit their old friends and listen to their stories of your loved one; you might learn something about them you didn’t know before.
These are not the only ways to honor your loss and bring you back from the misery of grieving. There are a few other ways to reignite your zeal for life while simultaneously making it a tribute to the person you lost.
My friend and the owner of this blog suggested a very creative way. I cannot take the credit for that one, but it is a great option. I want to lump this in with a few other inventive ideas.
Completing a bucket list that your spouse had.
Traveling to a place that you both wanted to go but never had the opportunity
Creating a charity in their name
Participating in an activity they loved (for example, a sporting event)
Doing something to fight the illness, accident, or incident that took them from you.
A very daring woman named Rosie Swale-Pope did the last item suggested. Her husband passed from prostate cancer, and at age 60, Swale-Pope started a 5-year run around the world and collected over 250,000 British pounds to support prostate cancer awareness. Mind you, this woman is an adventurer, marathon runner, and extreme sports enthusiast, but you get the point. Her choice was to honor her loss by helping others.
Honoring the lost love is already hard. Counterbalancing that loss by doing something extreme takes the focus of the pain away from the loss. Extreme does not have to mean what Swale-Pope did. Whatever you feel will benefit the cause helps both it and you. Consider that extreme if you are not as adventurous as she was. The loss is never forgotten, but the pain reduces when you decide to do something like that. To top it off, Swale-Pope collected a lot of money to fight the disease, essentially allowing her to give Prostate cancer the middle finger.
Repurposing the hurt can allow meaning to the pain felt. She knew that it would not bring her husband back, but realized that her efforts would help prevent someone else from becoming a widow or widower from Prostate cancer. Although it is hard to do, not thinking about yourself and your pain but instead applying that pain to something that can help others literally transforms the loss from grieving over to honoring.
Honoring the person you lost is still a form of grieving; it is just a more productive way to do it. You also empower yourself in the process. You are slowly moving from a victim to becoming a person who is seeing victory from tragedy.
You can find more information about J. Lewis here.
Sources:
"Ways to Honor a Deceased Loved One." Vitas.Com, (ND), www.vitas.com/family-and-caregiver-support/grief-and-bereavement/coping-with-grief/ways-to-honor-a-deceased-loved-one. Accessed 20 Jan. 2024.
"Around the World for Cancer Awareness." Mprnews.Org, 5 Apr. 2007, www.mprnews.org/story/2007/04/05/runningrosie. Accessed Jan 20, 2024.
"Grief: Coping with the Loss of Your Loved One." Apa.Org, 1 Jan. 2020, www.apa.org/topics/families/grief. Accessed 20 Jan. 2024.
