Blue Heron: The First Stage of Grief

The next few weeks felt like being buried alive under the rubble of old bricks. If Lee had physically stabbed and twisted a sword into my belly, it would not have hurt any worse than it did to be metaphorically tossed out the nearest window with the words “I want a divorce.” 

I saw Lee’s decision as an act of final betrayal, the last in a long string of thoughtless actions that had brought us to this very point. It was time for me to accept the torrid facts: there would be no reconciliation, no resuscitation or recovery, and no transcendent future with the man I was still deeply, tenderly in love with.

Intellectually I knew it was over, and I let my auto-pilot brain guide my hands to do the things that had to be done. I called Salt Lake and spoke to a divorce paralegal. Our situation was pretty simple –we had no children, no businesses, and very little property. The paralegal assured me our divorce could be handled within a couple of months, assuming Lee didn’t try to fight it. I pulled out my credit card and paid the retainer, horrified at how easy it was to start legal proceedings. It felt like paying blood money to a mercenary in exchange for an execution order. Like putting a mob hit on my marriage, the one that was supposed to be a precious blessing for time and all eternity. 

The entire conversation made me want to sick up. How could I do this? 

What am I doing?    

                                                               

I remember sobbing alone in the guest room, hands pressed against my face in a vain attempt to stop my body from expelling swells of overwhelming grief. My body shook as I helplessly rode the waves of this emotional tsunami, so unprepared for it that all I could do was gasp in awe when the supernatural strength of the tides swept my heart out to sea. 

Lee had been my refuge for so long. Life can be cruel and bitter, but the IDEA of happiness with Lee was my comfort, my resting place. Dreaming of a beautiful future with Lee was safe because it was familiar, and now the fragile illusion of love had turned into a waking nightmare. 

I missed him in ways I couldn’t have possibly imagined. Now I had no one to dance and sing songs with, no one to tease or admire from across the room. I often thought back to Lee at his very best: holding me gently, murmuring softly, staring at me with eyes intensely passionate and kind. 

Sometimes I would awaken in the middle of the night and find myself reaching out for him in the bed, the way I used to whenever I felt afraid and alone. Finding the other half of the bed empty and cold was so desperately shattering, and yet my stubborn fingers kept searching night after night. 

He used to call me babydoll. I was once someone’s eternal beloved, someone’s flesh-and-blood WIFE. 

Now I was none of those things. I was nothing at all. 

Existence suddenly seemed so terribly meaningless, so cold and empty without my Lee. 

It couldn’t be over. It just couldn’t. 

And just like that I hit denial, the first stage of grief. 

During these weeks of legal pleadings and court filings I developed a routine. When the ocean fog and overcast clouds burned off, I would change into a swimsuit and float on a little plastic raft in my parent’s pool. It was warm and quiet, and I quickly found that I could float and read at the same time. 

I devoured Marianne William’s Return to Love, and I began to think that maybe her mystic message was actually a secret call-to-action from God Himself. Maybe He would give my husband back if I could just conjure up enough unconditionally loving feelings. 

Somewhere along the line I became convinced that God was merely testing me to see how gracious and forgiving I could be. My marriage WASN’T over until a judge signed the papers, right? There was still plenty of time for Lee to have a mighty change of heart. I just KNEW that God still had the power to pull us out the fire. 

I showed God the pages of the book I was reading. 

See, God? I know I’m not a perfect person, but I can change. I’ll be whatever you want me to be – loving, patient, forgiving, obedient.  There’s still time to take it back, Lord.

Please, please, please don’t do this. 

It was during this time that I found Hope and Love, a poem by Jane Hirshfield: 

All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one –
not knowing even
that was what he did –
in the blowing
sounds in the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.

Hope was the torch I bore, and the mantra I faithfully repeated every hour of every day. Hope was the cross I brought on my personal hajj to Golgotha and, like the heron, it was the hardest love I had ever carried.