Category Archives: loving your deceased spouse

STEEL BARS and RE-MARRIAGE and VALENTINES

Death, Grief, Loss, loving your deceased spouse, Marriage, Miscellaneous

STEEL BARS… WRAPPED ALL AROUND ME….I’ve been your prisoner since the day you found me…I’m bound forever ‘til the end of time, steel bars, locked around this heart of mine.”  Michael Bolton’s song, STEEL BARS, was one of the numerous songs I had put on a CD I had made for Loren in December of 2014.  This song had re-sounded in me for years. Now, at an earlier point in our marriage this same song rang true but with frustration because we were struggling.

 At year 37 we were flying high. Deeply, even madly, in love. More enthralled with each other than ever. More attached than ever because weLoren & Julia had put blood, sweat, and tears into our marriage union.  Add that with our history…”Loren & Julia’s story”…we were unstoppable.  Heart Valentines.

Because of the heart connection we shared, I HAVE WONDERED..simply put, I have questions:

  • Will I always feel so in love with him?  There are times it feels torturous to be so in love with someone when you can’t be with them. At other time’s I carry a smile, secretly comprehending the love we enjoyed.
  • Would becoming a widow have been easier if he & I would have had a mundane “put-up-with-each-other” relationship?
  • How can some widows and widowers possibly move on by this time  (23 months) and find another person to be with?
  • Doesn’t any of them feel the sense of loyalty to the spouse that is deceased?
  • Are the widow or widower just wanting someone else to replace  what they HAD with their deceased spouse…or maybe what they DIDN’T HAVE with their spouse?
  • Is that even fair to the other person when you still deeply love your deceased spouse?
  • Is it true that some remarry for the sheer sake of companionship?

I wonder.  With no clear answers.  And very possibly I wouldn’t have as many questions if my marriage had ended with a painful divorce vs death….

But I don’t need to wonder about THIS:  how I feel grateful, even vibrantly alive, that I was blessed to have found that undying love with one person. Those steel bars of connection. Blessed to have found the deep pools of warm, enduring love that kept us warm, alive, and bonded.  For there are some married couples who never quite find that place……….that place that can be said, “We,  AS A  COUPLE, are home.”