Grief: Whoever Thought I'd Be Writing About Ronald Reagan!

I was at an event last night at the Paley Center for Media here in NYC about GE's Ronald Reagan Theater - a series of television dramas they produced many years ago.  They had some personal artifacts.   One of them was a love letter he wrote to Nancy while he was travelling.  It was so beautiful and reminded me of the love letters that I have from my husband.  I thought of how it doesn't matter who you are.  There is Nancy Reagan; the wife of someone who has been president, rich, thin, many friends - not someone I know at all except through the media - and the look on her face at her husband's funeral.  Whatever you think of his politics - it made reminded me that it doesn't matter what station you have in life - if you lose the person you love most - who loves you - the grief is enormous.  There was also his journal - open to the page when he got home after being shot - it said something like "It hurts to be shot.  I thought should I hate this young man who tried to kill me and then I thought of the lost sheep.  If I am to heal I have to forgive him and love him and hope he returns to the fold."  I'm not very good at forgiving people so I always like to be around people who can - hoping some of it will rub off on me.

I have watched so many people coming back to life - and so many others staying deep in grief - and those like me - I go back and forth.  My capacity for doing more increases - and it would be untrue to say I don't have many good times - but I cannot seem to - or even want to - rid myself of this great sadness and feeling of being alone.  The loneliness is not from solitude - but from Artie not being on earth anymore.  So many times I reach for the phone and there are so many folks who would listen to anything I wanted to say - and I don't dial (aha - dial - who even knows what a dial is anymore) I don't push the buttons because I want to talk to Artie.  Like last night.  He loved hearing about what I did.  Even when I went away without him I always called him both in the morning and at night. 

I did submit some poetry to a magazine for the first time since he died and hope to do more of that this week.  Here to as much as light as possible in the darkness - as much joy as possible mixed in with the grief.