There's no super easy way to say this.
On September 6, around 11:45 am, my husband quietly slipped away into Eternity, after a brief (3-months is brief) but intense battle with metastatic (i.e., Stage 4) pancreatic cancer, which affected his liver, one adrenal gland, and eventually his stomach.
He died of a gastrointestinal bleed, a fancy way of saying he lost a lot of blood and threw it up. Transfusions had worked the previous day, but this time, his body was having none of it. His organs started shutting down. By then, it was a matter of making him comfortable, and it wasn't long after that when he breathed his last.
I'm not going to tell you all that happened. Some of it was intensely personal and very wrenching.
The week after that day, all that week, people gathered around me and my daughter, and they loved on us. They cared for us. And love (as I have said so many times before) does heal.
His service was the following Friday. And it was amazing. I felt as though he were watching from Heavenly places. Perhaps in another dimension we can't see. Perhaps in that very room.
I cannot describe or explain how this can be. When we first heard he might have cancer on June 1 (and it was confirmed June 16), I had this terrifying moment of sheer panic. And then I remembered who was in the room. My daughter was sitting beside me ... and I knew I couldn't afford to fall apart because she would need me - and so would he. So, I stayed strong, even when I felt so very frail inside.
I truly believed he would be physically healed and that the miracle would be a testimony to the greatness and power of our God. When it became clear that physical healing didn't happen, I was ill-prepared for the flood of sadness and shock and grief that flooded me on that morning.
But ... but ... God knew I would need someone, not my daughter, but someone, to lean on and grieve with. My daughter was carrying her own pain and didn't want to be comforted.
But about 10 minutes before hubby passed, my best girlfriend phoned me. "I can't talk right now," I told her. "Do you want me to come?" she intuitively asked. "Yes, please," I said. "I'll be right there." And she was ... but only after he had stopped breathing, and we were in fresh grief. It hit her too, for we were all such great friends together ... and for the next hour, we sat there, unwilling to leave... because leaving would mean they would take his body to the morgue.
Finally, though, as we sat in silence, I began to feel restless, and we gathered up our things - and his - and we took our leave. Nurses hugged us and told us how sweet he always was. "I know," I said. "He was just so grateful for the excellent care you gave to him." 
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The rest of the week seems like a blur. Somehow, however, I managed to get the details of the Celebration of Life service put together and someone to speak, folks to serve as pallbearers, music chosen, and so forth. And it all came and went in a jumble of faces, words, and final duties.
And suddenly, a week had passed and I was amazed at how well I was sleeping (Ativan is a thing!) and still functioning day to day. And then I saw it.
An email from a training organization that sometimes gives free workshops on various topics, offered one (in 3 parts) on helping clients through grief. Hmmmm. Well, I guess I could check this out!
The speaker was Tara Brach, who is a mindfulness-based psychologist. And in those 45 minutes or so, she suggested turning TOWARD grief, instead of AWAY from it. It's normal to turn away from something that is painful. But in turning toward it, we allow ourselves to experience the deep feelings that need to be expressed, and in so doing, we participate in our own healing.
I had been cringing away from this thing. The crying I was doing was (with rare exceptions) making me feel worse. Until I participated in Tara's demonstration guided imagery exercises. And then, when I cried, I was feeling my feelings with NO JUDGMENT ... and I was able to start the healing process.
So I'm learning to ask myself, "Which way am I facing?" Am I running away from my pain, or am I turning toward it and accepting my own vulnerability and need for comfort? Am I allowing sadness to accomplish its work and gather people around me who will help me? The more I do that, the more completely I will heal and embrace my "new normal."
