Entry 37: Option B

I don't know exactly how to describe this but I will try. You know how when a friend has something not good happen to them, initially you are super involved. You care greatly. You want to know every detail and you bend over backwards to help.  Yet when the problem persists or the drama continues you don't care less but you devote way less attention and time to the issue.  Not because you are a bad friend, but it is because life continues to move on.  What amazes me is this has never been the case with our cancer experience and our loss of Brian experience. I remember feeling insanely lost but also insanely grateful shortly after diagnosis because of the outpouring of love, support, and acts of kindness. I also remember telling people, don't do anything now. Wait until we really need it because cancer is a long battle.  People didn't listen. For more than two years people have continuous poured into our family. It has not stopped. This is what's so surprising. I am not surprised that I have great people in my life, I am just surprised about how strong and in what quantity the kindness continues to flow. I guess you also worry that although missing Brian is very real and present in my everyday life, I guess I just thought it would fade a little for others. Not that they wouldn't miss him but maybe the way they show it would be different. Or that it wouldn't be as constant as it is for us. I thought I would have to do a lot of the work to make sure to continue the legacy of Brian Timothy Newton. But as I was wrong before people are not giving less time and attention to the "drama" or "issue", people are consistently showing they care as much as they did at diagnosis time.  And although I do love a good prize, that's not the only thing I am talking about here.  I received an amazing painting of our

old house today. The painting is amazing but even more amazing is the fact that it came from a sorority sister who I keep up with on Facebook and got to see at our recent reunion, but that I don't talk to regularly. She knew that leaving that house what hard. She also magically knew my new address. In her sweet card it said something like "thinking of you often".  This is someone that did not know Brian, yet cares about him, about me, about us!  Another thing happened this week.  The thoughtfulness and goodness that went into this gift overwhelms me.  Another example, my friends Dani and LA kept telling me I wasn't invited to see their new 3rd grade classroom because it wasn't ready yet. Then the morning I was finally given permission to go, I get a quick Snap that warns me that I may tear up. What the heck! As I walk in, I see a bolt.  They named their reading corner Newton's Nook. After posting the picture on Facebook I was surprised by the people who teared up when seeing it. This is what I am talking about. Although I know others will always remember Brian, I thought the everyday reminding would be greatly on my shoulders. I thought I would have to work super hard to make sure he is still talked about. I almost put down the word remembered but we all know that once you have interacted with the inappropriateness of Brian there is no forgetting that.

I have been talking about my grief a lot lately and feeling it more strongly in month six than I did in month two. So tonight I did something unexpected. I started reading a grief book. My good friend and mentor at work Kathy Pyle gave me the book Option B along with a free pass to never read it unless I wanted to. This was a while ago. Today, after hanging with our friends that have known Brian longer and probably better than I do and talking about grief and missing him and trying to make sure I make decisions he would support, I decided to pick it up tonight.  Maybe I should mention too that I just unpacked it from a box last night. I have only read the introduction. Although I was already tucked in bed I started reading and had to run downstairs for a pencil. I just kept thinking yes. So much yes!!!!  Although her experience is different and her loss was sudden, I just feel I could relate immediately to what she was saying.  She says at one point she knows she has to do it (continue with life) for her husband but she wants to do it with her husband. YES! That's exactly how I feel. I keep living and doing because Brian would want that but gosh I want to do this WITH him.  Her book is about building resilience. That it isn't something you have or don't have. You can develop it. Many times I get praised for my parenting through the death or for how I am doing. People say I don't know how you do it.  It was the same when we remained as positive as possible through the cancer experience. It didn't feel like a choice. It just felt like there was no other way to do it. She talks about how this is how we "exert some control over its (griefs) impact." YES! I love control. Duh! And this makes me feel okay for making some of my own. But my favorite part so far is how she says with a traumatic situation we can find "greater strength and deeper meaning". THIS! This is what I feel. I feel this kindness that has cloaked us is teaching me so much more about the meaning of life. It shows the goodness of people. It models how we should treat others. It is so much how Brian lived but brings it so much more to the forefront. I just want to love people like he did. I want to continue to love him as much as I do. Although life with Brian would be Option A, this book says, "So let's just kick the shit out of Option B." That's the plan going forward.