We were driving a main street through Portland, Oregon on a winter day in the late 1970’s. This particular road consisted of five wide lanes, two each headed in opposite directions with a central turn lane.

It was a quieter morning than most, less traffic than usual, because Portland, known for it’s damp, gloomy, rainy winters with temperatures hovering in the high thirties to mid-forties, had experienced an overnight thermometer drop low enough to coat the city with a rare inch or so of snowfall; enough to close schools and a host of other businesses and keep people home.

Since Mike and I had recently moved there from upstate New York and were accustomed to far worse winters, we shrugged it off, warmed up the car and headed out. What we forgot to remember was the frozen rain covered surface beneath the snow.

We confidently motored down the slightly hilly street, commenting on how few cars there were around us on a normally busy thoroughfare, joking about the Portland wimps afraid of a little snow, when our car suddenly began to slide out of control. Mike immediately attempted all the skills learned in his years of northeast winter driving, but there was no stopping it. No way to control the free slide we found ourselves in as the car began to pick up speed while spinning in circles across all lanes, heading straight for a power pole on the opposite side of the road. 

Suddenly heart pounding, pulse racing, breathtaking helpless fear loomed in the horror of grim possibilities just outside the vehicle and we were immediately panic paralyzed inside our out-of-control yellow Toyota.

Such is the nature of grief. And most severely in the early days and even early years of a death experience.

One moment we are riding confidently, securely on the road of life when suddenly a significant loss plunges us into a free fall of heart stopping, breath sucking despair, panic and anxiety. There’s no stopping the flow of turbulent emotions and change that constantly pulse, swirl and crash over us moment by moment, hour by hour and day to day. 

Because we are humans who form deep bonds and connections with others – spouses, children, family, friends – we struggle to control the slide and spin a death creates. The sudden absence of a person we intensely intertwined into most of our days, loved fiercely and counted on deeply, looms monumentally ahead. The future without them is grim and our immediate reality has few favorable outcomes.

After a few terrifying moments on that snowy Portland day, our little Toyota finished careening and spinning and came to a halt, facing the wrong direction on the wrong side of the road just inches from the power pole. Mike took a few seconds to catch his breath, thank God we were spared, then gripping the steering wheel with shaky hands, he pulled back out onto the street and drove us home.

I have no words to adequately describe what my late husband’s death has done on the inside of me. Mike took large chunks of me with him when he left. I may look the same on the outside but I am so far removed from the person I was on this same fateful day four years ago. Yet much of my internal careening and spinning has finally begun to subside during this past year and I can sit on the other side of this journey staring down a road of….what….?? 

For now, I only have gratitude for surviving. I can only thank God for being with me as I land just inches from the thing that almost destroyed me, Maybe now I can catch my breath and with a shaky heart venture back out into this unfamiliar life and see where it goes. 

Without Mike, yes. The sadness of this reality will never end. 

I constantly miss his presence in our lives.  In my life. 

But for whatever reasons he is gone and I’m still here. 

I have to live. 

I GET to live.

Dear Jesus, let this be the year that I figure out how to really live again