Writing Your Chapter Two: Building Something New Without Erasing the Old

 Writing Your Chapter Two

Building Something New Without Erasing the Old

    Have you ever been on a trip that changed your life?  One that impacted who you are as a person?  That trip to me from in 2009 when I visited Greece, Israel, and Egypt.  There was something awe inspiring about walking in the sacred halls of Scripture.  I will never forget weeping at the Mount of Olives, the place of His betrayal.  There were olive trees on the mountain that would have been there the night of His arrest.  I also remember the garden tomb, the Via Delarosa, and a variety of other places showcasing the Old Testament.  But a spot that deeply affected me was a synagogue near the Galilee, in Capernaum.  This city would have been the hub for Jesus' ministry in the reigion.  Some of His disciples hailed from there, others were fishermen serving that village.  It was a small town, not a major city or metropolis, but this is a place where Christ resided and taught.  The synagogue is in ruins, but as you trace the outside of the ruins you will find that this particular syngagoue was built on the ruins of another one.....the exact synagogue where Jesus taught.  I held my hands against the rocks as if I was touching something holy for the first time.  My Master, my Savior taught on that spot.  And yet a thought struck me, despite Him teaching there another synagogue was built on top of it years later.  Those ruins were a part of the story, but not the end of the story.  There was more to be done, more story to be written.  There is a building in rebuilding on the ruins.

      This is the sixth part in a series dedicated to focusing on dating after loss.  The series is far from exhaustive, but instead is meant to be informative and guide for those that are wondering if they are ready to dive back into the world of dating.  This particular blog focuses on a heavy subject, rebuilding after ruination.  Widowers and widows alike fear rejection.  Others fear heartbreak (who wouldn't).  And others are afraid that the relationship won't work.  But, every widower that I have worked with, without fail has asked the question, if I fall in love again, what happens to the love I had before?  They might not voice that out loud right away, but they are contemplating it.  The image that comes to my mind is Rodin's sculpture the thinker (google is if you are unfamiliar).  A man can literally be at war against himself trying to balance out love for a late spouse, and new, blooming feelings for a new person.

      That's not the only worry that they have lurking beneath the surface.  That single worry multiples into others like wondering if they are replacing their late spouse if they remarry, or are they betraying old traditions by building new ones, or does my laughter someone diminish the tears that I have shed?  Or, maybe the most painful one, if I fall in love, does that mean I have moved on?  Let's get this out into open space, those are heavy thoughts to bear.  They can be tiresome by themselves.

      For many widowers, the struggle isn't simply learning how to love someone new.  Notice I use the word learning because grief is meant to be our teacher, NOT our master.  Grief is meant to teach us things, to examine us, NOT to dominate or enslave us (thought it can if we give it permission).  Instead the battle is learning how to love someone new while still honoring the person that they lost.  At first that can feel like an impossible balancing act.  I can almost picture an acrobat walking across a tightrope.  It's hard to balance and doesn't leave much room for error.  But God is the God of the impossible and the good news is that God never asks you to erase your past in order to embrace your future.

      Competition.  That single word can cause two different reactions.  Some of us men crave competition.  We compete at everything, even the silliest things.  Other avoid competition at any cost.  There can be an unspoken, silent temptation to create a competition between our new love and late spouse.  In this we create a major error.  We think that love is a limited resource, and nothing could be further from the truth.  We act like we have to ration out our love and that just because death separated us from our late spouse that we will never love or be loved again.  Truthfully, some of us won't love again.  God might not open that door.  But for others we miss out on God's open door because we simply think we are a limited supply of love.  Some men might even think that if they love someone new that there will be less love for the late spouse, and that thought feels like betrayal.  Or others might think that by caring for someone else means that they didn't care enough for their late spouse.  But friends, that simply isn't how love works.  I used this example in the past, and it feels like a good time to use it again.  I have five children.  I didn't have to love the previous one less in order to love the new one.  I loved each of them deeply.  Love didn't divide as more children came into my life. Love is a thing that grows and stretches.  Do yourself a favor and read that again.  Really meditate on that.  Love makes room.  A matter of fact the Scripture says in 1st Corinthians 13 that love isn't selfish, it's meant to be given away.  The love that you shared with your late spouse remains a part of who you are, it always will.  A new love doesn't compete with that first love.  Instead it simply occupies a different place in your heart, and you know what, that's okay.

      There are a lot of beautiful gifts that come into your life when you give yourself over to loving again.  One of those gifts that a new partner can give to you is accepting that your story began long before they arrived.  They are coming into your story after decades of previous writing.  Your late spouse shaped you into the man that you are today.  Think of how they helped form you and make you.  That thought probably brings a smile to your face.  You learned lessons with them, developed faith with them, had countless beautiful experiences with them.  Joys and struggles, memories that could fill libraries.  Those things aren't erased from the story of your life just because a new relationships exists, nor should they.

      The goal of dating again is to have a healthy relationship, and healthy relationships don't require you to pretend that a significant part of your life never happened.  You can't ignore that countless chapters were written with someone else.  Those stories are written in permanent marker, not disappearing ink.  The right person will understand that.  They will recognize that your history helped create the person that they love today.  This was true for me.  Leslie, my wife, lost her husband three months to the day before my late wife Tiffanie passed away.  We both understood grief, but we didn't just understand grief and we didn't just give each other space to grieve, but we embraced the stories of the people that came before us.  To this day we celebrate our late spouses birthdays, anniversaries, and other major accomplishments.  Why?  Because the woman that I love, Leslie, is the woman that she is today because of the man that came before me.  The goal isn't forgetting your past.  The goal is embracing the past.  The goal is integrating it into the story God is still writing.

      I'm sure that each of us at one point and time have played the game hide and go seek.  This game was great as a child, but as an adult you can't fit into some places, at least I know I can't.  Some widower feel the need to play the game hide, not seek with the memories of their late spouse.  They feel the pressure to remove every reminder of their spouse once they enter a new relationship.  Then, on the other side of the coin, others feel pressure to preserve everything exactly as it was.  Neither extreme is typically very healthy.  Let me give you an example.  My grandmother passed away in 2010, just two weeks before Tiff and I's wedding.  It was a total shock to our family.  My grandfather remained a widower for over ten years and remained stagnant in his grief that entire time.  Their bedroom remained untouched during that entire decade.  He couldn't enter the room.  My nan's clothes were still hanging in the spot they were meant to be worn the next day.  Over time mice came into the room, destroying it.  That was unhealthy.  But another widower might feel the need to have a total fire sale of all his late wife's things.  Maybe he thinks that by getting rid of everything that he will heal faster, but that is also unhealthy because it can result in guilt and regret.

      I do want to interject a small point here before moving on.  This one might be a sensitive topic, so please, take caution.  Some people create an altar or a shrine in their house to their late spouse.  This isn't just a memorial to remember their life, but it becomes a space of emotional dependence.  There is a difference between remembrance and dependence.  One sign that this is an unhealthy place is when you feel compelled to visit it daily in an almost seemingly ritualistic way.  Those things can be normal in the early stages of grief, but as time goes on healing should start to develop.  A sign that healing isn't coming is when the compulsion continues.  This shrine almost freezes your house in time and makes you feel disloyal for any changes that might happen.  But the greatest concern is when your late spouse begins to occupy a space in your heart that belongs to God.  I'm not saying that it's unhealthy to have a spot to remember them, but creating a space that is almost like worship or adoration is incredibly dangerous and prevents healing.

      Let's look at some healthy means that we can remember our spouses.  Think of a photograph on a shelf.  That is not a threat to a healthy marriage, and to be fair with you, your prospective date will need to come to terms with those photos.  They shouldn't guilt you into putting them into a drawer or hide them away in your closet.  They need to have the maturity to know that your late spouse was a vital part of your story, while you also don't focus solely on these pictures and compare her to your late spouse.  Some other ways is sharing a memory around a dinner table, a story that your children tell about them, a meal that they loved, and still celebrating them on their birthday or your anniversary.  Healthy relationships make room for these memories.  Your spouse was a part of your life, a part of your life, a part of your story.  You do not need to erase that beautiful reality.

      Let me segway to a touch subject as we remember our spouses.  We want to honor them, memorialize their memory, but at the same time, it's important that those memories don't become monuments that prevent anyone from moving forward.  The goal isn't living in a museum.  The goal is living in a home.  A place where the past is honored, but the future is welcome.  Read that again.  I hope it doesn't sound offensive or cruel.  I also hope that it doesn't make you feel like you need to rush your grief journey.  Each of us are walking on the same road at different paces.  The problem is when something prevents healing and forward progress.  Memories move with us, monuments don't.

      One of my favorite truths in Scripture is that God is always writing redemption stories.  A casual reading of the Bible will show that God is in the business of writing new chapters, bringing life from death, raising dead armies to fight again, etc.  Again and again, we see Him bringing beauty from ashes.  Hope from despair.  Life from loss.  The Prophet Isaiah wrote in 43:19 "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"  God says a lot of things in this passage, but I want to look at some things that God does not say.  He doesn't say, "Forget everything that happened."  He doesn't say, "Pretend the pain never existed."  He doesn't say, "Erase your history."  Instead, He says He is doing something new.  The old story still matters.  But it isn't the end of the story.  That's the beauty of redemption.  God doesn't erase chapters.  He writes new ones.  Right now you might feel like the sun will never shine again and that all the beauty has been sucked out of the world.  I get that.  I felt that way for the ten months of Tiff's cancer journey and the following months after her passing.....but I took intentional steps toward healing, and slowly but surely the sun started to shine again and I could hear the birds singing.

      If you've made it this far in the series, perhaps you're carrying a fear that many widowers know well.  It's a fear that loving again will somehow mean you leave your late spouse behind.  It doesn't.  The love you shared remains part of your life.  Always.  Nothing can change or diminish that.  Part of your story is grief, but that's not all yoru story.  Your story is bigger than grief and loss.  The goal of dating after loss is not replacing what was.  The goal is faithfully embracing what God may still have ahead.  You don't have to choose between honoring the old and building the new.  By God's grace, you can do both.  And perhaps that is one of the most beautiful pictures of redemption this side of heaven.