Nine Months and counting

Yesterday, July 23rd, 2010 marked the nine month anniversary of what was arguably the worst day of my life.
What are nine months out of a lifetime? In nine months you can experience the great joy of having a baby, you can learn one of many trades to enhance your life, settle into a new job, get to know new neighbors and your neighborhood after moving, learn a new hobby, make a friend to last a lifetime. And you can move along the road in your journey through grief.
For me its been a time of good and bad decisions, heartfelt appreciation for what I got to share with JD in 27 1/2 years, gaining true appreciation of real friends and discovering just who is this person that I am becoming.
Grief, as are all life changing things, is very personal. It is similar to but not identical to anyone else's grief. It is, by some definitions, a very selfish thing. All we do, all we contribute, all we are comes from self. Grief will condense and refine self. It will bring out the best or the worst in you. And you do have a choice in that.
I am not putting down that selfishness that is involved in grief. After all everything emanates from 
self. You have to invest in self to have anything to give. Where some go wrong is in investing only in self. That is not healthy nor will it lead to sanity and recovery. We, the grieving, must reach out as well as in for strength and courage. We must give to know self-respect. But we must choose as wisely as we are able because only giving can be as damaging as only receiving.
I have met, through WidowIsland on Yahoo Groups, some of the sanest and most understanding people I may ever meet. These are those who've taken their grief into positive directions. Each and every one took their personal definitive life moment and turned it into help for others. They've shared their most intimate feelings and pain in order to get the rest of us through the hardest times. My greatest hope is to do as well as they.
Today, for me, the first day of the tenth month alone, will be in many ways much like other days. I don't totally like the habits into which I have fallen but I am pleased that each day does bring some small step forward in my healing and growing process.
I'm still reorgainizing my spaces and my livingness. I've begun to study life again, to try to gain a better understanding. That process is a never ending one since no one knows it all.
I realized this past month that I've been punishing myself for being alive when JD was dead. That is, I understand, not a rare thing. But I'm ending that to the best of my ability.
I've been ashamed that I let myself get so overweight and have been blaming me for it. Well, in a sense I am responsible since accepting responsibility will let me change it. I've discovered a true physical reason for the weight gain and I can do something about it. I've given myself permission to lose the weight and to get stronger and better even though JD will no longer benefit. Its ok to do it for me.
I am still struggliing with the fact that I was not a healthy cook for JD. Rationally I know that he could cook better than I and he shopped with me so what we bought was a joint thing. And its so true that the electrical shock damaged his body and through my actions (and his) we saved his life eighteen years ago when the doctors would have let him die. So many wonderful years we had that we might not have had!!!
I will never know whether being a fanatic about his health would have given him more years. I do know that leaving him alone to make his own decisions, not nagging, loving him for himself and all the wonderful things he was gave him a better life than being fanatical about protecting him would have done. This is my comfort. Better 17 years of living than 20 of being confined. Its what I want for me.
All of this and more is in my mind this morning as I write. Yesterday we got new ultra sounds of little Jasper Dalton who will be born 13 1/2 months after his grandfather left us. Yes, they've chosen to name him J.D. in honor of his grandpa! Life does go on.
I miss JD every single hour of every single day but I am living and I know joy still. This is what I want for you too, dear friend and reader. I only hope that my words make it a tiny bit easier for you.