Grief elbows you into corners. It makes you sit uncomfortably with emotions, memories, regrets, decisions, and actions. It forces you to ask yourself the difficult questions: did I love well? did I love enough? did I say what I needed to say? did I waste time? did I ever—even once—get it right? And then ask why: why did I waste so much time? Why did I get mad about those stupid little things? Outside of grieving a terrible loss, we never force ourselves to go through this much introspection, and why would we put ourselves through it? Rarely do I come out of it giving myself any kind of benefit of the doubt. No, I mostly just add to the doubt. Standing in that metaphorical corner where grief has pushed me, I am metaphorically knee-deep in doubt, like a metaphorical pile of dust swept up from a long-neglected metaphorical room.

I have learned that grief is about loss; about not seeing this person ever again, or hearing his voice, or kissing him goodnight, or even picking up those socks he left on the floor. Or not asking his opinion, or telling him about my day, or finishing his sentence, or asking him, yet again, to put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

Yes, grief, especially of a spouse, is also about a lost relationship. It brings into strong focus the good and the bad of it. It is about lost opportunity: the chance to apologize, to try again, to get a do-over. It’s about coming to terms with how you lived together, realizing that it can’t be fixed or improved upon or made better or given another chance. I try to cut myself some slack. We were both in it together, I remind myself; neither of us experts. We were both so young. Our marrige wasn’t perfect, but it was better than many. We lasted. We talked things through. The clichés come to my mind so often I think I should turn them into cheers—cute little rhymes I can say to myself when I’m feeling most vulnerable. Give me a B. Give me an R. Give me an E,A,K!

I also try to give value to this loss, to make it meaningful by understanding that I’ve indeed learned from all the experience and reflection. And I know that I have. Again there is a multitude of clichés about not sweating small stuff, understanding that life’s short, and valuing every day. 

But aside from that, what do I know that I would perhaps take into any future relationship? Quite a bit, actually. I’ll share only one thing here. It is the most important nugget I’ve discerned from hours of contemplation. That is that I would make sure that I am always the kind of partner I want to be. If there is something, anything, about a relationship that makes me unhappy, it needs to be addressed; same for my partner.  What I realize most about any of the really difficult times Kevin and I experienced is that, thinking back, I didn’t really like myself or my response during those times. Not liking myself made me unhappy, an emotion I quickly shared and that only made things worse. So often Kevin thought I was unhappy with him, but really, I was unhappy with me or with how I reacted to a situation. In the moment it’s difficult to be objective, and nearly impossible to be objective about oneself. But looking back (and I cannot say that I have the “benefit” of being able to look back, because nothing about this situation is in any way beneficial) I realize that I was unhappy about me, about where I was emotionally or what I was saying or doing. I wish I had understood this many years ago. I know I would have been much happier, and I know now how important that is to the total equation.

I recently finished Paul Lisicky’s lovely memoir The Narrow Door. It is the story of the parallel losses of Lisicky’s relationships with his best friend, the writer Denise Gess, when she died from cancer, and with his partner M due to a breakup. I have filled the book with pink Post-Its to highlight lines that I particularly understand or with which I agree. I am not surprised that many of them are about grief and reactions to cancer, illness, and death. On many of them I have written one word: "yes!" He gets it and articulates it so very well. It is the extraordinary wonder of literature that his truth is mine; that he and I, having never met, but having gone through similar events, have these same exact experiences and thoughts. 

What surprises me though, are the three or four notes that I’ve placed in the chapters about his  breakup with M. Is the subject matter all that different, I wonder? Best friend, lover, partner, husband, death, grief, regret, analysis. I realize how they are all bound together for me. Kevin's death was not only the loss of my best friend, but also the ending of my marriage. I am left to grieve both. To try, like Lisicky, to understand how both friendship and love ended too soon. While Paul Lisicky grieves the loss of two people, I grieve the loss of one, but of the same two relationships. I hope that Kevin and I got it right, and I try to come to terms with the times I and we didn’t do so well. 

To that end I examine and scrutinize, turning the memories over in my hand, asking those questions of “did I,” “did we” and “why.” Not in an effort to fix, because it’s too late for that, but because grieving makes it impossible for me to avoid doing so. I want to believe we mostly got it right. I want to hope that our time together was good, that Kevin’s short time here was made better by our marriage. For me, it is how I grieve, it is a part of the inescapable need to appraise this life, his life, and our life together.