Heart Signs

Last night my daughter made the observation that there seems to be grief everywhere we turn.  And that feels true.  Hardly a day passes that I don’t meet, either in real life or online, someone new to me who is living with grief.  Who is lamenting a loss.  Who is mourning. 

There’s an explanation for this, in science, of course.  It’s called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or, the frequency illusion.  This cognitive bias occurs when you encounter something new, like the loss of a very close loved one, and suddenly you begin to notice the same thing happening everywhere, giving the impression that it is happening more frequently or that suddenly everyone around you is experiencing what you’ve experienced.  In reality, it’s simply that your brain is primed to notice it more through selective attention and confirmation bias. 

So, of course, it seems that everyone around us is mourning.  They must be.  Because we are.

And the algorithms confirm this, sending us to support groups and chat rooms (are chat rooms still a thing?) for widows and adult children who have lost their parents. 

And here’s the thing, I don’t need, and maybe I don’t want these reminders.  I know that Bruce died.  I feel it in my bones, in the air that I breathe, in each step I take. 

And yet.  I don’t want to lose those signs and reminders that he lived.  And that he loved me so deeply and so unconditionally and believed in me so profoundly that eventually I believed I was worthy of being loved that way.  It was a lesson that took me a long time to learn. 

This weekend I’ve just had so many signs of (from?) him.  He used to leave me notes everywhere, as I’ve mentioned before.  And in the past couple of years he’d started cutting out hearts from card stock and painting them and leaving them for me to find.  They were usually no bigger than the palm of my hand. 

On Saturday, headed into work, I put some items in a reusable grocery bag that I’d been using to transport groceries from my current house to my new home. (Oh yes, that move is in process).  I’d used this bag at least five times over the past several days.  I was taking these items up to the church and when I got there and pulled them out, one of those hearts fell out.  It was painted gold and it fell to the surface lightly.  I was delighted!  I laughed out loud!  Thank you, my love!  I needed that sign, that reminder of our love.  Not ten minutes later I was telling a co-worker about it as we stood in the Gathering Space at the church awaiting the arrival of a wedding party.  You’ll never believe what happened, I said.  And as I was speaking, I reached my hand into my jacket pocket – the jacket I’d just put on an hour before, the jacket whose pockets I’d emptied to make room for cell phones and a Kleenex.  So, I reached my hand into the pocket and it landed on….another heart.  This one slightly larger and painted green and silver.  I was incredulous!  I was talking about finding a heart when another one appeared.  This is a very Bruce move. 

These sorts of signs fill me up.  They help me go on.  They remind me that he is just….over there. 

I don’t know why some days I get two signs and some days I feel adrift and some days I wonder if it’s all been a bad dream.  But I know this, in our shared life he told me every chance he got, many times a day “I love you”.  And it was never rote, never flippant.  It was bright and shiny and deep and as important as the very first time he uttered those words.  And it filled me up, just like those heart-notes.  Signs that although he is not here, the love remains.  And nothing will ever take that away.