It’s okay to feel guilt over the new freedoms afforded like a parting gift by loss. I got a Lego workshop and I’ve manifested an amazing life.
I’ll never not feel horrible at what it cost Mary, her boys, her family, her friends. It’s impossible to balance my happiness against all that pain.
What else could I have done? Could I have let the grief crush me forever? Yup. Fallen deeper into alcoholism and rob my sons of a father? Sure. Live a martyr to my loss? Uh huh.
I decided to grasp every advantage and freedom hidden within a storm of difficulties. I had a new journal when she passed. It had this quote from Hamlet on the cover, “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.”
It’s made me braver and more free.