It’s official! The first one to guess Erik’s favorite beer (which is/was Fat Tire) is Christine Waight! She’ll be receiving a signed copy of my book courtesy of Amy Colfelt. Again, Amy, thanks for your generosity and love.

Today I’d like to share some personal epiphanies that I hope will help those of you who still grieve. Over these last few years, I have learned to let every part of Erik go except for his physical body and the tragedy of the life he led before he freed himself of it. I knew I had to detach myself, not from Erik as he is, but all of the pain associated with his life and death. I decided the best way to do that was to reconstruct my perspective. As for his death, I imagined myself not fleeing up the stairs with a sense of horror and dread but excitement. I felt thrilled knowing that Erik had probably left his body to find happiness. Instead of the smell of gunpowder in the stairwell and hall, I smelled the fragrance of lovely flowers. When I rushed to see him in his room, sitting lifeless in his chair, instead of running to him sobbing with my head in his lap (I dared not look at his face and head again.) I hugged his energetic body and said, “Good for you, Erik! I’m so happy you’ve found peace and joy at last.” I could sense his euphoria and felt proud of his courage, and some of that spilled into me. Then I looked at his body and saw it as a soulless cocoon, one from which a butterfly emerged and flapped its way to the nearest blossom. I felt no emotional attachment to it nor any horror from that graphic scene.

But then upon thinking about how miserable he was in life, I felt sad. I wished I could have saved him from that misery, but I couldn’t. So, I envisioned a dark tunnel, so dark that there was no way of judging whether you were right side up or down, going left or right, backwards or forwards. In fact, the feeling was that of complete lack of direction. I knew I was following Erik through the tunnel trying hard to help him find his own direction, but I could barely find my own. We both felt very dark, full of despair. Then, we saw the light at the end. When Erik emerged into that light, his darkness turned into euphoria. I had never seen him smile so broadly. Clearly, all that darkness that had plagued him in life was behind him, and there was no going back. However, I was still clinging just inside the tunnel, still engulfed it its sadness. I didn’t know how to leave it, because it had such a firm hold on me. Because of that, I was still a part of that tunnel, his past. Then, Erik grabbed me by my shoulders and eased me out lovingly. I was finally free from the tunnel and its directionless darkness. Once detached, there was no need for me to look back, and the farther I got from the tunnel’s edge, the less meaning that darkness held for me. Eventually, I couldn’t even see the tunnel.

Once I changed the stories, my perspective changed, too. Although I’m sure I’ll have to go through these steps again from time to time, I feel so much better, not consumed with pain as I was before. I’m sure you have your own fresh stories to make, but once you have them, I hope they free you as much as mine have for me.

By the way, I’d like you all to know that Robert, Erik and I will be on a radio show with host, Amanda Grieme, tomorrow at 3:30 CST. Here’s the LINK.