The most profound of those events is the death of our life partner, because we don’t just lose them, we lose part of who we are. We find ourselves asking, Who am I now?
I have written about that a number of times on the journey from “we to me” following the very sudden death of my husband some years ago. Finding the path back to the new me wasn’t easy. Accepting the changes was extremely hard. But over time we gradually rediscover ourselves and begin to build a different life. It isn’t the life we expected, but it can still be a meaningful one.
I was prompted to revisit that yesterday after spending time with a friend who is being forced to face that reality again for the second time. The first was coming to terms with the sudden death of her husband. She rebuilt her life and found her “new me”. Her second challenge, I suspect, is going to be much harder because this time it isn’t about losing a partner. It’s about losing part of herself and the control she has always had over her own life.
Learning to live life on our own is hard. The journey from “we to me” is dark and emotional. But eventually we can once again enjoy many of the things life has to offer—our freedom, our mobility, our independence, our free will and the ability to make our own decisions.
But my friend is now being forced to face life with a disability. To shed the “new me” she became after her husband’s death and discover yet another version of herself. This time she is confronting the loss of much of her freedom, her mobility, her independence, her free will and some of the control over the decisions that shape her life.
She’s fighting against that reality and, in doing so, may unintentionally be making life harder for herself. But I completely understand why.
Perhaps that’s what makes this journey so much harder. My friend has always described herself as a free spirit, a gypsy. Someone who followed her own path, made her own decisions and lived life on her own terms.
Since her husband’s death she has rarely stood still. She has moved from Sydney to Tasmania, to Port Macquarie, to Runaway Bay, back to Tasmania, then to Warners Bay, buying and selling homes, often without ever seeing them in person. Home was never simply a place. It was wherever she chose to build the next chapter of her life.
Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, everything changed. At just 69 years of age she found herself in hospital facing a life-changing decision. Since then she has moved in and out of hospital for almost two years. The last eight months, following a devastating fall and multiple fractures, have been spent in aged care. She is now facing the daunting task of trying to regain some mobility.
Her loss is profound. Her freedom. Her independence. Her dignity. Control over her own body and many of the decisions that shape her life. Her home and the treasured possessions that connect her to happier times.
Perhaps that’s the greatest loss of all. We can lose people we love and, somehow, still find a way to rebuild because we still have ourselves. But when life begins to take parts of us—our independence, our mobility, our confidence, our identity—we’re left asking an even harder question. Not, “Who do I live without?” but, “Who am I becoming?”
Perhaps that is one of life’s greatest challenges. We think we only have to discover ourselves once. But life has other ideas. At different stages it asks us the same question over and over again:
Who am I now?
While we can walk beside my friend as she navigates the next chapter of her life, we can’t walk it for her. None of us knows how long that journey will be.
It’s natural to build barriers when reality feels too painful to accept. Perhaps the greatest gift friends can offer isn’t to push those barriers down, but to gently help lower them, enough to let a little light in.
Life can still hold joy, laughter and purpose, even if it is experienced from a wheelchair. In my friend’s case, it would never be an ordinary wheelchair. It would be the brightest, sparkliest wheelchair anyone had ever seen. Because beneath the body that has been broken is still the free spirit, the gypsy, who has always lived life on her own terms.
Perhaps that’s why I understand her struggle so well. Life asked me, “Who am I now?” after Richard died. It is now asking her the same question, but in a very different way.
The circumstances are different, but the challenge is remarkably similar. Both journeys require letting go of the person we once were so that, over time, we can discover who we are now.
And perhaps one of life’s greatest privileges is helping others discover who they are becoming. Ironically, when we help light that path for someone else, we often find it illuminates our own as well.
