Validation

I think it is validation that I am constantly seeking. Yesterday afternoon I went to a podiatrist for the first time. I’ve been having problems with my feet, ankles and calves hurting really badly. I told him that the pain started a few months after my wife passed away. I explained how I was just so beside myself with grief that I would literally stay up until 3, 4, sometimes till 5 AM pretty regularly. I would put the kids to bed and then sit in my living room in prefect silence for hours just weeping. Finally after a few weeks of that I decided that I needed to start exhausting myself so by the end of the day I would utterly collapse from extreme exhaustion. That’s when I started running. I HATE running!!! It was all I could do though. I felt like Forrest Gump, “Run Forrest, run!!!” There was one night in particular I remember. My dog was just a puppy at the time (we got her about a week after Rebecca died). We had already ran that afternoon but it was midnight and I just knew my body wasn’t tired enough to sleep. It was pouring rain outside, I mean really coming down hard. It didn’t matter though, I knew the alternate was sitting up crying for the next several hours. So, I laced up my shoes and grabbed the dog’s leash. I remember opening that front door and my dog just looked up at me with her tail tucked between her legs and sad puppy dog eyes. I could tell she was just thinking, “You’re not really going to make me do that are you?” I just said, “Sorry honey, I gotta’ do it. I don’t have a choice.” So, we ran in the rain. We were both entirely soaked after only one lap around the block. She was a good sport though and stayed right with me. When I finally finished I brought her inside. I felt so bad for her that I dried her with towels and tried to blow dry her. I’m not sure if she hated the rain or the blow drying more. Either way though I’m certain she must have thought, “Oh great, I got a whack-job for an owner.”

Anyhow, about the podiatrist, I explained how shortly after I began running my legs started to hurt. My calves felt like they were going to explode, the movement on my ankles was very limited and my feet were just killing me. It didn’t matter though, I kept running. It was the only thing I could think to do at the time. I thought I could ‘push’ through the pain but after about two months my legs got so bad I could hardly walk. Needless to say, I had to stop running—my body just couldn’t handle it anymore. As I explained my situation to the doctor, someone I’d never met before, he turned to me and asked, “Were you training for a half marathon or a full?” I said, “A half.” He explained, “I know exactly where you are at. My first wife and I built this office together. She worked the front desk and did the billing while I started out as a young doctor.” He went on to tell me that she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years after they started the practice and at the age of 35 she died. He said, “My whole world was turned upside down. I felt like when she died, I died (truer words couldn’t have been said). I got a dog a few weeks after my wife died and decided to start training for a half marathon. By the time the race came I was ready and completed a full marathon instead. I know exactly where you are.”

I just wept as I listened. He told me it took him 10 years before he felt ‘normal’ again. The funny thing is that he was such a nice, such a happy-go-lucky guy that I would have never guessed he had experienced any of this. He was just a very open, very gregarious person. While he was kind and talkative, he was real. That’s what I appreciated. He didn’t mince words or try to tell me that when he got remarried (10 years after his wife passed) things were all better. He told me that even now he feels that she plays a big role in his life. Everyday coming to his office he is reminded of her. He told me that while it has now been over 15 years since her passing he still keeps certain office files that she maintained. He said, “I’m still not ready to let everything go. So, I just have the office girls work around those files.” He told me, “I can still hear her nagging me when I am building molds for people’s feet ‘You’re using too much plaster. You’re going to have to clean that mess up later.’”

I just loved that experience!! I think what is at the core of what I loved most about the experience was the validation that I felt. I believe it was CS Lewis that called grief one of the most private emotions that people can feel. I believe this is why I seem to naturally gravitate to my widowed friends for support—they ‘get’ it. Without words being spoken there just seems to be a consensus of “yes, I understand.” This is why when I have an experience like I did yesterday it is almost like finding a precious treasure or discovering some undiscovered territory for the first time. For a brief moment I can connect with someone else’s grief and together, just by talking about our experiences, we can have this perfect moment of complete validation. Something that says, "You are not alone."