Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.~Coco Chanel
“Just wanted to say that was very brave and bold to say you didn’t miss Robert. I’m sure the first time you even thought that, you felt a pang of guilt.”
One of my dearest friends, who was also a very close friend of Robert’s, told me that after a girls get-together where we had been counseling a friend whose relationship had ended (though not in death). As we were talking about moving on, not knowing what’s around the corner and how the best is yet to come, I heard myself say: “I don’t miss Robert anymore.” It just came out. Naturally. Effortlessly. Truthfully. Perhaps because Robert was an alcoholic in our last years. Perhaps because I’m incredibly happy now. Maybe there’s more to it. But the unrelenting truth was…is… that I no longer miss my late husband. And yes, it feels awful to say that. Mean. Ugly. Heartless.
But I’m none of those things. What I am is the survivor of our marriage. And the surviving spouse in a troubled marriage is sometimes left with, well…a less troubled life. In the wake of the devastating reality of Robert’s death, came waves of peace and calm that I had not known for years.
As time went on, I became accustomed to the new normal. Eventually, fresh hopes and dreams came to mind. No longer blotted with a failing marriage and an alcoholic mate, my future slowly began to unfold into a wonderful life, one I could scarcely have imagined just a few years ago. A life with a full-time partner not tethered to a scotch bottle.
And yet…guilt has its way with me.
The singer, Dave Grohl, talking about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain’s death, said, “Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.”
While I don’t let guilt rob me of my happiness or disrupt my newfound calm, it’s always there. It’s like an eye floater, a tiny moving spot that appears in your field of vision, you glimpse a speck but can’t focus on it. It hovers. It might distract, but it doesn’t impede your vision.
Unfair, unjustifiable and yet seemingly unavoidable, survivor guilt finds its way into the widowed heart. Grief’s inevitable successor.
But eventually we stop grieving. We stop surviving and start living. I want to be done with guilt. And so I’m letting go and giving guilt the boot.
Paula Ganzi McGloin 
One Response to “Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.~Coco Chanel”
Thank you for this…it makes me feel so much better about my husband’s death and my feelings regarding it some 2 years later. I’m not feeling so alone!