Surviving Year Two: Week 48

Full Moon in Capricorn

This is Week 48 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

It's a Full Moon tonight. This month's full moon has been called the Summer Moon, the Hungry Ghost Moon, the Ripe Corn Moon, the Crane Moon, the Moon of the Middle Summer, the Moon of Claiming, the Mead Moon, the Rose Moon, the Full Buck Moon (for the new antlers of buck deer pushing out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur), the Full Thunder Moon, the Grass Cutter Moon, the Moon When Squash are Ripe, the Raspberry Moon, the Horse Moon, the Moon of Ripeness, the Moon When Buffalo Bellow, the Red Berries Moon, the Homedance Moon, the Fury Moon & the Full Hay Moon.

It's also a full moon in Capricorn and the moon was in Capricorn when I was born, AND it's my birthday month (my birthday happens to fall directly on the New Moon this year). It all feels like another huge turn of the wheel and I find myself in a slightly new place.

My grief continues to show up in new and startling ways. This week, the Widow/er World is all a flutter about the new engagement announcement of the comedian Patton Oswalt. His wife suddenly passed away eight months after my husband (in an eerily similar way). When I saw that he not only was dating but was ready to get married a year and a few months after the death of his wife, I was completely shocked. I don't judge his choice — we all grieve differently. I am more feeling how much I am NOT ready to marry anyone, let alone start dating in a serious way. How can he move through his grief so much more quickly than I can? It makes me scared about my path. That I am getting stuck. That I will never be able to love anyone the way I loved my husband.

Apparently there is a hashtag around the fact that #MenMoveOn. My Grief Counselor told me it is very common for her to see men get married within a year of losing their spouses — that they quickly "replace" their dead wives in part because processing emotions is so difficult for men. Is Patton Oswalt doing this? I have no idea. I don't personally know him, and those that are attacking him for his life choices definitely need to shut up and leave him alone. AND, I am also really feeling some complicated feelings about someone who can move on to their next love so quickly. Both are true for me.

So I will navigate this full moon as best I can, connecting to the Capricorn moon that was rising when I was born. I will keep choosing life, even when I feel so completely hopeless.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.