Thanks for posting krazykitty. I lost my wife to MS fairly recently and was feeling guilty that I'm looking for interaction even though, like you, I'm not ready to get back out there.
There's no reason to feel guilty because friends are a great source of healing. And you see from the replies that your (our) situation is not unique, even though it's pretty tough and will be a gradual healing process.
Good luck to you and all who are dealing with the loss of a partner and are trying to make sense of it all...you have friends here.
-Ric-

I Remember Fireflies


Some of my earliest childhood memories are of warm summer evenings and the silent rhythmic flashing of fireflies. These tiny creatures usually appeared around dusk and slowly grew in number like the instruments in a Ravelian composition. Their optical crescendo continued until it soon seemed that the entire universe was pulsating with their magical greenish-yellow flames. This produced in me an ecstatic spiritual high which I now regard in hindsight as my first official religious experience.

Of course, my most sensible reaction to this spirit-altering phenomenon was to rush inside to the kitchen in search of the proper tabernacle in which to enshrine these holy entities. Having discovered the perfect mayonnaise jar, I sacrificially pierced the screw-on top with an ice pick and ran outside to begin the sacred collection ritual.

Later I would lie in bed and gaze with childhood wonder at the nightstand which now served as an altar dedicated to the objects of my earlier spiritual euphoria. Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge concerning insect physiology and their need for the proper daily sustenance would inevitably lead to the altar becoming a firefly sepulcher. This did not discourage me though -- because I knew that these ‘angels of light’ and the accompanying “inner light” that they brought about within me could in a sense be resurrected by a simple act of faith -- such as my taking another evening pilgrimage into the backyard.

I’m much older now, and replacing the fireflies isn’t quite as easy as it was at one time. Their numbers seem to have diminished dramatically, at least in my conscious perception, as I go on my appointed rounds in this modern and exponentially explosive age of global commerce and techno-scientific achievement. The heralding processional torches that once inspired and transformed my spirit seem to have faded much like the childhood dreams and imagined possibilities that my young mind creatively produced at that early stage in my development. Maybe that innocent childlike perspective that adulthood has somehow slowly leached from my once fertile consciousness is the missing part of the overall equation. Is it possible that the coveted essence of that elusive “Holy Grail” that we all search for throughout our lives exists in perception and attitude rather than the time-space realm that we adults call reality?
Maybe it’s time we all grabbed our symbolic mayonnaise jars and made a daily pilgrimage into the forgotten backyard of our personal hopes and dreams for some restorative spiritual inspiration.
Amen.

Ric Shirley