OPINION

Life goes on after big events

Leslie Snow, Buyer News

It’s something I felt before, so I understood. I understood the emotional disappointment that follows a big event, the sense of loss that can creep in after putting so much energy into something for so long. When it’s over, there’s an empty space that takes time to fill, an emptiness in search of the next big thing.

I tell Amanda that when we talk on the phone. She tells me that her wedding day was a perfect day, that the weekend was everything she had ever dreamed of, and more.

Then, with a little hitch in her voice, she admits: “Now that it’s over, it’s over, I’m a little bluesy. I want to go back and relive the weekend. I want to marry Ethan again and enjoy every moment. Everything happened so quickly. »

I listen to him and tell him that I understand. I promise that the sense of loss she feels will pass in a few weeks. “You will return to work and school. You and Ethan are going to find a new routine and settle down. You won’t think about marriage. You will think about your life together and your next steps.

But after I hang up the phone, I realize that Amanda must know more. There’s more to say about all the years ahead. I think back to my own experiences.

I felt that same sense of loss most acutely after Ethan was born. My husband and I had decided that three was our magic number. We were going to have three children, not four. I was never going to be pregnant again. I was never going to carry a life inside me or watch a newborn baby take its first breath. I had moved on from my childbearing years into something new and unfamiliar. And I mourned the loss.

I cried my flat stomach and my empty body. I cried the end of this exquisite expectation: “When will he be born?” Who will he look like? I thought Ethan’s birth marked the end of the most remarkable phase of my life.

But I was wrong. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I did not recognize all the great moments to come that remained to be experienced.

I did not understand the joy I would feel seeing my children grow up. I had no idea that their milestones would look like my milestones or that their firsts would also be my firsts. I did not understand the excitement I felt during the first steps and the first days of school. I had no idea how emotional my kids’ graduations would be or how excited I would be to find out where they would go to college.

I had no idea that my children’s weddings would be so meaningful or that having grandchildren would fill my world. I thought giving birth to my last child was an end, but in reality it was a beginning.

That’s what I have to tell Amanda. I have to tell her that her marriage was a beginning, not an end. I have to remind him of all the great things that await him in the years to come.

There are a million little steps ahead of her. There are achievements and new careers. There are new cities and new beginnings. There are pregnancies, births and first steps. There are daily joys and sorrows that will give meaning and purpose to his life.

I want to tell him all this, but I don’t. Because Amanda will have to experience those moments herself before she knows it’s true.

Leslie Snow can be reached at snow [email protected]

Continued:Kincannon is expected to name the chief police finalists; it’s in his interest