Oprah's Lesson to Me

As it's the day before July 4th and no traffic was on the road I was running early to work this morning.

I felt compelled to stop at Starbucks to treat myself. While my standard is a skinny vanilla latte or maybe a cappuccino, for one reason or another the Oprah Cinnamon Chai Latte caught my attention....things are getting crazy 'round here.

Got to work, drink still in hand, and hopped onto Facebook to see about putting up a post first thing on my work page. Was logged in to my personal, however, and at the top of my feed was a friend's post which had a Maya Angelou interview from OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) called "Love Liberates".

I bawled.

A lot.

Being a widow to suicide has been an overwhelming and personally destroying process.

He was mine. To love, to take care of, to support. We had no children yet so every last ounce of attention and nurturing and every last drop of care that I had was poured into him. I cannot yet forgive myself for losing him. The last minute of the video just twist the knife so deep into my gut this morning.

"If you need permission to go, I liberate you...You see love liberates, it doesn't bind....Love says I love you...I would like to be near you; I'd like to have your arms around me; I'd like to hear your voice in my ear. But that's not possible now, so I love you. Go."

His first words to me in our last conversation were "I have to let you go." He asked what I thought about us and I said "Sweetie, sometimes things are rough and sometimes nothing can go wrong, but it doesn't matter what's going on outside because I love you either way." I repeated "I love you" perhaps 50-60 times in the 9 minutes I was on the phone with him.

I cannot let him go. Her words are so beautiful and as awful as it is to say, I've thought to myself multiple times "At least he isn't hurting any longer." It's so shameful to think because I know the stress and the frustration and the thoughts flooding over his mind were things that could be managed, mitigated, or removed entirely from their grasp on him. That the pain could have subsided and we would shift into more carefully and intensely managing his needs. I don't understand this concept. I want him released from hurt but not like this.

I imagine, though it is so far off it's inconceivable, that one day I can reach the point where I not only forgive myself but where I say to him "Ryan, Sweetie, I love you and I liberate you."