Recently my mom told me that she was being selfish. It wasn’t a question that she was posing to me.

This seemed like a strange statement because we were coming home from an event that she invited me to attend with her and she was being anything but selfish. She had purchased the tickets for both of us to attend, refusing to tell me the cost or let me pay for a portion.

But she explained that while my father was alive she could have never done the things that she’s been able to do over the past year and a half because it would disrupt his lifestyle, sleep schedule, or just make him grumpy because she wasn’t there to cook for him or wait on him in some capacity.

These days she can get up and go without worrying if he will take issue with her being away from the house. She doesn't have to concern herself with what he's going to eat for dinner. These days, if she wants to go out for coffee in the middle of the afternoon, drive out to visit my sister halfway across the state, fly across the country to see her brother, go to breakfast with her sister, go out for sushi, get home repairs done, or any other number of things… she can just do it, without fear of repercussions from her late husband.

She expressed something like regret or guilt over feeling an unspoken freedom for the first time in years. The freedom of being untethered from the needs of others for the first time in nearly 50 years of marriage. No longer having to consider the needs and wants if anyone but herself, children grown, husband deceased… it's a strange kind of freedom laced with loneliness.

She loved my father, she is very sure of that.

And she misses him, this she is also sure of.

But she is also sure that she is enjoying the things that she is now able to do. As she should!

This is the duality of loss and living. The balance of grieving what once was along side appreciating what still is. In my mind, this isn’t being selfish; Its continuing to live life, after loss.