From The Heart Of Ken Shiplet

People grieve in different ways. There is no set time for how long we should grieve, and no set way for how to express our grief.

With all of my being, I want to live in denial of what has happened. I still can’t believe that I no longer have my sweet wife in my life. When filling out a medical questionnaire the other day, I was supposed to check my marital status. My choices were single, married or widowed. In no way could I bring myself to check widowed. I did check it, but then I unchecked it because it just didn’t seem right and then I checked married.

However, for me, I felt it was necessary to do some difficult things that said I was moving forward with my life in a new way. I was determined not to be one of those who would never get rid of their spouse’s clothes. So, within two weeks of Carol’s death, I gave all of her clothes to the Salvation Army. I cleaned out her closet completely and gave or threw away many items that I know we should have gotten rid of years ago. In fact, Carol had asked me more than once to get rid of many of those things.

As usual, the women always get the larger side of the closet. So now, I moved my clothes into her side and made it my own.

I laid out all of her jewelry, scarves, shoes and purses and let the daughters and granddaughters pick out anything they wanted.

I gave my son and daughter-in-law my king size Sleep Number bed because I couldn’t see the need for such a large bed with just me in it. In fact, even when we bought it, we soon had wished that we had bought a queen because we loved to snuggle as we slept.

I painted the walls in the bedroom. I ordered curtains with a golf theme. I bought a smaller bed and ordered a golf themed comforter. I rearranged the bedroom giving me plenty of space for a couple of exercise pieces to hang clothes on (I’m being funny, in case you didn’t know).

Was any of this easy? NO. Did it feel right? NO. And it still doesn’t. But these have become powerful symbols that I understand that I must move forward in a meaningful way with my life.

To be clear, I’m not in any way trying to remove the memory of Carol. In fact I’m going to make a wall in my living room that will be designated as Carol’s wall. On it will be her picture, the jewelry she had on at her viewing, her “Soul on Fire” t-shirt in a frame and other memory items.

I’m sharing all of this with the hope that I can help others who are grieving. I’m not saying others should do exactly what I’ve done. But if you don’t establish some symbols of your “new normal,” then you will not grieve well. I’m not saying you have to get rid of your loved ones things as fast as I have, but please understand, if a year has gone by and you still haven’t cleaned out their closet, you are not grieving well.

In all of my teaching of young married couples, I have always told them that they must never have an attitude regarding their spouse that would say, “I can’t live without you.” The only person we can’t live without is Jesus. And with Jesus, we can do all things, even the hard things, because He will give us the strength to do so (Philippians 4:13).