I met with a therapist today. We made counseling a priority right from the start for James, so he has been seeing someone for a while now, but I’ve been on a wait list for about as long as he’s had this diagnosis. Today was finally my day to meet with her.

I wasn’t even sure how to begin the conversation. “Hi, my name is Amy and my husband is dying,” sounds like I’m either at an AA meeting or the opening line to “Love Story”. Either way, it seems far too simple of a statement for a situation that is so complex.

During our conversation, she asked me how I felt I was dealing with all of this, especially the news we received on Tuesday. Without needing a beat, I said, “Not well. Not well at all.” When she asked me why I thought so I shared the details of my day from just hours earlier that made me feel like I had lost control completely, like I was having a breakdown.

I told her how we have a tradition on the last day of school, where all the teachers and staff stand outside and wave goodbye as the buses leave with the students. There are squirt guns and smiles all around and when the last bus pulls out, the teachers all let out the loudest cheer yet, signaling our own relief at having survived another tumultuous school year.

I had made it through the morning without difficulty. I had been able to separate all that I was coping with at home from my classroom for one last day and I was standing on the sidewalk alongside my colleagues, happily waving goodbye to the buses when a tsunami of emotion overtook me. I’m not sure I have ever felt any rush of emotion as powerful as I did just then and I all but ran back into the building and back to my classroom, ignoring the last of the buses, ignoring the parent in the hallway, wanting nothing more but the solitude of my classroom. I entered the darkened room and went straight to the windows where I collapsed on my knees sobbing. I couldn’t catch my breath, I couldn’t stop the tears, I couldn’t even stand. I was so overcome with emotion, overcome by the uncertainty of what that same scene would feel like for me next year that I didn’t know how to bear the weight of the thought.

I was still on my knees many minutes later, still sobbing, still unable to breathe, when I felt a hand rub my back and stroke my hair and I heard the familiar voice of a friend saying, “It’s okay, let it out. This is how it’s going to go. You’re going to break down and lose it, and then you’re going to get yourself back up again and you’ll be fine for a while. And then you’re going to break down again. This is how it goes. It’s okay.”

The voice came from one who knows all too well what I am feeling. She lost her husband suddenly, unexpectedly just three years ago, a loss that hit me harder than it had any right to. And here she was, rescuing me.

As it turns out, there’s a name for this, according to my new therapist. It’s called, “anticipatory grief.” And her take-away from this episode was that I was actually responding in very appropriate ways to all that we are going through. And through our short time together today, I realized just how well James and I have already begun to prepare ourselves for what’s to come, how lucky I am to have the family that I do and just extensive our support system is, including this angel today who saved me from drowning in my grief.

My next appointment isn’t for nearly another month, but we scheduled several appointments weekly thereafter so I should have steady and consistent counseling soon, but in the meantime, I know that I have people around me who will hold me up when I cannot stand, who will pray when my own faith is lacking and who will get on their knees beside me in my grief and help me find my feet again.

Thank you, Heather, for being right where I needed you to be today. For sharing wisdom that came from your own excruciating journey through and around your own grief. And for giving me the strength to get back on my feet again.