Call me crazy, but I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm a little bit crazy.
Is that crazy?
Is it Nuts-ville Crazytown that I feel like I am more in love with my husband now, than ever before? That I would rather have one-way conversations with his spirit or soul, than put any real efforts into possibly finding a new partner who I could actually speak to, human to human? Is it insane that looking at his picture on my nightstand before going to sleep, and saying out loud, in a faint whisper: "Goodnight BooBear - I love you" seems to make more sense to me than saying nothing at all? Seriously - level with me, people - is it time for me to just go and get the straightjacket and try it on for size? Or is there a place that I can go to exist, where there isn't all this pressure to "move on" or "get myself out there again", and where having a continued relationship with my dead husband isn't universally frowned upon?
I know, I know. It sounds crazy. But is it? Is it?
This is the man I chose to spend the rest of my life with. This one. Not another one that I have to go find all over again at age 42. Not someone new that I would have to date, get to know, figure out, play the stupid games, live the "single" life, read their mind, know their heart, and trust with everything. If I already trust everything with the person that I already chose, why should that have to change? How can it? How can I just not be deeply and powerfully in love with my person anymore? How do I train myself to fall out of love with him? How? And if the answer is that I don't have to, and that I can still love him forever - then how do I go forward in my life having this all-encompassing love for a person who no longer walks the earth? My heart hurts with how much I love him, and with the reality that our time together here is gone. Four and a half years of marriage will just never be enough for me. Not ever.
Imagine being a baker, and spending 7 years of life creating the most delicious, incredible, perfect chocolate cake - that took you until you were 35 years old to get the recipe just right, and you were so proud of your cake and you just wanted to savor in it and taste it over and over and over until time ended - and one quarter of the way through your first, tiny bite of enjoying all your hard work and your creation, before your taste-buds could even react - a large and menacing hand snatches the cake away abruptly, and proceeds to smash it crumb bits, all over the floor. "But I only got one quarter of a bite!", you scream in protest. It's too late. Nobody cares. You only got a crumb of cake, and the rest was taken away for no reason at all. Time's up. (Leave it to the fat widow to come up with a cake analogy.)
I don't know how to do this. My heart is with my husband, and my husband is not here. And even though it is never fair or never enough, to have this new, other-wordly relationship with him - and it's not even close to the same thing as actually having him here with me - this is what we have now. We have this. And there is a very large part of me, that would rather have this with my husband, than have something unknown with anybody else.
My whole life, nobody was ever in love with me. Nobody ever returned my feelings back. Nobody ever protected me or made me feel safe or truly, deeply loved. Nobody. Not until I met Don. Not in high school, not in college, not after college - nowhere. Nobody. I dated a lot of idiots over those young years. I had boyfriends. Some were nice, some were not. But none of them were deeply, madly in love with me. When I finally, finally met my person - I was almost 29 years old. He was in Florida, I was in New Jersey. We bonded in a music chat room online, and became instant friends. And then more. He flew out to meet me, and then we were in love. I told him things about me that nobody else knew, or knows. I shared with him my soul and my fears and my heart. For 7 years, we dated long-distance, until he packed up his life and moved to New Jersey for me. Because he loved me deeply and madly. He supported me and cheered me on in my dreams. We were a team. Always a team.
Now he is gone. I know how to live without him. I'm learning, and it isn't easy, but I know I can do it, and I know I will be okay. I know how to live without him. But how do I love without him?
If I'm being totally honest, and I always am in my writing, I will say that I am terrified. I am scared to death of growing old all alone, and dying all alone. Even more, I am frightened beyond words that he was my only person. That for the rest of my years, nobody will ever love me in that beautiful, amazing, trust-you-with-my-life sort of way, ever again. I live in terror that I will be granted a long, healthy life - never being allowed another bite of that cake.
Kelley, you are not crazy. I felt that way for a long time. I went on "dates" more to socialize, not to find someone to replace Laura. That said, I have found someone that is very special to me. If someone had told me I would feel this way about another women even two months ago, I wouldn't have believed them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that Paul, and Im really happy you have found joy and love again. That is awesome. I guess Im just terrrified that nobody will love ME again, becauase nobody ever did before Don. Its hard to really believe anyone else out there would ...
DeleteKelley Lynn, you have, once again, said "word for word" what is exactly on my mind and in my heart. My husband, Rich, was the love of my life from the day we met and during the 16 years we were together. I kiss his photo every night before I go to bed and say "I Love You" and I repeat the kiss and the I Love You when I wake up in the morning. I do love him and always will. I'm older and I have no illusions of finding a man who will love me as deeply or whom I will love as much as my husband. I think God gave me one love for this lifetime. I have no desire for dating games; not at my age. Thank you for putting into words what many of us feel.
DeleteOh, Kelley, I feel the same way. I feel crazy and stuck. My husband died in October of 2011, a few months after Don. I don't think there is anyone anywhere that I will love in the same way. And like you say, who wants to?
ReplyDeleteI can't picture my future either way.
I feel the same way, Kelley. Part of that is because I met my husband at age 20, and was with him 38 years. I can't imagine playing the dating game again, I never got into it back then either. He was, and is, my person. I talk to him every night too. I've also thought much about dying alone. My only thought is that he is there on the other side, waiting. Some days that keeps me going, just to know that when this door closes, the other will open and he'll be there.
ReplyDeleteHard to imagine anyone else out there for me too. But just this morning, my cousin came to the door early. I was up, but still looked sleepy. He said "you look really pretty upon waking". That brought me to tears after he left. I certainly don't think I look pretty at any time of the day. And, yes, he is only a cousin. I think we all fear the unknown, and can't imagine a relationship like we had with our spouses. I keep telling myself nothing stays the same; no two people are alike, and I will never have what we had for all those years with anyone else. But maybe, like Paul has mentioned, there can be something else. It will never be the same, but maybe it can be as equally as good.
Kelley - I love this post. YES! The last paragraph so perfectly says how I feel. Could anyone ever love me like that - me...all my quirks....weirdities....he considered them heavenly and loved all that as part of me. I can't even imagine.
ReplyDeleteAbout continuing to be in love with your husband.....I too had this going on. I too, communicated (and still do, though not nearly as frequent as my first and second year) with his sprit and found him speaking to my heart regularly. And then as I have moved into this third year, and have grown and begun to heal a wee bit, I hear him speak less. Someone told me that I will hear his voice as long as I need to hear it and that seems to have become true for me. But I think the catalyst to this was saying out loud to myself "I'm in love with a dead man." And I said it again and again. It was the truth. It still is the truth. But the realization of how one way that love was hit me hard. At that time I was actively in love with someone who could no longer return that love to me. He couldn't touch me, stroke my hair, make a joke or tell me it would all be okay. It was very one sided. I poured my guts out to him and his life had stopped the day he died. I was in love with a dead man, it was getting me nowhere.
It seems that was when I decided that perhaps I could love again, yes, it would be risk and I have not a clue where I'd find that, or if it could even ever be; but yes I could love again and yes, it would be a risk. But for me, the risk to choose not to love again was even greater. The foundation of love that Mart and I had must be enough to propel me into new love if my future presents that to me. It must. We loved well. Sounds like you did too.
Your last paragraph says it perfectly. I'm 32 my husband was 37 when he was killed in September we had 11 years of marriage together and I feel the same way it was just a crumb. I know I will always love him and will be reminded of the way he loved me every time I look at our son. I feel I was so blessed and lucky to have been loved by one person why would I get to be loved by two.
ReplyDeleteThat was mt fear also... Not that I couldn't love again, but that no one would every love me as much as he did. Surprise! I'm only 6 months into a relationship, but I do believe my new man can and does love me as I was once loved.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to this post so much it is almost scary. I too often fear that I will have to grow old alone. I also have made up my mind that I will not settle for one of those pointless, awful relationships that I was involved with before knowing what true love is. I wish you the best of luck and hope that you find somebody super special to grow old with.
ReplyDeleteBravo Kelley Lynn! From the day my husband passed away so suddenly I knew I loved him more than ever. I think we all fear the possibility that no one will ever love us as intensely as the spouse we lost. But I have to believe that if I open my heart to the possibility it might happen.
ReplyDeleteI hope the same for you and all the other very special people who were thrown into this "club". Thank you for sharing, Kelley Lynn. You are truly gifted with such a beautiful way of communicating your feelings!
The last paragraph rings so true for me, and is something I have thought about far too often. I was 39 when I lost my husband. My mother was 39 when my dad died, and she is now 72 and has not remarried. My grandmother was in her late 30s when my grandfather was killed in WWII, and she lived into her late 80s and never remarried.
ReplyDeleteI read about widows who find love again and are able to be happy again, but I haven't seen it. I have no idea how to even try.
I was also 39 when I lost Don. He died 3 months before my 40th birthday, and he was planning a big surprise weekend getaway for us (I found his research of places to take me on our computer.) Instead, I got "Happy Birthday! Surprise! Im dead!" Not exactly what I had in mind ....... thank you so much for all these great replies everyone. Good to know Im not the only one who feels this. Sometimes I feel like Im the only widowed person who just cannot picture the idea of "someone else."
DeleteI love the cake analogy.....it explains so clearly why whatever time we had with our spouses is and was not enough.....my John and I barely had 5 years of marriage when he died unexpectantly....only 5 years!
ReplyDeleteMost have said to me...well, at least you had 5 years (while they still have their spouses and have had for many many more years).
I just wanted more of the cake.....
The part of loving my husband even more...this is so true.....I think part of is because it has been made clear to us how much we lost...it is not just the presence of our partner...it is in all the little things...in all the things that were us that only the 2 of us had with each other.
Finding someone else...that is not something I am even thinking about....it has only been 18 months.....John told me before he died that he wanted me to eventually find someone to be with...he told me I had too much love in me to not share it....I really cannot imagine being with another....I know it is not something I want now.
Thank you so much for sharing Kelley Lynn. I lost my husband four months ago ... 45 days after our wedding. I'm 33 and, like you, it took me FOREVER to find him and I'd almost started wondering if there was someone out there for me at all. He was definitely worth the wait and the two years we had together were worth the intense pain I'm in now. But we'd only JUST started our married life. And it was ripped away from me. It's not long enough, but I'm sure you'd agree, it never is. Although I'm still madly in love with Dan, I wonder (hope??) if eventually I might get to the point where I'm willing to open my heart again ... But can't imagine ever finding that live twice. After all, don't they say lightening never strikes the same place twice?!
ReplyDeleteMrsC, I was 35 when I married Don, and 39 when he suddenly died. Having him as my husband for only that short amount of time seems so unfair and wrong to me, and then I read you only had yours for 45 days and it just shreds my heart in pieces. Like you, I also wondered, and do again, if there was anyone out there for me at all. Its scary. I miss the knowing that I had found my person, and the comfort that came along with that. Im so sorry for your unspeakable loss xo
Deleteyou will never stop loving your husband or love some one else in the same way. but you can love more than one person at the same time and it being different is okay too! people that have children love all their children why cant widows love all their spouses? you don't have to be looking just be open to the possibilities
ReplyDeleteKelley Lynn - You are definitely a gift to your widowed sisterhood (and brothers, too). Deep in your heart, you know that a lot of us feel as you do and welcome your words as validation of what we feel and what we are going through. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe cake analogy especially touches me. One of my husband's favorite songs was "MacArthur Park" ...."someone left the cake out in the rain and I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again".
Love you. Please keep writing.
Why are so many people under "anonymous?" Just wondering. Anyway ... lol .. I love that song too! And I love cake! So getting only a quarter of a bite is just wrong on so many levels. Thank you so much for the kind words about my writing xo
DeleteIt's over 2 years now for me, and, while i have someone very special in my life now, who, in my way, I love. I liken it to being an amputee with a prosthesis.
ReplyDeleteI still have the "phantom pain" of things I want to tell my husband, or show him, or just...when I wake up in the night, still look for my spot on his shoulder. Then it hits me all over again. He's gone. Cut off from me as surely as a severed limb. It's not him that I'm feeling, it's the nerves misfiring. I'm going to carry this analogy too far, and say that the relationship I'm in now is like dancing or running on a prosthetic limb. The moves are familiar, but it's never going to be the same. I'll have to learn the moves all over again, and, barring some kind of anomaly due to my boyfriend being older than I and male, one day I'll get the dubious privilege of going through this hell again, and probably no better prepared for it. At least amputees are limited to the number of limbs they can lose...broken hearts on the other hand are limitless.
Kelley if you're crazy then I'm bonkers. Every morning i touch Nigel's picture and ask him to come back. It's been three years now and i still need him in my life. He was the only one to love as i am - the world's shyest oddball. I only love him and no one else could make me feel the joy he did. I wish you love Kelley i hope you find someone who will see your warm and loving heart x
ReplyDeleteYou are not crazy! It has only been 4 1/2 months but I still talk to my husband, go for walks on the beach with his spirit and watch movies and chat to him. I also end every day by saying mimpt manis to him which means sweet dreams in Malay. He was half Malaysian. I also ask his advise about parenting decisions with our beautiful daughter. I will always love my husband and I am not ready to move on yet either. I am going to keep talking to my husband as it works for me and it is better than having no relationship with him at all!
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