Saturday, August 23, 2014

Widows Do the Darndest things

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This week I found myself participating in some very strange widow behavior, searching google earth for images of my husband when he was still alive. It started last week when I was using the program to check an address and noticed there is a sliding time line in Google Earth where you can go back weeks/months/years and see satellite images from previous versions. I was playing around with it and saw that one of the date options was the 24th of July, 2013. The day my husband died.
I immediately entered in the street address where he died and looked to see if there were any police cars, ambulances, etc, but he died at 11am and the sat image was taken around 10:15am. I can't describe the feeling in my stomach, I felt sick but frantic, like I needed to find him. Not sure why, I know I couldn't go back in time but I couldn't switch it off. So I then spent about 45 minutes looking for him in different places and times, at locations where we would often visit.
Until, I found a trace of him. His car parked out side my sister and brother-in-laws house. There were a lot of cars, so I'm assuming we there for some kind of party (but I/we did/do spend an awful lot of time there anyway).
I got so excited, like I'd found him and won some kind of challenge or competition. However as that wore off I just  sat there, kind of in shock. Yes it's his car and that satellite image shows a moment in time where my life was normal and innocent and happy, but it doesn't bring him back. He's still gone forever.

Wondering if had crossed the delicate boundary into ‘unhealthy behaviour land’, I turned to the only people who might understand, my widow friends. As usual, their responses were reassuring and comforting – a pretty solid 50/50 mix between ‘yep, I’ve done this too, you’re not losing your mind’ or ‘What a great idea, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it!’. 

There are so many layers to this widow thing.  After doing it for a year, I thought I had discovered them all.  Yet here I am, again surprised by some of the thoughts that flood my mind or the things I do to try and feel close to Dan and to create new memories with him.

I think that's what it's about for me.  On the day he died, I lost the chance to create new experiences with him.  I feel lucky to have shared some beautiful memories together and will cherish these and hold them dear for the rest of my life.  But 20 months is not enough.  I want and need more of him.  

I create these new memories by pouring through photos of the travels he did around the world in his 20's.  Looking at them much more closely than I ever had before.  I didn't know him then and wasn't there with him, but I find myself looking for a deeper understanding of who he was and what he did during his 34 years of life.

I also pour through the box of his childhood memories in our spare bedroom.  The diary he wrote as a young boy for a school assignment,  photos of his school formal, the messages his friends scrawled across his school uniform on their last day, where he was 'school captain' and had the world at his feet.  

I just want so much more of him.  I miss him so much.  


12 comments:

  1. Wow. What an incredible thought. Sitting here with my jaw hanging open in awe at this brilliance. I'm sure non-widowed people might think it's bizarre - but you're right - I wish I'd thought of that. I totally get it. Here I come, Google earth.

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  2. Hello, the Layers.... Oh yes the Layers..u want someone to pull back Layers so u can Breathe again..I had 34 years w my beloved, it wasn't enuf..my entire life was built with him.. I could never begin to tell anyone the pain, I wanted to die too..we used to hv a joke between us, we go together in same box, he laughed and said b pretty crowded in there cause both if us not young and skinny anymore..oh how we laughed abt that several times.., and than of course I would say to him, yeah I'm twice the woman I used to be...he would laugh.. Oh his laughter was contagious .. Anyone that knw him remembers his laugh..laughter left our house today.. August 23, 2008....

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    1. No one understands this part "it wasn't enuf..my entire life was built with him." I had 36 years but not nearly enough. What do I do now? I wish my neighbors understood. I lost my husband two months after you lost yours. I get it!

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    2. I get it too. I lost my husband of 36 years, June 20 2013. I am just now figuring out how to breathe again. We did everything together. We were each other's shadow. We trained horses together, replaced baler teeth together, went to pot lucks together, sang badly together, watched the same sappy movies together ... holding hands. After 36 years of marriage, checking each other for ticks was fun and funny every night. But it was a tick that took him... we thought it was the flu, and five days later he was dead. And I miss him so much every day that I didn't know a human being could hurt so much and still be able to live. But I have to, because my adult children don't need to hurt twice as much. But yeah ... we were supposed to grow old together, sitting on the porch swing holding hands. We even planted trees and pruned the branches so we could build tree houses in them for the grandkids who haven't been born yet, who will never get to meet him now. Life interrupted sucks. And I guess I am picking myself up off the floor by realizing that everyone in this world loses someone they love, if they live long enough, and everyone gets through it somehow. So I guess I can too, someday. Although most of this last year, I wish I'd died with him.

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  3. hugs. and more hugs. and yeah, google earth, let's see what you got! <3

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  4. Yep, I've done that and I got quite the shock from it. The Google street view car came by on the day we buried my dad. I can tell because my car, which was new at the time, was parked in the driveway. Looking at the house from the outside I can remember so vividly what was happening on the inside. It's like looking in the window and catching a glimpse of myself standing there with my head buried in my husband's chest. Difficult and comforting all at the same time.

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  5. I didn't have to search to find my husband. About two months after he passed away from a heart attack, my neighbor came over and said when they were looking at google earth for their house, there was a picture of my husband walking up to our house. There he was, doing something so normal, it was almost like he had never died. Happy, that the picture was there, thrown back to reality that he was never going to walk up that driveway again. We would have been married 45 years the month that the picture was found. Never enough time...So yes I didn't go checking google earth but you never know what you will find if you do,

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  6. Hello, it's morning, and a beautiful morning .. Sun is bright..I'm here..God allowed me to be..today was the Day!..I got thru it..again..3 widows on this particular post were married longer than me.. Oh my u hv my most sincerest thoughts..6 yrs gone by now..can't believe 6 yrs?? But I can say that horrible , sickening, feeling is not in my face or body anymore..thank God for our design...Looking back, meds, therapy, Jesus, and Time.....

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  7. My husband of 26 years died December 1, 2012 of a heart attack while mountain biking. I've been on Google Earth several times following the same bike trail . . .

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    1. Oh, honey, so sorry, you must have been in such shock. May still be in such shock. My thoughts are with you ... Someone told me that, sometimes, a soul knows when they are going to pass, in a sort of "oversoul" sort of sense, and chooses to do so away from their loved one, to spare their loved one the anguish of re-living that moment, over and over, for the rest of their life. Perhaps your husband protected you in exactly that way ....

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  8. I LOVE this site! You all constantly reassure me that I'm not bonkers! I usually find some nugget of emotional gold that I can identify with. L. Cook: I can totally relate to doing everything together- - the everyday stuff which, when shared with your soulmate, almost becomes like sacred rites. And for you to have been blessed with a man who would prune branches with you so that your grandkids could have treehouses... It has been so long since I had that! But it IS possible, right? Seems to me there aren't men like that anymore. -Snowygirl

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