Today is 19 months and one week since Mike died.
How long am I going to count like this? Forever? Is this
just the widowed way to measure time? I seem unable to think about it any other
way, and I have yet to hear any other widow's experience being any different. So
many of my conversations these days start with either when Mike was alive... or since
Mike died... I guess there's a third one too: before I met Mike... Is it like being in some treatment program
where people say it's been thus-and-so
long since my last drink...?
No matter what other things I have in my life now, everything
still relates back to him, my marriage, the life we shared and the life I find
myself in now, without him. It all still revolves around my lost life, like
there was a before, and now an after. If I were to start my own calendar, the
day Mike died would be day zero, and I would now be in the eighth month of year
two. I sometimes have to stop and think that we are actually in the year 2014,
headed for 2015; time flies by and we get older and we do sometimes even forget
how old we are, for a moment, now and then. But how long Mike has been gone?
Always right there in the front of my brain. Like there is a clock now etched on
my forehead, counting from a moment that
Sunday morning February before last when I found him. The moment everything changed for me forever.
Most of the people around me are probably not aware of exactly
how much time has gone by. Of course a few people are - his daughters, and a few other family and
friends who were very close to him. But most people have long since gone back
to their own lives, perhaps counting time in ways that are meaningful to their
own experiences.
But for me, the life I knew died when he died, and the days,
weeks and months I've been here since then are part of a brand new life. A
shockingly strange, new reality that I must forge without the person I thought
would be by my side for many more years. It's like living in another world;
maybe, another dimension of time. When he died, reality seemed to fork off
somehow. I can't figure any way else to explain the feeling. I sometimes wonder
if there is another time line in which he didn't die that day, and we are still
together...
I consider myself fortunate that I can say though, now, it's
not all been horrible...I do have much to be grateful for, I know, and I am
working hard to envision what this future will become for me. But it's not
easy. Some days are pure torture. And the tears still come. But others have
been, especially as this calendar continues to stretch forth, surprisingly ok
too.
Either way, I carry him with me. The missing him, and for
now anyway, the counting of the days doesn't seem like it will ever end.
Dear Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteAs usual your writing is spot on! I also count time from when my wife passed, so my calendar year day one is June 20. Oh, and I didnt count my birthday last year and probably wont this year. I feel like an infant in the sense that I have to regrow from scratch; I guess thats the way it just is... Holidays dont make much sense either they just are there for the enjoyment of others and for me to try make it special for my young daughter.
Time marches on and we trudge along with it best as we can.
All the best. RK.
Hi RK. Thank you for your comment...your point feeling like you are regrowing from scratch truly resonates - it's like I have to start all over again in life. And birthdays and holidays are a particularly difficult time. But yes we do find that time passes nonetheless, no matter how we count it. Not an easy thought some days. Thank you for sharing RK.
DeleteOne night this past week was 1,000 nights I have gone to bed alone.
ReplyDeleteI never liked sleeping alone and always waited to doze off until he came to bed. The time leading up to this sad night was very, very hard. But the times since find me still counting: l,002, l003.
When does it end?
Wow 1000 nights. That is profound. After Mike died I counted how many days we'd been together. It was 5040 days. I wonder a lot that we were allotted 5000 days and I got an extra 40 bonus days at the end. Thanks for sharing, blessings to you.
DeleteYikes! I never counted the time my wife and I had together in days. It seems so short when you put it in days. we were together since dating and marriage for 10 years. Seems long. but in days? somehow seems short! 3650 days (am I counting wrong???) seems so short its astonishing. Ironies of life. Or is it just being bad at math??? Surely eternity was not 3650 days? Note to self: improve on math skills :-)
ReplyDeleteYou are so right, Stephanie. I wonder when I'll stop counting. I only count by months, not days because I think I'd drive myself even nuttier if I count days.
ReplyDeleteBeing a widow does seem to mimic a treatment program: "My name is Marissa and it's been 27 months since my husband died." I'm trying to wean myself from the counting but probably like most everyone else, I relate dates back to my hubby. I was cleaning out my pantry and I saw some milled flax seeds that expired 6/2011 and my reaction (besides "I really need to clean the pantry more often") was "Bernardo was still alive then but he only had one more year to live."
I don't know if any of us will ever stop counting and maybe we shouldn't. Sometimes I think it's odd that I count months but this whole grief and widowhood journey is odd so maybe, it's really normal.
--Marissa
Oh my gosh I do the same thing with expiration dates on stuff. I always think, oh I bought this when he was still alive...and now, sometimes I even think stuff like, he never knew this new jar of mustard...
ReplyDeleteoh Stephanie, your post (beautifully written) tells exactly what " time " in widowhood is like. we get lost in it, we get ambushed in it, there is too much of it, and there wasn't enough of it. we count by days and months and years of loss, we can't believe it's only been such a short time since our Beloveds have died, or how long the time without them stretches way to far into the distance. time, which was often the deciding factor in the structure of our daily lives, is distorted, is intrusive, is without meaning, is passing in a blur. today, I was in a book store - where their were rows and rows of BEASTS - those damnable 2015 Calendars. they made me feel so despondent and so angry at the same time when thinking of how there will be not one single thing recorded that relates to Hugh and I together; and I detest the thought of recording all the other usual things to remember - other peoples' birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, milestones, et. al. this is what grief does. it forces us to see time ahead, often seemingly pointless and beyond sad because of the death and the loss and never-ness; and it continually gives references to the before times, the ones we celebrated, the ones we cherished, the ones we long to have back. time and whole notion of it, both back and forward feels like an emotional prison. what to do? how do we release ourselves? how do we withdraw from what seems like an exercise in addictive madness. what compels us to keep time with living a life that often feels pointless, often feels irrelevant, and separates us from the natural way we have ben used to mark it's passing. I wish I could figure it all out. but perhaps it's like what Marissa suggests - it's like a treatment program, and we have to keep time"s measure if only to see how far we move forward from our grief. treatment programs most often offer what's become the gold standard - to live "one day at a time". but I wish so much I could do that and not get so mired in the past, and nearly worse, the future. I think this post has given me a lot to think about. thank you, Stephanie, you chose an excellent topic to start a good conversation that just might help straighten out that old "warp" of time.
ReplyDeletemuch love,
Karen
Thank you, Karen, for your reply. It's always comforting to hear similar experiences in this tough trek of widowhood...yes the calendars thing I get too. I bought a new 2014 schedule book at the beginning of this year and went out of the store crying...I used to buy them for us, for Mike, for our life and our schedule together...this was the first time it was just for me. I dread the 2015 calendar. Somehow, it will be as if time is speeding forward, as it does, without him...
DeleteIt's been three years and ten months. I have begun to rebuild, and to move forward with life - no longer simply existing or surviving, but actually living again. That being said, I still look at life in terms of before and after widowhood. No matter how much happiness I find, the truth is that for me it seems like my life's events will always be placed on either side of that defining moment in time.
ReplyDelete