One Thought at a Time

my momma and me

My brain works so hard. Every  minute of every day, even when I'm sleeping, it's chugging away. Its main responsibility is to keep me safe. It does this by worrying. Some of the worrying is useful. It can result in my actual physical safety and it can result in problem-solving.

Some (and I'd venture to say most) of it is useless worrying. Seems like my brain has a tough time distinguishing the difference.

And it seems like it's always had this problem.  I've been realizing that the trauma I've experienced even before Dave died has wired my brain for this. When you're a little girl and your world is turned upside down when your momma is taken by cancer and your dad is taken by alcoholism, you learn to be vigilant. Your mind becomes ever-alert for more danger. You don't necessarily learn to relax and let others worry about you when you're still small.

And this is my brain. This was my brain before Dave died. That brain warned me that every fever Dave spiked and ever pain he had was the end to that love too. I was just starting to process this in therapy when he actually did die.

Can you imagine a better way to program my brain that the worrying was legit?

It didn't prepare me for widowhood. It didn't make it less shocking that he was Dave one minute and then a body the next. But try explaining that to my protective worrying subconscious mind.

The useless worrying doesn't help me, but knowing that is never enough to make it stop.
For those who've never been through complicated grief or trauma or who don't suffer from PTSD, I bet this is a really hard fact to grasp.

Letting go of it all will not only mean a reprogramming of a brain that has been programmed this way for 30+ years, but will also mean letting go of what my subconscious perceives as protective.

Why would it want to let go of that easily? It won't. It's not going out without a fight.

I suppose the vigilance of my efforts to overcome this have to be at least equal to the vigilance of my worrying mind. 

If my mind suggests something to worry about every few minutes than I've gotta counteract that with some sort of new neural pathway thought every few minutes too.

I'm tired just thinking about that, much less carrying it out.

Some days, 2 years out, are still challenging enough without adding the element of this reprogramming project.

But each day I get to try again. Each day is another chance. And the scientist in me likes the challenge. It's my own little research project. Can a brain this intensely programmed be rewired? Can PTSD, if that's what I have, be conquered in some way? In what ways can I heal my mind? I like the task of gathering information and trying out different strategies, noting the results each time.

I'm pissed though. I'm really pissed off that I didn't get to feel protected and safe as a kid. I'm unspeakably sad that I don't get to celebrate mother's day with my mom. And of course, I'm gutted by the fact that my husband is no longer here.

And all those facts are still just facts. I was dealt this hand for reasons unknown and it's my job to make my dad's, my momma's and Dave's existence worth it by making mine worth it. One day, one hour, one minute at a time. One thought at a time.

Dear Dad

Cousin Ida, dad and me

Dear Dad,


You've been gone 7 years now. What happened to you happened to me. I lost half of myself and have to build a new life from the rubble left behind.


I think often of what it would be like to be you. Not only did you have to watch mom deteriorate and suffer and then die, but you had to grieve while trying to raise me.


I'd like to say that you did things to help me grieve and I'm sure you did, I just can't remember a lot of day-to-day evidence. You did not find me counseling. You did not let me keep any of mom's things. You did not let me ask questions or talk about mom without feeling terrible for asking. You weren't present for me because you were working or drinking heavily or both.


That doesn't mean you didn't try. That doesn't mean you didn't do your best to survive while helping me. I know you were trying to make it through each day the best way you could. I know now how the grief can give you tunnel vision. No energy left for anything but making it through the day most of the time.


You did do one wonderful thing for my grieving process. You brought my older cousin to live with us and she was a buffer between you and me. She loved me like a daughter and let me be me, let me feel my pain. But she couldn't stay forever.


And once she left, and it was just you and me again, the darkness and pain took over our household again.


How strangely amazing, though, that I now see things from the perspective of a widowed person AND the perspective of a little girl who lost her mom.


Now that I am a part of the widowed community, I hear from widowed parents who are somehow managing to help their kids grieve while grieving themselves and I'm in awe of the self-sacrifice that must take. I don't believe surviving this undamaged is even a possibility, for the kids or the spouse, but putting energy into getting the family help and living despite the pain, is heroic. It takes strength I doubt any of us think we're capable of.


I know now that the strength it took you to care for mom while she was dying and to care for yourself and me after she died, was super-human. I am grateful that you stuck around as long as you did and I'm pretty sure it's a waste of time to think of the ways I wish you'd done it differently. You did what you could do. You were damaged.


You were in pain AND raising a sad little kid who lost her mom.
I never would have known the depth of your pain if this hadn't happened to me. It's impossible to imagine unless you don't have to imagine.


I'm glad you've been released from your pain and I'm glad I can use your struggle as a gauge for my fight. I will not avoid getting help or isolate myself and I will not let this turn me into someone who will spend the next 30 years killing myself with alcohol.


I will burn my pain as fuel and come out on the other side with more strength, empathy and capacity for joy.


I know you'd say that you didn't expect any less from me.