Destiny

Seth and I at Tulum in Mexico, 2007.

Last weekend I flew to Lake Tahoe to photograph a wedding.

I have had a long time extreme fear of flying. During the weeks leading up to the flight, I was anxious about the flight.

The trip came and went, and I found myself flying back home. As I was flying home, I realized that I was not afraid of the flight. I realized that during the flight to Tahoe, I was not anxious at all.. and I wasn't anxious that I was trapped in a plane, a billion miles above the earth.

The realization that I had no anxiety over the two flights caught me by surprise and made me ponder.

Where did my fear of flying go? When did it go? How is it possible that an extreme fear that I have had for years and years, is suddenly gone?

I started thinking about when my fear of flight started. I remember when it started.

Early in my relationship with Seth, we both started having a reoccurring nightmare. The nightmare was always so real and always the same. Seth and I would be flying to somewhere tropical. For some reason, the plane suddenly crashes into the ocean, and we were left in the middle of the ocean with just one flotation device (the seat) to share. The other passengers were always fighting, trying to take other peoples flotation devices, and there was always the same man.. this man would try to drown me and try to take my flotation device. Leaving out the gory details, Seth would kill this man in a very violent, but necessary way.. it was this man’s life or mine. We would take the flotation device, and start swimming away from the plane and fighting passengers. Leaving us alone in the ocean.

The dream would always end with us swimming and swimming and swimming, then waking up in a pure panic.

Seth and I shared this reoccurring nightmare. The details were always the same. The only difference was there was my perception of the dream and Seth’s perception of the dream.

We shared the same nightmare through our entire relationship. Every couple of months, one of us would have the nightmare.

I thought it was ironic that two people could share the same nightmare. I eventually thought.. what if this is our destiny? What if this is the way we would die?

Every year Seth and I would vacation in Mexico. Every time I boarded the plane, I would think of the nightmare. The ocean, the tropical place, the plane crash.. my extreme fear of flying etched it's self into my soul.

I have been thinking about some of the stories my widow friends have told me.. it involved my widowed friend having a recurring nightmare of finding their husband deceased  in a certain way. Then in real life, when their husband passed away, it happened the same way they had dreamed about for years. I have several widow friends that have had this experience.

I have been thinking about my fear of flying and the reoccurring nightmare.

I realized I haven’t had that nightmare since Seth died. In 33 months or 1,020 days, I haven’t had the nightmare that chased me for 10 years.

The dream and fear of flying died with my husband.

But why?

Since my flight, I have been wondering if this was mine and Seth’s destiny. What if he altered destiny with his suicide? 

Where does that leave me? Alone in the ocean? Fighting the man in my nightmare alone?

Maybe that’s why my fear of flying and nightmares have stopped. Maybe that is no longer my destiny.

Maybe my husband’s suicide changed far more than just my present. Maybe it changed my destiny.

I may never know the answer to my destiny, but it does make me wonder.

Now if I die in a plane crash, you will be left with things that make you go “hmm..”

In Between Land

That smile. The smile that kept me sane and was my light in the dark.

I had a dream about my husband.

I dreamed I was sitting on the examination table in a doctor’s office. The doctor came in, was fumbling through my file, sat down and let out a huge sigh. He sat there for a minute and just stared at me. I could tell by the look his face it was bad. Really bad. I was scared and anxious. He broke the silence with “Well, it is what I was afraid of. You have cancer. The type of cancer you have has a 5% chance of recovery. If you want to do chemo and radiation, I will do it, but if it were me, I wouldn't do it. I recommend you go home, and enjoy the last of your days here on this earth.”

I went home and told my mom and Seth that we needed to talk. We all sat down, and I just blurted it out. “I have cancer, I’m going to die. I am refusing treatment as I don’t want to live the rest of my days sick and in the hospital.” Oddly enough, I wasn't upset. I was at peace with it. I knew I was going to die, and that was okay.

My mom was angry “How is refusing treatment YOUR decision, this is a decision we should make as a family!”

I tried to explain to my mom that with a 5% survival rate, I wasn't interested in treatment. My mom was growing angrier with me, but I was firm. I did not want treatment. None.

I started telling them what I wanted to do before I die and what I want done with my body, so they wouldn't have to figure it out.

“I want to have a huge party, while I am still healthy. I want to have a huge BBQ and a dance party. I want everyone to learn Michael Jackson’s Thriller, so we can have a dance off. I’ll send out a letter to my friends and family, letting them know that my days are numbered, and this is my final wish. I would also like to spend a week in Mexico with you guys, before I am too sick to enjoy it.”

At this point, my mom is beyond pissed. “So you are dying, and you want to have a huge party?”

“Yes”

Mom is fuming mad by now. She said “So we have this huge party, then you just die. Then what? What do we do with your body?”

I said “Well, with Seth being my husband, that is his decision to make.”

My mom screams at me and says “Seth is dead, how is he going to make these decisions for you? How is he going to decide to bury your urn and his urn together? How is he going to buy a plot and plan your funereal? He is DEAD.”

Up until this point, Seth hadn't said anything. He just sat there, with a sad look on his face. I realized that, holy shit, my husband is dead!

I look at Seth, who is now smiling ear to ear, and he said “It will be okay. I’ll be there when it’s your turn to come over to the other side. I will personally come and get you. I won’t make you travel the road to the other side alone.”

I kept thinking, but you’re dead!! Why are you here if you’re dead?

I slowly started waking up. I was upset from the dream. Shaken from how angry my mom was at me. Shaken with the cancer diagnoses, and shaken with how real and vivid the dream was.

I roll over to face Seth’s side of the bed. He wasn't there. I’m dozing in and out of dream land, and was wondering where Seth was. I listen for noise, is he in the bathroom?

Suddenly the thunder storm outside shock me out of my dazed state, and I sat up in bed. My mind is racing. It’s storming bad outside, I had a nightmare, where the hell is Seth??

I sat there for a minute, confused where my husband was.. then I remembered, he is in fact, dead.

As the days passed after that dream, I am shocked that after 32 months, I still forget that my husband is dead. But I am slightly amazed about how he said it would be ok and he would come get me.

I've been thinking a lot about dreams. Dreams can shatter my grief process, and I spend weeks picking up the pieces. Dreams can give me hope, that one day, my husband will in fact come for me, that I won’t leave this world alone. One of my biggest fears in this journey has been that I will die alone. It scares me. I don’t want to die alone. But I have hope that I won’t be alone, my husband will be there. He will be there to pull me out of this hell, and take me to paradise.

I have thought about the different layers in life. I decided there are four layers of life. There is dream land where things can be absolutely amazing or horrifying. Then there is the crap land in between dreams and life, where things make sense but leave you wondering where your dead husband is. Then there is real life, where you are not sheltered from the coziness of dream land. And last, there is the road that we travel to get to the other side.

I hate the in between land. I hate the part of when I am slowly waking up, that I don’t always remember that my husband is dead. I hate that I will look for him in middle of the night. I hate that he never lived in “my” house, yet I wonder where he is and what he is doing. There are mornings when my first thought is “yep, he’s still dead.” But then there are mornings after a dream like this, that leave me confused and upset. I haven’t decided what’s worse.. waking up and having my first thought be “dead” or have my first thought be “where is he?”

Even though seeing my mom that angry at me was really hard and frustrating, seeing the smile on Seth’s face, made everything okay. It was okay that I was going to die. After 32 months, I once again found peace and comfort in that smile.  That smile that lit up my day for years, no matter how crappy things were, that smile always melted away my stress and anxiety.

Saying My Goodbyes

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When I stood next to my husband’s casket, and said my goodbyes, I thought that would be the first and last goodbye I would ever say to him.

I didn't realize I would be saying goodbye to him on a daily basis, 31 months later.

The goodbyes start every morning. As I slowly wake from my dream state, and his face slowly drifts away with my dreams, I say goodbye.

As I’m rushing around, trying to get my day started, I say hello.

"I love you, but I have got to go. I have work and life to attend to. It’s time for you to leave my mind, so let's say goodbye."

As the day slowly comes to an end, I tell him goodbye, once again.

Enter the dream state and its hello all over again.

Enter the never ending circle of hello's and goodbyes.

The hello's come with signs he is around. Monarch butterflies and the hearts I notice in the weirdest objects and places.

Its “hello, and I love you too. Thanks for the heart, but I got to go. Goodbye my love.”

Looking back, I wish someone would have told me how horribly hard this journey is. I wish instead of telling me “it will get better”, someone would have told me how bad it sucks and how long it would suck for.

I wish someone would have told me of the never ending counting my brain would do. How many days since I last saw my husband. How many months it has been. I wish someone would have told me that the counting, is normal. It took me feeling like I was losing my mind, before someone said “This is normal”.

I wish someone would have told me, as I stood next to his casket saying goodbye, that it wouldn't be the last goodbye I would say to my husband.

Today, I am wishing I only had to say the one goodbye. Today I am wishing I didn't know it is 957 days since I saw my husband alive. Today I wish the “suck it up and move on” actually worked.

This morning as I woke up from yet another dream of Seth, I said my goodbyes all over again. With tears in my eyes and my pillow soaked from dream tears, I realized that saying goodbye never gets easier.

While saying my goodbye's hasn't gotten easier saying my hello's as gotten far easier.

I welcome the hello's and welcome him into my dreams a lot easier now.

In the early stage of grief, I cursed him for showing up in my dreams. I would scream at him for sending me signs that he was around.

It is now a wonderful hello session, that I look forward to every time I close my eyes.

I look forward to the day that goodbye doesn't take me all the way back to the day he died.

Dream on.

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The dream world has always been a funny topic for me.

I dream A LOT. Almost every morning I remember my dreams, usually more than one. They're sometimes crazy weird, sometimes scary, usually in some way incorporates things I've been thinking about throughout the day or weeks. 

Only recently have I discovered that I sometimes mumbled in my sleep (nonsense), giggle when I'm dreaming about something funny, or shake and breath differently when I'm afraid. Jeremy was such a deep sleeper that I don't think he ever noticed if I did these things (although I caught him talking in his sleep a few times, which was always hilarious). Steve, however, is one of the lightest sleepers I know and wakes up every time I move a muscle. He's had to wake me from a few bad dreams - I seem to be having quite a few lately.

Oddly enough, I've been dreaming about Jeremy a lot over the last few weeks. After he died, I dreamt about him often, constantly begging God to let me see him in my dreams. But it was never in the way I wanted. He was distant, never came close enough for me to touch him, but would give me these deep looks of pain and apology that would leave me aching in the morning. Then, gradually over time, my dreams would just come every once in awhile. I don't know why he's been coming back in my dreams so much recently. Perhaps getting past the 2 year mark was a big milestone and I was thinking about him constantly. Perhaps like the rest of my dreams, it's manifesting an understanding I can't work out when I'm awake or in real life. I don't know. 

What I do know is that Jeremy is changing in my dreams.

Has any other widow(er) had this happen? I feel like I always have this sense that no matter what the dream is about or where we are, I can feel him in real time - like he's opening my eyes to something. I've never been hokey about dreams before, but after Jeremy died, I knew there was purpose in me seeing him there. 

At first, he wouldn't come close. He would stay far away and apologize or I would beg and plead for him not to go from a distance.

Then, he finally got in close enough that he put his arm around me once. But the closer he got, the weaker he seemed and I always dreamt of the injuries he endured from the fall after his heart attack, or I would worry about his heart. Or I knew that he wouldn't be staying alive long and I needed to do or say as much as I could before he left.

Then he got closer and intimate enough to hug me and tell me he was so happy for me when I found Steve. And there was no pain, just that beautiful smile of his. What a gut-wretching blessing of a dream that was.

Throughout the changes in my dreams, though, I felt him grow. I felt any anger he ever had gone from him and he always seemed at peace, even if he was sad he couldn't stay with me. He matured somehow in my dreams, like the essence of Jeremy but in the form that God created him to be. It's hard to explain.

Lately, he appears in my dreams like a lot of normal characters in my dreams. He'll be along side me for an adventure, or trying to protect me from something, or won't do anything specific, but I know he's there.

Maybe someone else out there knows more about this area than I do, but I would be interested to know how the widowed community views dreams of their loved ones, or what they think about the evolution of Jeremy in my dreams. Either way, and in no matter what form, he is always a welcome presence that I ache to see in my dreams. I love getting to see his face, and feel him living, even for just a moment and even if it's not real. It feels real. Those are the dreams that if I wake up prematurely, I try desperately to close my eyes and finish, just so I don't have to say goodbye. Just so I can squeeze one more second of time in with him. 

Heart Vacation

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After puppy-sitting for friends for the last week and moving into my new place yesterday, I am sleep-deprived and stressed out. This has led to clumsiness, grief set-backs and general screwedupness.

But I'm in my new home and my incredible girlfriends stayed with me for my first night in my new condo last night. This turned out to be a lifesaver because while moving in I received an ominous sounding text from someone I've recently begun to date. It sounded like impending rejection and that was a little too much for the end of an already momentous day.

As always, in this journey, small losses (even half-imagined ones) open my heart up to re-experience all the pain I hold at arm's length every day. The pain of losing Dave.

The floodgates opened and all sorrow was traced back to the hamster wheel thought "he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead".

I need to settle into my place, catch up on sleep, take care of myself and enjoy my new home, but right now, I'm also battling a little grief resurgence that unfortunately takes up all my energy.

 Every time I'm caught up in a wave of it, it feels the same. It's as though I have concrete in my limbs and the thought of moving is exhausting. Everything takes a concerted effort to accomplish. Small, everyday irritations, like getting lost while trying to drive to a new location, or locking myself out of my place become so overwhelming that I retreat to a place of numbness in my brain. I go through the motions, but no one's home.

Eating and sleeping become tasks that require a skill set I suddenly lose. Food loses its taste and good, deep sleep eludes me.

Last night I finally did sleep, but woke up every few hours with the unsettled feeling of being in a new place.

Somewhere in the early morning hours, I finally dropped into a dream stage and dreamed of rejection. In the dream, a beloved childhood friend and an ex-boyfriend snuck away from me to go dancing together to escape my sadness and reveled in being away from my black cloud of misery, followed closely by two of my girlfriends heading out to dinner without inviting me. 

It occurs to me now, as it does frequently, (this is a lesson I work on EVERY SINGLE DAY) that what I really fear is being alone. It's as though a part of me is waiting for those I love to come to their senses and flee.

I know how loved I am. I see it. I feel it. I logically understand that I have worth and that there must be some reason people I love haven't dumped me already. But that little inner girl who's about 5 years old, has her arms wrapped around her mother's and father's legs and is begging them not to leave her while they pull away anyway, firmly uncurling her hands from their  pants legs and slipping away into nothingness. And then there's the 36 year old me who is clinging to her husband, willing his heart to start again, willing him to come back to her while he gently floats away anyway.

How the hell will this heart of mine survive any more loss? In order to love and LIVE, I have to subject my heart to all kinds of pain. But, oh how I'd love a break from the endless pain. A vacation for my battered heart.

I'd like to send my heart to a beautiful tropical beach, where all day and all night, it's bathed with love and warmth and safety. Where it's filled back up again and thoroughly patched up. When it returns, it will be better fortified to withstand the inevitable pain of living fully.

I want to wrap it up in layers of insulation and a fortress of barbed wire so just for a little while, no one and nothing can get to it.

Then again, there are many beautiful things I'd miss out on if my heart is inaccessible.

For now, though, I've done enough. I've pushed forward again. A new place. The dating world. Those two additions to my life are more than enough for now. It's time to give my poor heart a little break for a while.

Not to say no to life, but to renew my ability to cope.

And it won't be long until I'm wrapped up in the embrace of Camp Widow, which in its own way, is a little vacation for my heart. 

A Message in a Dream

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” – Calvin & Hobbes

Night before last I dreamed about Maggie. It has been a long, long time since I’ve seen her – in person or otherwise. Even in my dream, rich emotions were quickly whipped up. Let me set the stage.

In my dream, we were traveling with a group of friends. The one and only scene in which she played a role involved her sitting at a table or couch, surrounded by friends while she animatedly told a story. (Such a scene wasn’t unusual; she always had LOTS to say and was almost always the center of everyone’s attention. And she was ALWAYS animated!) In this one and only scene, she never even looked at me or acknowledged my presence. In the dream, this wasn’t odd. (Dreams are very odd ducks.)

When I saw her in my dream, a deep feeling overwhelmed me that I now struggle to describe. The feeling definitely wasn’t sadness but, instead, euphoria but way more basal or primal than that specific word implies. The only way I can possibly describe the feeling was as if my heart had long been locked tightly in a cramp. Then, very suddenly upon seeing her – the way she moved, the way she spoke, the way she just… was – my heart instantly and completely relaxed. It was like the day we first met when my soul said, “Ah, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.” This time, my soul added, “God, I’ve missed you.”

Euphoric or not, I knew instinctively that she was upset with me because I was obsessing over the pictures that I was taking while we were traveling. I had spent hours pouring over this or that photo worried that it didn’t capture the scene like I thought it should. Some photos were too dark. Some photos were off center. One specific photo I remember all too well was very washed out and didn’t capture clearly her face like I wanted it to. In addition to pouring over failed photos, I was trying to stage and re-take more. Yup, I was obsessing. And she was unhappy with me. She wanted me to put down the photos and just be a part of the trip with everyone else.

(It’s funny how without a single word could tell exactly why my lovely wife was upset with me!) (And, just for the record, she was rarely upset with me.) (And just for another record, God, I wish she had said anything… ANYTHING to me!)

I’ve pondered that silly dream for many hours now but my interpretation hasn’t changed since the second I woke up. The message is simple and clear: a life spent focused on trying to keep memories alive is a life spent living in the past. Living in the past tends to keep us from appreciating what’s going on right here, right now. And it’s really hard to see and smell roses when you walk down the path of life facing backwards.

I hear you, Maggie. I’ll keep pushing forward. It’s time to breath new life into the Business of Change.

(P.S. And, uh, Maggie, if you appear in my dreams again, could you please at least say hi or even have a conversation with me?  It'd be real nice.  And can we, uh, have some, you know… *cough* “adult” time?)

Dreams

From here

I've been haunted by anxiety lately. Everything feels so unsettled right now. Someone extremely close to my heart is facing a scary health problem. I'm forging ahead in this new life, not knowing what I'm doing or where I'm going. The holidays are looming.

I wake up several times a night with a racing heart and mind. My thoughts immediately go to trying to control. By controlling my inner world, I guess, I'm controlling something. I can't control the outer world, so at least I can control my thoughts. But the thoughts are out of control and useless, anyway. They try to predict the future and change the past. Both completely fruitless and frustrating.

My dreams are fleeting and hard to remember upon waking. I remember some parts of a dream I had a few nights ago. Dave was alive again, but suddenly collapsed. We were in the middle of nowhere and I was running to find help, screaming for someone, anyone, to help me help him. I don't remember how the dream ended.

Last night, though, I dreamed of the ocean. Every time I dream of the ocean, it's a peaceful, happy dream. Every single time. This time, I was fully dressed but standing knee deep in some gorgeous tropical waters. The water felt so perfect and looked so inviting that as a wave pressed up against the side of me, I just let myself fall into the water and smiled with pleasure. The water enveloped me and I felt free of anxiety while I floated in the vast blueness of it.

I want to feel free of anxiety like I did in that dream. I want to feel that in my waking hours. I long to feel that way again.

The way it feels to be able to let go and relax fully. I don't think I've felt that in more than 6 months. Except in my dreams.

i dream of you

The credit for this photo is uncertain and if anyone can verify the photographer that I will be happy to site credit for the image.

I've had many dreams of Jeff since his death. There are a few that are terrifying renditions of the last few minutes of his life; but the vast majority centre on seeing him again in a variety of surprising locations.

I've found him on dairy farms slogging through the mud. I have glimpsed him on boats passing bridges that I stand upon. I have found him sitting at the dinner table expectant for his next meal.

In each one of these absurdly set dreams, he is smiling, joyful and laughing. His mirth spills from him with such force that I believe that he is alive again and this whole death business has been an unfortunate ruse.

After hugging him forcefully and smelling him deeply, I usually beat upon his chest swearing at him for inconveniencing me with having to plan a funeral and all the painful outfall from the belief that he has been dead all this time.

He never utters a word but gleefully smiles at me and holds me tight. I always seem to come away from these dreams feeling that he is "okay" and that he is happy.

These dreams shifted recently when my dream of rearranging furniture into the perfect configuration was interrupted by a dreamland telephone ringing. I was too immersed in my activity to answer it. Jeff's good friend, Finnegan, answered, laughed and replied to the unseen person speaking, "I'll tell her...." He turned to me and said, "Jeff asked me to tell you that he loves you the whole pie and he's thinking of you." Outraged that Finnegan had hung up, I flung myself at the phone fervently trying to remember Jeff's contact number for wherever the hell he was.

I woke with my heart beating frantically and my mind attempting to grasp that telephone number to god-knows-where....As my head cleared, I realized I was looking for the number to "Heaven"....

Although I was frustrated and saddened that he was just beyond my reach, I was relieved that again, he seemed to be "here" and he was "alright"; in fact, he seemed happy.

I wonder if others have these dreams when they have lost someone so very dear to their heart? Is this my mind playing tricks in an attempt to soothe my heart? Or is Jeff reaching out to me from somewhere to let me know that he still loves me and will be with me always?

i need more dreams

Written 6 months after Jeff's death...

A few weeks ago, I had a dream that I was standing on a bridge looking toward the sea where a fishing boat was coming. I started calling out to it. I was calling Jeff's name. As it came closer, I could see Jeff standing on the bow waving to me. He jumped off the boat as it was about to go under the bridge and swam to me on the shore. He was laughing. He held me so close and I cried as he had me in his arms. I felt safe. I felt comfort. I felt protected. Most of all, I felt Jeff's love. I didn't want the dream to end. I was disappointed to wake and find that my life is what it now is. I need another one of those dreams. I need Jeff.

I am so lonely and lost. There are only two times in your life when you will comforted through the night when things are hard and scary. As a child, you have your parents to murmur in your ear through the nightmares. As you grow up, you must learn to comfort yourself. Then you find the person who changes your life. You wake from scary dreams or can't sleep with worry and you can turn to the person who loves you most and be comforted. I would do anything to feel Jeff's giant arm draped over my hip in the night and feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. To have him whisper in the darkness, "It's okay. I'm here, Snuggles." and pull me closer.

Instead, I wake to two little ones who look to me for assurance wrapped over me. I disentangle myself and wander through the dark house to find....nothing but more darkness. It washes over me and I want to scream. I feel like passing out or throwing up. I lay on the floor or sit with my head between my knees so that if I do faint I won't wake the kids with the thud of my body hitting the floor. No one would know. No one would come. No one could take away this pain. No one but Jeff. I want him back. I want him. I need him. I am so very lost.

Would it be weird to ask a friend to sleep in my bed with me? Just to be there when I wake. To reassure me that one day it will be okay? To hold my hand when it gets too much?

I just want some comfort. Some peace. Some sleep. And maybe if I sleep, Jeff will meet me on the other side and laugh while I cry in his arms.