I can't remember if I remember

 

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I had a horrifying experience this week:

I couldn't remember.

It started with a drive to meet my sister-in-law in Canada. The drive was a familiar one that I've taken with Jer hundreds of times through the years. Suddenly and unexpectedly, but like a familiar wave of grief, I was struck with tears realizing I would never take the drive again with him. Then I started to try and remember all the different drives I had taken with Jeremy over the years on that road. I remembered very little, which bothered me, but that wasn't the problem.

I then started trying to think about what it felt like to hold Jeremy's hand in the car like I had so many times before. But instead, all I could remember for that little while was holding my brother's hand in the hospital as he slipped away from us, and the second I noticed a change in his hands and knew that he was gone. And like the wave, I was covered in tears. Tears for my brother, who I've been missing so much the last few days (well, ever since I saw my nephew last weekend and his resemblence to my brother was so eery and heartbreaking for me) and tears for the fact that I couldn't get myself to remember was it was like to hold my husband's hand.

I started to go back to all those familiar moments that I think about often. Like the night before he died - him holding my hand on the way home, telling me how much he loved to hear me sing....I tried to remember past what I normally thought about, maybe some other details I missed before and I couldn't. Then I started to doubt the memory. It feels so distant - did that really happen? Do I actually remember it or is it just because I thought about it so many millions of times that it has become a habit instead of a memory? It was truly horrifying to feel like my memories were slipping further away from me just like Jeremy was.

Luckily, it was fleeting. Sometimes, all it takes is a picture of his jaw line or crooked smile to bring all those things back. Or a random hot day where the smell of sweat suddenly made me miss his salty kisses in the middle of the afternoon on a lunch break. Or sitting with Steve, playing with his ears, and remembering how different it felt to play with Jeremy's. I remember with such detail praying every day that I never forget.

But every once in awhile....I can't remember if I remember.
I hate those moments.

Lost

Photo from here

There are days when I am still astounded that he hasn't come home.

6:30 pm rolls around and I find myself listening for the distinctive note of his car pulling into the driveway.

I find myself looking for him in the shed, expecting to see him fixing something on his workbench.

My brain hasn't worked out that he is gone.

I am like Red Dog, searching high and low for the one he loves. Searching faces and seeming to ask "have you seen him?" Going from place to place, determined to find the person who he loved above all others. Never stopping.

On the day Greg died, I looked for him in the faces of the policemen, expecting them to tell me where he was ... when they had already told me where he wasn't.

I searched the faces of his friends.

I search for him every night in my dreams .... and sometimes I find him.

I found him in my dreams last week and I asked him WHY he had to go. (That question that we all wonder: WHY did they die, WHY are we left here without them, WHY they were taken long before their time???)
In the dream, he just carried on making a sandwich and explained (as though repeating himself for the umpteenth time) that "there was a car accident".

....and even though that is the truth of it, it doesn't seem to stop my subconscious mind from searching for him every day and every night.

Because I have lost him, and I still have this desperate need to find him.


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... I know the word "loss / lost" annoys a lot of widows and I want to assure you that I do know exactly where his body is, but "lost" is a word I often use because it describes how *I* feel as well.

The screaming

It started when the policeman told me he was dead.

I was still sitting in my car in my parent’s driveway at the time.

It was loud.

It was hysterical.

It was guttural.

It was primal.

It continued as I was led inside the house, up the stairs.

It went on for a long time before I wore myself out.

It stopped long enough to listen to the police and the chaplain and my parents as I tried to think what to do next.

To search their faces for the next sentence “Oh sorry, we made a mistake. He’s not dead. He’s in the hospital waiting for you”.

It stopped long enough for me to leave a message on the answering machine of my best friend because I could not get a hold of a single other family member or friend to tell them.

To sob this news to them.

But that’s when the screaming started inside my head.

I spoke calmly to people on the phone. They swore at me with shock when they heard the news: I was the calm one.

Outwardly.

But inwardly, I was screaming “He’s Dead. DEAD. DEAD......”.

It didn’t stop while I was talking to those other people.
It didn’t stop when I sipped water to sooth my ruined throat.
It didn’t stop when I showered.
It didn’t stop when I stared at the food people kept putting in front of me, only to take it away again hours later after it was cold.

And it didn’t stop while I slept.

I screamed aloud in my sleep.

It rang in my ears for most of the first 6 months.

It screeched in the background to all my thoughts; sometimes loud, sometimes whispered.

That desperate, aching cry “he’s DEAD!"

Now, it lurks inside, waiting for my brain to think too hard about it, just for a minute.

For the most part, I’m learning to ignore it, but sometimes it screeches into the forefront of my mind with alarming speed.

And once more I crumple under the weight of the screaming.

The endless internal screaming in my head.

You Can't Fix Me

Today's post comes to us from guest blogger Amanda, a lovely Aussie...who gets this widowed thing too! Thanks Amanda!

Sometimes I want to scream at people: “You Can’t Fix Me”.
...because sometimes, I get so sick of hearing that I need to “look after myself” or “do something for myself” or “make it happen” or “chin up” or “forge ahead”.

Sometimes it’s just too much when friends and colleagues minimise my grief in their misguided belief that they would know how to grieve properly if our positions were reversed.  (The same people that go to pieces if they have a sniffle and won’t make it to the gym that day.)

No, they’d grieve properly, have it together within a year and make rational decisions to take their lives onwards and upwards.

They’d “go to counselling” and “get the help they need” to get on with their lives.
Maybe a tasteful shrine with a few candles on the mantle to remember their love.
A weekly visit to the cemetery: fresh flowers on the grave.
They’d get themselves that new job that fits in with their altered lifestyle.
They wouldn’t suffer the grief fog, the loss of short-term memory, the sudden tears, and the incapacitating sadness that saps all energy yet prevents you from sleep.
They quote some random bereaved person that their aunt’s girlfriend’s hairdresser’s mother knows who has “coped admirably” with grief…. and cite it as “if they can do it, you can too”.  Never realising that the person they speak of most likely is showing them the brave face and not the face screwed up in the agony which is widowhood.

No, not for them this incorrect grief.

I am tired of explaining that life doesn’t work that way.

That I have to live this life every minute of every day and even sleep is no respite because half of my bed is empty when it shouldn’t be.
That even if I filled that side of the bed with someone new, it wouldn’t take away the grief for my lost love (and my lost life that I was supposed to have).
That my “happy place” isn’t happy anymore because the person who used to live there is gone.
That “The Secret” isn’t based on scientific fact: you can’t just wish you woes away anymore than you can make your beloved rise from the dead.
That the exhaustion of trying to function on broken sleep and a foggy brain is sometimes overwhelming.
That much of my adult identity was founded on being one half of a couple even though I am a strong, intelligent and independent woman.
That my best friend, lover, confidant, and comforter is gone and nobody else “gets me” like he did.

I wish they could know how hard this is without me having to spell it out.
I wish they didn’t overlook the incredible feat of strength and endurance I go through on a daily basis Just To Get Through The Day.
I wish they could see the progress I’ve made.
I wish they could see that I am helping myself ... that I am doing everything in my power to move forward.
…and that I am doing a bloody good job of it.

But mostly I wish they’d stop thinking that they know how to fix me.

i'm a jerk...a widowed jerk

Picture from here....

I am strong. I am brave. I am a survivor. I am usually empathetic and kind. But...... Sometimes I'm an angry whiner. I wallow in my self-pity and the life that I now exist in.

I realize that life is a gift and that we must be grateful for the amount of time we spend with our loved ones and upon this Earth.....But there are times I can't help myself but to gnash my teeth and spew angry thoughts of self-pity.

Such as:

You find "single parenting" exhausting? Try "sole parenting". Being the only one to dry tears, the only one to prepare cupcakes for the bake sale, the only one arranging childcare, the only one there to get up in the night, the only one....it's especially fun when you are sick!

You were heartbroken when your grandfather died? Yes, it IS awful. But it is NOT the same as losing the love of your life when you were supposed to grow old together and BE grandparents together. It's an entirely different grief.

You find making your pay cheques spread across all the bills difficult. Do it with one check while needing to pay for the same amount of things as if you were two - hydro, gas, groceries, laundry detergent, etc. You wish you could find someone to fall in love with and share your life with? How about finding that person, loving them with all your heart, warts-and-all, and then unexpectedly having them drop dead. Now you're lonely, sad....and still in love. But with a dead person.

I know that these thoughts are horribly belligerent and one-sided. I realize that I am being a jack-ass. But sometimes, I don't want to hear their shit. I want to wallow in my own well-earned self-pity and flip the bird at any other person's troubles or griefs.

*Please admit I'm not the only one with these thoughts.....

three

This morning will mark three years since I've held your warm hand. Heard your snores. Felt safe knowing I was yours.

My life doesn't stop today as it did three years ago....although I partially wish it would. There are appoinments to be attended, childcare to sort out and errands to run.

I'd like to lay in my bed and think of only you. To keen quietly and close my eyes to the empty side of our bed.

But I am terrified that by allowing myself to sink into the grief that still runs so deeply through my heart, I will fall back into that pit of loss. The dark and scary place where time does stop and all I feel is the loss of you.

So I fill my day. To the brim.

I will take the kids to the beach with our notes for you attached to helium balloons. I'll barely allow myself that hour to let the sadness sink in...I need to keep my heart up and my eyes sharp for my little ones.

When this tradition is fulfilled I will begin running again. Focusing on dinner and bathtime. Fingernail clipping and playing referee to intermittent sibling discord.

But after the night has brought quiet and our two children rest, I'll truly feel the loss of you. I'll remember that first night without you. The enormity of the loss. The confusion and unbelievability found in your death. I will cry out for you. I will hold the last dirty shirt of yours close and attempt to smell the long lost scent of you. I will wonder at the ability of others who naively went about their day unaware of this day's significance. And I will miss you as fiercely as I did that first day.

I love you, Jeffrey, with all my heart. I miss you still. And I don't think I can, or will, ever stop.

The Spot

Phil was on his way to this trail head on the day he died. He left home around five thirty on a summer evening in August, and I got a phone call from a witness of the accident that took his life thirty minutes later. Somehow that trip to get to my husband's side is burned into my memory in a way that other moments from that time are not.

Five years later I still travel the route I took that day in August regularly. Initially, I avoided going down the street where I found him lying on the grass unconscious. But doubling the time required to get to locations on that side of town eventually became tiresome, and I forced myself to face that spot; over and over and over. Mostly in the car, occasionally on foot, and one time only on a bicycle. My reactions to passing the exact location where my life turned upside down have varied wildly through the years; vacillating between hyperventilation and mindless driving. The first time I realized that I'd driven by that mark on the sidewalk without thinking about Phil I cried for hours. Since then I have spent a lot of time evaluating my reactions, wondering about how they would change with time, and testing my recall on the details of that fateful day.

Five years later my heart still skips a beat while looking at that sidewalk. Countless passes by this personal landmark have both dulled and amplified my response to a trip down this road. Some days I am proud of the fact that I am able to maneuver my car down a path that so radically changed by life. Other days I drive by in awe of all that has happened in my world since August 2005. Mostly I just touch my heart or blow a kiss as I motor along.

Last week this landmark threw me one of those proverbial grief punches. For some reason instead of seeing the road as it is today, for the first time in a long time I imagined the scene as the drama unfolded that day. I saw Phil, the suburban, the cars, the people, the police, the fire engines, his bike standing upright at the side of the road, and I experienced the tunnel vision of that afternoon. All I could see in that moment was Phil. As soon as I got within fifty feet of the accident location my eyes were scanning the crowd, the cars, the road...where is my husband? Usually when I think of the accident I focus entirely on him, but in this imagining I saw myself in my mind's eye as well. Kneeling in the grass was a vision of the broken-hearted, shocked, frantic me leaning in complete disbelief over the crumpled form of the man with whom the future was supposed to unfold. My heart ached, my pulse raced, my breathing became shallow and I re-lived, just for a moment, the initial rawness of what that girl kneeling over that man experienced.

And I was proud of her, because somehow she survived.