Never alone

It had to happen sooner or later.

Time alone.
A sad song on the radio.
Nobody to see me (or keep me occupied).

....and I just miss him.

I miss him with every part of me.
I stand in the kitchen and grip the bench as I remember standing in the same spot, held in his embrace
 ....remembering back to when I knew I was loved.

...and the tears start rolling.
More than that.
The sobs shake out of me.


...and I cry like I haven't cried in months.

I've held it together for so long that the sobs become uncontrollable: the floodgates released.

I cry for all the things that I've lost and I cry for the crappy hand I've been dealt.  I dissolve into self-pity and the "why-me"s.


After a while, I drag myself outside into the garden.
My happy place.

...and I see an envelope sticking out of the mail box.

and inside was this....

Divine timing.


It was like a hug from beyond.

...and I know I am not alone.

Thank you Michele.
I can't tell you how much this helped me today.


XXXX

Fire

source

My heart is heavy today.
I want to turn my thoughts around and let positivity lift me up and out of this dark place I'm in, but the positive thoughts are breathy whispers that get lost among the louder voices of sadness and fear.

I am physically alone a lot while everyone I know is at work.

This hasn't been easy for me. Before Dave died, I would crave alone time. Now, though, being alone in this new place feels...lonely.

There's nothing I really want to do, and yet doing something would help the seconds tick by faster.

I found myself looking at the time yesterday, hoping it was late enough to warrant the end of the day,
and drinking the last of the wine in the bottle, hoping I'd have a few hours of fuzzy brain from the alcohol. I was fervently hoping someone would show up at my door, take me in their arms and hold me while I cried, but I'm too terrified to ask for help in case my neediness would drive my friends away when I need them most. I was greedily staring at the phone, hoping someone would text me and ask me to spend time with them.

I am jumping at the chance to be with someone else. Anyone else but me. The thoughts and fears and pain inside of me are too much to bear alone and I worry that they're too much to expect anyone else to help me bear as well.

I am not able to read and absorb information right now. The grief is a loud, monotonous buzzing and the words slide in and out without catching on anything. Reading has been my major escape and now even it's not working. I'm not able to access feelings of excitement or hope or truly look forward to any plans I have. Everything has been dulled by the grief.

I am reaching desperately for something to distract me and lift me out of this spiral into hopelessness. I joined a women's choir, signed up for a baking class and a re-entry to life after a death class but I feel no relief for the distractions they'll provide or anticipation for any of it.

Everything I see right now is a reminder of what I've lost. The couples holding hands while they walk by me. The families with strollers and daddies carrying toddlers on their shoulders. The mothers and daughters and fathers. The people I see who seem motivated, purposeful and on their way somewhere. All of it makes me wistful and sorrowful for what I've had to say goodbye to.

I need to take time to be sad and to let myself feel it. I need to have empathy for myself and what I've been through. I've spent so much of my energy on being strong, doing the right thing, being positive, proactive, resourceful, resilient. Now, suddenly, the energy is waning dramatically and I have only enough reserves to plod through the next moment. I can't be strong anymore. I need to be weak and needy for a while. I want to be held and cared for.

While talking to a friend who also had a difficult childhood, it occurred to me again (I need to hear this over and over and over again, apparently) that I spent so much of my young life not getting nurturing or loving care and instead cared for my caregiver. If I think of my soul or heart as a bank, I didn't have a lot of deposits of TLC early on. Lots of withdrawals and not a lot of deposits. My life with Dave filled up my tank again, but once he was gone, the tank just dried up. I've hurt so much and lost so much that I just don't have it in me to give. I need to take for a while. I just don't have anyone (alive) who loves me in that way. That's a mom or dad's job or a spouse's job. I'm 0 for 3.

I have a lot. I can focus on that which I have and not that which I've lost. I know this. I write down at least three things I'm grateful for (or mentally note them) every day. I let them fill me up with gratitude. I let them sink into my mind and heart. I plan to do one thing every day that brings me joy and then do it.  

After I typed this I wondered why it is that I feel as though I need to defend myself on this point? Why am I so afraid that anyone reading this might think I'm not trying to be positive? I suppose, like everything, I want to be perfect at everything. I want to be perceived as the perfect griever. A gold-medal-winning widow. God forbid I do anything badly. As if there's a way to do grief badly. What the hell? Well, there it is. A look at the inside of my brains. I don't get it either!

Unfortunately, the gratitude and the joy aren't very accessible right now. There is a wall of pain between me and those feelings. I can see through the wall, though the images I see on that other side are faded. I can remember what it feels like to be grateful. I can sort of recall joy. I know how it feels when my heart is full.

I just can't get AT those feelings right now. They are locked away. I will claw at that wall and I will smash at it with every tool known to mankind. I'll tear it down, chip by chip. If need be, I'll remove it molecule by molecule if that's all I have the energy for. But, oh how daunting that wall can be. How hard it can be to see the light at the end of the tunnel when the light is around a long, long corner and currently out of reach. I have no way of knowing for sure how long it will be until I can see that light again. I don't know when I'll round the bend.

Maybe this particular variety of pain, so flaying and wounding, will break my heart open for some new growth. Maybe I will finally truly access the well of pain so deep within that even I don't know the depths. If it weren't for this pain opening me, maybe I'd never access those feelings and finally deal with them.

Maybe this is the trial I have to survive to get to the next step in this new life of mine.

Maybe I've held in this pain and anger and remorse and desperate fear for too long and this is the only way to finally release it. This is a fire burning through me. I can attempt to put out the flames by staying busy and surrounding myself with people so I won't feel so alone and drinking and reading and sleeping and buying things. But then I never get to be cleansed by the flames. I never get to the stage where everything has been turned to ash and my soul is razed of all the stored up hurt and fear. All I am is flames that get doused and reignite, only to be doused again. If I don't let the flames burn their way out, they'll always be there, ready to flicker to life again.

The scary thing is the visceral sensation of not knowing if I'll survive the fire. It feels as though I won't survive, which feels like a panicky breathlessness. It's as though I've been underwater for too long and I need to come up for air, but can't find a way up. It feels like suffocating. But it's probably like that time I had a facial and the steam being directed onto my face made me feel breathless. If I  thought about how it made me feel suffocated, I'd send myself into a panic attack, but if I breathed into the fear and let that initial thought come and go, the panic would recede and I'd relax. It was a panic I created with my mind alone.

Maybe if I let the pain come freely it will be less horrific. Maybe it's in the fighting that I get so exhausted. If I just let the pain come and go without pushing against it, maybe it won't kill me.

It's as possible as anything else, I suppose. I just wish I didn't have to plumb these depths alone. I wish I had someone to hold me while I did it.

But then, maybe I wouldn't be able to fully access the depths. Their arms would keep me from the worst of it, and the flames would get doused, not burned out. I'd never fully address that pain. I'd have a way out and I'd take it if offered. Anything to not feel like this.

It's best I face it alone. One day...one day, maybe, I'll have someone to wrap his arms around me and tell me that I'm not alone. But now? Now it's just me.

The Day the Switch Got Flipped

Please welcome our new Sunday writer, Melinda McDonald...thank you so much for sharing your love, your loss, and your unique story with us.

I will never forget the day.

It was August 12th, 2008.

Our 3 year wedding anniversary.

Out of nowhere, my husband (Seth) tells me he doesn’t love me anymore and wants a divorce.

I was floored.

We were happy. We rarely had problems or fights.

Yet, he didn’t love me anymore.

Shortly after that, he moved out and got an apartment by himself.

I knew something was wrong with Seth. He wasn’t “Seth”. He was some strange guy I didn’t know. He didn’t look the same, talk the same, he even walked differently. He was just so different.

Every time I would ask him if he was ok or wanted to talk about anything, he would say he was fine.

We started marriage counseling. For three months we went weekly.

Our weekly counseling sessions were the only time I saw him or talked to him.

I did weekly personal counseling as well.

Our marriage counseling always revolved around what I was doing wrong in our marriage.

If I tried to talk to Seth about what I felt he was doing wrong or could improve on, he would get furious and leave our counseling session.

In marriage counseling, I listened with open ears and an open heart. Listening to all the things I had done wrong. I tried to become a better person, friend and wife. I worked really hard on myself, trying to find my own faults, and hopefully come out a better person.

In counseling, he would bring up times that I asked him to help me clean. That he worked too many hours at work, to help clean (I worked full time too). He brought up the time I asked him to not buy fast food because we couldn’t afford $10.00 on fast food. Things that made no sense to me (and it was completely ridiculous to me that we were in counseling talking about hamburgers), but I figured if it bothered him, then I would listen.

After three months, I realized that no matter I did, “I” was the only reason for our marriage failure.

I accepted that no matter how I tried, Seth wasn’t willing to look at himself, and in his eyes, everything was my fault. I realized there was nothing more I could do.

I went to our last marriage counseling, with plans of telling Seth I was filing for a divorce.

I wanted to be in a safe place to tell him this and I knew with my counselor there, it was the best place to tell him.

When I got to counseling, Seth was there already.

But he wasn’t waiting in the waiting room.

Seth and our counselor were already in the room, which was out of character for our weekly meetings.

When I walked into the room, Seth was crying.

Through the three months of counseling, he had never once cried.

I was totally shocked, but knew what I needed to do. I needed to file for a divorce and start rebuilding my life. I couldn’t listen to how badly I messed up our marriage anymore, when I knew the damage wasn’t one sided.

I sat down next to Seth. He had his face in his hands and was hysterically crying.

I didn’t touch him or talk to him. I just sat there.

Eventually my counselor broke the silence.

She said “Seth has something to tell you”.

I figured he had filed for a divorce or was having an affair.

What came out of his mouth, I never in a million years expected.

Seth looked at me and said “Melinda, I see dead people and hear voices. I realize now that our whole separation was over what’s going on in my head and there is nothing you have done wrong.”

He continued “Every night, a dead woman that is missing her legs, tries to crawl into my bed. Even though I know she isn’t real, she’s VERY real. She’s not a ghost, she is a dead human being”.

I was so shocked.

I had walked into counseling expecting to tell Seth I was going to give him what he wanted – a divorce.

Now it all clicked in my head and made perfect sense.

It made sense why he was so different.

Why he was no longer the person I married.

He was just an empty shell of a man.

I decided I would stick by his side, get him medical attention and hopefully the man I married would return to me.

After all, I believed “Through sickness and health, till death do us part”.

To be continued next week!

Collapse

“.. my heart and my trust were in the process of collapsing. And that collapse created a vacuum in my chest. Like every nerve in my body was withering in, pulling away from my fingers and toes. Pulling back and disappearing.” -Jay Asher

I was wearing a top this week that allowed my tattoo to show. It's large size and semi-difficult to read font equated to curious minds asking about what it said....the story behind it.

I shared the background on the saying and ring, but one other thing that the tattoo gave me...

After Michael was killed I felt as if anything and everything was going to be taken from me. 

Undoubtedly, impermanence is a part of life that we all will face, but at that time...2 months after he died...I began think, "Why should I show my family and friends love?", "Why should I say 'I love you' to them?", "Why should I invest anything into this life that was going to leave me suffering and miserable?".

Those were just a few of the thoughts I had...and I let them mingle in my mind for too long. 

Ultimately, having those closest to me suffer even more from not only my own suffering, but my lack of wanting to see any sort of silver lining.

But the tattoo...the tattoo was the thing that allowed me to feel as if I had some control again. No one could take it from me. No one could make it disappear. It was mine. It was my attempt at feeling somewhat grounded.

I'd liek to say that getting it allowed me to finally take the leap in showing love to my family and friends, once more. It didn't.

It didn't until I made the decision to trust myself with life again. I had to prove to myself that it was worth living. It was worth loving. It was worth taking a leap and knowing that wherever I landed was where I was supposed to be.

It wasn't an overnight process, but 5 years later it is a way of life.

I trust in me. I trust in the way. I trust in the impermanence that is our lives. And I trust that the love I show, and the suffering that may come from having that love, will never be a hindrance or obstacle I dodge.

I withered away. I pulled back. But it was I, that made the decision to get up from the collapse.

Trust in you. Suffer. But never let the suffering take you from what you know life is meant to be....

Love.

Finding My Stride

Chris is out this week vacationing...without a laptop! He asked me to fill in for him, and so I thought I'd share this article I wrote for a magazine a couple of years ago with you. The focus is a bit different since I wrote it for an audience that was not just US, but I hope this slightly different perspective will inspire you to ask yourself, what do I love to do?~M

It was a perfect day for running.  The morning was a bit cloudy, cool enough to wish for another layer, and there was a hint of fall crispness in the air—unusual weather for Texas in October.  I was heading to a race start-line for the first time in over a year.  For once there were no pre-race jitters or time expectations, just a lot of memories and a different kind of determination.

On August 31^ST of 2005, my husband Phillip was killed when he was hit by a car while out for his evening bike ride.  Phil was not only an avid cyclist; he was also a dedicated runner.  He began his running career as a high school track athlete.  Later in life he showed his enthusiasm for the sport by coaching for a community track club, he continued volunteering his time long after his own kids had outgrown the program.  Running beside the kids at practice was one of his favorite things to do.  Phil was a regular at all the local races; a towering pile of race bibs held a place of honor on his dresser.  At 39, he was at the top end of a competitive age group.  He was eagerly awaiting his birthday, which would result in an age group change—he couldn’t wait to run as one of the youngsters in his field. But Phil never raced in the next age group—he died three months before his fortieth birthday.

Before we met, I was an occasional runner.  Through our courtship and marriage, my husband introduced me to the joy of running.  Vacations were planned around running, track season caused the cessation of all other activities, and date night usually began in running shoes.  My love of the sport developed as our relationship did.  After Phil died, my world looked different from every angle.   The lines that distinguished what he loved and what I loved became blurred by the intense pain of his absence from my life.  Suddenly I wasn’t sure if I loved running or if I only loved running with him.  In the darkness of loss, I could not find the drive to put on my shoes and run out the door without him.  I quit running.

Each morning I awoke in the haze of grief, with only the thought of how to make it through the day, and each night I feel into bed exhausted by the effort required to keep from drowning in my sorrow.  After months of feeling lost without my husband, it finally occurred to me that I might feel more connected to him on a run.  With some trepidation—I laced up my shoes.  For months I ran away; away from the heartache, away from the shock, away from the inevitable reality that he was gone.  When I ran, I felt close to him in my soul and in my stride.  Each breathless effort a testament to all I had learned from running beside the man I loved.  Out for a run on a sunny day, Phil was still my partner.  At first returning from a run always left me spent and sad, but slowly I realized that running was becoming my way of saying good-bye to the man who was my husband, and my friend.

The act of running was freeing.  It reminded me that I was capable of putting one foot in front of the other—in forward motion.  The destination was not as important as the journey.  As time passed, my heart unwittingly began to heal.  Eventually the nature of my runs changed, and I noticed that my step was lighter.  I realized that my purpose in heading out for a jog was no longer exclusively a desire to feel close to Phil.  Slowly, I stopped expecting to see him at every turn of our favorite route.  Running did not always reduce me to tears.  With every step I took, I began to remember the joy of running.  Gradually, I ran just because I wanted to.

On that brisk October day, I faced my first finish line without my husband.  A dear friend of mine, who lost her husband to cancer, lined up beside me at the start—we were there to run in honor of the men we had loved and lost, but not forgotten.  Passing each mile marker, I marveled at the power of running.  As we traveled the course, we shared stories about our husbands, we talked about the lives that were still ahead of us, and we celebrated the fact that we could run.  Crossing the finish line I felt Phil’s absence, but I also felt his presence.  Running had taken me across more than a literal finish line.  The sport that my husband taught me to love was my companion during my deepest despair, and became my personal road to redemption. 

As I crossed the line with cheering supporters in the background and my friend at my side, I realized that I wasn’t running just for Phil anymore, I was running for myself, too.

The Ripple Effect

source

I've mention that grief has been lurking around every corner lately. Not super intense, I am just very aware of it and it has made my heart heavy. I think the realization that I am coming up on two years in November is suddenly hitting me.

Just like any other day on this widowed journey, it feels like yesterday and forever ago all at once. I start to hurt when it feels like Jeremy slips through my fingertips each passing day, further away from me. Then I look around at my life and realize how vastly different it looks now than when he died, and how different it would look now if he were still here. That makes him feel far away too.

Just when it feels like forever, or when Jeremy feels far away, I remember all the day-to-day proof that he was just here:

Jeremy's password I still have to put into my phone to update all my apps

The fact that I still have and use his iPhone.

The black shirt in Faith's drawer that she loves to wear cause Daddy picked it out for her. It still fits.

The death certificate I just got back in the mail from the alarm system I cancelled.

A worship set he scribbled down on a piece of paper.

The smell of him that overwhelmed me when I went through his stuff in the basement this week.

The Lady Antebellum CD that he picked out days before he died that was sitting on my desk.

The video game of his that our nephew asked to play when he came to visit.

The pamphlet for the 2nd annual Jeremy King Memorial Pheasant Hunt that will happen at the end of the month.

The gestures, expressions, and smiles of our children.

These are all marks of a great man. Not just a great man, my great man. And not just a distant man who lived long ago, but a guy who was JUST HERE. The marks he left in this world are still visible, still rippling through my life and through the lives of those he touched. The big things are there, no doubt, but what amazes me is all those little things. The details of simple day-to-day life don't just go away when you do, they carry on. They continue through those you care about, through stories, habits, rituals, memories, and love.

Especially love.

Even though it can be painful, I'm in awe watching the ripple effect that Jeremy's life still makes. Not the deep defined ripples anymore, but they're visible; subtle, smooth, and steady. And I've realized that I myself have become a ripple in Jeremy's life and I carry the effect of it everywhere I go, forever.

Time .......

                                                                       photo source

...... does not heal all wounds.

Or maybe I haven't experienced enough time.

No, I don't really believe that, either.
I don't think that my heart will ever fully heal from being ripped in half on that December day in 2007.

But I do think that I will be happy again.  Truly happy.
And maybe I'll be loved again by another man ..... just as much as Jim loved me.
Or maybe I'll be peacefully single for the rest of my life (which is what I want at this point in my life).
Either way, I think I'll be happy.

But I don't think that I will be "healed".

I know I'll be thrilled when I watch the first of our children fall in love and get married.
But I'll also feel pain when Jim's not there to walk our daughter down the aisle ...... or tell our son that he hopes he's as happy as we've been.

I know I'll experience joy at the birth of our first grandchild.

But I'll also experience deep sadness that Jim is not there.

I know this because I'm living it now.
Time has passed.
I've learned to smile and laugh again .... on a daily basis.
I've traveled with my children and loved spending time with them.
I've seen them graduate ...... both high school and college (and grad school).

I've traveled with friends ...... and had fun in new places, as well as in "old" (like my college campus!).
I've enjoyed a lot of things, and a lot of people, in the last few years.

But my heart seems to beat differently than it did before that day in December.
I know that physically, it looks the same.
Just as I know that I look pretty much the same.

But my heart is not the same ...... and it never will be again.
Just as I will never be the same.

In some ways I am better.
In others ...... well, in others I am different.
And in still others ...... I am not.

But I am not "healed".

Our youngest son and I found out last night that he has been accepted to the college of his choice.
It happens to be the same college that Jim and I attended.
Which also happens to be the place where we met.
And fell in love.

He is the first, and only, child who wanted to attend this college.
He's known that for several years.
Jim and I loved that ...... and hoped that he wouldn't change his mind, though we never told him so.

I am thrilled for our son.
I'm excited for him and for what lies ahead.
I expected to feel happy for him.

But I didn't see this part coming.
I didn't expect to feel so much sadness mingled in with the happiness.
My heart feels like it's taken a trip back through time.
Back to an earlier part of my grief when I cried a whole lot more than I smiled.
Because Jim is not here.

He's not here to be thrilled for our son.
He's not here to be excited to attend football games and Dad's weekend.
He's not here to be happy with me that we'll have a child walk some of the same paths we walked at school ...... and wonder if he, too, will meet the love of his life there.

I am happy.
Yet my heart still hurts.

There are some things ...... and some hearts ...... that time simply cannot heal.