This Odyssey of Love~

I'm down to my last month here in Phoenix, staying with our oldest son.  On June 21 my daughter and I will hitch up my PinkMagic rig and head north and then west on our Nothin' But Love cross-country tour.

We could head directly west and then north along the California coastline.  We could, but we won't.  Quite simply, I can't.  If we head due West, she and I would be driving the very roads that my husband and I drove a little over a year ago, headed to our 3 month rental in southern California, where he died.  And as much as I've pushed myself in this last year since his death, I just can't do that trip.  Maybe someday.  Not now.  My heart is too broken.  With our more northerly route I'll still be traveling the roads he and I did, but those roads will carry a different meaning for me.

My next 6 months on the road will be, in many ways, my final farewell to my husband, as I scatter his cremains in our favorite places.  There is bound to be pain-how can there not be as I stand where he and I last stood together?  But I know that there will be beauty also.  The beauty that comes from knowing how deeply I was loved in this life, and the beauty that comes from knowing that I will always have that love in me and with me.

Chuck set me on this path with his last request.  He told me that he'd find me out on the road and I believe that he will.  Friends will join me and my daughter for rituals along the way and the love he left behind for us, for so many, will spread in a ripple effect from state to state.

I'm going to find him out there and I'm going to find a place of peace within myself and feel even more strongly bound to him because of it.  My heart is open to life, even with this devastating grief.

Crater Lake, Oregon.  Little Big Horn, Montana.  Crazy Horse, South Dakota.  Those are the places he named for me.  He knew I'd know the others and I will.

He and I spent 4 years traveling this country as Happily Homeless.  Its been 1 year and one month since he died.  I spent 3 months traveling from Connecticut to Florida and then here to Arizona.  In 1 month my daughter and I will turn my pink car, towing my pink-trimmed trailer, out of my son's driveway and begin an Odyssey that will take me we know not where, other than a general direction.  And I'm okay with not knowing. We're headed north then west, then east, then south, then west again, returning to Arizona near the end of the year.  Along the way we'll meet people who will change our perspectives, our grief, our lives and our hearts, I have no doubt.

Chuck prepared me, because of the life we lived together, to be able to do this.  His love will travel with me, with our daughter.  The Odyssey of Love continues in one month~

Raining, pouring

It's been a crazy week.  I guess I am just in one of those general bad periods that just happen in life  from time to time.  

I have uni deadlines and assessments this week, I got sick Friday so I lost a study day, then a nasty nasty so and so of a virus attacked my computer rendering it to the status of a boat anchor (and not a very good one at that, since it's a laptop).  I only bought this one last July!

All this had me quite frazzled, but it could be worse... It's not like someone died, you know?  

I'm taking the view that it will pass, hopefully soon since this run has been going on for three weeks, but it will pass.   

On the upside, My olds have a spare computer I will be able to borrow to get my uni work done until I can get myself a new one.  I have the financial capacity to get a new one if I need to (a rebuild is also an option), I have been able to get an extra day in childcare for John so I can study for this mini exam,  and my professor granted me a 2 day extension on the assignment.   

All these issues can be remedied with a bit of patience, time and effort.

Now to go get myself focused on practicing probability calculations....

Much to Lose

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In less than 3 weeks, it will have been 3 years since Dave died on a heart-breakingly beautiful June day. It has been the most terrifying, wrenching, altering event of my life so far and I will spend the rest of my life dealing with it to some extent.

I'm beginning to understand just how much we learn to carry our grief rather than get over it. It's not that it never fades in intensity. It does. It's just that it's not something I can finally set aside. It colors my every moment. It won't always be in the forefront of my mind. It won't always cripple me. It's impact on me is permanent though. Like scar tissue.

I'm not sure how I'll be able to handle my new partner getting sick, especially. I can imagine the fear being almost too much to bear.

The other day, I didn't hear from him all day which is very rare. We usually text throughout the day and talk on the phone occasionally, too. Between my last text to him at 8:30 in the morning and 3:00 pm I didn't hear from him. In that time I went a little insane. There is no other way to describe it. Someone with full access to sanity would have just called him. They might have said Are you okay? You're usually so prompt with your communication. I got worried!. They might have not even noticed that they hadn't heard from their person. When Dave was alive, I'd go all day at work not hearing from him and never once feel fearful.

But as I carried on with the activities of the day, I worried more and more. The rational voice inside me got harder and harder to hear. I knew what it was saying, but the roar of potential loss in my chest and stomach and inside my skull drowned it all out.

It was an act of will and strung-out stubborn neurotic-ness that kept me from calling. I wanted to react to a normal situation with a proportional reaction.  I wanted to see if I could ride out the fear.

My body stored all the fear and panic, though, and by 3:00 I felt sick to my stomach and lightheaded with the beginnings of a throbbing headache. After finally hearing from him, finding out that he was fine and just got very busy, I collapsed at home with an epic migraine. Too sick to answer my phone, he called and called.

Finally, he came over, let himself in and found me on the floor of the bathroom in the dark. All I could do was whisper "migraine" and "can you bring me water?". For the next several hours, he tended to me, bringing me the microwaveable heating pad over and over again, setting glasses of ginger ale and tea near my head, stroking my hair and staying near by for comfort. He stayed. He cared for me. I felt safe and loved.  His dog curled up next to me and stayed there.

Later, when I felt better, I tried to explain how the fear manifests itself, but I struggled. He doesn't think his people are dead if he doesn't hear from them regularly. He just doesn't. I do. I might always jump to that conclusion.

I could avoid that kind of fear by avoiding love. And then I'd miss out on love. It's as simple as that. I could've avoided going through Dave's death and then I'd have avoided having him in my life.
Unacceptable.

Just as unacceptable as missing out on having my current love in my life. I'm right back at having so much to lose. It's a delicate and precarious place to be. I want to keep my grip loose. Too tight and I strangle that which I desire. I can't hold anything tightly enough to keep it from leaving me. I have to let what happens happen. I have to live. Reach for it, but don't cling to it as though survival depends on it.

It doesn't, but my happiness depends on risking loss. I step into every moment of every day, risking loss. I want a life for myself and I don't want to miss out on a second of it for fear of losing it all.

So, maybe I'll get sick if I don't hear from my love for several hours. Maybe I learn to carry that kind of fear. Adjust to it and welcome it as a sign that I've found myself back in a life that is brimming with love and possibility. Maybe, just maybe, there's a way to carry it all and continue to risk.

Living Adventurously In Loss

Even though our adventure together did not last a lifetime as we expected - my fiancé and I certainly lived our days adventurously. He convinced me to go skydiving a week before we began dating to my surprise. I am not an adrenaline junky, but somehow he had a way of making me surprise myself by the things he was able to bring out in me. I always liked that. He took me up for several helicopter flights while he was in flight school. He was so elated because apparently I was the only girl who ever accepted his invite to go up with him for a flight - and not only did I accept - I was extremely excited. It's beyond me that anyone would have had any other reaction to someone asking them "do wanna go up in a helicopter?" Certainly one more reason we fit so well together.

In the three years we had together we did lots of other adventurous things. We took a rock star trip to Vegas, took up kayaking together, did lots of camping and hiking, hot air ballooning, parasailing, race car driving school for a day… this was most assuredly NOT the girl I was before I met him. It was the girl I wanted to be - but without the right companion to do it with. I think that is one of my favorite things that he brought into my life - a perfect match for my sense of adventure that brought it out even more so in me.

But that spirit wasn't just in the grand adventures. It was in the little everyday things too. When we took frequent road trips across Texas to visit his family, we would often get off the main highway and take some other winding road we'd never been on. It always took longer, but we saw things we'd never seen before and even enjoy laughing at ourselves if we got lost sometimes.

We were big foodies too. We enjoyed going to restaurants and eating slowly and savoring every flavor - trying to pick out the ingredients we were tasting in each dish. And cooking at home was always fun too. He would find a new inspirations for a main courses, and I would chime in with ideas of what sides would go great with it. We'd go to the store together thinking it out and creating it as we went along, then come home and create together in the kitchen with some good music going - which could be anything from classical to jazz to country or rap depending on our mood. Cooking together was most definitely one of my favorite everyday adventures we shared.

Our conversations were adventurous too… sharing a sharp wit and flair for the sarcastic - we would often lock into an effervescent one-upmanship, trying to impress each other with twists and turns of our humor. A road trip or long day's hike would often result in talks spanning american history, gun ballistics, inspiring new artwork, outer space and the universe, achieving goals and dreams, the rapture of flying and favorite new music. There was never a dull moment and we never ran out of things to talk about.

The joy and beauty that our shared adventure brought to my life makes continuing to live adventurously very important to me. It brought me a profound feeling of aliveness… of being and living fully and deeply in the present moment. Adventure - no matter how big or small - has a profound ability to do this for us. And that's not only possible to experience in the midst of grief, I think its absolutely VITAL. At no other time do we more need the reprieve that a feeling of adventure can bring.

The joy and beauty our adventure brought to my life is also the reason why its so HARD to continue to live adventurously. Because without him here to live wildly with - it can be so easy to focus instead on what is missing. Being unable to ask my partner "Hey! You want to go kayaking tomorrow?"and hear back an excited reply of "Hell yes! Let's do this!" makes it harder to even remember to think about going kayaking (our kayaks still sit in storage collecting dust, 2 years after his death). I've found that my desire to do some of the things we did together just hasn't been there.

But I am still trying to think adventurously like him. Trying to keep the spirit alive inside me… because I know more than anything that he is telling me its time to go out and have a whole new adventure of my own. He is telling me to get out there and keep surprising myself. Even though there are a lot of days when I don't WANT a new adventure. Even though there are a lot of days still when the pain is too great to be able to see that there is still an adventure in this life of mine to be had. Still I never stop trying to mix adventure into my world - I never stop hearing him in the seat of my soul whispering for me to grab life by the horns.

And so I take trips, and I try things I've never done before. This year, I started  giving art lessons to an elementary school boy… something I never imagined myself doing in a million years. Its been rewarding and healing for us both. I also had my first solo art exhibit - a collection of the past 2 years of my photography since his death, a life long dream of mine that has totally changed my whole viewpoint of myself as an artist. And in just a few weeks… I'm blowing money I probably shouldn't be to go with my best friend to Hawaii. Two years ago I'd have been far too frugal to drop that kind of cash just for fun. But I have the money, I want one big travel adventure this year, and dammit I deserve it!

In the life of someone widowed, it can be so easy to become apprehensive… to get caught in a fearful loop of thinking to yourself dreadfully, "What's going to be just around the corner?". Continuing to take chances to see and live life adventurously has been one of the biggest ways of helping me change the whole meaning of that statement to "What's going to be just around the corner!!" To be excited by the unknown instead of paralyzed by it. This is the one of the most life-changing lessons that my fiancé brought into my life, and one that has stayed deeply seated in me even after his death. As he once said "Pain is going to happen. You've just got to not let it get you down." So I keep on trying to not let it get me down - at least not for too long - and I keep setting my eyes towards new adventures. Towards surprising myself pleasantly. Towards hope.

The Next Chapter

My husband Daniel and I on our wedding day.

When Michele invited me to write for Widow’s Voice I was incredibly honoured and also excited at the opportunity to help other widows and widowers, particularly those affected by suicide.  I was, however, very nervous about opening up and laying our story out for everyone to see; and potentially judge.  My husband Daniel was a conservative and private person, even with his cheeky sense of humour and warm, outgoing, friendly nature.  He was the ultimate gentleman – so respectful, fair, classy and not one to push his opinion on others or air dirty laundry in public (just to be clear, not that I consider depression to be ‘dirty laundry’ on any level).  

The day after he took his own life I started the never-ending, painful process of telling our world what had happened.  I had called his parents and sister the night he died, after he failed to come home from work and police officers eventually came to my door at 10pm notifying me that he was gone.  That was the most difficult call of all – telling his family.  I was in deep shock so hadn’t felt my own heart break at that point, but I heard theirs shatter and will never forget that night.

Telling our friends and work colleagues was a slightly different experience.  I needed to decide, how much would I share?  How could I say he’d died by suicide?  People wouldn’t believe it – he was so happy, popular and successful.  We were only married six weeks … they might assume he didn’t love me (and sadly, I heard that there were some comments made, questioning our relationship, but that’s for another day).  I knew he would be disappointed and embarrassed that this was his last chapter.  He wasn’t ‘that person’. It just wasn’t supposed to end like that for him.

So I decided it wouldn’t.  His story would go on because I wouldn’t let his death be his last act.  Instead, I would talk about Dan’s depression and suicide.  I would work hard to try and understand it myself and then share our story because maybe, if someone had of shared their story with Dan, he might have realised that what he was feeling wasn’t normal and wasn’t ok.  He might have been moved to ask for help rather than be silenced by the stigma of mental illness and the ridiculous notion that to admit that you’re not feeling ok means you’re weak or broken; or being an unnecessary burden; or attention-seeking.

I would look people squarely in the eye and say "I lost my husband to depression.  He took his life after five weeks on anti-depressants, after becoming convinced that he had dementia and was becoming an inevitable burden on myself and our families."  I would brace myself against the waves of pity, shock and disbelief that came when I dropped that bomb and be patient with the ignorant or insensitive comments that sometimes followed, attempting to educate others and push them out of their own pre-conceived assumptions of why people succumb to this disease that is mental illness. 

Please don’t think that because I manage to talk about my experience that I find the process easy.  I cry every day.  I couldn’t function for months … still can’t some days.  My family and friends carried me through the darkest days and the horror of his death still haunts me.  Just when I start to think I’ve finally made peace with his suicide and can now divert my energy to processing my grief, there it is again, asking ‘why’ or ‘how could this have happened’ or ‘what if’.  These questions will never go away, but I’m not as scared of them as I was before and feel better equipped to make my peace with them and let them pass.     

So above all else I am grateful that Michele has put her faith and trust in me to talk about Dan’s suicide and my grief here, in the hope that it helps others walking this path beside me.  And I’m grateful to you, for reading, for being part of this community and reminding me that I’m not here alone.  Thank you, I look forward to sharing my story with you.     

Energy Force

Do you ever have those moments, where you can't really explain why or how, but you just know that the person you lost whom you loved most, is nearby, or in the room with you? It is more of a feeling really - rather than something that can be analyzed or broken down. Sometimes it is inside the gust of wind that whispers by on a cold, crisp autumn day. Other times it is hiding within the melody of a beautiful song, or in someone else's laugh or smile or voice. You hear them. You see them. You feel them. There is no need to question it's reality, because it just is. It exists inside of you, and all around you, surrounding you like air that only you can breathe in.

There are times when I am sitting somewhere, alone, and then I suddenly know and feel very strongly my husband's presence. A lot of times he will say something to me. Something specific, and something that only he would say. I will actually hear his voice, like a small soul in my eardrum, carrying me into the next minute or hour or day. There are other instances when I am confronted with pieces and fragments of my husband, inside of another person. Like when I met his sister for the first and only time, after he died, and I could see that her reddish skin on her arms and back was the same skin he had, and her ice blue ocean eyes were his blue eyes, looking at me sweetly once again.

This week I went to my weekly grief counseling session, and I was feeling extremely emotional and unstable somehow. I felt like at any given moment, I was going to collapse in the sadness of missing him, and when I walked into the room where she stood, holding the door open for me, I found myself asking and saying out loud to her: "Can I please have a hug?" This is not something I would normally say, as I am normally awkward and uncomfortable with too much intimacy, and I am not the hugging type. But it felt like the exact right moment to ask that, and it also felt like someone inside me, or the wind, was pushing me to ask the question. "Just ask her, Boo", I heard him say. "It's okay." So I did. Her response was an immediate: "Of course you can have a hug", and then she hugged me. And in that tiny moment, her arms became his arms, and her warmth became his, and I sobbed and sobbed for the next 90 minutes or so as I shared with her all of the feelings that sat inside me, releasing them out into the sky.

She hugged me. And he hugged me too. It was poetic, and beautiful, and so very necessary. Something was in the air that day. It was him. He was there, which is not the same as him being here. Here. But it is still incredibly special. I sort of picture my husband as floating around in the universe somewhere - everywhere. His energy spots me, and becomes my shadow, trailing behind in an invisible path, waiting until it is safe to hug me.

Our Old Lives

"I want my old life back."

I've heard a lot of widowed people say that, as I have, and continue to, some days.

I miss a lot of little things about being married to Mike. It was a comfortable, familiar life, after nearly 14 years of marriage. I can still hear him shuffling across the tile floors, whistling. The refrigerator door opening and closing. The toilet flushing. His computer game blips coming from his room, or the strum of an ukulele from the porch. Maybe his truck pulling up outside after a run to the dump. The thwack of an arrow hitting his archery target outside.

He used to love to listen to me play the piano. Now I play to an empty house, when I can even bring myself to play at all. And his hay bale target rots away more every day in the rain. I really should do something about that, but I just don't have the heart yet.

We were happy staying in most nights. We'd share a glass of wine or a beer on the porch watching the sun set. I'd cook dinner, something I really enjoyed, and we'd eat together at the table. He would do the dishes - most of the time. Sometimes he'd make his famous tacos, and I'd do the dishes. We'd watch our favorite TV shows together, or a new movie from Netflix. We had our routine. Now, if I'm home, I usually eat by myself standing up in the kitchen, or in front of the television. I rarely cook if I'm alone, but the other day I made a piece of fish for myself and ate at the table for the first time, reading a book. It felt weird.

Sometimes Mike and I would go out to dinner, or go to the theater for a movie. Sometimes we'd go to the beach, or take a drive somewhere around the island. He loved it here in Kona so much.

But mostly, we stayed home together, especially in the last couple of years. There were even some days I was annoyed by his constant presence. I tend to be a rather solitary, independent person - more than he was, for sure - so I'd make a point of running an errand by myself, or working on a project without him. I'd try to get him to go ride his bike, or go body surfing without me. I feel guilty about that sometimes now. And ours was not a perfect marriage; he wasn't perfect, and neither am I. So sometimes I think well, maybe this is just how it was meant to be, so I would do other things with my life. Maybe I was supposed to do other things with my life but wouldn't have if he were still around, that I am supposed to evolve some other way. And I feel a sinking, dark guilt for thinking that.

I go out a lot more these days. Because I am making a point of finding new things to live for, new people to spend time with; a new existence, somehow. Because I need to live life, even though he's gone. 

And because I hate being here alone now. Before, being alone was a choice; now, it's been thrust upon me. 

I still have moments every day when I stop and think - I can't believe he's really gone. Maybe it doesn't matter whether or how we've moved on with our strange, new lives. Maybe it won't matter that we have a new person in our life, or - surprise, surprise - moments of happiness. We might even think - hey, maybe I can really do this moving on thing, and it can be good in its own way. And then something happens that reminds us they are never coming back. Some little thing that we miss about how it used to be. Maybe that sick, gut-wrenching pit-of-your-stomach sensation will just never completely go away, like a terrible scar. 

I'll keep walking forward, because that's the kind of person I am - and because when it comes right down to it, I have no other choice. And I am grateful for what I do have. 

But a part of me will always long for my old life with Mike.