Would you?

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Between the business of getting our house in order and having 5 children, it hasn't left a whole lot of in-between time for Steve and me. We steal moments throughout the day but our one-on-one time is really just before bed or in the car. Luckily, we drive a lot, so we get the chance to connect. Some of my favorite memories of Jeremy are from our long car rides: dreaming together, laughing, learning about each other....those moments are so special to me. I try to soak them up with Steve too. Sometimes we read together, sometimes we dream together about what our future will look like, what our hopes are for our children, where we want to be, etc.

We love to play 'what if' or 'would you rather' or make up random questions like 'what would you do if you won the lottery?' just to pass the time and for fun. So, it was no surprise at first when Steve randomly and innocently asked me "If you could know how and when you were going to die, would you?"

Without hesitation, I answered with a hearty YES.

But maybe I answered too quickly.

This is a loaded question for me. As a widow, my perspective of life and death has drastically changed. I no longer fear death, and I still long for Jeremy and ache for the day when I'll get to see him again. Not only that, but I long for a place void of hurt and pain, loss and death.

The months after Jeremy died, I remember wishing I could know when I would die, so I could know how long I had to bear through life and to give me something to look forward to. But, as every widow will come to hate and embrace at the same time, life goes on. You're still standing and breathing, and you're not mad about it anymore. Still, I wouldn't mind knowing when I will die: to prepare myself and the people I love, and to give a goodbye that I was robbed of with Jeremy.

I told Steve that the only thing that would make me regret finding out was if I learned my death would be slow and painful. But then again, how many people get to do this when they find out they have a terminal disease that they know will take them slowly? Would it change my every day life? Would I live differently? I'd like to think I try to live every day to the fullest, but even I would have to admit that it might change things. And maybe the point is to live life in a way that you wouldn't have to give a goodbye if you didn't have the chance to; that the people you love already know what you would say.

All week, this question has been stuck with me. Would I find out? I am one of those people that does not like to be left out of things...I don't like not knowing, no matter how hard the truth is. There was NO WAY I was going to wait to find out the sex of my children when they were born if I could find out and prepare sooner. That's just how I am. And even though sometimes I regret this piece of my personality, I don't have the ability to not want to know.

What I determined is that I'm glad that I can't know, and that it's not my decision to find out or not. Even though I answered quickly with seemingly convicted assurance, the more I think about this question, the less sure I am about my answer.

What about you? I anxious to know, especially in this arena of widows/widowers - if you could know how and when you were going to die, would you?

Odds ....

                                                          picture from here

.... and Ends.
Or rather ..... some ends make you feel very odd.

Or .... some odd things seem to never end.

Before I explain myself I want to thank Michele for always being ready to stand in for blog duty .... even when it comes only 24 hours before publish time because a certain writer lost track of time, and of duties, while she planned and then left on a vacation to Mexico with her 6 kids.
I'm not naming names here.
Other than Michele's.  Because she rocks.

I also happened to take my children (who number 6) to Cabo last week.  Which just happens to be in Mexico.  Not that I'm admitting to anything here .... it could be just an odd coincidence.

We had a great time and I loved being with all 6 of them for 7 days.  And I miss 5 of them very, very much.  I'd miss all six of them but the youngest happens to reside in my home, so I don't miss him so much.  HOWEVER, let it be known that if he did not live here .... he would indeed be missed. (you have to really be careful to cover all of your bases when you have 6 kids .... a job that's getting harder and harder to do.)

Anyway, the day we came home I was back in my bedroom with a couple of my kids and we were all talking about various aspects of the trip as I unzipped my suitcase and removed some souvenir items.  And then the oddest thing happened.
Not odd in that it happened, because it used to happen all of the time 4 years ago.
All.
Of.
The.
Time.

But odd in that it happened now.  Four and a half years later.
Very odd.

As I was holding some of the souvenirs in my hand and listening to the kids chat about the trip, I thought,
"I need to tell Jim all about our trip!"
That thought flew into my head .... and then flew out as fast as it came.
But it left me leaning over my suitcase, fighting as hard as I could to not react as strongly as I felt .... which was stone cold and almost breathless.  And then I think my next thought was, "What the hell?!"
I had no idea where that thought had come from .... or why it had come, when it hasn't come in a very long time.
So long, in fact, that I can't remember when it last happened.
Or I couldn't before Saturday.
Odd.
Very odd.

A very odd thing brought about by the end of someone.
At first, as I wrote above, it happened all of the time.  At least a few times a week.
If I turned the TV on and saw that Oklahoma State was playing a basketball game, I'd find myself starting to call out Jim's name to tell him that the Cowboys were on TV.  But I stopped myself.  And cried.
The first time I went out of town with a couple of friends (my first trip to Cabo) I arrived at the Cabo airport and thought, "I need to call Jim and tell him I made it ok."  Then I remembered that he wasn't at home and so he was not worried about my trip .... and if I made it .... or not.
And I cried.
One of the last times it happened, was well over a year ago .... maybe even two.  I ran into a friend who had been a friend of ours before we moved to Texas.  We knew them from Tulsa.  They were transferred down here several years after we were.  When I ran into her that day she told me they were being transferred to Chicago, where we had also once lived.  After we chatted for a while and then said goodbye I thought, "I need to tell Jim about that".  And then I realized that not only was Jim not here to listen to my story, but no one else in the world would understand that we had known them "before" Texas.
None of my friends here knew them.  So I had no one to tell about running into her .... and that they were moving again.
No one.
And that felt very, very lonely.
And odd.
And it made me cry.

But this time .... this time I didn't cry.
It was odd.
It was VERY odd.
And the knowledge that follows right after that thought flies through your head is ...... well, it felt "unsettling".  And it made me feel a little shaky.
But I did the best job I could to brush that thought, and it's after effects from my mind like they were sticky cobwebs.  It took a little bit of effort, but I did it and managed to keep up with the kids' conversation and continue my unpacking.
But the unsettled feeling?  It never left.
I still feel it.
And I still wonder, "What the hell?!"
Where did that come from and why now?

Odds and ends.
We always have odds and ends around ..... in some form or another.
Ends leave you feeling odd.

And the odds are ..... we'll all experience an end.
Of someone.

Odds and ends.
Ends and odds.

In the end .... it's all odd.
And very .... unsettling.

Four and a half years out.
What are the odds?

The Luckiest

I have music on a loop that I listen to in the car.  There is one song that never fails to reduce me to tears: Ben Folds, The Luckiest.

I don't often feel lucky.
(I mean, who here really feels that luck has been shining on them?) 
Sudden death really doesn't count in the "lucky" stakes.

In fact, in the three years leading up to the accident, we lost both Greg's parents to the most hideous of cancers.  This left he and is siblings at odds over the will with Greg the person in the middle trying to make everyone happy, whilst making himself miserable in the process.

...and he'd just managed to get everyone to a shaky agreement, but was dead within months.


Suddenly
Brutally.
Dead.

"Lucky" was not a description I would have used to describe our lives.


Until I started to think about it.

Because Greg and I, we were The Luckiest.

Not many people get to marry the love of their lives. 

Many never even get to meet them.

But we did both.

Inseparable from the moment we met and fell in love.



We had a love that was real and solid.
Never wavering.
Never faltering.

We finished each other's sentences and could tell what the other person was thinking with a look.

We laughed at the same things and we cried at the same things.

We were are soulmates who balanced each other perfectly.

We loved.

Deeply.

Completely.

Soul-shaping love.

...and what we had (still have) was so rare and beautiful, that we really were among  The Luckiest people on the planet.

Shell

I started reading Jai Pausch's book last night.

Remember The Last Lecture?

I remember Dave getting word of Randy's talk. He was so moved by it and showed it to me on YouTube. Randy Pausch was battling pancreatic cancer while he wrote and performed his speech for the Last Lecture series at Carnegie Mellon where he taught.

The idea behind the talks was a theoretical "if this were your last lecture" format. For Randy, though, who'd been given 3 to 6 months, this actually was his last lecture.

Dream New Dreams is Randy's wife's book about their journey through Randy's illness and her journey after his death.

Jai and Randy had 3 young kids when he was diagnosed. The first few chapters had me hooked, but last night as I wolfed it down in bed, I felt anxiety growing like a yawning hole in my belly.

The obstacles this family faced as Randy got sick and then died terrified me.

I tried to put myself in her place, and my mind balked. It was too hard to imagine.

She was still nursing her youngest when she had to leave all the kids with family to move to Houston with Randy to be his caregiver. She was there all week with him, and then flew back to be with the kids on the weekends. She'd have to pump breast milk and dump it down the sink during the week. She couldn't nurse the youngest, Chloe, when she was home for the weekends, because then the baby wouldn't take formula during the week.

For some reason, this particular aspect of the phase of their lives when Randy began treatment, rattled me so much that I couldn't sleep. I had to stop reading last night just to calm down enough to drift off.

Today, I'm trying to analyze my reaction a little because it seems curious that I'm so rattled by her situation. So, why would Jai's situation have me so distraught?

Of course, it's partly empathy. I ached for that woman and the pain they all went through, but there was something more to it. Something that made it all feel too personal to detach enough to sleep.

A part of me wondered if there might be a chance for a family in my future. I admit it. I didn't ponder motherhood that much when Dave was alive. Once he died, though, I mourned a lost marriage, but also the loss of a family we'd never had the chance to have.

We CHOSE not to have a family, and yet I still mourned that chance being taken away from me. I mourned not having a small genetic piece of Dave to love. I never once wished I had even one child to raise while grieving, I just simply grieved the fact that there was no mini-Dave in my life and never could be.

I'm probably past child rearing years, especially considering that if I did want to try to have kids the old fashioned way, I'd have to start meeting the right man, marrying him and trying to get pregnant VERY VERY SOON. These are not things you can rush through, I hear. It doesn't work to put out a Craigslist ad or canvas for baby daddies on the streets. Not to mention the slightly important fact that I've never really had a strong maternal instinct.

Somehow though, this really got to me. There's societal pressure to be a part of a nuclear family. Hearing people talk about their husband and kids makes me feel like an alien visiting another planet. What point is there to this life if not to form families? says society.

I mentally run through a litany of well-known people who never formed a family and still seem vibrant and successful. George Clooney. Helen Mirren. Condoleeza. Jon Hamm. Kristen Wigg. Cameron Diaz.
Whatever. It makes me feel better.

There are other things to do with my life that don't necessarily involve having a family and anyway "family" can be interpreted in many ways. I'm forming the most amazing "friend-family", for example.

I can have adventures of another kind. Travel, for example. Or joining a circus, writing a book, sailing around the world. I can do whatever I want now. I don't have to wait until the kids are out of the house and the husband agrees to my crazy plans.

But, there's a part of me that will grieve that other life I can only faintly imagine. A life with a full house. A life with ballet recitals, soccer games, first dates, homework, and read aloud time every night after baths.

Okay, after I typed that I kind of shuttered a little. I guess maybe I don't have a maternal instinct. Good to know!

I only partly kid. It's not true that you can't miss what you never had. You can. I do. I work each day at not feeling left out. It's a choice. I can get wrapped up in missing what I never had or I can get busy living this life.

As Randy said in his Last Lecture, "We cannot change the cards we were dealt, just how how we play the hand".


All of my fear is also probably wrapped up in the idea that if I did ever find deep, lasting love again, I could lose it all, just like I did this time around. I could possibly watch my new love deteriorate well before old age. I could usher him out of this world and be faced with widowhood once more. Or, sometimes I think an even worse proposition is being the one who leaves the other behind. Having experienced it, I don't want my partner to ever go through that.

But none of that matters. Whatever will happen will happen. If I'm married and then widowed again, then that's the hand I'm dealt. Doesn't matter. All that matters is how I play the hand.

At a year out, though, my heart is still encased in a protective shell. Almost daily I ask the universe for just a couple of years of death-free peace and quiet. Just long enough to really get my feet underneath me.

No pets, friends or family dying on me please, just for a while. Please. I just can't imagine watching someone I love so deeply so sick and being so helpless in the face of it again.

Thinking about Jai seeing Randy so sick and trying to help. Imagining her desperately trying to find a way to get him to eat and keep weight on. Cleaning his port. Never knowing for sure how much time they had left on the cancer timeline. It all just makes me want to keep my heart safe and sheltered.

Gotta pull out CS Lewis' quote about love and vulnerability again.

Closing myself off to love to avoid pain is not an option, I tell myself.

A part of me is listening.

Another part of me is carefully holding my heart in a fragile, breakable shell, trying desperately to protect it from shattering again.

Good Little Widow

Half a dozen of us widow and widowers went to see a play called Be a Good Little Widow at Collaboraction Theatre. Written by Bekah Brunstetter and directed by Anthony Mosley, the play takes place entirely in a small apartment where a newlywed couple is trying to find where they fit into one another’s lives. The cast of characters includes an overbearing mother-in-law who doesn’t think the girl is good enough for her son.

The husband leaves for a business trip, - “don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it” he says, as if there is a law that any story featuring an upcoming death must say this line (see the movie Castaway for another reference) - and his plane crashes leaving the young girl to find her new place in life and redefine her new relationship with her mother-in-law.

For me, the most intriguing character was the mother-in-law. Her back-story involves losing her husband years ago and becoming a” good widow.” She now tries to teach her young daughter-in-law to do the same. These rules are mostly comprised of being polite and knowing your place by not making a scene in public. The nice character level is she is now dealing with the loss of her son. The best line of the play was when she finally opens up about her pain to her daughter-in-law and breaks her stiffness by telling her, “I lost both my husband and my son. There is no word for me.”

In reading the authors bio, it mentions she was never a widow but was interested in the topic. I thought this line was by far the closest the playwright was able to figure out the world of grief. I love the fact the mother-in-law needed a word to figure out her place in this world. I almost felt fortunate for having the luxury of knowing I was a widower. It’s a crappy place to be, but at least I have a word for society to fit me in a box. Here was this woman, who has lost two loves and she doesn’t even get the luxury of telling people on the street, “Hi, I’m a doubler.” “Oh my, both husband and son. I am so sorry for your losses.”

I feel much of my grief journey has been trying to own my “new normal” life. Be a Good Little Widow touches on the “new normal” aspect as the girl is lost and trying to get out of the fog. It doesn’t surprise me that someone who hasn’t experienced the loss of a spouse chose to write about the “in the fog” stage. An outsider can make guesses about that stage: you get angry, you drink to forget your problems, you fight with the in-laws, and you keep picturing your dead spouse in the house with you. All of it made for some interesting theatre.

But where the playwright missed the boat was the deeper introspection that is needed to move on. The understanding that it is not getting sober after a night of binge drinking that shapes your new life or yelling at someone and realizing you’ve gone too far that allows you to cross the line into healing. It’s an inner struggle of what you thought you were and what you are about to become. What you thought was life and what life is now. What you thought you were owed in the world and what you find the world is really going to give you.

Maybe this journey isn’t as exciting to turn into a play. Fair enough. The play did leave our group talking for hours afterwards, debating what the playwright was correct on and what the playwright missed. For my money, I would like to have seen a show that went deeper into the process of grief. But maybe this play wasn’t written for us. Maybe it was written for those on the outside who can only guess what “a good widow” should be.

Proud

I was asked I question recently and figured I'd respond in a blog:

Hi Taryn, Thank you for publishing this, it makes me feel that others are like me. One thing I want to ask you: why should I be proud of being a widow? I hate it when I am referred to as a widow! I just hate it! I don't see why I should be proud. I would love it if I could say "I'm so-and-so's wife". Give me a reason to be proud of being a widow. Thanks again.

When Michael was first killed I remember sitting there thinking, 'Does this mean I have to be a widow?!'. Our society had put such a stigma on the word, that any chance in me feeling the need to embrace it was pretty slim. I even had people telling me not to call myself that. "Widow" was a title that had everything going against it in the sense of embracing it. But I remember, one evening, in the first few months after his death, thinking of the pride I had when standing next to him and hearing him introduce me as his wife. I felt unstoppable. I felt that the world was mine to conquer. I felt that with him by my side and the title of his wife...that all in the world was right. It was in thinking of that feeling that I knew I had all reason in the world to feel the same as his widow. That title represents his sacrifice. That title represents my sacrifice. And that title, due to the fact that I am still here to say I am the widow of Michael...represents my survival. I know it is easier sad than done to embrace a word that for centuries has been shunned and put in a negative light, but when I think of that glowing feeling in my heart when I stood next to him as his wife, I quickly let the notions of others fall to the wayside as the same feeling sweeps over me as I introduce myself as his widow. You earned this title with every ounce of love you share with them. You earned this title with every day you decided to get up and inhale and exhale after their passing. You earned this title for being an example for all those that will come after you and will be asking the same question on why they should embrace a word...and then they see how you have lived...and suddenly know why. So be proud. Being a widow is a title worth sharing.

Fear and Boot Straps in Austin Texas

I had a chat with a co-worker the other day about taking risks.  We were talking about why people will stay in jobs that they hate for years - complaining year after year and yet never making the decision to change.  I'll admit that I'm a bit of a change junkie, so my perspective is skewed.  

I'd like to say that my experience as a widow has given me the courage to make changes fearlessly - life is short right?  Clearly I've learned that lesson!  The truth is, I was prone to make big changes before Daniel died, and that hasn't changed much since.  Actually, that isn't quite true.  My thought process prior to making a change is what's different.  Before Daniel, I would consider the pros and cons, and move fearlessly forward not a doubt in my mind.  After losing him?  I'll still do it, but not nearly as fearlessly as before.  The risks are just different and the thoughts that go through my mind are less optimistic and have a similar flow:

• I  have a child. 
• I am his only living parent.
• What if I die?
• My luck hasn't been so good in recent years.
• What if something bad happens?
• Life is short.
• It's only money, you can't take it with you.
• I could get hit by a truck tomorrow (my favorite).
• Is this a life or death decision?
• My family/friends will think I'm irresponsible.
• If I get cancer and am lying on my death bed will I regret not trying (fill in the blank)?
• What would Daniel do?
• If I'm not having a good time, it's my own damned fault.
• Why the hell not?

The thought process isn't identical each time, sometimes I end up with a different decision.  Most of the time though, I end up in with a "let's do this!" sort of decision.  But not before I hit the "what if something bad happens" question and take a good long pause.  That one, that's the big one.  I never thought of that before Daniel got sick. It never occurred to me that something REALLY bad could happen.  It just wasn't on my radar.  Now?  Now I know better.  Bad, bad shit happens.  It happens a lot. 

Fortunately a few years down the road, I'm not letting it change the outcome, it just changes my thought process to get there.  What if something bad happens?  It may.  It can.  It has.  In fact, it will.  But I have no control over that.  I can't let the possibility block my path forward. 

What would Daniel do?  If I'm not having a good time, it's my own damned fault.  Why the hell not?!  Let's do this! :)