Reaching Out

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This week has sucked.

Pain.

Restriction in mobility.

Kid who's acting up.

Change over to summer time so sleep is out of whack.

Pain meds making my brain addled, so I've not been able to study effectively for an exam I have in about 24 hours.  Economics is just plain not computing.

Frustration I can't stand long enough to be able to get the house cleaned properly (though glad I spent money on a robo-vac).



Being forced to slow down long enough that I'm conscious of how lonely I am.



I'm generally ok with being alone.  It's the loneliness that I'm struggling with.

Friends busy with their own lives, in their own relationships. 

Able to flop on the couch once the kids are in bed and talk about their day with another adult.

Celebrate successes, complain about office politics.

I miss having Ian to talk to.   To collapse against at the end of a long day.


I needed someone to talk it through with.  Someone who got it. So I put a call out to a re-married widow from our church community, a lady who lost her first husband 20 or so years ago.  We spent a couple of hours talking over the loneliness, the struggles of solo-parenting, the isolation of widowhood and that parenting a pre-schooler can bring independently, let alone together.

By the time she headed home, I felt much more balanced, grounded and lighter than I had for most of the week.

Sometimes that one on one chat so you don't feel so alone in your experience is just that bit of self care the doctor ordered.

Dark Companion

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I am suffering from a bout of depression. I've learned from experience that they can often come on when I get overwhelmed. I should know this by now and guard like hell against getting to this point, but I was convinced I was ready to take anything on. I was feeling so good.

And then, several life events converged and now, all at once, big things are happening. All good things (albeit stressful) but it was just enough to tip the scales and here I am, struggling to get out of bed and to function again. It helps to have support, but the depression always turns itself inside me and becomes a constant attack on my self worth, so I feel as though I'm a burden. And the more depressed I feel, the more help I need, and thus the more burdensome I feel I've become and this makes the depression worse.

I know this is an illness. I know that I'm not being difficult, moody or needy. I know that logically, but the depression itself lies to me and convincingly tells me differently. The battle of hanging on to what my stable brain would normally be able to tell itself while the off-kilter brain tells me I'm horrible in every way is a giant strain. The depression steals all energy, hope and motivation from me and then to compound the pain, it adds guilt to the mix.

I'm doing everything I can to take care of myself. I'm seeing a therapist a naturopath and a psychiatric nurse. I'm taking all the supplements I'm supposed to be taking and trying to rest, but life requires that I be there and I don't have the energy for that. Small decisions feel impossibly demanding. I just need a lot of support. I see this taking its toll on my partner. And I'm angry. I'm angry that I have this brain and that I've suffered the trauma that I've suffered. I feel sorry for myself. I feel sorry for him. I feel anxious and sad.

I'm not suicidal at all, I promise, but I do sometimes think that Dirk would be better off without me and my illness. And then I realize that that is not me thinking those thoughts. It's my depression telling me that. It lies. And this won't last forever. I'll get better and I won't necessarily always fall back into this dark place every time my life gets overwhelming.

I am not a bad person because I need help. I'm still worthy of love. I just have to keep repeating that to myself over and over and over again.

I'll get better. But depression didn't steal me away quite like this before Dave died. It's as if my thermostat for being depressed was set at a more sensitive setting when he died. It was the final straw, maybe?

I hate it. It is my dark companion. But I know that I'm not doomed and the fact that Dave didn't get to live gives me an extra (though currently harder to access) desire to make my life really worth it in exchange.

The Tides of Grief

The past week has been hard. I suppose that isn't surprising... Coming down from a really incredible week surrounding my birthday. I don't know if this has happened to any of you, but every so often there is a week or a month in which I feel like someone put me in a giant slingshot and plummeted me into my new life. And not in a bad way necessarily... But more like I finally relax into the new life and begin to enjoy myself there for a bit. I start to have fun in the new and feel some really deep joy there... the sort I didn't know I could still feel. This has only started to happen maybe over the past six months - as I've entered into my third year without him. And it happened over my birthday this year. I was honestly so busy feeling joy that I didn't ever have that sinking "he's not here" feeling. Instead, I felt like he was there, in my joy. He was there feeling my smile and my laughter dance in the air. And it was beautiful.

But this past week hasn't been so good. All I have been able to feel is that deep longing for him and the sensation of falling backwards into the pain. But that's the ebb and flow of this life. It is the tides of living with loss. They rise, and bring you with them higher, farther up the shores of a new life. And then they fall, and you recede back into your old life a bit - Or at least back into the in-between life - to float a while. Over time, we get a little farther up the shore, but its always a back and forth process.

I think there is good reason for this. I think our minds and hearts are very purposeful in how this happens. Because we could not handle letting in a new life all at once... Just the same as we cannot handle all of the pain at once. And so just as our minds only let us process so much of the pain at a time, so too I think it goes with the joy. It doesn't make it any easier of course, but sometimes it helps me to be able to tread the waters a little calmer when the tide draws me back out into my grief a bit. On a week like this past, where I've cried more tears than I knew I still had in me, it does somehow comfort a small part of me to know that it's all part of the cycle of things to sink back into the pain. 

My Little Seedling of Hope

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The weather is warming up here in sunny Queensland, Australia, with Spring in full swing and Summer just around the corner.  Last weekend I popped over to visit my sister and her family, who live a few streets away, and they'd just enjoyed their very first swim in their brand new backyard pool.

The sun was getting ready to set, casting its golden glow over the sky.  My brother-in-law was cooking a BBQ, with a beer in hand and the football on in the background while my three nephews were running around to dry off from their swim.  My sister and I sat amongst it all enjoying a glass of wine. And I felt happy.

Of course I wished Dan was there, the ache for him is ever-present, but in that moment, surrounded by people I love and looking up at a bright blue sky I was content and my heart was at peace.

I said to my sister, "I can't wait for Summer, we are going to have so many fun weekend like this" and she said, "me too... can you believe we're actually looking forward to Summer?  I can't even remember a single thing about last Summer, let alone enjoying any of it.  I am so happy to hear you say that you're looking forward to something, this is really big."

I hadn't even realised until she pointed it out but it WAS really big.  I couldn't believe I was actually feeling genuine excitement about something so minor as the weather.  This time last year, Dan had only been gone for two months and life was still a numb blur.  I have a vague recollection that Summer occurred but no tangible memories of actually doing anything - let alone enjoying anything.  One year ago, I didn't think it would be possible to ever feel 'joy' again.

After dinner I went back home to my quiet, empty house, climbed in to my big, cold bed and had my routine chat with Dan about my day.  I cried for him and yearned for him - as usual. But I felt a sense that there was more to come for me.  I felt hope.  Even though my heart is broken because he isn't here, I was somehow still looking forward to wearing out my welcome in my sister and brother-in-law's new swimming pool this Summer.

It's so hard to describe how my grief can co-exist with this growing sense of remembering what it feels like to be genuinely happy.  Not complete, but happy. Maybe, in the way I felt before he was part of my world.  I will ALWAYS wish Dan was here.  Every happy moment, every sunny day, every celebration and every achievement will ALWAYS be less sweet because of his absence.   My heart will always ache for him, even when it's singing. Oh, how it yearns for him.  It's magnetic, this pull, to be close to him.  This impossible pull - to hold him, hear his laugh, kiss his lips, rest my head on his chest and breathe him in.  Missing him is such agony.  I have accepted that this will be a life-long pain and I still have those days where the grief is so intense that even leaving the house is just not an option. But a very small seedling of hope has sprouted somewhere inside me.

I think it was planted there during my time at Camp Widow West in July, and somehow, since then, enough light has seeped through the tears to give it life.  I'm doing my best to protect and nurture it - it's still very fragile and nowhere near sturdy enough to withstand strong winds or stormy rains.  But maybe a nice, quiet Queensland Summer will be the perfect conditions for letting my little seedling of hope grow stronger.

Choices

Dear Readers,

I am warning you ahead of time; this post is going to be a huge, scrambled, all over the place, chaotic, messy, unfocused clusterf**k of nothing. Or something. I don't even know. But when you're done reading it, and you say to yourself: What the hell was THAT? - Well, I told ya so.

Last week, I wrote in here from the lobby of the Marriott hotel on my 43rd birthday, at Camp Widow Toronto, the very first International Camp, and my 5th one giving my comedic presentation. Toronto was incredible. Magical. Life-affirming. Blissful. Beautiful. Addicting. Peaceful.

But now I'm back home and yes, that thing that those of us who have been to camp call "Camp Crash" is here, but it's more than that really. It's the emotions leftover from camp, but it's also that I have been wrapped up in writing this damn book about my grief and about Don and about our life together - the one that we no longer have. And I have to tell you, writing and writing and writing and writing, and then taking a break from writing in order to come over here and do more writing - is really emotionally and physically exhausting. Every single bone in my body is tired. My eyes are so tired I can barely keep them open most days. The joints in my legs and knees and feet hurt all the time. I feel so old and so out of shape, and I know that I AM very out of shape, yet I am still too lazy or too unmotivated or too something - to actually do something about it and change it. I just keep writing and writing and writing, and then the end of the day comes, and I try and sleep. Then I get up and go to work, come home, write some more. A lot of times, I sit at my computer and stare. For minutes or hours. The things I am writing about are extremely difficult, and sometimes I am going backwards in my mind and heart, in order to re-tell the story of the day we met, or the day he proposed, or the day we lay in bed talking about our dream to have our own family, or the day we talked about maybe adopting a baby or child, or the day that I woke up and he was already dead.

I have so many conflicting emotions about this book. I am thrilled that so many people are so excited about the book, which was demonstrated to me when I did my online fundraising campaign to self-publish the book, and so many people came out of everywhere to contribute and to send me private messages and emails and let me know how much my writing means to them, or how much it has helped them in some way. That makes me extremely happy, to know that this book will help someone out there feel less alone or make them laugh or cry or feel something for the first time that maybe they were afraid to feel. So there's that.

But then, there is a huge part of me that resents the book, as if it were a person with feelings and gives a crap that I resent it. But I do sometimes. Because it's a book, and it's not my husband. It will never be my husband. One afternoon, I was writing a piece for the book, and I got so frustrated and emotional about something I was writing, that I picked up a notebook and slammed it against the wall and screamed loudly to nobody: "I HATE THIS STUPID BOOK! I DON'T WANNA WRITE A BOOK ABOUT MY HUSBAND!!! I JUST WANT MY HUSBAND!!!" Then, of course, I broke down sobbing and missing him tremendously, which is what the anger was about. It is not easy to make the decision to take the pain, and create something from it. This is the choice I have made, and I make it over and over again every single day. Let the pain kill me, or create something from the pain. I've made my choice. I don't regret it. It is the only option for me. But I am really, really tired. And it is not easy.

I know some of you were probably hoping for a post today about my time in Toronto at Camp Widow. I will write that post. I promise you. It needs to be written. But I need a clearer head, and that is not today. Today my head is filled with oatmeal, and this is all I got.

Back to the book .....

Junk Mail

Today I grabbed the mail from the mailbox, saw it was mostly junk, and tossed it on the floor of my car as I sped off downtown for a few errands. Stopped at a stoplight I looked down and noticed a flyer from our local vision center which said brightly, we miss seeing you! Specials now...etc, etc.  

I thought for a moment...huh. They miss me? I just got new glasses a couple of months ago. Then with a pang I realized they meant Mike. I reached down to pick it up, my suspicions confirmed. Another piece of mail for him. Another business still unaware. Yeah. I miss seeing him too.

After someone dies, we are faced with the horrible chore of dealing with estates, banking, property, etc; transferring of names, canceling credit cards, sending death certificates and whatever else. Once the important pieces are taken care of there is a sense of relief, if we are so lucky. Sometimes, there are bits and pieces that still come up down the line that we hadn't realized we needed to deal with, and I know some people are faced with even more difficult circumstances. But I imagine nearly all of us are continually faced with the junk mail that still comes for our missing spouse. And it always comes with a little pang, a deep sigh, or maybe a few tears.

I could call the store and let them know I suppose. Maybe I will. Or maybe not. Because the other side of the coin is the thought that someday, I may never see anything else addressed to him. That is horrible in its own way too.

The same mixed emotions emerge when I'm faced with meeting people who are new to me, but knew Mike. It is a small town and for several years we ran a business together here and I just don't remember, or didn't know, everyone who came through our doors. This past week I've met two such people. It is, again, a small stinging pang when the connection is made and he enters a conversation with someone when I wasn't expecting it.  (Well, he always did take over a conversation anyway...ha.)

The other side of that sting is that I am grateful that people remember him and want to talk about him. It would be worse, I think, if they avoided saying something because they felt uncomfortable (which grief often tends to do.) But when it's an unexpected connection - a random, how weird is that thing? ...I don't know. It's hard...and also somehow comforting. They're not here anymore...but they did touch people while they were. 

One of the worst things is when you meet someone who doesn't know he's dead. The other day, someone who didn't know either of us personally asked a question in reference to some business matters that still bore his name. They asked, oh so what does he do now, is he retired? 

No. He died.

I gave a small, sad smile and waited to see how they would fumble around, because what am I supposed to say? He's dead. Yeah, he's dead. I kinda feel bad for the awkwardness of that moment but I also kinda don't. In the last situation it was pretty obvious from the word "estate" on the documents in question that he was passed...I'm betting that person won't make that mistake again with anyone else.

Another friend of mine, a widower whose wife has been gone several years, told me the other day he had a similar experience recently. Someone he hadn't seen for awhile came into his place of work and asked about his wife. My friend just shook his head slowly into his beer, and I sighed and put my hand on his arm knowingly. Because...that sucks and we all know it.

About two months after Mike died, some clients of his came up our driveway. I was downstairs doing laundry and I came out wondering who that could be. They were clearly upset because they'd been trying to get in touch with him but his phone was cut off. When I told them, they were shocked and then quite embarrassed about the way they'd acted at first. 

We can put obituaries in the paper, we can take care of all the details of a death we possibly can, we can make every effort to continue on with the business of living without them...and yet, their presence may always continue to linger in these strange and unexpected ways. The pangs are hard, when they come. And yet...somehow there would be a sad finality to it all if it stopped happening. Which, one day, I suppose it will.

Mission Accomplished~

My Odyssey of Love has brought me and my daughter to New Jersey, where my and Chuck's primary community lives.  We're here for a few weeks, catching up with friends.  It's tough being here; Chuck had his first cancer here and all the treatments and there is so much pain and grief.  And there is, also, so much love.

It has been my intent since Chuck died a year ago April to get a picture of my pink car under the wing of the static display of the C-141 at the base from where he served and retired-McGuire AFB.  I tried for it last year but was unable to find the people to give me the proper permission to get my car on the grass.  And I didn't want to do it without permission and bring the Security Police down on me.  I ran out of time last year but, as I've traveled in these last 9 months, the thought stayed prominent in my mind.  My car wasn't leaving Jersey this time without that picture.

Chuck would be proud of me.  I contacted his boss from years ago and told him what I wanted to do and asked him for contact names so that I could go about setting this up.  And he came through for me.  A couple of emails later, I had a date and time set up.  Along with a lunch date with the man in charge of the memorial and an interview with the base newspaper.  My daughter and I had a private tour of the interior and we ended up meeting a man who used to work with Chuck, who just happened to wander by as we stood in the belly of the plane.  Our daughter sat in the engineer's seat where he sat as the flight engineer.  

And then I drove my PinkMagic rig, car and T@b trailer both, right up onto the grass for the picture I wanted.  And drove it around under the tail of the plane to the other side so that we could snap a picture right next to the paver I placed for him on the walkway and under the engineer's window.  

I know Chuck would be so proud that I made this happen.  He'd be impressed, and he wouldn't be at all surprised because he knew what kind of woman he was married to.  On my part, I feel like I have done all I can to honor his time in service and now I can carry on with my Odyssey, scattering his cremains as I forge my way into this new life I have to create for myself.  Kicking and screaming all the way, but moving into.

Our son told me last year that such a picture would perfectly represent the strong relationship and marriage that Chuck and I had.  The 141 is so very Chuck.  The pink car and trailer is all me.  The wing of the plane folds protectively over my rig.

Take a look.  My pride and joy.  Mission accomplished.  I love you always, Chuck~