Not the Same

OK - I have got my ranty pants on here because I am So Tired of hearing the following statement:

"You are lucky - my husband is such an arsehole - I wish He was dead".

Usually uttered by my divorced friends who keep on telling me How Much Tougher they have it due to custody battles and financial settlements.
And I understand that at this point in time, they truly hate the person they once loved.  That they are hurting and feel betrayed by love.  That legal battles are not fun. Disputes over children are fraught with emotion and righteous indignation.   Financial hardship is hurting their lifestyle.
And I feel the hate for their husband emanating from their mouths in streams of vitriolic rage.

But.

Being widowed and being divorced are NOT the same.

I listen to all these reasons quietly, repeating in my head that the do not know what they are saying because they have not walked in my shoes......

I deeply love my husband.  Still.
I  cry myself to sleep every night.  Still.
In my darkest moments, I fine tune my exit strategy.  Still.
I look upon the compensation payout as blood money.
I am sick of the ongoing legal battle for the insurance company to pay out the full amount of compensation.
I am still trying to live day-to-day on a single wage and the entirety of ALL expenses fall on my shoulders.
I tire of being the only adult making major life decisions that affect our children.
I would dearly love to find a great bloke and fall in love again .... but   Greg set the benchmark so high that I doubt I will ever meet another soul who is so perfectly imperfect for me.  Even if I was ready. 

But I don't say anything in response to these friends who tell me that death is easier than divorce because their Dad died and they had to put up with their batty mother who went  insane and OMG life was still so much better than being divorced ....  I don't comment that losing a father is not the same as losing a husband and I don't point out that her mother's insanity was probably deep grief mixed with depression and terror.
But perhaps I should.

Perhaps I should say the one thing I know to be true:

Death and Divorce are NOT the same. 

Fear of Loss

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Fate handed me the early death of both my parents. These traumas have given my brain a pattern. The pattern is to assume that more bad things will happen. It's a brain that's attuned to signs of more death and loss. Eventually I realized that this trait held me apart from those I loved and caused me a ridiculous amount of anxiety, so I got to work on it.

I was working diligently on that facet of my brain with my therapist when Dave got sick and died, so my brain REALLY latched on to that pattern then. It was as if fate proved my progress a waste of time. I was learning to believe that not every illness led to death and then Dave's illness led to death. SEE! My brain said. I told you!

At this point now, alone, meaning without a life partner or a kid, I am free of such fear. I'll be scared shitless if one of my friends gets very sick, sure, but the person I was most bound to on this planet already got sick and died, so I don't have to fear that happening again. But that is predicated on the fact that I'll always be alone and that doesn't seem acceptable either. One is terrifying and the other is incredibly sad.

I understand now that the rest of my life will be a series of decisions. Each time I decide I can choose based on fear or love. Choosing based on fear means my life becomes small. Safe from more pain, but also devoid of love, adventure and meaning. Choosing love means I will have much to fear. I will think that my (imagined) beloved’s headache is a tumor and that he will not recover every time he gets the flu. If I were to one day have a child of my own, I will worry that every cough, sneeze, barf, or fever means that the end is near. But when I look at my two choices, how can I choose to forego getting and giving love? That would be another sort of death. My own. I’d be alive but not living.

Lately my mantra has been “fear makes terrible decisions”. I chant it to myself every time I feel my defenses slide down over my heart to protect me from imagined pain.When those defenses begin to shield me, I close up my life, smaller and smaller, until I'm very safe and very alone. So I fight it. If I even think fear is involved in a decision, I try to do the opposite it's telling me to do. I don't always succeed and sometimes the fear is overwhelming, but I try.

I remind myself of the regrets of the dying as often as possible. Fear based decisions seem to lead a person right to a list of those exact regrets. I don't want to regret.

But, there’s a very tired, broken, raw part of me that wants so desperately to stop being afraid. To have nothing left to lose. It wants to not let love in so that it’s free of potential loss. It wants a break from feeling anything at all. It wants someone to hold her and rock her and tell her she's okay, she's okay, she's okay.

Saying My Goodbyes

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When I stood next to my husband’s casket, and said my goodbyes, I thought that would be the first and last goodbye I would ever say to him.

I didn't realize I would be saying goodbye to him on a daily basis, 31 months later.

The goodbyes start every morning. As I slowly wake from my dream state, and his face slowly drifts away with my dreams, I say goodbye.

As I’m rushing around, trying to get my day started, I say hello.

"I love you, but I have got to go. I have work and life to attend to. It’s time for you to leave my mind, so let's say goodbye."

As the day slowly comes to an end, I tell him goodbye, once again.

Enter the dream state and its hello all over again.

Enter the never ending circle of hello's and goodbyes.

The hello's come with signs he is around. Monarch butterflies and the hearts I notice in the weirdest objects and places.

Its “hello, and I love you too. Thanks for the heart, but I got to go. Goodbye my love.”

Looking back, I wish someone would have told me how horribly hard this journey is. I wish instead of telling me “it will get better”, someone would have told me how bad it sucks and how long it would suck for.

I wish someone would have told me of the never ending counting my brain would do. How many days since I last saw my husband. How many months it has been. I wish someone would have told me that the counting, is normal. It took me feeling like I was losing my mind, before someone said “This is normal”.

I wish someone would have told me, as I stood next to his casket saying goodbye, that it wouldn't be the last goodbye I would say to my husband.

Today, I am wishing I only had to say the one goodbye. Today I am wishing I didn't know it is 957 days since I saw my husband alive. Today I wish the “suck it up and move on” actually worked.

This morning as I woke up from yet another dream of Seth, I said my goodbyes all over again. With tears in my eyes and my pillow soaked from dream tears, I realized that saying goodbye never gets easier.

While saying my goodbye's hasn't gotten easier saying my hello's as gotten far easier.

I welcome the hello's and welcome him into my dreams a lot easier now.

In the early stage of grief, I cursed him for showing up in my dreams. I would scream at him for sending me signs that he was around.

It is now a wonderful hello session, that I look forward to every time I close my eyes.

I look forward to the day that goodbye doesn't take me all the way back to the day he died.

Push

Besides the obvious pain of losing my soul mate, I've done many things to challenge my mind and body to see all that I'm capable of and that is still possible after what seemed like the most debilitating of losses.

I've walked on fire over a 108 times, done Indian sweat-lodges, put a knitting needle through my hand, walked on glass and more.

Not because I'm a complete nut job (though I may be by many definitions), but because these (what seemed like) physical challenges opened my eyes, mind and heart to much more I had yet to unearth.

I've taken those teachings with me and benefited from the metaphorical message they each carried.

They changed me...In a dramatic and drastic way. They have become an integrated part of my daily life, but as I was just reminded, I forgot one pivotal aspect of their teachings.

Change is good. Discomfort is something to be embraced. Change is growth. Change and discomfort is a willingness to live.

But as I recollected just recently, many, if not majority of these teachings, were preceded by a distinct and terrifying pain.

A pain of the unknown. The pain of what could be. A pain of something my thoughts conjured up.

A pain that took place before an action had actually taken place.

A pain that can stop one's persistence, if easily hindered. A pain that waits for moments of change and discomfort to hold you back from all that you can and could be.

But more than anything, a pain that beckons your heart to take the leap...make the decision...embrace the evolution...return to what you know in your heart is what is right for you.

I chose to take that first step onto the coals. To focus my attention on the moment in what seemed like unbearable environments...to push forward when all things said don't push forward for one more inch...I didn't choose to lose Michael, but at one moment I decided to live for him...and then for me.

But there is pain. There is discomfort. There is doubt.

But more than anything, there is the force that has no definition or specified word, that is waiting for you to push through. To find out that it's not as painful as it looks, or as terrifying as your mind wants to trick you into thinking.

It's waiting for you to take the next step into what will be the most amazing time of your life.

The only time of your life.

The now.

The time where pain takes backseat to positive change.

The only kind of change that we deserve out of such perils.

Please Just Let Me Be... The New Me

It’s remarkable to me how present the feeling of loss remains after nearly four years without my sweet Maggie.  Much of the endocrine-pulsing sharpness has been dulled by time, thankfully, but it shocks me how often my mouth forms the words “Maggie and I” which gets quickly and silently censored into just “I” so I can avoid any social discomfort.  (The “Maggie and” part becomes my own silent chant - a personal nod to a past that doesn’t feel so distant.)

Sometimes, my omissions force me into comically uncomfortable situations that require linguistic judo to escape.  Most recently, a post-Maggie-era friend has started dating Maggie’s sister.  During the discussion with the new boyfriend, I stated that the situation was a little awkward for me to which he naturally inquired why.  In keeping with the censorship that I’ve practiced (specifically in regard to mine and her relationship) I replied, “She’s my sister.”  A barrage of hilariously uncomfortable questions ensued.  Maybe I should have stuck with the truth.

Despite my daily filtering and censoring, and much to my surprise, I recently learned that some of my friends believe that I am still waving the grief/death flag way too much.  Apparently, I am sitting in my grief and refusing to get over it.  Some even believe I’m taking advantage of my situation for attention and milking it.  Sadly, I’m told that by associating with others who have also lost spouses, that I’m choosing to stay stuck or being enabled to wallow instead of what ever it is these blessed innocent folks would rather I be doing.  This makes me sad.

It’s so odd and so surprising to me how difficult it is to measure up to what other people think I should be doing.  At first, I was moving on too fast.  Now, I’m not moving on fast enough.  I guess, according to these experts, I should be over all this by now.  Gosh, I can only wonder how people would react if I were to outwardly display all the inner turmoil I have with coming to terms – yes, still – with my Maggie being gone.

I’ve noticed something, though.  I now have several post-Maggie-era friends.  Many, if not all, know about Maggie even though it’s never been a conversation.  Of these post-Maggie-era friends, not one has even hinted that I might be clinging to my past or whipping out the ol’ death flag too much.  I’ll bet if I were to ask any of them, they’d probably be surprised that I asked.  It seems, at least from this widower’s perspective, that the only folks who think I’m stuck are those who still miss Maggie, too.  This makes me sad, too.   But I can’t help them.  They have to figure this out on their own.

So, I’ll continue to aggressively build my network of post-Maggie-era friends.  I fear that ultimately, those who knew and loved Maggie will represent a smaller and less influential percentage of my current friends.  It makes me sad that I’m going to have to let them go but those people can’t seem to see me for me anymore and that’s not helpful.  Now, more than ever, I need to be able to be, well, just me - the new me, the post-Maggie-era Chris – who ever that may be.  Fortunately, the post-Maggie-era friends like the post-Maggie-era Chris. He’s a fun and happy guy with a bright future.  What’s not to like?

Brace yourself

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I always find a way to prepare myself for grief when I know it's coming. Holidays, birthdays, significant milestones or memories...like I can brace myself knowing that grief will feel heavier during those times. And sometimes the brace is what makes it a little more bearable.

But it's when grief hits me outta nowhere that I find myself whirling without a clue. Tonight as I sit in the pews at church, it occurred to me that the last full day of Jeremy's life I spent in that auditorium with him. This was not a new thought, but I hadn't thought it in awhile and it suddenly felt new. Fresh. Raw. The last evening I shared with my husband was in that room. It instantly made it harder to breathe. And how could I forget that I was also 6 months pregnant....

was that really me?
did this happen to someone else?

Sometimes in those moments, it feels like a lifetime ago....maybe even someone else's lifetime ago. Not mine. Surely I can't be still standing here after having gone through all that. It's almost like I imagined it all.

Then I look down and see my 5 year old who looks exactly like his daddy with his hand in mine, and peaking out from behind is my tattoo that is a constant reminder that this IS real. I didn't imagine it. And sometimes I can pretend long enough to feel normal again, but then I remember where I've come from.

And those out of nowhere grief are the hardest to swallow. I have no time to brace myself. No time to put on my brave face or choke down the tears. I've got a good game face, but not good enough to catch every unforeseen grief moment that crosses my path. And that's ok. I can still smile knowing that I am living out my life soaking up the moments I have left and trying to make Jer proud. And those moments I can't brace myself for remind me that I am human. That I loved and felt loved. And it reminds me that the love and loss I experienced was worthy of a deep and heavy grief.

It's ok if you can't always brace yourself for grief. Sometimes the best thing you can do is allow yourself those moments, experience them to fullest and give them due time. It's at the end of the moments you realize you're still standing.

There's No Comparison ......

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...... of widowed people.
None.

It's not that we aren't alike in many ways.
We are.
We have each experienced a loss deeper than anything we could've ever imagined.
And that creates quite a bond most of the time.

Yet each of us is as different and unique as apples are to oranges.
Sure, they're both fruits (I'm going to refrain from calling some of us fruits ...... though it's requiring a whole lot of self control!), but the comparisons stop there.

Yes, some people who are not widowed try to compare us to others quite often.  There are way too many of us who've been told that someone "understands" because he/she experienced the death of a pet.
Yes, that's really happened (it happened to 2 of my daughters).
Sad ...... and disgusting ...... but true.

Some try to compare being widowed with being divorced.
(I can feel your blood pressure rising as you read this.
You should feel mine as I'm writing it!)
If you haven't had someone mention how much better off you are, because you're not divorced ...... just wait.
Your turn is coming.

Some of you have felt the sting of having the way you're grieving compared to another widowed person.
Some have been slapped in the face with, "You're doing it wrong."
Hopefully, you knew better than to believe something, and someone, so vile.  But if you didn't ...... you do now.

We cannot be compared.
Our grief is as unique to us as are our fingerprints.
It is what it is.
It will be what it will be.
And it will last for as long as it lasts.

Which means that not only should others stop comparing us ......
but so should we.

What?  What am I talking about?  We who are widowed compare ourselves ...... to each other?!
Yes, indeed.
At least in the beginning.
And then hopefully, just as we learn to ignore the ignorant, we learn to ignore the ignorance that tries to rear its ugly head inside of us.

You know what I mean.
"I wish my husband hadn't died so suddenly and unexpectedly.  If he'd had cancer, like ______'s husband, we would've had time to prepare for this."
"I wish my husband didn't have to get so sick and linger for all those months.  If he could've just dropped dead from a heart attack, like _____'s husband, life would've been easier.  And he wouldn't have had to suffer."
"I wish my kids were older, like ____'s.  I want to know that they'll remember her/him.  And only-parenting is so very hard."
"I wish my kids were younger, like ____'s.  They'll soon be out on their own, living their own life with their future wide open.  And then I'll be alone.  All too soon.  And ...... only-parenting is so very hard."

I could go on with this, but I bet most of you could, too.

We're taught, at a very young age, to compare ourselves.  And we almost always find ourselves lacking.
As we grow up, and older, we hopefully learn what an amazing waste of time that is.  And so we stop.
But those of us on this site, at some point on our path to maturity, have found ourselves in a totally different reality.  We are usually lost in this reality for quite some time.
And so comparisons naturally creep back in.

But we, as the widowed, need to put a stop to that.
We can't compare our loss to someone else's.
We can't measure our grief on someone else's scale.
We can only carry our own grief.  Which is already too heavy some days, so how can we expect to carry someone else's?

There are no comparisons.
Long illness.
Sudden death.
Young children.
Grown children.
No children.
Six children.
A will.
No will.
Suicide.
Natural death.
Married 35 years.
Together 3 years.

The differences matter not.
We here are all in this together.
Because this much I know:
Grief is grief.

And it sucks.