Your Deceased Husband...

I am always amazed at how people talk to me about my husband.  From the very beginning, I've gotten comments like "what was it like to watch your husband die?"  Really?  You want to know that?  That comment came on my first day back to work.  And then you have someone call you and ask you if your husband is dead.  That came in a phone call just three days after he died.  Not, I'm sorry for your loss, but IS HE DEAD?  Today, someone who knew that my husband was a video game fanatic, was talking to me about some new, fun toy that he had purchased, and he said, "I know your deceased husband loved to play games."  No kidding!  As if I didn't know that my husband was deceased.  I am aware of that every single day of my life.  He's still my husband, deceased or not.  Sometimes you have to laugh... 

Life Goes On...

It's been a year and a half since I started my journey.  It has been hard.  I won't kid anyone on that.  It continues to be hard, and every day brings some new feeling or emotion that makes me realize the journey continues.  A year and a half ago, I was feeling that drop-to-the-ground pain of my loss.  Today, the pain is still pretty raw, but I am also looking forward, taking steps to restart my life, and I guess I can only say that life goes on.

Grief is the Journey You'd Rather Not be on...

We know little to nothing about death and grief in this country.  We are totally sheltered from it, and because of that, I think we suffer more when we lose someone.  I'm not certain that anyone can be told ahead of time how hard that journey is or whether it would make any difference.  I only know that it is the hardest journey I have ever been on.  In the last year and a half, there have been moments of sadness, joy, anger, laughter, and drop-to-the-floor agonizing pain and loneliness.  And you never know from day to day what you will feel like.  The first year was hard, but the second year has been worse.  You wander through the first year pretty numb, getting through all of those "firsts" - first Christmas, first anniversary, first Father's Day - without him.  Everyone is there to hold you up and help you -- which is amazing and for which I am forever grateful.  But the second year, when everyone (rightfully so) has got to get on with their lives, the second year is worse.  It is the year when I realized that "reality is real".  The loss, loneliness, and pain just seems to wash over you in waves and it hurts - damn bad!

I mistakenly thought that after a year, I would have been through everything, all of those Grief Steps I've been told about, and could move on with my life.  Well, that's a big, fat crock!  How do you get over losing your best friend, your lover, you soulmate, your life?  You don't.  In the beginning, you just exist.  Then you begin to exist without him.  Then you begin to think about living again.  That is where I am right now.  I AM looking forward.  Trying to figure out how to begin again having survived the loss of my life, life as I knew it, when he died.

I am better, and I am going to survive this.  I can still laugh, I still enjoy my life, although greatly altered now, and I want happiness in my life.  I don't want this blog to be so depressing that no one will want to be here.  I just want people to know that there is life after death if you are willing to feel everything and go through all of the steps.  I wrote the following just four months into my grief, but in many ways, it's more true now than then.

The Rise and Fall of Grief

Rise and fall, like your chest with each breath

Like the ocean waves cresting and breaking

The emotional peaks of depression and elation

rule your life and your dreams.

Time slows to a crawl while you pick up the

pieces of your heart, wrenched from your body

by the flatline of your lover’s life.

Unimaginable pain that must be endured.

And then one day, you smile or laugh and

you don’t feel guilty for staying behind.

Glimpses of your life return slowly and

time begins to move again.

What is this life without your lover?

The shrine you have built is not enough.

You must take a step forward and fall back

into the arms of those left behind.

Strength begins to return, and one day you say

I’m fine, and are surprised to hear yourself say it.

But you aren’t fine, and you know it.

Loneliness looms like a dark cloud threatening

to overtake you while you run home and hide

in your bed, welcoming that fetal stance you are

now so familiar with.

But you say NO, this is not my life and my

lover would not want this for me. 

I do not want this for me! 

But I’m confused and don’t know what I want for me.

Perhaps more time, more moments of pain and joy

to finally set the course of my life.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Too far away to see more than a pinpoint.

But it’s there, and I just have to keep walking.

Allways always,

Ann