Today has been a "live my life" day in general. I've sorted and tried to identify rocks (mineral specimens), blogged, emailed, put things away, went to the flea market to collect things left by another vendor in hopes of being able to sell or use them (with Jeremy's help) and read a while.
I got four boxes of the things I'd ordered for the store and supplies for me. I even have looked through some of them. There is a lot of work to do there.
One thing came to me today. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I'm 61 years old and with the exception of my arthritis and the nerve damage in functional joints like hands, wrists, knees and feet I am in excellent health. I do need to exercise more and I'm working on that (Its a slow, slow path back to physical fitness). The realization is that I might just live as long after JD as I lived with him. It could easily happen that I reach 90 or nearly so. That's a lot of years stretching out in front of me.
For now I will live in the now with some work on the immediate future. It is too much to contemplate almost three decades without him.
As my life evolves I find the need to present this blog in a new light. It is about all life experiences since I'm living without my husband of more than a quarter century. This blog is about me, my life, thoughts, ramblings and experiences plus those of people with whom I share life. Join us. Your insights could be very helpful.
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Showing posts with label Month 3 Jan 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Month 3 Jan 2010. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
WidowIsland Fellow Travelers
I tried to post a comment but it said I could not. That only members of the blog could post. Here is the comment anyway, for you: "
I wish I was there to give you a hug. I understand so completely. I lost my Bill on March 6, 2006. It was a Saturday and he passed at 6:15 a.m. from lung cancer. We had two and a half months after his diagnoses ... but that passed like hours instead of months. I keep feeling like it is a all a big misunderstanding and he will come through the door at any moment. That it is some kind of stupid game we are playing ... but it is not. It is real and it hurts like nothing else has ever hurt before. The pain is real and it hits on so many different levels. It can come out of nowhere at the whiff of cologne, the memory of a song, a sunset. There are so many things that trigger it. Each day is like making my way through a field of land mines. I never know when something is going to trigger off a memory and the pain come crashing down on me. No one can understand unless they have walked this walk ... and it is a walk that I pray no one ever has to make ... for you feel so terribly, terribly alone."
I wish I was there to give you a hug. I understand so completely. I lost my Bill on March 6, 2006. It was a Saturday and he passed at 6:15 a.m. from lung cancer. We had two and a half months after his diagnoses ... but that passed like hours instead of months. I keep feeling like it is a all a big misunderstanding and he will come through the door at any moment. That it is some kind of stupid game we are playing ... but it is not. It is real and it hurts like nothing else has ever hurt before. The pain is real and it hits on so many different levels. It can come out of nowhere at the whiff of cologne, the memory of a song, a sunset. There are so many things that trigger it. Each day is like making my way through a field of land mines. I never know when something is going to trigger off a memory and the pain come crashing down on me. No one can understand unless they have walked this walk ... and it is a walk that I pray no one ever has to make ... for you feel so terribly, terribly alone."
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The beginning after the end
Why am I writing this? Well, its cathartic for one thing. Another reason is that out there somewhere, someplace at some time my words might show someone they are not alone.
This blog will contain postings from others as well. Others who know the pain of loss as we do. Some are articulate and some are not. All are from the heart. And writing from the heart is what counts.
This particular blog is about widows and widowers, whether officially married or not. Its the love that counts. I do believe that there will be understanding found here no matter the relationship to the one lost. Be it Brother, Sister, Mother, Father, Cousin, Aunt, Uncle or dear Friend the understanding of the pain of loss and the process of grief is here.
Certainly many of us here have suffered those losses too. Life does not give only one pain or only one joy to each person.
In time we will learn to celebrate our memories and take joy in the fact that we had something in our lives that had so much value that losing it caused this deep abiding pain. I already have moments of that but my loss is still too fresh, the wound still open and bleeding.
So take your time. Read as much or as little as has value for you. You are not alone.
This blog will contain postings from others as well. Others who know the pain of loss as we do. Some are articulate and some are not. All are from the heart. And writing from the heart is what counts.
This particular blog is about widows and widowers, whether officially married or not. Its the love that counts. I do believe that there will be understanding found here no matter the relationship to the one lost. Be it Brother, Sister, Mother, Father, Cousin, Aunt, Uncle or dear Friend the understanding of the pain of loss and the process of grief is here.
Certainly many of us here have suffered those losses too. Life does not give only one pain or only one joy to each person.
In time we will learn to celebrate our memories and take joy in the fact that we had something in our lives that had so much value that losing it caused this deep abiding pain. I already have moments of that but my loss is still too fresh, the wound still open and bleeding.
So take your time. Read as much or as little as has value for you. You are not alone.
Unreality
It has now been ten weeks and four and 1/ 2 days, give or take a few hours, since JD died. I do not at this moment know how to explain what I'm feeling.
Its been getting harder and harder to go to bed to sleep. Just an hour ago I thought I could sleep. After all it was past three AM! And just as I was settling myself I unthinkingly reached out, as was my habit, to touch him, to just feel him sleeping there. I almost always stayed up later than he since his accident in 1992. And I would just touch him at night, taking comfort in his warmth and feeling safe and loved because he was there. I'd often reach over and kiss his shoulder as he lay sleeping with his back towards me.
Tonight I reached and he was not there. I lost it entirely. I began sobbing so hard. Then I got up and turned on the light as I could not deal with the darkness. Still sobbing I put on slippers, its a very cold night. The anger at being alone, the feeling that it is not right for him to be gone took me over and I began to pummel the bed with my fists whispering "no", "no", "no" as I did on the night when I got the hysterical call from our daughter. I cried so hard I began to choke and gasp for air.
So unbeautifully does nose run when you cry like this. There is no beauty in grief.
It is so empty, so very, very empty. Part of my soul has gone.
I got up and searched through his big stack of hats. I've gotten rid of most of his clothing and shoes but I still have almost all his western hats that he loved so well and looked so good wearing. I found two that still have traces of his scent and stood for a few minutes with my face buried in them. It must have looked ridiculous, had there been anyone to see.
Then I turned to the videos of our wonderful 2008 vacation. I have his voice, his laughter, his belches, his face and his body image captured there. I don't have enough. They're all so short! But I was recording the vacation and not him. After all we knew we had many years left to enjoy each other's company. We knew wrongly. When I took those videos we had only about 16 months left. It is not right.
He was such a good man. He had so many talents and so much knowledge to share. He shared so freely too. He was so very alive I still cannot believe him dead even though I held his cold hand, touched his cold face and watched them zip him up in that nasty black bag to take him away from me forever. I held our daughter and our sons as we cried for him. I heard so many of his friends tell of ways in which he changed their lives for the better. I threw his ashes on the river as he asked.
But it cannot be true. I cannot be just me when for so long I was half of us.
I turned the computer back on and played two games of solitaire, that mindless repetitive game that I used to play when he was watching something on TV that didn't interest me. That has two effects. It calms me with its repetitiveness and makes me feel as if any moment he will come in and want to go to bed so I'll have to turn off the computer and either join him or go into the other room to read.
He is not coming in to ask me to turn it off. He will not warm the bed so I'm not cold when I get in. I will not hear that soft snore that's all that was left after he had the sinus polyps removed. He will not laugh that now I am the one who wakes us up snoring. He won't come up behind me, put his head on my left shoulder and give me a little hug. He is gone and I am so lost.
Its been getting harder and harder to go to bed to sleep. Just an hour ago I thought I could sleep. After all it was past three AM! And just as I was settling myself I unthinkingly reached out, as was my habit, to touch him, to just feel him sleeping there. I almost always stayed up later than he since his accident in 1992. And I would just touch him at night, taking comfort in his warmth and feeling safe and loved because he was there. I'd often reach over and kiss his shoulder as he lay sleeping with his back towards me.
Tonight I reached and he was not there. I lost it entirely. I began sobbing so hard. Then I got up and turned on the light as I could not deal with the darkness. Still sobbing I put on slippers, its a very cold night. The anger at being alone, the feeling that it is not right for him to be gone took me over and I began to pummel the bed with my fists whispering "no", "no", "no" as I did on the night when I got the hysterical call from our daughter. I cried so hard I began to choke and gasp for air.
So unbeautifully does nose run when you cry like this. There is no beauty in grief.
It is so empty, so very, very empty. Part of my soul has gone.
I got up and searched through his big stack of hats. I've gotten rid of most of his clothing and shoes but I still have almost all his western hats that he loved so well and looked so good wearing. I found two that still have traces of his scent and stood for a few minutes with my face buried in them. It must have looked ridiculous, had there been anyone to see.
Then I turned to the videos of our wonderful 2008 vacation. I have his voice, his laughter, his belches, his face and his body image captured there. I don't have enough. They're all so short! But I was recording the vacation and not him. After all we knew we had many years left to enjoy each other's company. We knew wrongly. When I took those videos we had only about 16 months left. It is not right.
He was such a good man. He had so many talents and so much knowledge to share. He shared so freely too. He was so very alive I still cannot believe him dead even though I held his cold hand, touched his cold face and watched them zip him up in that nasty black bag to take him away from me forever. I held our daughter and our sons as we cried for him. I heard so many of his friends tell of ways in which he changed their lives for the better. I threw his ashes on the river as he asked.
But it cannot be true. I cannot be just me when for so long I was half of us.
I turned the computer back on and played two games of solitaire, that mindless repetitive game that I used to play when he was watching something on TV that didn't interest me. That has two effects. It calms me with its repetitiveness and makes me feel as if any moment he will come in and want to go to bed so I'll have to turn off the computer and either join him or go into the other room to read.
He is not coming in to ask me to turn it off. He will not warm the bed so I'm not cold when I get in. I will not hear that soft snore that's all that was left after he had the sinus polyps removed. He will not laugh that now I am the one who wakes us up snoring. He won't come up behind me, put his head on my left shoulder and give me a little hug. He is gone and I am so lost.
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