Dahlia

I did a lot of anticipatory grieving for my Scott. We both did. We knew it was ending, and we were both horrified and heart broken. When it finally happened, I learned though that all of the grieving prepared me not even a little bit for the life after. It's something I don't understand. My whole world and my sense of self changed in a minute. After all of the preparation, all of the thought, all of the emotions, I still had this radical shift in everything I thought I knew to be true. I still felt like I had suddenly discovered that the world was "grisly, fierce and appalling" (to quote Douglas Mawson). I had prepared myself to grieve in a world I understood and as a person I knew, but that was gone and my grief is chaotic.

fctyler: I totally get it. My dad died of kidney cancer about a year before they were able to dramatically increase the survival rate, and it annoyed me to no end. Not because i begrudged people their survival, but because I wished they could have been a little quicker. However, my daughter was recently diagnosed with the underlying cause of my dad's kidney cancer, and the thought that she has a far higher chance of surviving what killed him has changed my perspective. It took nearly fifteen years, but I am ready to be happy about the progress now.

I think we do get into patterns. I do, at least. I always get irrationally stressed when i am out for more than an hour because for years and years, I couldn't be gone for more than an hour. I have an internal clock that immediately starts warning me to get home. My heart races, and I try to figure out how to extricate myself from the conversation. I can ignore it now, but it definitely impacts me regularly. Everyday for the last 2.5 years was super challenging and a constant fight against death, so I don't have the same experience as you. I do find I need a lot more exercise to just get through everyday. I have so much extra energy that needs an outlet.

I really have no words for these stories. I don't even have to tell my story since everyone has told it already. Here's a poem that I think of when I reflect on the caregiving for someone so strong, so intelligent, so lovely who became an empty shell and passed out of my life. I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light?s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away. I am gall, I am heartburn. God?s most deep decree Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to be As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

Once again, anniegirl, you are expressing my life. I had six broken hours of sleep last night, but at this point, that feels really good than the two I was averaging. I was doing yoga last night, and the teacher/whatever said, "Yoga is all about balancing effort and surrender." And I thought that is it. That is what I am being asked to do this year. I can't really move forward all of the time. I have to surrender sometimes. I have to construct my life so it can lay fallow for a little while. It goes against all of my training and education, but it is necessary for my health and well-being to let things go.

You are welcome. I rarely tell my story either and certainly couldn't in such detail. It's too hard. I don't think I have enough words anyway. I understand the need to tell it. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, anniegirl for sharing. It has helped me so much. Last night, I was journaling, and I was thinking about all of the people I love who have either died or are about to die. My father died 18 years ago from cancer, and it was a difficult six months in which I did the bulk of the caregiving. My husband died in March after 16 years of fighting a brain tumor that robbed him slowly of so much. My mom has severe Alzheimer's and in the last few weeks has lost everything that made her her. One of my best friends has stage four colon cancer and the doctors just can't get it under control. Someone said to me, "Everyone has burdens. Maybe your burden is that almost everyone you love will slowly die in front of you." So, I am writing about this last night, but all I can get out is a half a paragraph. Nothing else. I go to my daughter, and we talk about our feelings of Scott's presence in our lives, and she said, "I know he is with me. I am almost exactly like him, and I can just hear him, see him in everything I do." And I thought that maybe I just will never feel that he is still here because he and I were opposites (who attracted like mad). But reading your story made me realize that on one hand, I have already done a lot of grieving as he lay in a facility unable to do anything much. And that maybe it is just too painful for me to feel he is with me just yet. To reflect on our life together and what we actually lost might actually kill me at this point. I wish I could be more clear about what your story meant to me. To know you walked those hallways and had those conversations, worries and shriveled dreams just matters. In a terrible, awful way.

I just signed up to support a local foundation that will guarantee all children in my town have the financial ability to attend higher education. I am going to create a scholarship in Scott's name. Scott loved learning and enjoyed himself immensely whether it was traffic school or grad school. He also believed all children, regardless of their family's finances, should have the opportunity to go to college. I am excited about creating something like that for him. It means I can't afford a little teardrop trailer this year, but whatever. I'm just so excited about doing this for him.

I told you once to always try to have a good relationship with your in-laws, and I still believe it is in your best interests to keep as many people in your life as possible. But the issue here is that someone is hateful, afraid and incapable of self-realization, so they turn that shit on to you. They take a part of your identity that is real and valid and change it into something unreal and invalid. Fight it, fight that injustice as much as possible. Having said that, I hope you don't look as the entire family as feeling that way. Families are complex and built on mutual dependence, so people may appear to agree with someone awful, but they really don't. The right people will shake themselves free of people like this. Please keep yourself open to a good relationship with some people who share your wife's DNA. Your ability to visualize a lovely future will serve you well.... I believe in you.

I understand, of course, the desire for some structure. I started seeing a therapist so she could tell me what was right and wrong. Unfortunately, she refused. She suggested I journal my thoughts when I am confused or overwhelmed. I thought it was hippie claptrap, but decided to try it. I now have a journal named Endurance that has all my ramblings, all of my crazy worries, everything; and, it really does help me figure out who I am and what I need. I, too, had a date for everything in my future, but I realized that I had enough dates to worry over (his birthday, our anniversaries, etc...), so I don't have a date for anything in this process. For me, time has to stop ruling my life, and I have to just listen to my own self on a daily basis. My therapist told me that relearning who I am as an individual is a great gift, but I saw it was a pain in the ass. It's a lot of work and often uncomfortable. But, I now feel that in the future, I will see this experience as a gift (with much too high of a price tag). And I will do what Scott told me repeatedly to do: let no one but me tell me what is right and what will make me happy. He firmly believed in self-respect, and I always let people guide me. Now, finally, I am getting a handle on captaining my own ship. I sincerely believe you have the tools to do the same. You have consistently struck me as a truly lovely, intelligent person.

I took mine off within the first two months for two reasons: first, I heard that many widows felt a fresh sense of grief when they took it off; and second, I heard people nudge you and wink if it is more than a year after the death (as if you are advertising you are sexually available again and not emotionally processing something difficult). I wanted as much despair as possible to happen as soon as possible. I also didn't think people would read it as being available given how fresh everything was. Oddly, men do seem to be reading the absence as an invitation. While it is flattering, it is also highly weird for me and not at all something I am ready for. So, I suggest you be ready for people to think you are available and have a response that is appropriate for your situation. Kimberly

I, too, often feel a sickening sense of pointlessness. (Interestingly, my friends who are getting divorced report much the same feeling.) Because I took care of Scott for so long (nearly three years), I had a very real point to every moment of my day. Now, I sit in a largely empty house and some days the point is hard to find. What I am doing when I feel that way is to try and remind myself of the little points in my life. I have thousands, or at least hundreds, of small points and while they can't replace the big point ever, they can build me up just enough to keep moving forward (like my husband told me to). I always want to get up and talk to the kids; see what messes the pets are going to make; enjoy nature; run the company my husband started and, one of these days when Netflix gets its act together, see the last season of Parks and Recreation. The other thing that helped me with this feeling is just telling people in my life how I felt. I told people who wouldn't judge me or call a suicide hotline. They needed to just listen to me process those feelings. It really does help to have a dialogue with someone about this stuff, even if they have no way of understanding my life right now. Anyway, I hope you continue to work through all of this in whatever way you can. We are all walking up a steep and treacherous mountain: whatever you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other (so long as it is mostly legal) is fine with me.

I have no idea where they got the book. I received it from USAA, which is a fine institution that often gives me empowering and useful strategies for living my best possible life, but this book? Not so much. It did give me a laugh, though.

One of my financial institutions sent me a book of helpful tips for the new widow. It said that most widows have a certain time of day that is particularly challenging. Their advice was to schedule a card game with friends or to clean the oven during this hour or two. Apparently I need to start throwing slumber parties so I can wake people up at 2 a.m. for a little Bridge or Gin Rummy. Or I can just get up in the middle of the night and attempt a complex cleaning ritual full of poisonous fumes and high levels of heat. I do sometimes wonder why the world has gone mad....

Thanks! So much better!

This discussion has shown me that sometimes it's okay to not "accomplish" anything of note. I have a different perspective on a lot of this. My husband had a brain tumor for sixteen years. The last three were particularly difficult, and I spent the majority of my time attending to him. I accomplished a lot just by sitting by his bed and letting him know I was there. When I lost him, I became super super productive. All of the things I had put off, I embraced. Everyday when I went to bed, I could count ten to twenty accomplishments. But those accomplishments, while nice, were, in a sense, an avoidance strategy on my part. After looking over this discussion, I realized I needed to leave time for being sad, for grieving, for quiet reflection, for anger or for whatever emotion I might be having. So, I hope that when people have days that seem to have been nothing more than standing in one place and being miserable, they say, "Hmm, maybe just giving myself a day like this is an accomplishment, too. Tomorrow, maybe, I'll have a different type of day."

I hope your feelings of frustration passes and you can build a relationship with them that is mutually stressful for all, not just you. I believe they do care for you, and they are grateful for what you are doing, but they don't know the extent of your pain and probably can't handle knowing the extent of your pain. They may need to keep you at arm's length for a while because you are a reminder of not just their daughter, but their daughter who grew up, moved away and created a life for herself away from them. After that, you may still have to be the one to do most of the work. I know my father-in-law cares for me, but he does expect that I'll do most of the work in staying connected to him. It's my job to find a weekend that works for him, buy the plane ticket, set up the rental car and the lodging, convince him to leave the warmth of his television set and venture out into the world, talk about whatever he wants to discuss, however distant it is to my life, tolerate a few passive-aggressive comments about some aspect of my life and thank him prettily for the chance to be with him. So, you know, exactly what I have to do with my own family.... I'm happy to do so simply because a wonderful man with sparkling blue eyes made me very happy for 24 years.

I am so glad you handled the day so well! Eight days after my husband died was the 24th anniversary of our first date (on St. Patrick's Day). I was dreading it, but my daughter and I sat watching a sunset over the ocean and just at the exact same moment when my husband and I kissed for the first time, a humpback whale started breaching himself over and over in the water. After a while he got tired and just started slapping the water with his tail. I felt like we get little gifts, little graces, through friends, family, nature, the things we love to help fill the void of the massive grace we got from the one we loved best. Our wedding anniversary is coming up, so who knows how awful that will be. But your experience is a reminder that I need to get out in the world and find joy and beauty on that day even as I want to stay inside under the covers crying.

To be filed under "WTF???" I am in the midst of an ugly text battle with my husband's sister about the memorial service. We have two planned, one where he grew up and one where he spent the bulk of his life. She is attending the one where he grew up, and she wants it to have everything. I am parceling out some of the details so the people in both places can honor and celebrate him. As a younger sister, she is used to my husband giving way when she threw a fit, so I think she wants me to do the same, but I refuse. These services are for Scott and for everyone in his life. I can't believe at this time in my life someone would be such a pain and source of constant stress. His parents are lovely. They want everything, too, but they understand that they can't have everything. They really just want us to come together and remember what a wonderful man he was, peacefully and gratefully. That is what I want, too. I've blocked her, and I am going to do whatever I can at the memorial to avoid her. She just won't stop badgering me. Kimberly

This is how I feel when I reply twice:

I'm in that place, too. The last stanza of this poem encapsulates the sense I have right now: After great pain, a formal feeling comes ? (372) BY EMILY DICKINSON After great pain, a formal feeling comes ? The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs ? The stiff Heart questions ?was it He, that bore,? And ?Yesterday, or Centuries before?? The Feet, mechanical, go round ? A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought ? Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone ? This is the Hour of Lead ? Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow ? First ? Chill ? then Stupor ? then the letting go ? I expect everything will work itself out, the shock will pass, and I'll burst into loud, anguished sobs in the checkout line of Target one day.

Actually, I do think some divorces have a lot in common with my situation. A good friend of mine's husband walked out on Christmas Eve after 25 years of marriage. She never saw it coming, and her very stable life suddenly became completely unstable. She had a lot less money, a lot more work and her children were struggling. She worked really hard for a future that was denied to her. I feel she really understands a lot of the reality I am in. We text each other a lot as we sit on the couch watching netflix 2000 miles apart. But maybe the point is that she didn't tell me the similarities in a bid to make me feel better, but she and I just talked normally about our lives and saw the similarities together. It's when people try to minimize the pain that I get annoyed.

Thanks for the reply. I have had newly divorced women, and some married women, insinuate that they are jealous of me. It's so weird. I would have been so happy if Scott got better and divorced me because he would be alive, and I would see him once in a while. Divorce would have been a small price to pay for all that I would gain. But no one really understands. BTW, I love that Auden poem. I recite it to myself sometimes. And, another BTW, my husband was born the day after your husband (but a year before).

Hi, everyone. I'm a 45 year old window. My husband died on the 9th of March from a recurrent brain tumor. We fought it hard for 16 years, and made sure we really lived during that time. We started a successful small business, traveled, raised our lovely two kids to something like adulthood, fell in love regularly with each other and just tried to live every day like it could be our last. Still, though, I can't believe our last day together actually happened. I had always hoped we would be one of the lucky ones. My husband was amazingly fit and healthy except for the brain tumor, and so I hoped his good health and our good health insurance would help him to stick around for a long, long time. I was shooting for both of us dying on our 90th wedding anniversary in an accident involving an experimental race car and an illegal sex act. Something guaranteed to stain the family name for decades to come. It was not to be, though. I find this state of widowhood difficult to bear sometimes because I have become his ambassador in the world with his family and friends. I feel compelled to be kind and friendly even when people say ignorant or unintentionally cruel things. One of his friends compared what I was going through to the loss of his dad. I lost my dad eighteen years ago, and it was awful, painful and horrifying, but this experience is far worse. I saw my dad every day, and he was one of my best friends, but Scott was my everything: he was my best friend, my favorite companion, my lover, my partner, the father of my delightful children, my sounding board and the most handsome man I know. To compare the two is to do justice to neither experience. To be polite at that moment is almost more than I can bear, but I am. I tell people that they are wrong in the most gentle way I know how even when I am dying to just swear at them. I know a lot of my anger is at the situation, too. My children and I are together right now, which helps a lot. My daughter is pursuing a doctorate in the United Kingdom, but she came home to be with her dad and is staying until the memorial service. My son is still in high school. They are responding in different ways. My son is only 17, so he is in denial about a lot of what he is going through right now. That is a perfectly normal response, but my daughter and I are gently working to get him to a recognition of what is happening.We are all going to sign up for some time with a therapist soon, not to fix the unfixable, but to accept the distorted reality we now inhabit. My true, good friends are super helpful. They leave me alone when I need it and are there when I need someone. They understand that they don't understand, which really helps. They don't try to make me feel better with cliches or suggestions, but they just listen and respond sincerely. My husband's family has been pretty wonderful, too. In this experience, they have become my family, and we are all looking out for each other. I thought I would only need my own crazy family, but, apparently, I need two crazy families. His parents have suffered such a devastating loss, a loss I cannot comprehend, but still they do what they can to help the kids and me. We return the favor, but it just always makes me so grateful that they are as generous and compassionate as they are. I have a lot to be grateful for, and that does help, but I have a long way to go before I can reconcile myself to this loss.