Guaruj

Today is July 4th. I don't call it "The Fourth of July" anymore. Most Americans enjoy today as a mid-summer holiday. They go to cook-outs with family and friends, then they watch fireworks after dark. I don't do those things any more, because Catherine died two years ago today.

I have been thinking of her all weekend. On Friday, I left work early to meet up with my mother- and sister-in-law. We shopped for flowers to plant on Catherine's grave. I planted those flowers with my parents on Saturday. Sunday was the only day I did any real socializing. I skated with the club in the morning, then skated again that afternoon with an old friend whom I don't get to see very often. We then went to a bar, drank and ate dinner. I explained to him that many widowed people find these anniversaries difficult to endure.

Today I met my mother-in-law for lunch after visiting Catherine's grave. We do this on three anniversaries: Catherine's birthday, our wedding anniversary and July 4th (formerly known as "The Fourth of July"). We met at the Italian restaurant near where she lives. I considered ordering a brick-oven pizza with olives and capers, but then I remembered how much Catherine hated capers. I ordered a Margherita pizza instead. I went home and did chores after that.

My parents asked me if I'm watching the fireworks tonight. I told them I wouldn't, even though they will be broadcast on television. I'm just not interested.

I don't feel that Catherine's death "spoiled" this holiday for me. Frankly, I'm glad to know I can spend this day remembering her without any interference from work or other day-to-day responsibilities. I know I won't be going to work on this day, and I know that I have will very limited opportunities to do any personal business. If Catherine were still alive, I'd be spending today with her. I'm doing my best to at least spend it with her in mind.

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I really looked forward to seeing all of you in Western Massachusetts tomorrow, but -as JeanGenie already noted - I won't be anywhere near there. I hope everyone has a great time, and that we all have a chance to meet again soon.

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After 20 months, I still have a huge amount of her stuff. I gave away some of her clothes and jewelry to her mother and sisters. Otherwise, hardly anything has moved. Since I use only electronic calendars, I still have calendars on the wall showing July 2014.

I thought I would start purging after one year, but nearly two years have passed and I have hardly done a thing about her possessions.

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For the first 5 months, I didn't want to go out in public at all. I certainly couldn't go to any restaurants or bars. Sometimes I went to the gym. I would get up early (5:00 AM), visit my wife's grave for 5 or 10 minutes, then get to work by 7:00 AM. I would then leave work early to go home, eat dinner and go to bed early.

I still maintain some of these habits, like getting up early. I visited my wife's grave this morning, as I did on Saturday and Sunday. I'm happy to say that it no longer bothers me to go out in public.

Hang in there! Keep us posted.

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I'm sorry this happened to your mom. I hope you and your family are doing well in spite of this.

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Hi Rudy -

I'd also like to join you at Monadnock.

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Hi Kenneth -

I hope you're feeling better these days.

The only thing that kept me going so far is my pursuit of finding a headstone worthy of her which I'm still working on and trying to setup so that our 2 golden retrievers will be taken cared if I no longer can.

I also found it helpful to commission my wife's headstone. Unless you live in the southern hemisphere (where winter is starting), now is a good time to start working on that. It does take work, and you can't make it happen in just a week or two - it took me about 3 months from first contacting the dealer to when the stone was finally in place. That caused me some anxiety along the way, but only because Winter was approaching.

Speaking of anxiety...

She gave me Adavan but not too many just to see if it helped.  I rarely use it.  Sometimes it helps, sometimes it seems to make it worse (which is why I hesitate to use it).

When my wife, Catherine, was in treatment for cancer, she suffered frequent anxiety attacks (and I could scarcely blame her for that). She found that Ativan worked wonders for her, but everyone is different. As far as I know, you should not drive a car when taking that drug.

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Happy Easter, everyone.

I'm going to visit Catherine's grave. I may stop by a florist along the way for an Easter basket filled with flowers. I'm also watering the shrubs I planted last fall so that they may flower this spring.

I just spoke to my mother in law. She told me that she missed how she and Catherine gave each other chocolate on Easter, so I'll leave some chocolate on her doorstep. I'm seeing her for lunch on Friday.

Then I'll visit my parents for Easter dinner.

So, I have plans for today. I guess the not-yet-widowed would find these plans depressing, but they work for me.

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JeanGenie -

Thank you for hosting this. Either date works for me. I would prefer May 1st, only because it's sooner.

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My SIL and her family are different even before my husband's passing if we were invited over the whole family would disappear and we would be left in the living room by ourselves. 

Her family does not sound like a happy one. This level of social dysfunction also suggests that neither parent worked very hard to teach these children any manners.

She invited us over for a few hours on Easter Sunday.  It has to be a only a few hours because her husband's family is coming over.

I have to assume that she meant well by inviting you. Even so, she might actually be relieved if you turned her down nicely.

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I'm meeting my parents for dinner on Easter Sunday. I keep meaning to invite my mother-in-law over for a pot roast, but I've let the house become an absolute mess of dust, cat hair and unopened mail. It's now a big deal if I socialize with anybody these days.

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I very much agree with this:

A better approach, in my opinion is to channel your energy into helping her walk the path that she has walked and make plans for your recovery after. Whether that's spending time with a  friend, or collapsing into bed, or whatever.

I don't (yet) have the experience of helping someone through their first days of widowhood. But I recall one case of helping someone get through something that terrified us both. Years ago, I was skiing in Utah with some friends. We all came from New England, where the mountains are much smaller. Ski slopes can be surprisingly steep, but this one in Utah was much steeper and longer than anything I'd been on before. It was terrifying - it looked like you could tumble downhill for half a mile with no hope of stopping.

One of my friends was stuck just below the top. There was no going uphill, only downhill. What my friend needed to do was turn around and ski across the face of the hill, but he didn't have the confidence to make the turn. I talked to him and demonstrated how to do it. As I did that, I actually became more comfortable with the situation.

I have had the same experience before and since, but this one was by far the most dramatic. You can get through a challenge with more confidence if you're ready to show someone else how to do it.

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March has been a busy month for me, so I'm tuning in quite late...

I think the romanticizing is the way people try to deal with their own fears about death - theirs or a loved one. People who have been through it are not going to use the same language.

 

[...]

 

When my LH was ill and after his death, there was another widow in the local news because both she and her LH were columnists for the local paper. It bugged the shit out of me that support just rolled in for them during his illness and for her after. And she wrote about widowhood as though it was some self-help discovery journey. Eat, Pray, Die. Ugh.

These are cases of the press exploiting one person's narcissism to satisfy the public's voyeurism. They follow a familiar pattern. If it's televised, you usually see a female reporter presenting the story with phony gushes of sympathy and praise. Never mind that she'll be off to the next assignment once she finishes the voice-over work.

I lost patience with sensational reports of other people's suffering even before Catherine died. I still find myself turning the page or changing the channel when I see it now.

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Thank you for posting this. I subscribe to the New Yorker, but I'm always one or two issues behind until I take a long trip.

From the article:

Tedeschi and Calhoun had spent a decade surveying bereaved parents. Despite their pain and suffering, the couples consistently reported that they had undergone positive personal transformations, too. ?One common theme,? Calhoun told me, ?is that they say, ?I still miss my child, I yearn for my child and get depressed, but I?m a different person?more compassionate and empathetic.? ?

After 19 months, I'd like to believe that this quote describes me, but I always assume that I've "had it easy" since Catherine died.

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Tatiana -

I'm glad you find it helpful to come here. I hope we see more of you.

Today was exactly two weeks since the entombment, he wanted to be put into a wall...We joked about it when he was alive, but i am so relieved that i was able to arrange for his final wish. When i was driving to visit him, strangely i felt almost happy in anticipation to see him, almost as if we had a date. This is all so sad and pathetic. I brought our baby to show her off to him, how she is thriving and growing. He would be so proud!

Please don't describe yourself as "pathetic" for doing this. Cemeteries exist so that the bereaved (such as yourself) may do these things. I lost my wife, Catherine, in July 2014. Like Maureen, I visited her grave nearly every day during my first year of widowhood. I was there this morning tending to the grass and shrubs. And, yes, I do talk to her while I'm there. It's not rational behavior, but it is human.

As you already noticed, it's helpful to you to remain as faithful to your spouse's wishes as possible.

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p.s. I thought it was wonderful that you brought baby with you to visit your husband.

I make 2 K-Cups at home, put in my own cream and sugar, and have it on my desk at work. I bring my own coffee cup from home, that I bring home every night and put in the dishwasher.

The K-Cups can be expensive to use on a regular basis. Have you found a way around that?

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Hi Tatiana -

I'm very sorry to hear that you lost your husband. I hope you find yourself in good company here.

Today i had a major melt down in the supermarket. My LH and i had a routine when we would shop every Saturday at Trader Joe's and buy food for an entire week. I could not even step a foot into that store!

As others have already mentioned, it's not easy going to the supermarket during your first few months of widowhood. I avoided going out in public as much as possible during those days. My regular supermarket was quite large and always busy, so I didn't go there (also, the whole company went on strike at that time).

I tried shopping at another large supermarket, but I hated it and I was constantly disoriented there. I found it much easier to go to a small supermarket, which happened to be... Trader Joe's.

Do you have another Trader Joe's location nearby which might not trigger so much distress?

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Okay, I hadn't planned to post an update to my post as it is rather embarrassing, but I have been encouraged to do so to hopefully give some of you a laugh.

Well, it sure gave me a laugh!

My cat has clawed at least 3 rugs in the house. I'd much prefer to lose a power strip.

SailorGirl - I am so sorry that this happened. Please continue to let all of us know how you are.

So yesterday I was in my kitchen which opens into my living room. From the living room, I heard a very loud pop sound - like on of those cork guns but louder.

Sounds like a short circuit, or possibly a power surge.

All was still plugged in, but there was a hot wire smell. The cable box felt pretty warm, but I don't ever feel it to know if it always gets that warm.

Can you isolate the source of the smell?  Is it from the TV, the cable box or something else?

The cable box felt pretty warm, but I don't ever feel it to know if it always gets that warm.

Was the cable box getting adequate ventilation - open space above it and on the sides?

The breaker is flipped in the breaker box. I am afraid to flip it back on and retry the TV as I'm afraid it will catch on fire.

It's a good idea to unplug everything before you flip the breaker back on. Make sure you have a fully-charged fire extinguisher with an ABC rating. I could suggest other steps, but since I'm not an electrician and I can't see inside your home, it might be best if you contacted a professional electrician about this.

Hopefully this is just a case of your cable box shorting out. The cable company should replace that.

Keep us posted!

I also noticed a full moon shining into my window before dawn this morning. To the best of my understanding, it did not transform me into a werewolf.

It was incredibly cold here today. I took two heart-shaped cookies to Catherine's grave. I left one for her while I at the other. Then I did a few errands and went home.

It was brutally cold here today; it never got more than 10 degrees above zero (Fahrenheit). I had bought a bunch of stuff for my parents at Costco, and they said they'd stop by my house to pick it up. I got restless after lunch and asked them to instead meet me at Catherine's cemetery.

I took with me two heart-shaped cookies from a bakery we both loved. I left one in the snow just in front of her grave while I ate the other. I was really glad to get outside of the house, despite the cold. At least we had sunny skies and lots of snow on the ground.

No pajamas yet, but I plan to be in bed by 10:00 (it's 9:30 now). I'm winding my day down with another glass of Costco bourbon. I got a lot done today: Went to the optician to adjust 2 pairs of glasses, got my haircut, went to Costco and the supermarket. At home, I washed my (very dirty) ski jacket, then cleaned and waxed my snowblower.

The cat is glad to have me home tonight.

So, I'm 3 years & almost 3 months out from my hubby dying, 2 years and 8 months since my Mom died; both of my bestest friends...and life blows.

My life kinda blows, too, though I don't really tell anyone.

I spent most of my day screwing up at work because I couldn't take time off, the rest of the time I've been unwillingly fantasizing about what today would have been like if Daniel were here. He absolutely loved anniversaries, he was so perfectly corny. He would have surprised me with something silly first thing this morning, then pestered me all day, dropping hints & leaving clues to some "big" plan.

Can you do something "for him", just to honor these memories?

Also, did I mention that I decided on Sunday that when I ran out of cigarettes I was done? Guess who finally ran out today!! Ugh!

That's a tough habit to break. Are you doing this "cold turkey", or are you using any cessation aids?

Just rambling because no one else gets it; I mean, "good God, it's been 3 years(drawn out like they do); he'd want you to be happy." Assholes.

I didn't really need to look up the word "asshole" in the dictionary, but that's something I enjoy doing anyway. Merriam-Webster had this definition:

  a stupid, incompetent, or detestable person

In my own mind, it's the "detestable" people - those who don't care to treat others well - that deserve to be called "assholes". The assholes you mention here may qualify as stupid and/or incompetent, but not detestable. If it's possible to be a well-intentioned asshole, that's probably what they are. I hope you don't behave detestably in response, for that would be far more assholish.

And, by the way, that dictionary page has an audio button that recites the word "asshole" in case anyone "needs help" with its pronunciation. I would have been thrilled to have a machine that uttered swear words when I was a kid.  ;D