calmandcarryon Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 Thinking about you and sending love and strength today, Maureen. Hugs, Diane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimiRed Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 Maureen.... I love you!!! Lots of Hugs today! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Many tight hugs today, Maureen. You're such an inspiration for all of us here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheelerswife Posted July 24, 2015 Author Share Posted July 24, 2015 Well, it is done. We had the interment service this afternoon. I never really did come up with much of a plan. A neighbor of my friends here made some beautiful fresh flower arrangements. Someone got some roses. My friend Jim started us off with some heartfelt words about his experiences with John. Others added some words, too. I read a message that John wrote to Cheryl on the eve of the second anniversary of her death that spoke of his love for her. I talked about how that love continued but did not detract from our love. I talked about how John was everything that others had said about him and so much more. We placed roses with his ashes and some of his favorite dog Max's ashes in the grave, my SIL sang a Jewish prayer and his brother played a song. This was all pretty spontaneous...I had no idea what anyone planned to do or say. We shoveled onto the grave, let the gravedigger finish, and I placed a final rose on the ground. I left ahead of the others and quietly drove back to the house, taking an old road that overlooked the coast. Then we finished preparing dinner and went to the horse farm next door for dinner and a bonfire with some of the neighbors who had supported John after Cheryl died. I'm tired. No. I'm exhausted. I cried almost all day long. I cried as I read and I cried as I spoke. But...it is done. Tomorrow morning I will go back to the cemetery and leave some things there myself...some rocks I have picked up along this trip, and a soapstone polarbear that he loved. Maybe I'll have a conversation with the two of them. I don't know. I wish I believed I would see him again...but I don't. All I can do is remember him...the amazing and beautiful man who called himself polarbear. Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rifatheroffour Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 ((((((Maureen)))))) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trying Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Big hugs Maureen, you did it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momtokam Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Biggest hugs Maureen. ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonnaP Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Love you, sweetie! So sad right now. Life seems so unfair at times. Donna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheelerswife Posted July 25, 2015 Author Share Posted July 25, 2015 The cemetery. The flowers sit between Cheryl's stone and where we buried John's ashes. His complementing stone should be placed in about 6 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimiRed Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Beautiful, Maureen! (((Hugs))) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeanGenie Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Life is just so unfair at times. Wishing you peace and sending you virtual {{hugs}}. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheelerswife Posted July 26, 2015 Author Share Posted July 26, 2015 Thank you to so many of you who have followed this road trip. I'm on my way home. I'm glad I planned the interment so late in the trip. I think that it would have otherwise colored other parts of the trip in drab grey. I still feel the heaviness. I'm tired and emotionally drained. Today, I have plans to see people I knew in the mid 1980's when I lived in Virginia. One lives in Salt Lake City. His daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandsons are visiting from North Carolina. I haven't seen them since her wedding somewhere between 20 and 25 years ago. Then we head through southern Wyoming, into northern Colorado and by Tuesday or Wednesday, back to Kansas. I fly my niece home to New York State on Thursday, then I fly back to Kansas on Saturday. Monday...back to work and in 2 more weeks, school. I've faced a lot of grief on this trip. I've seen some really beautiful places and I've felt the absence of John very acutely. I've been with some great people, too. I've felt very torn between realizing that this world is awesome and worth the pain of trying to live fully in my loss...and just thinking it would be good to escape the pain and have cancer overtake me (which it isn't doing at all right now). I'm hoping, really, that this pain will relent and I can feel positive again. I want so badly to be happy. I've made it through the angst of loss once and I found an incredible second life of sorts. I can do that again, right? (Please let that answer be,"Yes!") Thanks for listening. The only place I can be truly honest is with my widow friends. Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trying Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 Maureen, the sheer fact that you put yourself out there, that you took on this enormous road trip, that you followed through with John's wishes shows the most amazing strength. You are actively choosing to live which means, to me, that your potential for joy and love more than possible. It is a tough road and you have to keep making that choice every day to embrace the life you have. Be patient with yourself as you recover the emotional toll this trip has taken on you, I am in awe that you accomplished all that you did. If anyone can do it again it's you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonnaP Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Hey sweetie! Of course the answer is "YES." None of us expected to find a second love. And yet we did. Sometimes, love just finds US. You have a lot to offer the right person. When the time is right... Good luck with the final leg of the trip. HUGS< Donna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catnip Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Peace to you and safe travels on your way home. What an incredible journey. ~Catnip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheelerswife Posted July 29, 2015 Author Share Posted July 29, 2015 Well, 14,000 miles (22,530 kilometers) later, I'm actually home. 14,000 miles of seeing beautiful scenery, missing John like crazy, imagining what the experience would have been like if he had been at my side through it all, feeling the pain of his absence. I realize just how much the medical crises in my life after he died really didn't allow me to grieve. I've grieved heavily over the last 8 weeks and muffled a lot of my crying because my niece was with me, but finally had no choice but to let go and just let the tears flow in the few days leading up to the interment. I don't know if I've ever been so low. The weight feels a bit less now. I think that is mostly because I have something new on which to focus my attention. I'm flying my niece home in 2 days, then flying back home and I go back to work in 6 days. 2 weeks later, I start school again. I seem to have the motor program in my brain to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe that is good. That program has gotten me through the 18 months since he died. Maybe it will move me to a place where I can start to see that the future can be good again? I sure hope it is possible to survive being widowed a second time. I was so happy. Darned happy. I want that again. I risked it... and I'd never been happier. Can I overcome this pain? I wouldn't have missed a single moment with him. That I clearly know. But this really, really hurts. Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimiRed Posted July 29, 2015 Share Posted July 29, 2015 Holy Smokes!! 14,000 miles!!! Wow, amazing! Is your butt sore from all that driving? It's amazing how our feet keep us going, and you have amazing strength, Maureen, just amazing. And, along the way, you constantly give others a part of that. I'm sure you feel like you ran a marathon because you are left feeling battered and broken. But, I know that it will not make you feel like giving up. The turbulence won?t last forever, you will come through it, and you will be left shaken, but ready to face another day. I love you...Sending you great BIG {{{HUGS}}} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursula Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 Maureen, I missed most of your trip, but have read your whole post just now. It shows a journey full of beauty and pain. I am truly sorry you have to feel all this pain, but on the other hand I see your trip like a journey onward, catharsis, digesting stuff, like you say, catching up on grieving. I believe when facing the grandeur of nature, one becomes much more aware of ones emotional status, and emotions may be augmented. I am happy for you that you could make this wonderful trip. You travelled the whole country (ha, continent really) , you are so strong and such an inspiration. I am sorry you could not do this trip together with John. The ceremony sounds lovely, honest and fitting. It just shows how much you love him because you did this for him. I have no answer to your question on whether you can overcome this pain. I wish you may. You deserve to be happier than this. I hope your anxiety goes away. You are one strong woman Maureen and an inspiration. Wishing you well, very well and many many hugs. I wish there was a spaceship we could pile all that pain on and send it into outer space... xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgo Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 Amazing how many people you connected with during your travels. Thanks for sharing your journey with us. I hope to see more photos. It sounds like it was very emotional, but healing too. I wish I would have read earlier on so I could have met up with you. I live in Indiana. Maybe next time you travel through. Many, many hugs Maureen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheelerswife Posted August 1, 2015 Author Share Posted August 1, 2015 Virgo, I've not been known to sit still for too long. Chances are I'll end up crossing Indiana again. You are always welcome to drive through Kansas, too! Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheelerswife Posted August 8, 2015 Author Share Posted August 8, 2015 I've been home for a full week. I went back to my graduate assistant position at the university and I've had a few appointments to get in. (Oh, excitement! Plan that colonoscopy!) I'm doing fairly well. I feel great relief that John's ashes have been interred. I have kept my promise to John. I've had more time to reflect on my road trip. I think in many ways, my anxiety is managed so much better that I was able to feel the intensity of the sadness that had been lurking underneath. (What would I do without my dog Rosie!) I had so much anger at the universe when John died...and anxiety managed to burst onto the scene with a vengeance...and then surgery and a cancer diagnosis...I'd had no place to really feel the sadness. I don't know how I had the presence of mind to decide to take this road trip last December, but I did. Did I think it would be hard at times? Yes. Did I think it would hurt so much? No. I really thought that it was more about using this last free summer to try to see some places I'd never had the chance to see. It turned out to be a 14,000 mile walk through grief. It started out lighter, but the intensity increased over time, until I reached a point of breaking down and just crying for days. I felt like I was back in week one. And I buried his ashes and I turned and walked away...drove away, really...and faced several empty days on the road heading back home. It was over. It was done. Now what? Begin the process...continue the process...of trying to figure out how to live with loss. And so...I will start my semester in a week. I will access that program in my head that coordinates the movement of my feet in a forward direction and I'll keep walking toward the future. I will keep working toward that new career that will get me to retirement. I hope to access some beauty and friendship and love out there...and some day, find deep love again. I doubt I will ever have a road trip of this proportion again. I hope I never have to face this kind of angst and responsibility again, either. But...life really has only one guarantee... Hugs, Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Wishing you some peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Maureen, I just want to tell you that I've been thinking about you a lot... just haven't been able to post much. (((((((HUGS))))))))) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonnaP Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Hi sweetheart! I just had time to read your most recent posts on this thread. What an amazing journey you had! And, YES, THANK GOODNESS for Rosie being by your side the whole time! She has been a Godsend! And I'm glad you have her with you! I was in awe seeing and hearing about all of the places you visited. Such beauty! It's good that you were able to, not only take the time to travel across the country like that, but also share the experience with your niece! I'm so sorry John wasn't able to participate in it too, but I suppose, had he been here, the trip would never have happened in the same way that it did... Weird how so many life events are predicated on other life events. I'm still trying to sort my way through some things that leave knots in my stomach--mostly family related. The one thing I do know for certain is that the friends I've made through YWBB are some of the best friends I could ever ask for--especially YOU! Hang in there, my friend. There is more to this life yet... perhaps a new love will come around the corner one fine day and sweep you off your feet. Who knows? Stranger things have happened... Until then, know that you are LOVED so very much, by all of us!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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