A Twist of the Knife 9/8/13

I feel numb.  Maria, the girl I lived with in the dorm for four years - lost HER husband last night.  Her text to me started with "I've joined your club."  Ouch. This is not a sought-out membership.  I don't even know yet what happened.  Everyone is curious.  When someone dies, and they're in their fifties, and haven't been sick, everyone wants to know what happened.  I do too, I just have other feelings that are right up there with the curiosity.  I feel the same numbness, the same feeling of the world stopping, the same lost feeling that followed me home from the hospital on that night four months ago.  When death happens, those of us that always have an answer, that always figure out a way to fix things, that always try to make things work better; we are struck dumb.  There is no way to make it better.  There is no magic word, pill, book, way of talking, exercise, food.....nothing can change death.

Maria is a smart woman.  She is the kind of person I like to associate myself with; sensible, knowledgeable about tools, engines, minor repairs, fun, kind, with a strong devotion to family and friends.  She's not a weak person.  I like to think that the above description fits me, also.  (Maybe I'm just flattering myself, too.)  But this is why I hate to see her "join the club".  It doesn't really fit that well on us, 'widowhood'.  We were little girls that dreamed of wedding dresses, teenage girls that saw our parents stick with it, college girls with a plan to find a man.  We envisioned marriage with houses, pets, children....and we both got it. When we met, I was seventeen, she was already eighteen.  We were kids just thrown together by some random roommate fairy.  It worked.  We got along.  When we graduated, she was twenty-two and headed back to Atlanta for a job, I was twenty-one and headed to the altar with Scott. 

Maria wore the lovely shiny lavender bridesmaid's dress in my wedding.  I wore the absolutely beautiful black bridesmaid's dress at her wedding.  (To this day, the prettiest wedding photos I have ever seen.)  She came to visit after Mallory was born, to see our first baby girl.  Not long after, she had baby girls of her own. Even when we lived in England, Maria would come see us when we visited Scott's parents. The kids were growing fast, and all of us worked and were busy with life.  It didn't matter how much time passed, though; Maria is a forever friend. Whenever we did get the chance to talk, we didn't hold back.  And, being a forever friend, she was there this past June when we said goodbye to Scott with a service in Florida.  Maria and Tamre'  - the other best college friend - drove in the night before the service and had dinner with the family.  Then we went back to Tamre's room.  Within minutes, it was just as if we were in the dorm room together.  Only the discussions were about husbands, the loss of mine, nearly-grown children, aging parents, taking care of ourselves and the need for reading glasses.  I appreciate them being there for me so much.  Maria was there at the start of my journey with Scott and she was there to mourn/celebrate the end.

Then, that text.  Almost four months to the day of not being able to wake my husband from his nap due to a heart attack, Maria's husband falls over while mowing the grass, due to a heart attack.  My Scott was fifty-two.  Doug was fifty-three.  Maria and I are both moms left with two girls.  What a club.  I told her that if she wanted me at his services, just say the word.  She said let's get together later, she knows I've traveled too much lately.  I can't wait to plan a weekend outside Atlanta.  Let's call it a club meeting.  I don't want to invite anybody else.  Here's hoping that the rest of you little girls that dreamed happily-ever-after are continuing to live it.  When part of it is gone, the bad part is that it's still ever-after, just not so happily.

The Restoration of Joy as a Whack-a-Mole 6/30/13

I started to wonder today if I will ever feel pure joy again.  The true, pure, bubbling-from-inside joy that we feel when something is incorrupt, happy , adorable, innocent, comical, surprising......you get it, right?

It's as if my joy has become a whack-a-mole.  I hear something funny.  I laugh.  I think: "oh wait until I tell Scott.."  whack.  I see a commercial for a cool new show.  "Cool! I'll have to tell Scott!"  whack.
The kitten (is anything a more pure joy than a kitten?) is jumping great distances, playing with a new toy, just being so joyfully CUTE - and I think "I can't wait until Scott sees her...." WHACK!!!

If I'm with someone - maybe one of you that actually reads this - and I laugh......it's not fake!  I do still find things funny, amusing, frustrating, you name it!  It's just that when I feel those emotions, I had thirty years of being able to share them with him.  Funny was funny twice.  Frustration got shared and ridiculed.  (Sometimes the ridicule was pointed at me for getting frustrated!!)  Cute animal stuff was a staple of our lives.  If one of the dogs was asleep, dreaming and yelping, sitting an adorable way - we had a code - "Look at big white dog!" - because we knew saying their name would distract them and change the moment.

I know that joy is promised from God.  I can still hear that lady singing "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation...."in church when I was young.  That particular quote came from David - yes, the Old Testament King David.  But David needed his joy restored because he had sinned big time (adultery, murder....big time).  What did I do to deserve this? Was this a plan for him and me from the beginning?  I don't think I would have agreed to it. Why us? Why me? One of the many questions I have for that big Q&A session in the sky. 

I will try, you know.  I don't intend to become a depressed, sad, mean person.  But don't forget that underneath the trying, I'm not whole.  He was indeed my other half, so I'm not complete any more.  But will I ever feel joy without getting whacked?  I'm not sure.  I think all happy occasions that may occur for me for the rest of my life will be tinged with sadness.  I can't imagine it happening any other way.  So please understand if something really happy or funny is going on - and I just close my eyes and get quiet for a minute.  It's to absorb the whack.

"It'll be hard", they said. 6/24/13

"It'll be hard", they said. "You have to make sure you take care of yourself", they said.  "All the feelings will come back again", they said.  And they were right.

People tell you how you will feel for certain events.  Movies and TV tell us to cry at weddings, cry when we leave our first-born at kindergarten, bean with pride at graduation, etc.  Everyone is full of advice for those that are grieving a loved ones' loss, too.  Mostly, they are right on track.  Mostly.

You see, "they" can say all they want to you - but nothing prepares you for the waves of grief.  You can be going through all the motions of life, talking, laughing, helping prepare dinner, cleaning up - and CRASH!  Tears, sobbing, struck silent because speaking would turn into crazy shrieking......it all hits you like a huge salt-water wave from behind.  Then life goes on pause while you cry it out, talk it through, do whatever it takes to re-surface from the drowning that is grief.

So I'll agree - it was hard.  Being together with the entire family but feeling his absence like a knife in my stomach was hard.  Making sure all the details for the service were in place, yet knowing all along why we were doing those things was hard. The finality of people arriving at the chapel, the service actually happening, seeing and welcoming old friends for a terrible, terrible reason was hard.  It was also beautiful, comforting, and a blessing.  Because those friends weren't just there for him.  They were there for us.  That part of celebrating and remembering someone's life is amazing.  You see each other and although years have taken their toll on the physical appearance, the jokes, personalities, and love you've had for these friends immediately resurfaces.  Then you promise to get together again soon and not let so much time pass. 

All of that was hard.  But you know what's even harder?  After.  The service ends, the friends go to their homes, the visiting with family ends, we head home, and......nothing.  Nothing to look forward to.  Waking up and thinking "why?"  The hammer of ALONE FOREVER hitting me in the head again and again.  Convincing myself to do chores and catch up on TV and try to enjoy the pool when I'd rather sit in my bathrobe and stare.

It's a kaleidoscope of feelings - twisting toward resigned, happy memories, sadness, anger, despair, etc. etc.  And there are no "stages" (sorry, Ms. Ross).  There is more a gumbo of different feelings that swim around and attack you when you suspect it least.

So - go ahead, tell me how I will feel.  At least I'll know that someone else has been there and knows how hard it is, and that it hits without warning.  If I'm crying, talk to me anyway, that's better than being alone forever.  And if it happens to you, or to someone close to you - remember: It'll be hard.

Truer words were never spoken.