3 Big Lessons Learned this Year

Photo Courtesy: Scribbles & Crumbs (http://www.scribblesandcrumbs.com/)
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Before Ryan died, I could not have understood (nor did I wish to) all the complexities of grief and the components surrounding a significant loss. Death happened to other people, it was unavoidable and I felt very detached: "Some people die."

The month of January was bizarre again in that I felt a significant return of confusion and haze. I felt empty. It didn't feel like Ryan was dead. Perhaps he's just gone? I've spent a lot of time trying to compartmentalize the information related to Ryan that carry a tag "death" to try and protect my mind better.

While it's true that "people die", there is nothing to be said that can make this process easier for the one experiencing it. They must learn how they will process, proceed, and in what direction they will attempt to go. In that choice, there is no right or wrong.

Through a lot of reading, writing, meditation and mistakes I have realized a few things.

I will always talk about him

Ryan, Sweetheart, you were mine and I was yours. Were it not for stress, family, employer incompetence, a whole host of things I could still say that with you present next to me. I will talk about you because I love you. Because you were worthy of being talked about. I will talk about you because I was blessed to be the only woman you wished to ever call wife. It would not have been easy (two Type-As) but how satisfying it would have been to be each other's right hand for decades to come.

Beautiful post from Scribbles & Crumbs - Mother of 2: "I talk about him"

Widows Carry Overwhelming Loneliness

Any significant loss presents its own unique challenges. What I could not anticipate was the loneliness that would take up residence without Ryan.

Physical Absence 

He's not here to fall asleep next to - half of the bed is cold. I've piled pillows or unfolded clothes to make that less obvious. But I still wake up and stare silently at the space he should occupy. I still miss the early morning view of his sleeping face. I still miss the snores from his nose buried behind my ear.

Loss of Intimacy

Intimacy is more than just sex.

Physical touch.
Romance.

I'm talking about cooking dinner and having someone put their hands on my hips or on my back as they peer over my shoulder to check on the status.

I'm talking about holding hands in the car, playing the shift game until we're in the perfectly-comfortable nook. I'm talking about a hand on the leg: I lost it the first time I saw that happen for someone else a week after the funeral.

I'm talking about little spooning.

I'm talking about not ever getting a hug from the person that made everything ok when he held me.

I'm talking about that one person's laugh that brings a smile to your face, even when you can't see him.

I'm talking about compliments. A complete stranger about 4 months after Ryan died commented to me "Wow, you're so pretty!" I didn't feel pretty. I felt exhausted. I felt unwanted. I felt lonely. And I'd not been complimented in 4 months. You don't realize it until it's gone how important something as fleeting as a compliment is.

I'm talking about having that special person around that looks at you in a way that you know you matter. If you were the only person in the room or in the largest New Year's party - you're missing that person whose eyes remind you you're loved and you're perfect.

Loss of Routine

There are no more wake-up calls as he gets off his night shift. 

There are no more catching-up-over-work conversations. 

There are no more dreams and fantasies of the future.

There are no more silly games of "what if...?"

There are no more date nights. 

There are no more TV series that need watching.

There are no more reasons to celebrate holidays.

There is no point to getting home early.

There is no point in playing hookie from work.

There is no point in cooking.

Everything about my day changed when Ryan died. For everyone that knew him, Life will be different going forward. For a widow, Life IS different. Every day of it. Because there wasn't a day that went by that Ryan wasn't part of. And through ups and downs, he was still Life's "Best Part" for me for 4 years. He should have been my best parts for another 50. 

Loss of Direction

Ryan wasn't just my spouse. He was my Best Friend. When a decision needed to be made they were "us" decisions. So he was my counsel, my sounding board. Do you think it's a good idea? If we go on vacation how about ___? He was in my life because I wanted to experience the world going forward with him. Every step of the way.

He has died. I don't have my best friend to tell about my mediocre day. To share a joke I heard. To ask an opinion for what to cook for dinner. To refine plans for the upcoming weekend. To laugh during a TV show.

I don't know which way to go because I made all of my decisions for so many years with him in mind, with his input. Not because I couldn't make my own. But I'd fallen in love with him and a life with him. I wanted us both happy with how our Two-Became-One Life proceeded. So yes, I'm "stuck". Because I don't trust my messed up mind enough to not get some feedback, but the only one I trusted enough to receive feedback from is gone. Ryan had my success in mind when he listened to me. I've tread water, confused and alone, unsure of what to do next since I lost him 55 weeks ago.

The etiology of loneliness from IFLS: "How Does Loneliness Make Us Sick"

The Opinions of Others

I will freely admit that I have become a bigger asshole than ever before. Also, that I kinda care but I also kinda don't. Everyone will have an opinion of how their friend/loved on is handling their grief. 

"I don't want you to turn the house into a shrine"
"I think you're drinking too much"

"Why are you wearing his jacket?"

"When are you going to get rid of ___"
"Don't worry - you'll find another one"

"Why do you post so much/talk so much/write so much about him?"

Bottom line is, I know I can't please everyone. I have mounds of experience in all of the well-intentioned-perhaps-but-still-hurtful comments that people will say. I have spent way too much time, even the day Ryan died, trying to figure out how to "play" the widow role: what should I be doing? how should I react? I vary between caring about how I'm perceived (let's be honest, no one wants to be disappointing or not liked) but the guilt that I've tacked on based on words from people that honestly do not get it has worn me out so many times. 

From "A Dirty Secret Called Grief": Grief, I've realized, is like a dirty little secret. People who haven't been through pain like ours don't really want to know but want to be seen to care. 

I'm reading a novel called "Good Grief" by Lolly Winston and there have been 2 passages so far that struck a chord

The morning after Ethan died, I resented the mourners collecting in my living room. How could they fall into the role and accept Ethan's death so readily? While they wept and carried on, I cleaned the house. Scrubbed the shower grout with a toothbrush and Clorox. Now I'm one of the howling mourners. But they've wrapped it up already, moved on.

I told my therapist the same thing. How can someone say that a funeral provides closure? It didn't even feel like the beginning let alone the end. His response: funerals provide closure for people that Ryan's death just touches the surface of their life.

I want to be a classy widow - a Jackie Kennedy kind of widow. Slim and composed, elegant and graceful. White gloves and a string of pearls. But I seem to be more the Jack Daniel's kind of widow - wailing in the supermarket and mowing through the salad bar, hair all crazy like an unmade bed.
Lately, life requires so much self-discipline. While most people have a to-do list, I have a don't-do list. Don't eat Oreos until your gums bleed. Don't sleep in your clothes. Don't grab the produce boy's teenage wrists and sob. 

Even the moments where I'd felt like I'm composed to the outside world, I'm still a raging trainwreck of a mess inside. So p.s. I'm not "done" "over" or anything related to finality. I'm pissed that Ryan is dead. 

What a weird sentence to type; today it doesn't feel like he is. 

This Life I'm trying to figure out is way too messy to have anything figured out/wrapped up/complete after just 1 year. 

Letters to Ryan: What You Taught Me

Good morning Sweetheart,

Someone asked me once “What did Ryan teach you?”

I had to think about that before I answered but the reality is you taught me a lot of little things. Many of them goofy. Some of them incredible.

§  You taught me that people still use the word “rad”

§  You taught me how good the Chargers are at messing up
§  You taught me how to eat salsa and break the chips into pieces to get more salsa/chip ratio

§  You taught me how to surf boogey board

§  You taught me how to make a kick ass steak marinade

§  You taught me why men buy baby wipes (eww…)

§  You taught me how to be playful in a relationship and how to giggle like a kid again as you chased me around the house with that look in your eye as I was playfully fighting you off in the middle of cooking dinner

§  You taught me to get back up, even if my pride is bruised and my butt hurts from falling really hard a few times even on the bunny slopes

§  You taught me how special I was to you when you walked on the outside of the sidewalk, opened my car door on date nights and randomly elsewhere (try as I might to fight this…)

§  You taught me how good your touch feels: rubbing my arm, walking up behind me and putting your chin on my shoulder and your arms around my waist, interlacing fingers, resting your hand on my thigh…

§  You taught me to walk a belligerent patient to the ambulance with your hand gripping/supporting the back of their right arm so you have better control of the situation and decrease the chance of them being able to get a good swing at you.

What I told the person that asked me was “Ryan taught me how wonderful it is to be with someone that will put your needs before theirs. And he taught me how amazing it really feels to do the same for them.” I shared that conversation we had last year when I sat down with you over dinner and I said “Sweetie, I know our 5-year plan had me going back to school first, getting my degree and then you leaving and going back to school. I want you to know that I think you need to get out. I think the plan has changed and it needs to be about you. Because I don’t want to be in my job forever – I don’t want to stay in government, I want to get back to research and medicine – but I don’t hate my job and it’s not wearing me out and we need to take care of you. So if that means going back to school or quitting…now you can’t sit at home all day and play video games…but I will support you, even financially.” And Ryan, Sweetheart, I will never forget the look in your beautiful blue eyes and the tone of your voice when you just said “Thank You.”

I knew I had done the right thing. Even if my personal dreams were on hold.

You taught me how to love unconditionally. Thank you.

I love you and I miss you.

Stephanie

Finding Your Tribe of Broken Souls

How someone can look me in the eyes and tell me "Yah, you're kinda F%#ked-up right now" and for that to be a comfort is hard to explain. I am broken. I know that. I'll always be a little broken and I'm ok with that. I sat with a group of women a few days ago that laughed over feeling like we were terrible employees. And we sat at the table and would smile and shake our heads recalling some really bizarre things we did after our losses: activities that were easier to just do at the time than it would have been to absorb and truly comprehend that information we had been given. There's a person you love very much but they died. Your brain under those conditions protects you from that reality. I sat at a table of amazing women that could understand how "ok" it is to be a mess right now. Grief is messy in so many ways.

When you tell someone that hasn't experienced deep grief that you feel broken, that you feel crazy, that you feel insensitive, that you feel screwed up...They want to tell you that you're wrong, that no you'll be ok, that everyone is a little screwed up. It's frustrating. In some ways I need that affirmation that I'm a mess: my memory is terrible, my emotions are out of whack, I have a really really hard time focusing, I do some bizarre things. I'm mean sometimes...and it's for no reason...and it kinda makes me feel awful. But I also kinda don't give a shit if I'm mean...Yah, I said it.

Early in grief, especially, I simply existed. I felt so incredibly alone. I felt so rejected. I felt so out of place. Most widow grief groups or blogs cater to the "traditional" widow. The men and women in their 60s and 70s. Terrible word to use, I know, because there's nothing "traditional" about grief. The grief experienced by someone that was married 35 years, however, for many reasons is dramatically different than loss of a soulmate in your 20s or 30s. It's not anything but different. So you feel isolated - as though you must be the only person in the world to experience this pain. There is some comfort I've found sharing with my MIL. But even grieving the loss of the same person - Ryan - from the standpoint of a spouse and that of the Mother of an adult child is dramatically different. (post: The "Worst" Loss)

I walked alone so very frequently for many months and do have those feelings still now though I react differently than I did early-on (post: But to be Alone)...I wandered down the aisles of a grocery store, within the break room, in the very corner of my bedroom and whether I was surrounded by other human beings or not, there is something awful about feeling excised from all of society because of your pain and your grief. And then, when I was ready to give up...I found my tribe.


I found people that made me feel less of a pariah.

I've found my peers among young widows
I've found my peers among suicide spouses
I've found my peers among those who lost a fiance
I've found my peers among those who lost a first responder 
I've found my peers among those young adults who lost someone they loved deeply
I've found my peers among those divorcees that are my advocate because they understand lost dreams.

You know what is so amazingly badass about this tribe? I've surrounded myself with these beautifully broken and effed-up people and they have shown me more compassion as strangers, as human beings halfway across the world than most old "friends" in my own city. They're mending their brokenness at whatever speed they can but they understand in a way that I couldn't find anywhere else.

I've removed the people around whom I felt so alone, so rejected, so awkward. The ones that said "anything you need" and then never answered your text when you needed to see another person's face and asked for coffee or a run. The ones that tried but could only help for a short time. They were thanked for their contribution and they were released, a technique I learned, oddly enough, from The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

I replaced 95% of those old ones with my new ones. My tribe is very small locally but they are global digitally. They are a gorgeous collection of hurting and fallible human beings but they're gathering the remnants of a life they may not recognize and they wake up every day to fight through pain and suffering.

They earn their widow badges. 

They take care of their families and strangers and friends. 

They do all of this even though they are themselves hurting. 

They will pick up your phone call from the ER at midnight. 

They will chat with you through an anxiety attack or a horrible screwed-up day. 

They will cry with you and send you hugs and true words of encouragement. 

They remember the dates that are bad. 

They step up when what you thought was a good day turns bad. 

They are a band of bruised but scrappy fighters. 

They have opened my eyes to how much pain there is in the world. They have reminded me how cathartic is is to share. How good it feels to support another person. They have kept me alive. They have reunited me with "society". They are not a traditional group of friends: we talk about fixing drywall from bullet holes and screaming at the dogs and panic attacks and crying on the bathroom floor after everyone goes to sleep. So many times these men and women's stories start with "I can't say this anywhere else but I know you understand..." 

If you've not grieved hard (as I never could have understood), though, these are not incessant sob sessions. They have been the source of some of the deepest laughs I've had. Of laughs over lost grooming standards, pathetic attempts at feeding yourself (yes, which are hilarious...), flipping off the photo of your loved one because your day is rough and it makes you feel better, jokes over the poor state of affairs for sex if it does actually happen again down the line, "what I wish I could have said to that insensitive asshole but didn't..." Some of it is dark humor and some of it is just honest conversations covering everything from nonsense to deep emotional information. We bare our souls to each other because we trust each other to protect that honesty. We stick up for each other.

My tribe lets me say Ryan's name as much as I want, tell as many stories as I want and express any emotion I want. And I love to hear about those they love. Months later. Years later. We let each other say their name every time, with no shifty-eyes or awkwardness (post: Say His Name). They don't try to direct my healing but they do stand next to me, and sometimes hold my hand, as I help myself.