My Wish

My wish...is that people would stop lying.
My wish...is that people who could not be a real support would not promise someone grieving that they could.
My wish...is to stop having strangers enter my life only to leave.
My wish...is to stop being the recipient of false promises.
My wish...is that I could avoid the pain of abandonment, over and over.


Maybe, if that happens, then I could trust people again.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop being angry with so many people.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop feeling like something is wrong with me, that I'm diseased.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop feeling like I only had value to my Sweetheart.
Maybe, if that happens, I could find some of the nice pieces of myself again.

3 Big Lessons Learned this Year

Photo Courtesy: Scribbles & Crumbs (http://www.scribblesandcrumbs.com/)
On Instagram @scribblesandcrumbs

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. 

"Last Year" Language in a New Year

I've not written much this month. Part of that is, honestly, that January is a big black bucket of suck. Part of it is that I write a lot from feelings: despair, sadness, confusion, anger, hope, love. I haven't felt much of anything this month. I've felt simply empty.

I was in a group earlier this week where the topic of the new year came up. Someone finally put into words the weird funk that I've had a hard time identifying so far this year.

She said "I can't talk of my dad with the words 'last year' anymore."

Time and space became so bizarre after Ryan died. I remember all of last year referring to how long ago something was said or done with Ryan as "2 months ago" or "maybe 6 months?"When I said 2 months ago, even though it was May, I meant November. It was as if time stopped in January and everything about Time I couldn't help but relate to then. It really was that Life stopped.

It wasn't a conscious thing. Honestly it made me feel crazy.

I couldn't put into words that the New Year brought this new experience.
She was right.
I can't say "last year" any longer.
I can't say "last November when we..."
I can't say "last Summer..."
I have to now say "in 2014" (< I had to think about that one...ugh, grief brain, what year is it?) for even the most immediate recollections of Ryan.

It feels so stale. So impersonal. So detached. So long ago.

This sucks. At least I have words for it now.

Our Desperate Wish for Fairness

Human beings want so desperately to believe in fair that they’re willing to sacrifice the feelings of others to avoid that conflict. For as many stories of people who have survived through personal disaster, whose faces cover NY Times Bestsellers and whose stories are known across many countries, or who have exposed themselves even to just their friends the heartache they have known….I would guess that there exists thousands of others whose experience has hurt them beyond repair.

Human beings want so desperately for those around them to be strong, to not show their suffering, to not break down in despair that we drive those who are hurting to experience that pain alone: on the floor of their living room or fetal under a bedroom comforter.

When a child struggles in school through a shattered home life, physical or emotional or mental disabilities, we recognize that difference but wish so badly for them to be the exception. To rise up and perform to the level of children without those barriers in their way because we want hope that Life balances itself out if you try hard enough.

When a widow sits out at dinner, still in shock with the vast chasm of aloneness and longing for her soulmate staring her daily in the eyes, those that pulled her out of the house for a meal feel the need to enlighten her: “You’re young! You’ll find someone else. You’ll have a family and you’ll be happy again.” We want hope that someone else will take care of her and we can be relieved of that position if she just opens herself to the chance for disappointment and heartbreak again.

...As if she doesn’t realize her age. As if that is what she is worried about. As if her husband could ever be replaced by logging onto a dating site and picking the first attractive face she sees in order to fill a box on the bookshelf labeled “husband”. As if gathering the pieces of a heart that will never be whole again is an easy task.

When you share the universe’s decision to not grant you fertility, people want to tell you about their coworker’s friend – the one that went through 3 rounds of IVF or 2 miscarriages, or had cancer in her 20’s – she adopted! She has a beautiful happy family. See? You can be happy!

When someone shares the devastation of receiving a life-altering diagnosis – Parkinson’s, cancer, ALS – many times those surrounding them want to rush in to assure them that “we’re going to kick ___’s butt”, “treatment options exist” and “new medications are being discovered daily.”

Let. Them. Grieve.

Realize that the widow will always wonder how beautiful her life with her first husband would have been. He will always be her first choice.

Realize that the mother will never have another first-born child or may never have another daughter. She may have an oldest surviving child or she may have future pregnancies but the miscarriage or the stillborn baby or the child that died decades before his/her time cannot be replaced. Cannot be forgotten.

Realize that the beautiful family brought together through adoption may be parents making the best of a devastating situation. They can love their children that are not their genetic makeup but they may still shed tears for losing the chance to experience what a pregnancy feels like physically and emotionally. They may wonder what color eyes their son or daughter would have had when their unique set of genes came together. They may imagine how short or how tall, how creative or how quirky or how proficient at sports would have been produced when the two of them made another life. They may wonder what beautiful being they could have made if Life had dealt them different cards.

Realize that regardless of the outcome, the diagnosis that was just received is devastating. Their friends, their neighbors, the asshole at work that complains about everything: why do they have their health still?

What did I do to step in this pile of Life’s shit?

You, friend, your role is not to help this person fix or figure out or plan for anything. Your role is to sit silently. Your role is not to imagine what you would want to hear but to listen to the one that is affected by Life’s cruel twist. This is not a time to put on “big girl panties” or to “be strong” or “one day it will get better”. You don’t know that: whether you’re 20 or 70. Your life’s experience may have shown you that people can survive loss, that some have the support and resolve to continue and to play the cruel and biased game of Life with the most recent hand dealt.

Your life’s experience may not have shown you the family that lived forever in poverty after the loss of their breadwinner. Your life's experience may not have shown you the couple that couldn't afford to adopt and loses the chance at Christmas with grandchildren in old age, whose holidays are alone, and whose name dies when they do. Your life’s experience may not have shown you the widow/widower who passed away a year after their partner, their heart broken and their health shattered when they lost their other half. Your life’s experience may not have enlightened you to the soldier that survived the tour but silenced the nightmares 6 weeks or 2 years or 30 years later. The experience, the pain, the support, the personality, the resolve: all of these may be different for you than that person sitting before you.

Life does not give everyone the same chances, the same happy endings, the same opportunities. It gives them different struggles, different paths, different frequencies and intensities of pain. Life kills children and geniuses, homeless and wealthy, it maims and destroys those with the tenderest or the cruelest hearts either at random or sometimes, it would seem all toward 1 person or family. We cannot expect everyone to embrace the loss of that beautiful human being they relied on in a positive way. Death and suffering are realities but they are not something to expect our friends to “embrace” any more than murder or rape or genocide are horrifying experiences for some human beings.

Your friend, your loved one, your acquaintance, they will experience this episode of Life being ridiculously unfair in their own way. It is not for you to tell them that someone else you know found happiness, that another person has gone through this or worse and thrived. Because they haven’t. No one on the planet has entered the current struggle exactly the same. Each human being has an emotional body burden in essence, and their relationship with others and their relationship with themselves is not the same as the face in that book or move or on that blog who shares their story about surviving through personal disaster. It is not for you to tell them that it will get better. Only they can learn if that will be their future.

You Don't Ever Really Stop Wanting It

I will say there are some things you don’t get used to and things you never stop wishing for, even if your head knows better.

It was almost 10 years to the week before Ryan died after getting cut open for the second time and an 8 hour surgery which tied together 3 years of incessant pain that a doctor told me I wouldn’t have the same chances others would get to have a family.

It was a different type of grief and I didn't even realize it. Everyone around me was relieved. Understandably so they were glad that the 3am drives to the ER because motrin wasn't strong enough to keep me asleep through the pain. When I would get sent home, never getting past the triage nurse. When I lay fetal on a hallway floor because I couldn't even sit in a chair. Treating what a nurse later told me when she looked at my chart was probably the equivalent of being in labor with 800 mg of motrin. For 3 years. They were relieved but what they didn't know was for every time we went to the ER there were 10 other nights where I would hyperventilate to wear myself out so I could pass out until morning and take the next 800mg. They were glad to not see me get up in the middle of the school day to throw up in the girl's bathroom and then come back to my chair - classmates not worried because they knew for me that was "normal". They were glad that after 3 years of no answers I was "fixed". I couldn't understand why it wasn't a relief. I didn't feel fixed, I just felt different. The physical pain was simply replaced with some different pain. 

It wasn’t ok when I was 16 and it’s still not ok now. Ryan was the first man I was ever willing to take a chance at suffering for. Seeing a negative pregnancy test month after month and when that “+” finally showed up not being excited but being terrified if it would last long enough. Miscarrying. Over and over. Or getting further but having a premie too young to never make it out of the NICU. I made him that promise that I would try and I let myself believe that it was something I could actually have. I loved this beautifully sacrificial and compassionate man so much I could only imagine how wonderful it could be to make him a father. Being the one to give Ryan one of his just 5 bucket list dreams was in some ways selfish. He was my other half…so in making him happy I was by default satisfying myself.

You don’t get used to watching everyone else get their happily ever after: a person that loves them unconditionally and enough time to do the same for them and others. I’m tired of being robbed of things something so basic. Or being robbed of a love I worked so hard to support. Who I tried to save. It’s still hard sometimes to hold someone else’s baby, even though my head has had almost 11 years to try and negotiate with my heart. It's still hard to watch someone else’s husband put their arm around their wife’s waist or even just rest their hand tenderly on their girlfriend’s leg. 

You don’t ever really stop wanting it. You just try to.

The Holidays: Why are they so hard?

Oh the holidays.

A time to enjoy (or tolerate) family. A time to appreciate and be thankful for our past year, to plan for and anticipate the upcoming year. Most of what I’ve seen posted relates to “How to get through” but I was so surprised by the “Why”. It seems obvious but what really is it that’s so “tough” about the holidays?

There will be a lot of remembering this holiday season. It will be hard to give thanks. It will be impossible to feel joy that I have no husband sharing Christmas with me. There will be a flood of uncertainty for the upcoming year. All of the hope and excitement and planning of a year ago was stripped away in an instant from both Ryan and I. Our happily ever after shattered. It’s not stuck, it’s not choosing to not “move on” for there are so many things I would choose to release myself from and have tried to work through but it feels like I can’t.

Months ago I sat on the bathroom floor of a bar at 4:30pm crying to a bartender who’d come in to check on me “I just want to forget; I don’t want to forget him, I just want to forget everything else.”

Having a bad day isn’t necessary choosing to wallow or neglecting to put my “big girl panties on”. It’s not having the energy to wake up and piece together your heart. It’s hating a person that you no longer recognize – feeling incompetent, absent-minded, hypersensitive, over-vigilant, broken, angry, terrified – but having no clue what to do about it or being too tired to do anything anyways. 

This holiday will place so many losses under the microscope for me. The first being all of the details of the day and the months following losing Ryan. Secondary losses will also be felt: to most others these are not obvious but occur as a result of the death of a loved one in varying degrees. There are so many secondary losses for widows.

They are the loss of future experiences and firsts with Ryan: Thailand, First Anniversary, First son and daughter (whom we'd each chosen a name), school graduations ceremonies that he will not be in the crowd for.

They are the loss of friends and family who walked away out of discomfort and/or disinterest. I hate the question of “do you have a support system?” because it makes me feel so worthless. The ones I do have are amazing. But I think I can only count them on a single hand. Maybe that’s my fault?

Secondary losses are just the huge reduction in physical contact and companionship as the one that was always there no matter what was removed instantaneously. It’s going from 100% to 0% in an hour. And for every day forward to come home to 0%.

They are the loss of financial security.

They are the loss of stability: of knowing what will happen to the home, who my emergency contact is, who will help when the dogs are sick or I am.

They are the loss of confidence.

They are the loss of identity and self.

How do I explain I still love unconditionally someone that is no longer here? How do I explain it’s ok that I do? That I always will. That I was all his until the moment that he died and that you don’t stop loving a person just because they aren’t present. Can you no longer love a mom or a parent if they’ve died? How do I explain I am a widow that has no marriage certificate? That commitment was there but time was simply not on my side. I thought I had all the time in the world... How do I explain that some days I’m terrified of moving forward? Especially for the comments that will accompany any of my choices from here on out, regardless of whether I asked for the opinion of another or not.

Who do I care for when the one I would have cared for an entire lifetime is no longer here to receive that love? Who cares for me? Who cares when I’m sick, tired, successful, disappointed, accomplished? What will happen when my mind attacks me or my whole body aches following a particularly difficult day – the screaming/crying/wailing where every muscle in my body constricts to try and force out the pain. Who is even left to care for me then? Ryan did all of that but he is not here and his absence leaves a void that is so remarkably obvious to me, especially during the holidays because it brings so many families and loved ones together but I feel like I stand off to the side, an outcast to all those around me, alone in a room full of people.

For those entering the holidays for the first (or 10th) time, within the holidays  is woven a pain – either dull or searing – which reminds them of a person that should be present but is not in this world. I don’t know what traditions to keep and which to skip. I don’t know how to appear normal on the outside while still searching for peace on the inside.

I will spend the holidays loving someone that is not here to physically reciprocate.

I will spend the holidays remembering our past Thanksgiving and past Christmases and past New Years.

I will remember the Thanksgiving that we told my parents we would be getting married. That he told them how much he loved me and he promised to take care of me. I will remember leaving the airport from Virginia and having my father say to him “She’s yours. Take good care of her” not realizing I would be his forever but only physically for another 52 days.

I will feel the anger and the frustration for not having more time to be his.

I will remember the Christmas that Ryan sat in the snow with me on the bunny slopes as my ass hurt from falling and I threw a pity party: “If I get back up then I’ll just fall again and I don’t want to hurt!” He sat there loving me and teasing and goading me until I stood back up and kept going, even though he should have been enjoying himself on the more difficult and more exciting routes as a seasoned snowboarder.

I will thank him for being so compassionate to me.

I will remember the New Year’s Eve that we ran 15 or 16 calls in 12 hours. I will remember picking up one intoxicated person after another and capping the night with an emotionally difficult call. I will remember how thankful I was that Ryan was the one in back with me for that. I will remember how skilled he was and how much I learned from him.

I will contemplate whether medicine is still a career I wish to pursue.

I will remember the wedding band I never got to see but I know would have been beautiful because he cared so much that it was. It didn’t matter, Sweetheart. I was marrying you for the incredible man you were not because you proved anything through gifting an object.  I have remembered so many promises made to you that I won’t be able to keep beginning with your birthday present and continuing through so many others this year alone. So many memories in 2015 and for decades to come that we weren’t given the time to make.

I will realize that at no point years into the future do I ever want more than a plain and simple band. No diamonds. No fluff. I want money to be spent on memories. Items and things are just nonsense that brings no joy.

I will watch every time I go out in public this month, the fathers taking their children to the stores to pick out gifts. It will burn. The explosion of couples out this entire month - holding hands, kissing, getting handsy and keeping each other warm - it all leaves a trace of sorrow as do the growing number and size of the pregnant moms seemingly everywhere I turn. Happily ever after moments are those you worked long and hard for but that you were able to see come to pass. I stand at the end of a long year missing some of my biggest happily ever afters. I put in the work, time, energy, disappointment, frustration, sacrifice for years and am still left empty-handed. Literally no one to lace their fingers through mine.

I hear the music in the store which I do enjoy but sometimes run across painful lyrics I never noticed before. I hear the radio and television ads about how to show love through gifts and miss the opportunity to find those perfect items for him. Maybe expensive and maybe not. Maybe just what would remind him that I know him and his personality through-and-through and that I was attentive to his needs and wants. That I love him. The commercialism of the holidays is so frustratingly obvious when no gift will bring any joy that could replace the pain of loss this year especially.

I am alone but I am not single by choice. I made the sacrifices, loved deeply, allowed myself to be hurt and at the end of the day it didn’t matter because it couldn’t keep him here. I am not single by choice so I cannot relate to the rantings of those that are but have been clustered with them because “married”/”coupled” or “single” seem to be the only labels that matter this time of year.

I thought I might fight to try the silver lining but am not sure if I can. I went with a friend this weekend to drop off gifts for kids. It was meant to be helpful and was not meant to garner recognition though the staff were very thankful. Unexpectedly it felt so empty. Perhaps better than binge-drinking Guinness on yet another anniversary but it still could not overcome the pain of this whole month so far. I do fear especially this year that the pain will far exceed the happiness that I can search for. Any happiness will come with a price: a battle to stay positive, to find the light and to embrace the opportunity. It will be exhausting to not break down, to not retreat into darkness or to share positivity. I think I’ve started this month too tired to perhaps just wander aimlessly through the month. Because grieving through the holidays doesn't happen on a single day; it began before Thanksgiving even started and will proceed incessantly from 1 commercialized holiday to the next through Christmas, New Years, and frustratingly all the way through to the middle of February.

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.

Grief as an Agnostic

One of the only things that helps keep me alive is the fact that I'm not religious.
If I thought I might wind up with him in heaven I'd be gone.
If I believed in an afterlife I'd be gone.
If I thought in any way or for any reason I would see Ryan again, I'd be gone.

There have been multiple opportunities over many months were my agnosticism kept me alive.

I wish very much that it wasn't the case.
I don't believe I will ever meet my other half again.
He is gone. Forever. With no hope for reuniting. With no signs from the afterlife. He is gone. Forever. I lost my chance to connect with him again. My last image of him will be from a coffin and my last breath I spoke to him will be the words "Because Sweetie, I don't know what else to say..."

If I see Ryan again it will be in a dream. Unfortunately it's been a while. I don't dream much.
If I get to enjoy having Ryan's arms around me
If I get to see that goofy beautiful smile
If I get to hear his short-giggle or ridiculously-eccentric laugh
It will be viewed in my mind, felt in my heart. It will be only as a memory.

The only reason I am still here is because on the really bad nights and at the really bad times, when I asked the "why am I still here"s I realized that I truly believe my only chance to experience the happiness of Ryan's presence will be in my thoughts and memories. So when I die I lose that.

It makes the "I'm praying for you"s meaningless
It makes the "It's all in gods will" infuriating (<see "What not to say...")
It makes the "He's in a better place" pointless

Excuse the expression but "thank god" I'm an agnostic. I would not be here still if I were not.

Loss of Self

Last night, Friday night, I fell back again in my "progress". I got back to the house and broke down. I've been doing so good recently: resolved to move forward to love harder, work harder, and to be someone that at the end of her life people will say "she made a difference in my life/for me". I'm not there - I'm not the old person nor a new. I do not even recognize myself. It was Friday night. I was grocery shopping, cooking up some training pancakes, and I was all alone.

I wasn't out on date night
Wasn't out sharing time with friends
Wasn't decorating our Christmas tree together
Wasn't snuggled up against the cold watching a movie
No one was looking at me like I was important, beautiful, or like I mattered

I was alone - everyone else in my tiny sphere was out living life. Yeah, I had a freaking pity party. The "why us's?" reemerged. He spent a decade in a sacrificial career. We were responsible and compassionate...neither of us perfect. I was so loyal to him, even through the bad and really bad times. I donate to charity, challenged myself as my New Years Resolutions to random acts of kindness. Why am I am home on a Friday with no one that cares while everyone else lives their life and has their fun? I hate the loneliness. I hate the abandonment. I hate myself. I turned off my phone and deactivated Facebook.

It makes sense. Who would want to be around someone who is so damaged? The "baggage", if you will, that I carry is not something I should expect another person to be ok with. Who am I? I'm scared; I'm broken; I'm lonely; I'm tired; I'm frustrated; I'm unpredictable; I'm emotional. I don't feel in control of my own life some days, as hard as I might try. From the perspective of others, I feel like an afterthought. I feel very unworthy. I feel very disposable. I've fought these feelings for months but sometimes you just get tired of fighting. Sometimes you come home on a Friday night to realize what a crappy situation you're in, which you certainly never chose.

Sometimes you want someone to take care of you because grieving has left you so exhausted. But he was my rock, my support, my biggest backer and supporter. He's not here and there's no one that is filling that role. So when I break down, I'm left to crumble alone. If there is a picking up of the pieces that is also done alone, in my own strength. I don't know when that will happen.

I talked with a friend who is 17 months down the line. Someone that I respect - who took a severance package from work and instead of holing up at home has truly embraced a "life is short" perspective and traveled almost continuously for at least the last 6 months. She went and had experiences, she met friends and strangers. She has lived, not just existed.

She told me that last night she also had a grief attack: spent 4 hours crying for what most people who haven't experienced significant loss would probably consider "out of nowhere". I said "I don't know whether that's comforting or depressing."

This sucks: a life I never expected. A life changed radically from the time I got Ryan's phone call till I reached home and hour later. It's been nearly a year. This effed up reality one that I'm trying not to get trapped in, details and lessons that I'm simply trying to incorporate as my life experiences but only to build myself stronger, emotionally deeper, more compassionate. To move forward as a better person. But I still come home many Friday nights and I crack. Because it hits home that I don't have anyone around to have my back, to encourage me, to cheer me on in the direction I'm trying to go. It's isolating and lonely. It's the little things that I miss - it's not diamonds and fancy dinners - it's being held by someone that you know cares about you. I miss having the sole attention of someone in a room. I miss having an emergency contact, knowing someone in this world would show up to help if I needed it. I lost that beautiful person and I'm too broken for anyone to see value in me and fill that role. And I'm afraid, because it feels like that's a reality I'm just going to have to get used to...

Because everyone else is out living their lives and I'm failing miserably to do the same.