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Wow, THANK YOU. I am so serious. I certainly haven't set out to be any sort of inspiration, and I wonder if sometimes people think I haven't grieved enough, when the reality is that I grieve often and every single day - but I also just have a naturally fun loving personality and I don't WANT to be sad and find it just about impossible to be blue for very long.
I think that's part of why God allowed me to fall and seriously break my right arm - so that I would BE STILL and process things, and boy did I process them. I think I cried for two weeks solid, and then off and on for weeks afterward and I couldn't tell you where the physical pain ended and the emotional pain began. It was a very dark time in my life, but it was also very necessary. It was also the first holiday season without my beloved husband. Oh and I live in east Texas and moved here primarily to avoid lots of ice and snow, and we had the absolute worst ice and snow storm we'd ever had here this past winter. And it snowed - a lot (for us - nearly a foot of snow) - and twice! I also moved - well had movers move me (that was an adventure). So yes, lots and lots of stresses and weirdness.
But things are calming down and I'm getting accustomed to my new life and new self identity. Now that the shock has worn off, I am realizing just how much I really love living alone, more than I ever thought I would. Frankly, I can't imagine allowing some new person into my house, into my closet, my master bath, my bed. I got a kick out of a study done by the US census bureau of all things - it was stating that only 2 percent of women who are widowed get remarried and when asked why, these are the top three answers that they consistently gave:
1) I don't want to ever lose anyone else like that again.
2) I don't want to lose my independence.
3) I'm not attracted to older men.
I can totally relate to all three reasons, and in that order too!
Anyway, enough about all that. I'm going to piddle around the house today and probably finish watching the third season of Virgin River - which is exactly what I want to do today, nothing more and nothing less. I already gave platelets today and oddly, for the first time ever, I feel sort of drained and tired. Usually it doesn't affect me much if at all. Oh well. I have platelets to spare so I give them regularly. Hey, I've already taken off my bra so I am home for good! LOL a friend of mine called me and asked if I wanted to go do anything and I told her just that. Stick a fork in me, I'm done!
I'm coming up on a very bittersweet time of memories in my life from a year ago. A year ago, my husband was furloughed temporarily and we spent the entire month of August home together. We did tons of things together and I remember them all very clearly. My husband seemed to be in excellent health and we did a lot of things like going to Fort Worth for the day, getting the boat out on the lake, swimming every single day in our pool, having people over, etc. I just found some mustard that we bought a year ago because my husband had discovered a fabulous grilling recipe that called for mustard (something to do with salmon - it was delicious!). I guess I should throw that mustard away but frankly it reminds me of shopping with him and spending many an evening outside while he grilled, and how we'd mix up the topping for the salmon together in the kitchen.
It was very, very difficult for me to go into the grocery store for a long time after he died, because going to the meat and fish counter was so full of memories for me. Heck, just going to that store was full of memories for me, PARKING in that parking lot was full of memories. I'm glad I've moved, because I rarely go to that grocery store anymore, or even drive past it.
I think tomorrow I am going to go to the columbarium where his ashes and those of my parents are kept. I like to visit there every few months. I don't feel like any of them are THERE, but it's a place where I can see and touch all their names and the dates they were born and died, and think about how blessed I was by each of their births and each of their lives.
Of course you have and will continue to grieve, my friend. A love like you shared with your husband stays in your heart always and I know you miss him every single day. I would never think you haven't grieved properly or long enough or anything like that. What stands out most to me is your continued love of life. I've always feared losing loved ones and have lost plenty, including my parents. And I have always gotten through the grief, though at the time I didn't think I would. And like you, I try not to worry about what the future will bring. Losing a soul mate would be very hard, but for me I would like to think that I would see the good in life and continue to appreciate all that I love now even if my husband were no longer with me. Your posts give me hope.
Of course you have and will continue to grieve, my friend. A love like you shared with your husband stays in your heart always and I know you miss him every single day. I would never think you haven't grieved properly or long enough or anything like that. What stands out most to me is your continued love of life. I've always feared losing loved ones and have lost plenty, including my parents. And I have always gotten through the grief, though at the time I didn't think I would. And like you, I try not to worry about what the future will bring. Losing a soul mate would be very hard, but for me I would like to think that I would see the good in life and continue to appreciate all that I love now even if my husband were no longer with me. Your posts give me hope.
Well, thank you again.
I think you are going to be fine. I have a good friend who I discuss on various threads and she's wired together differently from me, but we have some similarities and one of those similarities is that we both really do love life. We are both really creative people too. She lost her husband a week to the minute after I lost mine under very different circumstances (he was older, under hospice care for many months, it was expected, etc.) She and I have traveled through our griefs differently but we've come to the same place now - we're both becoming more interested in life, in the pleasures we knew before the crushing grief (they were part of who we were and still are for goodness' sake).
So that's a long way of saying, I bet you will be fine. I remember distinctly things that I've learned along the way, some from grief counseling, some from reading, some from just muddling through it all myself. One thing that really struck me, and I honestly don't even know where I heard it or read it, is that we did not lose our better half. That implies that we are half a person and we are NOT. We are a whole person. Even after this devastating loss, we're a whole person. We aren't simply part of a couple, we are OURSELVES. As soon as I figured that out, I determined that, being a whole person, I was going to be the best whole person I can be. Give abundantly, live abundantly, smile and laugh and lead abundantly. In order to do that, I have to be healthy and confident in my own abilities. God didn't make me as simply part of two people - He made me a whole person and I need to be that whole person. Hope that makes sense.
As soon as I figured that out, things really began to improve in my life. It also helped that my husband would expect this of me. He wouldn't be shocked or saddened by me embracing life again, he would EXPECT it. That's helpful.
I want to be proud of myself and I want him to be proud of me too.
Wow, Kathryn, Just reading your posts from the last week or so are just amazing! I am so sorry for your loss and I admire the way you have handled it. You are so eloquent in your posts. Thank you for your post about the Eucharist and the way the homilies are "speaking to you" now. I really understand that. God Bless you!
I think you are going to be fine. I have a good friend who I discuss on various threads and she's wired together differently from me, but we have some similarities and one of those similarities is that we both really do love life. We are both really creative people too. She lost her husband a week to the minute after I lost mine under very different circumstances (he was older, under hospice care for many months, it was expected, etc.) She and I have traveled through our griefs differently but we've come to the same place now - we're both becoming more interested in life, in the pleasures we knew before the crushing grief (they were part of who we were and still are for goodness' sake).
So that's a long way of saying, I bet you will be fine. I remember distinctly things that I've learned along the way, some from grief counseling, some from reading, some from just muddling through it all myself. One thing that really struck me, and I honestly don't even know where I heard it or read it, is that we did not lose our better half. That implies that we are half a person and we are NOT. We are a whole person. Even after this devastating loss, we're a whole person. We aren't simply part of a couple, we are OURSELVES. As soon as I figured that out, I determined that, being a whole person, I was going to be the best whole person I can be. Give abundantly, live abundantly, smile and laugh and lead abundantly. In order to do that, I have to be healthy and confident in my own abilities. God didn't make me as simply part of two people - He made me a whole person and I need to be that whole person. Hope that makes sense.
As soon as I figured that out, things really began to improve in my life. It also helped that my husband would expect this of me. He wouldn't be shocked or saddened by me embracing life again, he would EXPECT it. That's helpful.
I want to be proud of myself and I want him to be proud of me too.
I completely agree that we are whole people without anyone else. That's one of the things I've worked on in my life, realizing that I am and will be okay regardless. At some point, of course. Death will happen to all of us, some sooner, some later, but we all will face the inevitable. You are right that your DH would want you to live your life to the fullest, as you would certainly want him to have done had the situation been reversed.
I completely agree that we are whole people without anyone else.
The irony is I rebelled for so many years of my marriage against becoming 1/2 of the whole. I required that we have our separate parts of our lives. Separate finances, separate decisions, successful careers, autonomous lives... It was a knee-jerk reaction to an awful first marriage
Years and then decades wore away my fears. And we did long last become each other's better halves. We brought out the best in each other and operated as one. We truly were the wind beneath our wings.
His death has left me less than whole. The wind is gone so is my heart.
Sitting here listening to a gent. His wife was on flight 93. (9/11).
His strength and humility are captured in this interview.
My takeaway from this gent-
More will be revealed.
And so too within each of us. Revealing things about our departed. As well as what is painfully true in ourselves .
It was a few months after a loss that a family secret was exposed. You could have knocked me over with a feather. All these years....my mom shielded us kids. That horrendous secret though once exposed placed her in a higher regard. Which I didn't think possible! Imagine being the child who for years and well into adulthood chastised her mom for not encouraging the co parenting approach. Why didn't she want us kids to have a relationship with our dad???
Well that secret came out and us kids wished we would have thanked her...and not ridiculed her.
So with that reveal, I found out how terribly wrong us kids were . How she shielded us (rightly so) as only a mom could do.
The other thing revealed was ...
That grief becomes incorporated in our life. Sometimes I want it to stop nudging...then other moments I say, hey! Thanks for pulling out of the rat race...and validating what really matters.
Sungrin and Kathryn, your words are so eloquent and real. Seems you've probably had a lot to say to God. I have not lost a spouse, but a mother. father and sister, plus many friends. My greatest loss was losing my granddaughter, Katie in a car crash. She was 10. My son, her father, his wife, Katie's mother and the rest of their extended family not only endured the pain of losing her, but the senseless words that spewed from the mouths of people who never experienced this kind of loss, like "She's in a better place" or "Why aren't you over this by now" to my son after just a few months.
Then a court case and prison time for the driver and days upon days of press. None of us are the same and never will be. I told an Episcopalian priest how angry I was with God and he said, "that is probably the most honest you've ever been with God". I am a retired psychotherapist and I had a practice at the time Katie died. I like to think I was a better therapist for people who had lost a child because of my own loss.
That is probably the most honest you've ever been with God? How does he know how honest you are? To me that's an incredibly presumptuous statement. Does he have a Hot Line to God?
Quite likely you became a better therapist, though some people would crumble and decline. Adversity is a teacher.
I haven't heard those sort of idiotic words you mention from family, but just as bad was my wife's daughter and her chosen companion's behavior. Serpents. Just serpents.
We go one day at a time. I'm a retired therapist/social worker too. I've finally started with a couple of grief and loss groups. One run by a hospital, one by a hospice. I've been to three meetings, two and one, respectively.
While I didn't think much of the hospital group run by a chaplain--he's taken phone calls during both groups, and he didn't run group so much as start talking about this and that--but compared to the one hospice-sponsored group run by a "real" therapist, he gets A+.
The "therapist" apparently turned the group over to a "volunteer" who rules it, she's not a clinician and she's not skilled at group. The person with the letters after her name spent much of group time fiddling with her laptop or phone. There were probably at least a half dozen intrusions, staff walking into the group room going to another room, once a door opened and about 8-10 people came out of some sort of meeting, right through the group room, heading for the front door. The "volunteer" and one other loudmouth spent much of the later group time monopolizing the conversation. Ironically, at the beginning they read a statement talking about "confidentiality" etc. I won't go back there.
I ran many groups during my career, and attended many groups. I've never seen anything like either one of these. I have been complimented a few times by other professionals who asked to sit in on my groups. But whether the therapist was great or not so great, there weren't phones ringing and calls taken, there weren't folks traipsing in and out all day.
The irony is I rebelled for so many years of my marriage against becoming 1/2 of the whole. I required that we have our separate parts of our lives. Separate finances, separate decisions, successful careers, autonomous lives... It was a knee-jerk reaction to an awful first marriage
Years and then decades wore away my fears. And we did long last become each other's better halves. We brought out the best in each other and operated as one. We truly were the wind beneath our wings.
His death has left me less than whole. The wind is gone so is my heart.
The irony is I rebelled for so many years of my marriage against becoming 1/2 of the whole. I required that we have our separate parts of our lives. Separate finances, separate decisions, successful careers, autonomous lives... It was a knee-jerk reaction to an awful first marriage
Years and then decades wore away my fears. And we did long last become each other's better halves. We brought out the best in each other and operated as one. We truly were the wind beneath our wings.
His death has left me less than whole. The wind is gone so is my heart.
I know you feel that way but just keep in mind that you are NOT half a person. You are a whole person, without the man you loved by your side. But you are still you. Find you again and nurture yourself. It will come. Right now emotions are so fraught with sorrow, anger, guilt, grief, ugh, all sorts of awful feelings and they are all understandable.
You aren't married anymore but you still have a complete and whole life to live after you muddle through this, like we all do.
We truly were the wind beneath our wings.
His death has left me less than whole. The wind is gone so is my heart.
Four months is a tough time. Still very soon. There is a great space that can't be filled. It is good and fulfilling to identify ourselves as a couple and we pool our resources and energy and hopes and plans. But now what? You have great strength and resourcefulness and you grew stronger through your time together and that is a great asset. With all of that, you will be able to heal. That space becomes a shadow but it takes a while. The shadow might linger, probably will. That's okay. You can revisit those hopes and plans. Some of them, or parts, can still be saved or reshaped but that takes a while, too. Time is our friend but it doesn't seem like it.
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and he didn't run group so much as start talking about this and that--but compared to the one hospice-sponsored group run by a "real" therapist, he gets A+. 
