Category: Being a widow

Reflection of a Decade

On By drwiebIn Being a widow, Self-reflectionLeave a comment

On June 26, it was twelve years since I last saw Randy breathing. I’ve come a long way in my life since that day, although Grief does its best to dismantle everything I’ve done. It doesn’t get better or easier; it will never be better or easier that Randy is gone. It just becomes the New Normal. The pain has become a dull ache that sits in the corner of my heart and waits for the right moment to strike. I know I should expect it; I know it still happens at the odd moment. The mistake is forgetting it’s there. The forgetting just makes its reappearance all the more jarring, and no less painful.

Imagine being attached to a retractable leash, but free to roam anywhere you want, as far as you want, in any direction you want. The leash is invisible, and you can’t really see what it’s tethered to, so you tend to forget about it. You go about your daily life, being happy, or sad, or bored, or exhilarated, or expectant, or any number of ways that mean you’re alive. Except, at odd, unexpected times, that invisible leash snaps you off your feet and in the space of a heartbeat, you are a thousand miles away, curled in a fetal position from the intensity of your memories, wondering what the hell that was all about. After you’ve gotten your breath again, you dust yourself off, check for injuries, realize it’s just your heart that hurts, and continue on. Cautiously, you go back to making this new life, gaining courage and confidence the more space you put between you and the whatever-the-hell-THAT-was and…WHAM! There goes that damn leash again, snapping you right off your feet. It is unpredictable, it is fast, and it hurts.

I have learned quite a bit about myself in the years Randy has been gone, and about judging the people in my life. I have found out just how truly human we all are, no matter how hard we try to rise above that. We handle pain in so many different ways, and we should never assume someone’s pain is less just because they don’t wear it on their faces like a neon sign. Judging someone else’s journey is not only useless, it is monstrously egotistical, and while we are all harboring varying degrees of monstrous egos (because we are all human), we also each have our own invisible leash.

I remember when I was among the “newly widowed,” how I would look to those further out in the grief journey, needing to be sure I could survive this. I wanted assurances that I would be able to weather the absolute agony that my life had become, that there was a reason to keep breathing. Now that I am further out in the whole process, I avoid giving any advice to the newly widowed. I have no assurances to give, because I haven’t survived it yet. I am still surviving it, each and every day. I have no idea when it’s supposed to get easier or, god forbid, better, because it has only become different.

On the positive side, I no longer feel like The Only One. I don’t have that Why Me? feeling so much anymore, because there are too many versions of ‘Me’ I’ve met along the way to feel particularly special. I can think about Randy without doubling over in pain, and he’s no longer on that pedestal where I first planted him, on his way to heaven. I can remember his faults right along with his best qualities, knowing they all made the entire package, and I loved him just the way he was. The sharp pain of seeing married people, happy couples, intact families has lessened to a subtle twinge, and the selfish whine of “why not us?” has faded to a wistful sigh. It is what it is.

I did adjust to this new life. There were challenges I really liked, and memories that still give me secret smiles, and possibilities that I seriously want to explore. Somewhere along the line, I found that by pretending to be a positive person, I became more positive. By putting a daily smile on my face as the last act of a morning makeup routine, I started smiling more easily throughout the day, even when the makeup was gone. I returned to enjoying the speed of my thoughts and ideas zooming around inside my head, grabbing one as it flew by, releasing it back to the melee to chase after another. I always enjoyed the organized chaos of my mind, and I lost it there for quite some time. Thinking was not only a chore, it was painful, so I just didn’t do it. I once again enjoyed creating whole worlds in my imagination, and the possibilities of those worlds kept me moving forward. I found myself heading into the future with small steps, and then with longer strides. I am pleased to feel as though I’m actually finding my way through the new normal that is my life.

That is, until a certain memory intrudes at an unpredictable time, and the leash snaps.

Once again, I am back on the ground, bewildered and broken, wondering where the hell I am, and how I got here, and Where is Randy? The grief comes roaring back, consuming everything as it scours me with heat and fire. It takes my breath away, and it takes my thoughts away, and it tries to take my hope away. I have learned to stay curled up, protecting my heart from the fire, and just wait for it to burn itself out. It doesn’t take long these days; it is more of a flashfire than an inferno, but it still leaves scars. It still leaves me shaken and unsure in the immediate aftermath. It leaves me tentative, and I so detest the fact that it has once again taken some of my confidence and reduced it to ashes.

At one time, I was a self-confident, assured, whole person. I was married to a man that pushed me to be my best, who loved me despite my challenging ways, and who taught me to stand up for myself. For the first several years after his death, I felt like I was so much less. I had earned my confidence through life and love with him, by believing in him, and being amazed that he also believed in me. Without him, my confidence lost one of its architects. While I have built it back somewhat through determination and hard work, that damn leash takes its due each time it snaps. I try to believe in myself, but Randy is not here to believe in me, and so there is less mortar holding those bricks together. Grief crumbles another brick here or there, and I am more tentative, and I do not like it.

People would ask me “How are you? No, really, how are you?” The truth was, and still is, this: I am sad; I am happy. I am stuck; I am hopeful. I am bewildered; I am curious. I am tired; I am grateful. I am…me, whoever that has become, whoever that will be. My grief is never completely gone, but I have learned to build around it. It is what it is. I am what I am.

The only thing I know for absolute certainty is this: I really, really, hate that damn leash.

The annual widda-bago

On By drwiebIn Being a widowLeave a comment

I just got back from my annual Widda-bago. Every year for the last 10 years or so, a group of widows/widowers have gotten together to hug, drink, cry, and grieve.  We met on an online young widows/widowers message board. We came from all over the world: Missouri, Idaho, New Jersey, Florida, Washington state, Canada-by-way-of Cayman, even Germany. It started with just 9 of us, drifting on rafts down some river in middle Missouri on a  hot August day that I thought would never end. I was sure when we finally climbed off our rafts, we’d be speaking Spanish down in the Gulf of Mexico. We were together for 2 days; four of the “originals” are still going strong each year.

After that first year, we opted for nicer accomodations at the Lake of the Ozarks and rented a couple of houses right on the lake. The number of people who attended each year grew quickly. One year, there were probably close to 50-60 people at the Lake. It was too much for me. I need more in common with friends than a dead spouse, and I needed some space when the grieving became too personal. I knew the Lake trip was coming to an end.

I wasn’t alone in how I felt. There were a  handful of people who quietly arranged for a different kind of ‘bago the following year. Now there are 8-10 of us who gather each June for a week at a beach…somewhere. The prerequisites for the spot include: ocean, sand, sun, enough bathrooms & bedrooms to accommodate this number of women, restaurants within walking distance, shopping within driving distance, and airports that are somewhat reasonable in service to the Caymans.

We started in Wrightsville Beach (North Carolina), then headed to Tybee Island (Georgia), off to Emerald Isle (NC), then Anna Marie Island (Florida), and this year—St. Augustine (Fl). Each June, it feels like coming home to see these people with the seabreeze in their hair, the week goes by too fast, and it’s hard to walk away again for another year. We pick up right where we left off, and then let the ends dangle in the waves until the next time we gather them up.

I have logged so many hours in the sunny sand, splashing carefully in waves that started somewhere in Europe, and lounging under beach umbrellas that may or may not cooperate by staying right-side-out. I have toured a battleship, walked a pub ghost tour, wandered into the ocean bed a half-mile or more as the tide went out, watched dolphins frolic and lizards mate, gathered shells of every shape and size, ridden in a trolley and in a horse-drawn carriage, peddled my way through Savannah while imbibing heartily, and sat in Atlanta’s airport for more than half a day waiting for my flight. I have laughed and cried and simmered and empathized and taken more pictures than my family and friends would EVER want to sift through, if they had a choice.

And I have done all of this because Randy died.

It is one of the oddest, most jarring feelings to realize that if he were still alive, I would not know any of these people. I would have none of these memories. I would have visited almost none of these places nor taken any of these pictures. I owe these vacations to the fact that I lost my husband so suddenly. How do I reconcile the wonderfulness of these places and people with the pain of losing the love of my life? Seriously…I’m asking, because I have absolutely no idea.

I can be sitting in one of the most breathtaking spots on one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, laughing heartily with someone over something inane or insane, and it hits me right in my heart: if Randy were still here…  Everything stops for that brief moment in time–the waves, the wind, my laughter, my heartbeat. In the beginning, things wouldn’t start back up so easily. Many tears were shed. Many more were swallowed behind the facade of a smile. I often had to take a moment to grieve again for my loss, and could only come back to the present somewhat guiltily, feeling like I was betraying his death with my life. 

It doesn’t get easier, in much the same way I assume it doesn’t get easier once you’ve lost a limb. You cry. You curl into yourself and try to disappear. You scream. You throw things and break things. You adapt. You improvise. You eventually accept a new normal. The one thing you never do is forget what it was like “before.”

This widows group has been described as “the best group of people you wish you’d never met.”  As odd as it is, we are all in complete agreement that, given the choice, we’d trade each other in a heartbeat if it meant we got our spouse back. It’s not that we don’t like each other; in fact, there are several that I love as if they are family. I cannot imagine my life without them now. I would, without a second breath, assign them all to being nothing more than a bad dream if Randy were standing next to  me again. I’m not sure how I’d do that, wiping them from my memories when they’ve meant so much to me. I do know I’d find a way. I also know that not one of them would begrudge me that opportunity.

I also know, after 12 years, that Randy’s probably not coming back to me. He really is gone, and this really is my life, and I really do know and love these people. On one of my first widda-bago trips, there was a memorial service, complete with flowers that we tossed into the ocean at the end of the ceremony. I remember standing in that circle in the sand, looking at these people I had just met, people who knew this part of me better than even my daughters did, and realizing these people were Randy’s last gift to me.

They will never replace him. They will never fill the void that was created when he was taken from  my life. They will, however, give me one reason to live again. They will be there for me each year, for one week in June, to hug me and laugh with me and cry with me and understand that no matter how far I have come, it all started with the worst day of my life. They know that all of these memories are built solidly on my grief, sliding formlessly into the cracks and gaps left when my world shattered into infinite pieces and I began trying to put it back together again.

These people and these memories have given me so much beauty and vibrancy, all as part of his gift. While I wish I’d never had cause to meet them, I am oh-so-grateful for how they are intrinsic to the mosaic of my life. Thank you, Randy. I love you, forever and always.

From there to here and beyond

On By drwiebIn Being a widowLeave a comment

I met my husband the old-fashioned way—in a bar.  My best friend was interested in his best friend and we got thrown together by default. I wasn’t sure about this man in a softball uniform that looked like he’d rolled around in a pigpen recently. He wasn’t sure about this woman who pointed out the obvious. (“Did you know your emergency brake light is on?” “No….really?  And I’ve only been driving this car for how long…..?”)

I didn’t hear from him for about two weeks after that initial encounter. I’d written down my phone number, but not my name, just to see if he’d remember it. He said, later, that he’d immediately lost the number. He did remember, however, that my dad owned a bar, and so we managed to find each other again via the neon beacon. After our first date, we were pretty much inseparable. We spent that summer at his softball games, on the river in my dad’s boat, or in a tavern. I knew this was serious when, about three weeks into the relationship, he asked if I was hungry and instead of sweetly replying “Oh, if you’re not going to eat, neither am I,” I pointed to McDonald’s and said “Yes. Why do you NEVER eat? I’m starving. And I want fries with that.”

We started dating in July. We were engaged by October, and married by June. We spent our honeymoon first at Lake Shelbyville in my parents’ borrowed camper and then in St. Louis for Six Flags and a motorcycle race at Busch stadium. We almost lost the boat over the side of a hill when we were parking in the dark, and then our refrigerator failed to work because we hadn’t “leveled up.” We survived on fried bologna and eggs and an open window. We figured St. Louis would be smooth sailing after that, but….

First, someone died on the ride we had already decided we weren’t going on. She slipped out of the car somehow, and that was that. Back at our hotel, we got locked out of our room, got let into our room so we could go to the pool while the lock was fixed, and got locked out again until after 11:00 pm that night…in our swimsuits. Since we had spent a total of five minutes in the room all day and had had no dinner (or any other common courtesy you’d expect from a hotel in this situation), Randy refused to pay for the room. We ended up down the road somewhere, where they had working locks and a bar that was open until 2:00 am. I ate the cherries from my drink for dinner.

The motorcycle race was fun, but we were in a motel with practically everyone we knew from our hometown (for the same race), so we had to hide until everyone went to bed just to have some time alone. I was promised a do-over for our first anniversary, so naturally, we made reservations at a restaurant that closed the week before we arrived, without informing us, of course. Someone was testing us to make sure we REALLY wanted to be married.

And we did. In spite of his drinking and my stubbornness and our arguing, we loved the hell out of each other. I couldn’t cook and he couldn’t save money and we didn’t know how to discuss anything without yelling. We fought as much as we cuddled, and I thought that’s how every marriage went. We had seven years of a really volatile relationship, including a span of four months where we separated. We had our first daughter two years into the marriage, and then began trying for another a couple years after that. We moved three times (once when he wasn’t living with us) and he had two DUIs from two car accidents. After the birth of our second daughter and an unsuccessful period of trying to be a stay-at-home mom, I decided I was done. It was just too hard, and nothing ever changed. I couldn’t sit up every night, watching for his headlights and worrying about him in another car accident, wondering who would be hurt this next time.

He started noticing the signs as soon as I stopped screaming about them. He stopped drinking before I could find a lawyer, and we decided to stick it out one more time. It was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Our marriage was still somewhat volatile, because while he stopped drinking, I was still stubborn. Suddenly, I realized the arguments were half  my fault, and I was never good at apologizing. He started spending less time in the tavern and more time with me and the girls. We went places together. We tackled problems together. He read all the manuals and I figured out all the maps. We talked about what we wanted and what we liked and when the other person should really be listening and NOT talking. Most importantly, we remembered how much we liked each other. We remembered we were each other’s best friend and strongest supporter. We finally figured out how this marriage stuff was supposed to work, and we realized we were pretty good at it. 

He kept advancing through his job and we ended up in St. Louis. He traveled weekly and I worked full-time and took care of everything at home until the weekend. He finished the basement and washed all the cars and kept the yard looking like we had professional gardeners. He spent as much “daddy” time with the girls as he could and still kept up his passion for golf. We kept a camper at Kentucky Lake and went fishing and boating every chance we got. We took the girls to Disneyworld and Florida and Myrtle Beach. He finally felt like he had the time to get another motorcycle, and we would spend time every weekend with just the two of us, cruising along some back road or country highway for miles. We took our oldest to college and held hands on the way back. We took a road trip to Atlanta to see a NASCAR race in person and spent the entire 8 hours just talking about anything and everything. We started actively planning for retirement. We had it good.

Until we didn’t. One week in June, he said he wasn’t feeling very good. I knew I couldn’t push him into going to the doctor, so I just waited. On Saturday, he woke up but didn’t get out of bed right away. He went back to bed after drinking some coffee at the kitchen table. I went shopping for the daughter’s boyfriend’s 21st birthday. When I got back, he said he was ready to go see a doctor. The doctor at the urgent care sent us directly to the hospital. The hospital immediately began testing for diverticulitis and surgery. What they found was worse.

He had leukemia. Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He was bleeding internally because his white blood cell count was so low. He was transferred to Barnes hospital downtown on Sunday and was put into a drug-induced coma that evening, due to the incredible pain he was in. He was pronounced dead in the early hours between Monday night and Tuesday morning. He was 48.

There are bits and pieces of those three days that stick out in my mind. Most is a blur. I remember the feeling of “this is going to take some recuperating time; how will I keep in him one place” when they were talking surgery. I remember leaning over him, our foreheads touching, and whispering fiercely “don’t you DARE leave me” after the doctor walked out when he finished telling us “leukemia.” I remember standing at the window in his room all that first night, watching him sweat and sleep, and trying to get the electrodes to stick to his skin to stop the incessant alarms. I remember giving up and just waiting to see how long it would take the damn nurse to come in and see exactly why the alarm was going off in the first place. I remember my one and only ride in the back of an ambulance, holding his hand and watching him grimace at every bump in the road. I remember his stoicism to pretend everything was going to be ok while our families were in the room, and his inability to control the pain the moment they left. I remember sleeping in the waiting room on and off, and him squeezing my hand the next morning when I came to give him a kiss before they transferred him one more time, to the ICU. I remember having to buzz to get into his hall. I remember that no one answered my buzz one time, and I was just let in. I remember turning the corner and seeing all the staff in his room, frantically working over him. I remember his nurse turning to see me and yelling down the hall “Go back to the waiting room! I’ll come see you in a minute. Go now!” I remember walking back out to the waiting room and realizing that things weren’t going to be ok. I remember being told to call the family back, and then being led to his room by his nurse. I remember all the machines and the beeping and how his eyes weren’t closed all the way and how his fingernails were all blue and how kind the staff were to us. I remember waiting, hopelessly staring out the window at the stars, as they made a last ditch attempt to surgically stop the bleeding. I remember sitting at the u-shaped table in the family room as the staff told us that he didn’t make it. I remember putting my head down and ….that’s it.

Randy died on June 26, 2007. We had our 23rd wedding anniversary four days later,  on June 30th. We also had his funeral that same day. My mother asked why I’d do that to myself, have his funeral on the same day as our anniversary. I just shook my head.

“You think it’s not going to be painful if he’s buried that day or the day before or the day after? I may as well get it all out on one day. We began our life together on that day. We end our life together the same day. Until death do we part.”

It’s been almost 12 years now, since we were  parted. There’s a lot that’s happened in that decade-plus. There have been marriages and divorces and deaths and births and moves and old jobs and new jobs and joy and pain and tears and happiness. Life has continued, whether I wanted it to or not.

I miss him just as much today as I did the first day he was gone. I waited for 10 years for him to come back to me, because he always gave in when I really, really wanted something. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t give in on this, too. It took quite some time, but I have come to the understanding that I won’t see him on this plane again. (You’ll notice I didn’t say “acceptance.” I said “understanding.” I’m still stubborn.) I also know he’s moved on to wherever he’s supposed to be, because he always read the manual as soon as possible.

And I know he’ll be waiting for me when I finally arrive, exasperated because I got lost here or there. He’ll be standing with his hands on his hips, asking pointedly, “Why didn’t you just read the manual? That’s what they make it for, you know. I know, I know…you just expect ME to read it so I can tell you what it says. <sigh> Ok, here’s what it says…..” I really can’t wait to hear that again.