An Unwilling Widow
  • Chronicles of an Unwilling Widow

As Time Goes By...

3/25/2015

3 Comments

 
“Grief makes one hour ten.” – Shakespeare

I haven’t been writing much lately because basically nothing has changed over the past few weeks.  The loneliness, the emptiness is still there.  The rage and despair hasn’t left and the grief has not lessened.  If anything, it has increased.

If I ever do mention this to anyone, and I generally don’t because why would someone want to hear the same litany over and over again, but if I ever break down and do mention it, they are almost guaranteed to say something like ‘Give it time’.

But time is a funny thing.

Becoming a widow suddenly warps time and perception.  I look at the clock and see that it is 8 am, then I look again and it is 1 pm and I have done nothing but sit and stare at my keyboard.  I couldn’t begin to tell you what I thought about or what I did during those five hours.

But, on the flipside, I see something that triggers a deep sorrow for the loss of my husband and I shrink into a little ball of agony.  Then, each second feels like an hour and the clock never moves.

Someone once said that the length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.  And it is very true.

My days are full of empty gaps of hours gone in a flash and agonizingly static minutes that never pass.

I’m becoming adept at little time games.  For example, I’ll be done with work and see that I still have three hours until I need to feed the four footed furry brigade. To fill those empty hours, I try to read, setting myself so many chapters or pages.  Or, if I can’t settle enough to read, I watch TV.  I set it on a channel that has hour long shows, like old Law and Order reruns.  I tell myself that at the end of this show an hour is gone.  And the next, and the next, until it is time to feed the four footed furry brigade.  The mindless TV seems to soothe my brain and stop it from fretting for a while.

I find myself shying away from thinking too far into the future, because then all I would see would be endless days and months and years without my husband.  Days of coming home to an empty house, days of having no one to call and say that I was on my way home, days of waking up to an empty side of the bed, days of not talking because there is no one to talk to.

Instead, I pick an event, something small, maybe not even meaningful but something different.  It can’t be too far into the future, maybe just a couple of days, but I make it a milestone to get to and then find something else after that.

The trick is to fill up those slow hours with something, anything and try to pay attention during those hours when everything goes at warp speed.

See, time is not a constant.  Time is nothing but an evolution of things. A changing from one state to another. As some things change quicker, time goes quicker.  If some things change slower, time goes slower.   It’s all relative.  Albert Einstein noted that time was an illusion.  A man travelling at light speed would age slower than a man not.  Because at light speed, the constant change that dictates the passing of time happens at a much slower rate.  So a year for him could be 100 years for the rest of us.  Thus the premise for a half dozen movies about talking apes.

Time is a force.  Mankind has compartmentalized it in a vain effort to contain it, but it can’t be contained.  As long as anything, anywhere, changes its state from one form to another, time marches on.  Time is the human cell growing older.  Evolving.  Time is steel rusting.  Time is plants growing.  Time could even be the evolution of a thought from concept to realization.

It’s perception that dictates the speed of time. 

Time expands and contracts to our individual needs.  Time will seem like it is flying to you, but to the rest of the world, not so much and vice versa.

Have you ever thought that hours have passed, only to look at a clock and find that it has only been minutes?  Or have you thought that something was taking forever only to find that hours have gone by?  When you check your watch or your phone or look at the clock to see what time it is, you are resetting yourself, resolving your own time sense to be in sync with the rest of the world.  Readjusting your perceptions to a constant.  A constant that really has nothing to do with time itself, but more for society to all reference the same speed so that events can be coordinated to happen at the same time.

So, if time is based on perception and each individual, then the phrase ‘Give it time’ means nothing.  Because that would mean that my grief would have to evolve, change, and try and resolve itself to a conclusion.

There is no conclusion and will not be.  As long as I am mentally aware that my husband is no longer with me, my grief will never conclude.  It may change over the years, but I think the change will more likely be that I am becoming accustomed to it, not that it has changed in itself.

So in that aspect, that change, whether in my thinking or my grief, will experience the passing of time, but it will never go away completely. 

The often incorrectly quoted “Time heals all wounds” was first ascribed to Menander, a Greek playwrite in 300 BC.  The correct quote is as follows:  "Time is the healer of all necessary evils."  But personally, I think Menander was way off of the mark.  Healing means that it resolves itself, becomes whole again.  Even I know, in the beginning of this awful journey, that I will never be whole again.

So I disregard Menander and refer instead to Rose Kennedy who said, “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”

And hopefully that will happen to me, in a manner of time.

3 Comments

But Thinking Makes It So...

3/19/2015

2 Comments

 
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
―
Rudyard Kipling


 

I think too much.

Especially lately.

Maybe it’s because it’s so quiet around the house now. Since I work from home, I’m here almost 24/7 and I can go days without saying more than three words.  But my brain is in overdrive.

I’ve been thinking about the difference between acknowledgement and acceptance. 

You see, I acknowledge my husband’s death.  Hard not to with a big empty hole in my life. 

I acknowledge that I will never see him again, hold his hand, snuggle next to him all curled up with his arm around me.  I acknowledge that I will never again feel that feeling of completeness when he is near.  I acknowledge that I will never feel safe and secure, knowing that together we could handle anything.  I acknowledge that I no longer have a partner, someone to talk things over, commiserate over a bad day or event with, share a happy thought with. I acknowledge that I will never again have someone understand me absolutely as he did.

But I can’t accept it.

Because I don’t want to.

I know that psychiatrists, counsellors, psychics, mediums and social workers throughout the world would tsk, tsk me and tell me that it is not healthy to continue to deny the facts.  But in the words of Adam Savage from Mythbusters:

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

What is it about accepting his death that scares the hell out of me?  I’m sure Freud and Company have a plethora of theories and hypotheses that would explain it.  But since I barely passed Psych 101, my reasoning is probably a lot simpler.

If I accept it, then he is gone.

Just that.

As long as I don’t accept, I have some tangent hold of him.  An imaginary tether still keeping him bound to me.  As long as I don’t accept it, death can’t claim him.  As long as I don’t accept it, he is still mine.

Now most people would look at those two words and see that they are very similar.  And maybe I am splitting hairs, but recognition of a fact is not the same as believing that the fact exists.

In my warped view of this whole widowhood, I believe that by accepting my husband’s death, I am diminishing him.  I am categorizing him into the same pidgeon hole as my mother, my grandparents, my brother.  All departed and missed, but still pushed to the back of my mind as I deal with everyday life.

I don’t want my husband to be an afterthought.  I want him fresh, right in front of me, daily.  I want him to be the first thought in the morning and the last thought at night.  I want to hold on to him with both hands and never let him go. 

Because as long as I don’t accept it, then somewhere in my little reality, he is still alive in a nebulous form.

As Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said, “Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature's way of letting in only as much as we can handle.”

I remember reading a book called “The Hiding Place”.  It is about a family who sheltered Jews during WWII in Holland and were sent to a Nazi death camp because of it.  In the book, the author, Corrie Ten Boom, remembers talking about life and death with her father as a young girl. 

She told her father that she couldn’t understand why bad things happen.  At the time, they were travelling home from a shopping spree for her father who was a watch maker.  He had a heavy suitcase and he put it down and told his daughter to pick it up and carry it.  She tried and after a few minutes of struggling she told him that it was too heavy.

He then told her that is an example of why she didn’t understand.  That God gives understanding only to those that can lift and carry the burden. 

That analogy has always stuck in my mind.  And that’s why I can’t accept his death. Why I can’t understand it.

I’m not strong enough yet to lift and carry that burden.

2 Comments

Creatures Great and Small...

3/12/2015

0 Comments

 
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
Aeschylus


How do you explain death to children and dogs?

My husband and I didn’t have any children together.  So, I did not have to try to explain his death to them.  We do have a myriad of nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews some of whom are quite young and with true child honesty, the little ones came up to me and told me they were sad that their uncle was gone and would I be so kind as to tell them when he would return.

That’s when I fell back to the old standby of Heaven and Angels and I could see their thought processes churning as they neatly catalogued what I was saying into images and ideas that fit seamlessly into their little world as they know it.

But my husband and I do have several members of the four footed furry brigade.  All of which have grown up with and spent considerable amount of time with my husband.  Not to mention the livestock of horses, donkeys, goats and emus that he took care of on a daily basis.

While I worked at my computer during the day, my husband ran our ranch, so he was hands on and present with all of these creatures great and small on a 24/7 basis.

So how do you explain Heaven and Angels to a dog?  Or a cat?  Or a horse?  All of whom have spent the last few months constantly looking for him.  When I open the closet to get a shirt, the dogs come sniffing in and burying their heads into my husband’s clothes and shoes and then look at me as if to ask where I am hiding him.

His horse whinnies longingly every time the front screen opens as she rushes to the fence looking for him.  Upon seeing me and only me, she gives a disappointed grunt and wanders back to whatever she was doing before.  Sometimes allowing me to give her a carrot, other times ignoring me completely.

Someone suggested I contact a pet psychic and let them explain it to them.  There’s a slight problem with that.  I don’t believe in pet psychics.  Mainly because of my experience, many years ago, when a renown psychic was invited to a ranch where I kept one of my horses at the time.

She wandered around a bit, getting the ‘aura’ of the premises.  Walked up to a horse and proclaimed, “She has something to say!  What is her name?”

Now, I have been known to not keep my inside voice…well…inside.  And unfortunately this was one of those times as I blurted out, “First, she is a he and second, shouldn't you ask the horse what his name is?”

I was politely asked to leave the ranch until the psychic was gone.

So the option of pet psychic is out.

I did ask a normal trainer about what I should do, especially since lately the four footed furry brigade seems to be pushing all of my buttons at once.

She told me that their testing me was normal.  That since it had been about two months since my husband first left to the hospital, that the pack mentality was telling the dogs that he was not coming back.  Their pushing the boundaries was reestablishing their place in the pack since the alpha male, my husband, was gone.

Even though my husband and I didn’t have any kids of our own, between us we have helped raise eight of our nieces, nephews, younger cousins, best friends’ kids, etc.  We were the unofficial foster home without all of the government red tape.  So I am well aware of kids pushing boundaries, just never equated it to the doggy world of chew toys and drool.

So that made a lot more sense to me than some lady in a wispy, flowery, muumuu prancing around telling me that the pup wants to be a choreographer and needs to listen to more classical music.

I swear, with my hand in the air, that she actually said that about one of the horses.  That supposedly the horse was unhappy showing in regular dressage and wanted to go into freestyle where he could dance to steps that he created and that he would prefer to listen to Mozart and Chopin as he was not very keen on Beethoven.  And for that, the horse’s owner paid $55 per hour, plus mileage.

I do know that the four legged furry brigade really misses my husband.  My service dog will lie on his side of the bed at night.  The others cram themselves next to me as if trying to crawl into my skin.  Whenever I leave the room all of them have to follow me, or they get upset and start scratching at the doors, which they had never done before.  It’s as if they are scared that I too will disappear one day and never return.

How do I explain why, when I cuddle them close, that my attempts to comfort their mute sadness fail because I can’t comfort myself.  They sense how devastated I am which adds to their misery until we all end up in a puddle of despair with me trying to hug them all at the same time and sobbing.

I go out and talk to my husband’s horse.  Bring her carrots and try to explain why he is not answering her whinneys.  But even if she does take a bite of her treat, her head is raised and her eyes scanning behind me, always watching and waiting.  Even after two months she is still searching.

When my husband’s border collie puts his head in my lap and stares up at me wondering where my husband is and mutely begging for him to appear, all I can do is say how sorry I am that I can’t bring him back.  How I wish with every cell in my body I could make him materialize right now, right here.  But I’ll still be here, and love them and take care of them. I tell them over and over that everything will be all right.  I get the distinct feeling that they believe that as much as I do.

I noticed that the two dogs that were especially attached to him are looking decidedly older and greyer over the past month. In time, they too will pass on taking away one more link to my husband.  I pray that it is a long time from now.

I am ever grateful for the four legged furry brigade.  Especially the pup who was my last Christmas gift from my husband. Because, as they take comfort from me, they give me tenfold the amount of comfort back. 

I’m just sorry that they have to be on this horrible journey with me.


0 Comments

The Fickleness of Feelings...

3/11/2015

0 Comments

 
I love rollercoasters.  I love the ups and downs, the twists and turns, even the loop-de-loops.  What I don’t love is when my feelings decide to build and ride a rollercoaster all on their own.

Take today, for instance.  I woke up feeling tired, as is becoming the norm, fulfilled my morning routine of taking care of the four footed furry brigade, making coffee, popping vitamins in the hopes that they might suddenly change me into those smiling, happy people in the TV ads.  My usual emotion in the morning can be summed up in one word: ‘meh’.  Fairly neutral for the start of the day.

I then sat down at my desk to go to work (as I said before, I am fortunate in that I can work from home) and, as usual, I popped into the social media black hole to check on friends, family, watch the latest trending videos, etc., before diving into the world of computer programming for the various clients I work for.

There was a video of a Chihuahua in the snow that had me laughing hysterically.  I was happy, energized by the laughter.  I felt great.  My feelings riding high towards the apex of the highest point of the rollercoaster.

But then the inevitable happened.  I automatically turned towards my husband’s desk to tell him about it and there it was – his empty chair.  His computer screen dark.  The paperwork stacked up in undecipherable piles, a little dusty, fluttering slightly from the ceiling fan.  Suddenly, my emotions plummeted downward, so fast I almost couldn’t breathe.

This emotional rollercoaster started to twist and turn from despair to resignation to sorrow to, not acceptance, but at least acknowledgement.  Whipping from one side to the other until it started to slow down and I could catch my breath.

The laughter was gone.  It wasn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever seen anymore.  It was just some stupid dog in the stupid snow and who cares anymore.  So back to work I went, trying to hide myself in the problems and complexities of my job.

Eventually, I started to feel on more level ground.  And by the time the work day ended, I was back to neutral in my ‘meh’ mode.

Later that evening, I settled on the bed to watch a little TV, cuddling with the four footed furry brigade, when suddenly I could feel myself relaxing.  I was okay.  I was comfortable.  My feelings started to rise up towards that apex again.

But then a TV commercial came on about the Harry Potter theme park and I remembered that we had planned to go there.  We enjoyed the movies, I loved the books.  It was going to be so much fun.  Once again, my feelings rode that screaming coaster all the way to the bottom.  I was sobbing, grieving the loss of my best friend.  My mind whirling from one plan to another that we had and will never get to do.

That emotional coaster went screaming through a tunnel.  Dark and cold. Relentless in its speed and accuracy.  I couldn’t get off.  I had to ride it all the way through.

The four footed furry brigade did what they could to comfort me.  The pup brought me every one of his toys.  The older dogs leaned up against me or jumped in my lap, their warmth slowly spreading over me, pushing back the coldness.

As the coaster once again started to slow down, I wondered if I could get off for a little bit.  But even though it stopped at the platform, the bar wouldn’t lift up to let me out.  I was trapped in the car, surrounded by my feelings, ready to ride that rollercoaster again the next day.

Sadly, I am becoming familiar with this ride.  I am starting to realize that eventually the ups and downs, twists and turns would stop…even if only for a moment, so that I can catch my breath before the next time.  But I am still locked in this car.  Doomed to ride it not once, but several times a day.

Only time will tell how long I have to stay on this rollercoaster.  But at least I am beginning to understand that I can survive each trip.

0 Comments

A Bad Interpretation...

3/9/2015

1 Comment

 
When I started this project of chronicling the treacherous path of widowhood, I promised myself I would write about everything that went on.  The bad and the good.  The uplifting and the not-so-flattering.  So that brings me to this not-so-flattering post today.

I was idly watching TV, not really paying any attention to it when the commercial for the dating site FarmersOnly.com came on.   Completely out of the blue I wondered if I should join that.

Even before the thought was finished, my inner voice gasped at it.  What am I doing?  I’m thinking of looking for a date?   I loved my husband so much that a part of me died with him.  How the hell could I even entertain the thought of being with someone else?  The thought nauseated me and scared me.  Was I such a cold-hearted bitch that I could even think of joining a dating site when my husband has only been dead for barely over a month??

So I muted the TV and sat back and thought about what had just happened.  Horrified at how I could even think such a thing.

And that’s when I realized exactly why I had that thought.  I didn’t want someone else, I wanted what I had and lost.  Somewhere in my reasoning, irrational as it is, I wanted to join that site to look for my husband.  Whenever I really thought about finding someone on a site like that, my husband’s picture came to mind.

I wanted the security that he provided me.  I wanted that feeling that together we could overcome anything.  I wanted the love that I felt whenever he looked at me and smiled.  I wanted to have that melting feeling every time he touched me.  I wanted that feeling of being a part of ‘husband and wife’ as we walked or sat hand in hand.

I wasn’t a cold-hearted bitch to have that thought.  I was a normal, lonely, soul-aching widow who would do anything to get back what she lost. 

It’s a natural response.  It’s an instinctive need to regain what was lost.  In the dating world, they even have a term for it: rebound. 

Mothers who have lost a child have had thoughts about having another one immediately.  Widows and widowers seek out others, searching for a glimpse of what they had.  Not to replace, never replace, but to regain some of what is gone forever.  To ease that gaping rift.

And I can understand it.  I have a huge hole in my life and nature abhors a vacuum.  My mind was trying to fill the void that suddenly appeared in my life.

But no one could or would ever take the place of my husband.  And I don’t want anyone to try.  I don’t want someone to replace him…I want him. The very thought of having someone else in my life is abhorrent to me.

So, you see, I really don’t want to join a dating site. 

I just had a bad interpretation of what I wanted.

And I won’t find that anywhere on earth.

1 Comment

What's In A Name...

3/6/2015

2 Comments

 
I do not like being the center of attention.  I feel awkward, uncomfortable, as if I am pinned to the spotlight.  Because I am in a wheelchair, I get a lot of people staring at me…or trying hard not to stare at me which is even more uncomfortable than when they are staring at me.  I admit it, I am, and always was, socially inept.

When I was with my husband, he was the one that everyone gravitated to.  His big open smile, his friendly conversation with anyone he met always guaranteed that he would make a new friend in the next five minutes.  I could follow along in his shadow, popping out now and then to contribute and then retreating again. 

But now that he is gone I can’t hide behind him anymore.  I do take my service dog with me everywhere and he helps deflect that attention.  He’s a big mop of a dog and people are naturally drawn to him, pretty much ignoring me, which is how I like it.  They will approach me and ask me questions about him while he just laps up all of the attention.  He’s the star of the show, I’m just the stagehand on the other end of leash. Again, that’s how I like it.

But now I feel as if I have a huge label plastered over my forehead: widow.

It’s an unseen label.  People who look at me, and didn’t know, would never see it, but I still feel like it is there.  In huge neon letters lighting up the hemisphere, putting me smack dab center stage. 

We all have many labels attached to ourselves.  Mother, sister, wife, friend, daughter, employee….etc.  And subconsciously we alter our outward being to fit the definition of that label that best describes us at that moment.

For instance, we all act differently when we are around our own mothers than we do when we are around our kids.  It’s inevitable and even necessary because there are different rules to abide by for each role.  We know the rules, the ins and outs of these parts we are required to play. 

But now I’ve added that new label and I don’t know the various aspects of it.  How to act, what to say, how to feel.  It makes me feel as uncomfortable as if that spotlight was shining on me brighter than ever.  I don’t know the rules.

For instance, how is one supposed to bring it up in polite conversation?  Our friends and our family know about my husband’s death.  But there are many people out there that fall into the acquaintance category.  People whom we’ve never exchanged phone numbers, text messaging, Facebook, twitter or any other tether that social media binds us with.  But still people that know me and my husband, at least by sight. 

You know whom I’m talking about.  Those people you see all the time at the grocery store, sporting event or at any other venue.  You’re not quite certain of their name so you make certain to keep all statements fairly generic.  You are adept at inquiring about their family, their children, their job without saying anything specific that would give away a clue that you really have no idea what you are asking about.  And the ironic thing is, they are probably doing the same thing to you.

So how do I tell them about my husband’s death?  Wait until they bring him up in a conversation?  Drop it into the middle of an exchange of greetings?

“Hey, how are you?  Wow, you look great!  What’s been happening lately?  By the way, my husband died.  And how’s your family doing? How about those Bears?”

See?  There’s really no insertion point to any conversation where that tidbit of information doesn’t become awkward.

And I’ve checked.  How to handle this is definitely not a chapter in Miss Manners’ Big Book of Etiquette.

This lack of knowledge on how to handle this situation often lead up to another set of socially bungling incidents. 

Because I have no clue how to broach the subject, I don’t.  We exchange polite chit chat and move on.  Then I see them a week or two later and during that conversation they bring up my husband.  Now I have an opening and I tell them what happened.

Okay, there are two different scenarios that usually take place.  One, the most common, is a look of shock and horror on their face as they stammer out how sorry they are and they didn’t know and is there anything they can do to help.  That one is simple to handle.  I smile sadly, tell them that ‘yes, it was sudden’, thank them for their condolences and assure them that I’m doing okay.

The second scenario is one I have trouble figuring out what to do.  In this scene, they still have the same look of shock and horror on their face, but this time it is tinged with anger.  They ask when it happened, I tell them.  They then state that they had seen me since already and why didn’t I mention it to them?  Underneath they seem angry that I caused them to commit a faux pas in public, unwittingly embarrassing them about their lack of knowledge.

Once again Miss Manners fails me on how 1) I could have told them before and 2) I answer them now.

Other little things are unknown and untaught.  Do I still check married on forms?  I still feel married, but by law I’m single, or am I?  When a form asks for my spouse’s information if I do check the married box…what do I put down for him?  Occupation: Deceased?

And then there is the form of address.  Am I still a Mrs?  Ms?  Or should I be addressed like in a Mark Twain novel as the Widow So-in-So?

I slipped into the role of wife very easily.  Role of daughter…that’s a no brainer since that was appointed to me at birth.  All of the other roles I’ve gathered up in my life also came easily too.  But this one…widow…not so much.

Putting on the mantel of being a widow feels awkward, uncomfortable.  It makes my shoulders hunch up and my skin twitch.  It feels binding and twisted and constricting, like a bad fitting suit.

Maybe it’s the name.  Widow has so many ingrained meanings.  There’s a perception of what widows are and do, none of which is based on reality all thanks to Hollywood.  Maybe we should call it something else.  Like ‘reluctantly single’, or ‘suddenly spouse-less’, or ‘bereft and alone’.  All, in my opinion, much more descriptive than the word widow.

There are so many things to take care of, change, edit, alter or erase.  DMV, insurance, bank accounts, credit cards, social security, online accounts.  All items left by my husband for me to take care of.  I’m still finding things I need to adjust for legalities.

But the biggest adjustment is that label of widow.

I doubt if it will ever be a comfortable fit.  I imagine I will inwardly squirm every time I think of slipping into that role for as long as I live.

But I’ll stumble along trying to figure out the rules of this persona.  Because I have no choice.

And when and if I ever do figure this all out, Miss Manners will be the first person I will send it to.

2 Comments

We Are Time's Subjects...

3/4/2015

0 Comments

 
Today is my husband’s birthday.  He would have been…or is…48 years old.

That brings up one of the many the questions I have. 

When my husband died at the young age of 47, does that mean that he is forever 47?  Or does he age along with the rest of us?  What exactly do we celebrate on someone’s birthday?  Their physical living presence in this world or their, for lack of another term, spiritual presence?

In other words, when does a person become a person that ages?

Please, let me make this perfectly clear, I am not diving into the cesspool of the great abortion debate of how many cells does a baby make. 

But I am trying to understand when a person becomes a person in the minds of others.  Because that, I think, is what we use to celebrate birthdays.  Some philosophers believe that we are alive as long as we think, learn and evolve.  So in their definition, my husband would still be 47.   Others believe that as long as the memory and influence of a person exists they are still alive, just in a different format.  But the term 'birthday' seems to specify the anniversary of the day that they arrived here on earth.  Does that definition end when they die?

So once again, is my husband still 47 or did he turn 48 today?

I’m having a little trouble today formulating my thoughts because this is a confusing subject.  It is a subject influenced by culture, religion and our ever present governmental regulations.

Because basically, I am talking about life after death.  Now, that’s a topic that could swamp the internet with views, beliefs and arguments.  Millions of gigabytes of data have been created just on this subject alone.

Do we really die?  Does our consciousness live on?  Can we hover around our loved ones, helping them in any way?  Do we haunt the place where we die or are we destined to stay where our body is?  Can we take ghostly vacations and hop on a cruise ship to the Bahamas?  Are we reincarnated so we can do it all over again?  Is there Heaven?  Is there Hell?  How about Purgatory?

“God created the Heavens and the Earth” is a quote that many believe in.  Just as many believe in the theory of evolution as defined by Darwin.  The believers in each have been shouting over the fence at one another for decades about who is right and who is wrong.

Me, I believe that both are correct. 

We do have scientific proof of evolution in both man and beast.  Which leads to the hypothesis that at some time, somewhere in the primordial ooze a couple of amino acids got together, decided to hang out, and invited theirs friends to join them.  After a few millennium of heavy partying, one thing led to another and the first chain of life was created.


But where did that primordial ooze come from?  And who bumped those random little cells together in the exact combination from which we all descend from?

We also have scientific proof that the universe is expanding, which creates the theory that at one time the universe was a lot smaller and that there was a big bang that caused everything to start moving outward.

But who gathered all of that solid matter and gases into a giant celestial firecracker? 

Something cannot be made from nothing, so someone had to make the something first.

That’s where I think God stepped in.

Why did God do this?  Dunno.  In, hopefully at least, another 50 years maybe I’ll get a chance to ask Him. 

But then again, why do we create plays and music and art?  Because we enjoy watching, listening and looking at it.  Maybe we are God’s reality TV show.  There is a certain format to follow, an underlying plot line, but all of the rest is entirely up to us.  God probably lit the fuse on the sky rocket that contained ‘all of the Heavens’.  Then stirred the primordial soup that He created from His recipe book causing the little nubile molecules cruising toward each other. And then sat back to watch the show. Shakespeare may have hit a bulls eye with his “all the world’s a stage” philosophy.

So that brings me back to the whole ‘what happens after we die’ question.

I really don’t know.

My husband believed in Heaven.  So does that mean that it really exists whether he believed in it or not? Or does it mean that it does exist for him because he believed?

I try to believe.  I want to believe. 

When I was younger I wholeheartedly said my prayers, learned all about the Bible in Sunday School, talked to God, believed that if I died before I ‘wake’ that God would take my soul to Heaven.  (Although looking back as an adult, that’s a pretty frightening thought for a kid.  No wonder I wanted to stay up all night.)

Now?  Well now, that simple black and white thinking of good and evil is a little more muddled together in various shades of grey.  There are nuances that my adult mind ponders about.  Little caveats that cast doubts about such a simplistic viewpoint of the afterlife.

We watch the paranormal shows and hear the EVP’s and knocks and watch chairs move and shadows glide around fervently.  We see the video, hear the audio.  Proof that there is some sort of existence beyond death.

In fact, our house is haunted,   Has been for years.  I’ll hear my husband call me when he didn’t, or he heard me call him when I didn’t.  Visitors will see someone walk across the porch when no one is there.  The four footed furry brigade will all sit and stare at the same empty spot.  Sometimes wagging their tails, other times slinking away. Shadows big and small darting around, back and forth, in the corner of our vision.  We have had several witnesses to this phenomenon so we know it isn’t just in our minds.

It has never bothered us or scared us, although the lady who cleans my house does tend to turn up her music and sing loudly when she is here by herself while avoiding the one empty corner where the dogs gather around and have a staring contest with whatever or whomever.

So if these paranormal incidents indicate that there are spirits still on earth, is that because there is no Heaven?  Or did they turn down or postpone the chance to go so they can hang around here?  How about those poor souls that linger in huge gloomy empty buildings?  Surely they didn’t choose to spend eternity haunting dust bunnies and an ever exploding rat population.

Is my husband trapped in this limbo?  Is everyone who is deceased gathered around the spectral water cooler swapping stories and watching the rest of us try to keep going?

I would hope that if my husband could help, he was right here doing all that he can to make life a little smoother for me.  The same as I would want to do for him if the tables were turned.  But so far, I haven’t won the lottery and Publisher’s Clearing House hasn’t knocked on my door.

Although I hear a few more knocks and bangs in the dark, I haven’t experienced any extra activity around the house.  I would think that my husband, who was/is an extremely intelligent man, would figure out a way to show me that he was here.  Or maybe he’s in ghost school learning the 101 rules of haunting and needs his diploma before swooping down and auditioning for the next episode of Ghost Hunters.

But then again, maybe he is surrounded by his parents, grandparents, past pets, ancestors and old friends, busy reminiscing and obeying the hands-off rule from Heaven.  Watching as we fumble along trying to figure things out because doing is the best way to learn and learning is why we are alive.

So again I pose the question – if there is an afterlife and if my husband is in it, did he turn one year older?

Well to me, my husband did turn 48 today.  Because his influence is still here.  The essence of him has existed for 48 years.  And through me, his friends and family he still lives on and will live on for many, many years.
0 Comments

Perish the Thought...

3/3/2015

0 Comments

 
When I started this blog, I pledged to write about my experiences entering, kicking and screaming, into widowhood.  The good, the bad, the bizarre, the crazy.  All in the hopes that it might help other widows realize that they are not alone.  Plus writing is a lot cheaper than a shrink.

This post falls under the bizarre with a touch of crazy.

You see, lately, a little part of me thinks I caused my husband’s death.

How?  By wondering what I would do if he died.

Okay, let’s back track a bit and I’ll clarify. 

My husband died from complications from routine surgery.  When he went in for the surgery, I wondered what would happen, how I would react if he didn’t make it. 

And he didn’t.

So was I jinxing his surgery?  Did I somehow wish this?

No.  At least that is what my brain is telling me.  But the illogical part of me still wonders.

Remember I said in an earlier post about how sudden widowhood shifts your thinking?  It does.  You start perceiving things in a different way.  Irrational thoughts and ideas dance through your mind.  All of the what ifs, the should haves, the hows and the whys.

So the thought that my simple wondering may have caused his death is doing the tango through my cerebellum.

I have a friend who lost her son in Iraq.  We were talking about this and she admitted that she did the same for her son.  She imagined how she would react, what she would do if her son was wounded, or worse, killed.

She wondered strange things like, would his fiancé still be considered her daughter-in-law.  She even had the question of whether they would get their deposit back on the VFW hall they reserved for her son’s wedding when he returned from deployment.

Why would that even be an issue?  That would be the least of her problems and concerns.  But she had that thought anyways.

Does that mean that she cared more for the deposit than her son? Of course not.  It was just a way for her to prepare for the worst and focusing on the minute, mundane details pulled her imagination away from the horrific idea of losing him.

I did the same for my husband.  Days before his surgery, I wondered what I would do, how I would react, how much his funeral would cost.  I even had the thought that maybe we should have gotten life insurance on him, just in case.

Did I want my husband to die?  No.  Was the life insurance more important than having my husband with me?  No.

It was just a natural instinct to prepare for the worst.  A need to shelter myself from the unimaginable nightmare of losing him.

And trust me, it was far, far worse than I imagined.  Unbelievably worse.

We’ve all had thoughts like that.  What would I do if my mother dies, my father, my best friend, my boss.  The list goes on and on.  It’s a natural thing.  Because we are genetically programmed to survive and survival depends on being prepared.

The same as if we wondered what we would do in an earthquake, a tornado or any other natural disaster.

Because losing a loved one is a disaster.  It may only impact a few people compared to the thousands that a flood would devastate. But to those few people, it is as painful and nightmarish as anything that Mother Nature could throw at us.

So being prepared for it, well, as much as one can be, can be beneficial.  Look how many people already buy their plots in a cemetery.  Or have life insurance.  Or a living will.

So wondering what you would do if you became a widow does not mean that you want to be one.  It doesn’t mean that you caused your husband’s death.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t love or cherish your husband.

It simply means that you are human.


0 Comments

O happy dagger!

3/2/2015

0 Comments

 
First off, I want to emphasis that I am NOT suicidal.  I do not have plans to kill myself.  But I think this topic needs to be addressed.

My discussion of this topic might be a little jumbled because this is not an easy topic to tackle.  There is no wrong or right about it.  No definite boundaries.  It’s a messy subject, but an important one.

And that topic is suicide.

I imagine that most widows have had the thought at one time or another that they could not or did not want to continue living on without their spouses.  I did.  In fact more than once.  I still do every once in a while. 

Again, I am not suicidal so please don’t jump on the intervention wagon and come charging over to my place.

But it’s understandable to have that thought.

I’m not a shrink or a trained counsellor.  I’m just an ordinary woman who probably ponders way too much about things.  But to me, having to suddenly readjust my thinking, reevaluate my future plans and goals and reestablish my life as a ‘single’ again is scary.  Terrifying in fact.

I was extremely happy with my life with my husband.  Sure, we had problems like everyone else.  Not enough money, too little time or energy to get everything done.  But we loved each other completely and there was nothing that we couldn’t handle together.  So, in other words, we had a perfectly happy, normal, busy, hectic, hopelessly-in-love life together.  And having to switch gears and suddenly come up with a new plan, a new strategy, a whole new life that is so much less than what I had, well, it is unfathomable.

Right now, I pretty much take it one day, or one hour, or even one minute at a time.  I shy away from thinking about the future.  Because thinking about the future means thinking about all of those things I mentioned above and I don’t want to.

Like Veruca Salt from Willie Wonka,  I want things my way.  And my way consists of regaining the life I had.   I don’t want it, so my mind responds in a most childish way.  It stamps its foot and refuses to even think about a new life.

Which, of course, means that here I am once again trapped.  Unable to go backward, unwilling to go forward.  And many widows are stuck right there with me.  And that’s why the thought comes to mind that continuing on is unbearable, that it seems easier and less painful to just stop forever.

According to recent studies, suicide among widows 55 and younger are 4 times higher than the norm.  Older widows, over 55, are 2.5 times higher.  Even with good support systems.  These statistics are sad and alarming.  With hundreds, if not thousands of women becoming widows each day, the number that do finally commit suicide is astounding.  Whether they actively seek their own death or do so passively by wasting away, it is sad and should be unacceptable by society.  But society quietly ignores these bereft souls.  When my husband died, I was given a pamphlet about grieving and sent on my merry way.  That was it.  No follow up, no referral to a professional for help.  Just a 24 hour deadline to get a mortuary to take his body and a 'we're so sorry for your loss and fare thee well'.

I was one of the lucky ones.  I have friends and family who watched over me and helped me in those mind numbing weeks that followed.  There are many, far too many, who don't have that.

I know that my husband would want me to continue on living, even without him.  And I think it’s a safe bet that most of the husbands who passed away want the same thing for their bereaved spouses.

But it is very difficult to go on.  And sometimes the struggle just doesn't seem worth it.

So, why am I not one of those statistics? 

I find excuses.  I combat each thought of wanting to leave this world with some reason to stay instead, no matter how little.

For example, I was at a horse show all weekend.  The first without my husband.  It was hard, extremely hard.  Although I laughed and talked with everyone, underneath I was crying out that I didn’t want to be here, it was too painful.  I even lost it and cried through the first half of one of my classes because I looked over to where my husband usually sat and saw an empty chair.  Doing everything alone was too hard, too lonely.  I didn’t want to do this anymore.  I wanted to quit and retreat back to my cozy bedroom where I could curl up with the four footed furry brigade, turn on some mindless TV and dissolve into nothingness.  I didn’t want to continue on anymore like this.  My first and foremost great love was dead and my second great love, riding and showing my horse, was too painful.  I felt like everything that mattered was gone.

But then something happened.  My friends, or what I like to call my ranch family, stepped in and quietly helped me.  They boosted me up both physically and mentally. 

How? 

By being there, by doing what they normally do.  By talking about normal things and politely not noticing when I would suddenly ‘zone out’ on the conversation and stare into space when a memory came to mind.  By standing next to me, patiently, as I sat on my horse and cried, and not caring about the odd stares I was getting.  By not recoiling or quickly and awkwardly changing the subject when I mentioned my husband, but instead would add an anecdote of their own.  By nodding in understanding when I said I missed my husband and agreeing that they missed him too, as he was always a big part of the horse shows for everyone.  By pushing me and coaching me and pointing out what I could have done better and what I did right.  Just like it was any other horse show when my husband was with us.

Other people that I only knew from the horse show circuit were also there, acting normal, but also making sure that I knew I had their support and help if needed.

Gradually, I started to regain my love of showing.  Slowly getting back the joy in pulling off a good maneuver.  Starting to feel proud while noticing the small improvements since the last show.   Of relaxing and sinking into the secular world of the horse show where everything that happens on the outside doesn’t exist for a few days.

Suddenly, I wanted to be there.  I wanted to continue on.  I wanted to show my horse, win ribbons and buckles and achieve something great.  When the show was over, I waved and said goodbye to those I knew from the circuit and cheerfully told them I’d see them next show.  I looked forward to working on those things I needed to improve on in the meantime.  I started to get that old fire back.  Maybe it was only a glowing ember but it was still lit.

Don’t get me wrong, I missed my husband the entire time.  My chest ached with it, and I doubt I’ll ever lose that little spot of emptiness that occupies the back of my mind.  But it was less scary, I could do this.  Especially when my ranch family stepped in to help.

I love them all tremendously.  Do I really want them to have to deal with the pain of my suicide?  I had a good friend commit suicide when I was younger and the aftermath is terrible.  How could I do that to them?

But what about those times when I’m not surrounded by friends and family?  Well, those are harder. 

When the bills pile up and the work overwhelms and the chores are too much and the loneliness threatens to crush me like a tidal wave, how do I carry on?

Again, by finding reasons.  The four footed furry brigade for one.  Who would take care of such a motley crew of creatures, some who are understood only by myself and my husband?  Who would know that my husband’s cat likes to be petted exactly three times and then you will lose an appendage?  Or that the pup needs to bury his head in my lap when he he’s been disciplined by myself or the older dogs?  Or a hundred other little idiosyncrasies that make up the wide and varied personalities of this fuzzy bunch of creatures.

What about when I’m not around them?  What then?  Well, once again, that’s a little harder but doable.

Then I look around me.  I look and see clouds scuttling across a blue sky.  I feel the warmth of the sun on my face.  I listen to the rain when it falls.  I watch a hawk soaring over the horse field searching for rabbits.  I see a flower, or listen to a child laughing or talking animatedly in the store to his mother.  I just look around and find something, anything and then ask myself…..do I really want to leave and not ever see this again?

And just those things, those myriad of reasons, give me the strength and determination to keep going.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say, in my own muddled little fashion, is that if you are at that point, please take a second and look around.  Find one tiny thing, anything to postpone it.  To deflect the thought.  To keep going for a few more minutes.  And then find something else so that those few minutes will hopefully be come more minutes, then hours, then days, then years.

Because one day we will see our loved ones again.  I'll be honest.  I'm not totally 100% certain about this whole Heaven thing, but I do 100% fervently hope it is true.  And that hope is enough for me to keep trying to believe.

My husband often joked about that the song ‘Waitin On A Woman’ by Brad Paisley was written for me.  But now it has become much more than a song.  It has become a mantra for me to believe in.

For those not into country music, the song is about an older gentleman sitting next to a younger man on a bench, both of them waiting on their wives to finish shopping.  The older man tells the younger one all about how he has spent his life waiting on a woman and how much he doesn’t mind because of the love he and his wife have.  He advises the younger man that this is what he has to look forward to and he’ll find it just as rewarding.

Then the older gentleman tells the younger one that he knows that he will pass on first and then he’ll be sitting on a bench in Heaven, patiently waiting once again for his wife to join him.

And that’s how I picture my husband.  Sitting on a park bench in Heaven next to that old man, watching me, and patiently waiting.  Telling me to take my time because he doesn’t mind waiting on his woman.


0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Beth is an ordinary woman who has found herself to be in an un-ordinary situation.  She wanted to chronicle the journey of widowhood for others who happen to find themselves on the same path.  The good and the bad.

    Past Posts

    All
    01/15/16 Tomorrow's Reality...
    01/27/16 One Year
    02/10/15 What Is A Widow
    02/11/15 On Becoming A Widow...
    02/12/15 Bubble Bubble Toil And...
    02/13/15 On A Pale Horse...
    02/17/15 A Single Cup Of Coffee...
    02/18/15 With Mirth And Laughter...
    02/19/15 Blunt Not The Heart...
    02/20/15 Of Mice And Men...
    02/23/15 To Lay To Rest...
    02/24/15 Sounds Of Silence...
    02/27/15 Partnership Of One...
    03/02/15 O Happy Dagger!
    03/03/15 Perish The Thought...
    03/04/15 We Are Time's Subjects...
    03/06/15 What's In A Name...
    03/09/15 A Bad Interpretation...
    03/11/15 The Fickleness Of Feelings...
    03/12/15 Creatures Great And Small...
    03/19/15 But Thinking Makes It So...
    03/25/15 As Time Goes By...
    04/02/15 More Things In Heaven And Earth...
    04/13/15 The Quality Of Strength...
    04/21/15 Right Inside My Heart...
    04/27/16 Never Simple...
    04/29/15 With Great Love...
    05/01/17 What Do You Know Of Fear?
    05/09/16 The Folly Of Anger...
    05/11/15 A Walking Shadow...
    05/21/15 A Birthday Wish...
    05/30/2015 The World-Wearied Flesh...
    06/02/2015 What God Has Joined Together...
    06/03/15 Lost Possibilities...
    06/10/15 In Spirit Met Thy Well...
    07/16/15 A Broken Unbroken Circle...
    07/28/15 A Love So Strong...
    08/05/15 A Sparrow's Fall...

    Monthly
    Archives

    May 2017
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.