Help Wanted: caregiver for widow

I knew this day might come.  In my zeal to live to a ripe old age by myself, I pushed my body pretty hard.  I do most of the 'guy' stuff, and frankly, I find great joy in it.  But I found my body's tipping point.  Now I'm in a bind.  I feared this day would come.
 

I tell myself it's actually a good thing I tore part of my rotator tendon off the bone, and dislocated a bicep tendon.  Now, instead of babying my partially torn rotator cuff, I can get my whole shoulder fixed, and be as good as new.  It'll just take a little time.  Some folks say three months.  Some say a year.  In any case I will follow my Doctor's orders to a T and learn how to do things one handed.

Long ago, I hobbled around on crutches for 6 weeks in New York City, my home at the time.   No big deal.   Life in the country has more advantages for me now, but public transit isn't one of them.   Lucky for me, the man I love, who lives five hours away and leads a busy life, is staying with me for 21 days.   My sister and brother will stay with me for another 10 days.   After that, I fear that if I lean on my friends and neighbors for transportation and errands, their goodwill will wear thin pretty fast.  That would be wretched.  I've applied for subsidized transportation for the handicapped, and senior transit for shopping and light errands.  Maybe it will come through.  And, I could drive myself around with one arm, right?  It's only for what  - two months?  Three months?  This would be easier in the City.

This is when it comes to me.  Our medical system that doesn't favor the patient who doesn't have a live in caregiver.  I've five years to go before Medicare kicks in.  In the meantime, I believe my Health Insurance Company should be delighted to provide home health care for me instead of putting me up in a rehabilitation center.  Working on that angle.

I'm bloody fortunate.  This handicap is temporary.  I can take time off from life to recuperate.  Full time caregivers in my neck of the woods cost $250 a day.   Well, I spent my life building a nest egg and if I have to I will spend it on this. 

Evidently,  man or woman is not meant to live alone.   Single, widowed, divorced, all the same.    Elective surgery is tough without someone who's got your back.

A Fine Line: being loved -- being catered to

 

That's my honey, a few days before he died.  People mistook him for my father; cancer was so hard on him.  This is the only time I've published a picture of the two of us.  This blog, after all, is about life after widowhood.  But somehow, this seems like the time to show the chapter of my life that closed eight years ago. 

 

I've moved on.  But a book review I read today got me thinking, and I'm a little frustrated.  This book is supposed to be a primer for all potential caregivers.  The idea is:  take your cue about how to behave toward a sick person from that sick person.  I guess I want to tell you what I learned from my experience caring for a very very sick person for what seemed like an eternity.  Take your cue about how to behave from the sick person?  Well, that depends on the personality of the person who's sick.  Pain and fear and chemo make their mark on the personality.  I don't know about you, but I regress to the personality of a child when I'm sick.   Everything becomes about me, me, ME, even if cloaked in adult language.  Sure, loving sacrifice on the part of the caregiver is necessary.  But should the one who is 'needier' call the shots?    

 

Which reminds me - How much is a widow like a sick person?   

I know the book isn't about taking cues from a widow, but it does relate to us.  How many times would I have liked people to take their cues from me on how to help me?   This widow would have  milked it.  The world, fortunately, has not obliged my cues.  I am certainly better off for learning to supply for myself what I was convinced I needed from others.  I still want propping up, but do I need it?

Back to the original subject, from the perspective of a caregiver and sick person.  Right now I'm facing rotator cuff surgery, so this is sort of pertinent.

Should we take cues from injured or ill people on how to treat him or her? 

Yes and No.  My experience is, when I'm in crisis, I lose my ability to see alternatives, and this is when I really need other people's perspectives.  I discount them at my peril.  Sure I need a little of what I ask for.  I'd like people to cut me a little slack for my nearsightedness and self absorption.  But please, poke me if I take myself too seriously.  Don't treat me with kid gloves when I'm not a kid.  I keep my dignity to the degree I respect your dignity.

Now, if another person we love is actually dying, does this equation change?  Is this finally the time to take one's cues from them?  I don't know the answer to this one.  I wrestled with this for three long years, the minute we got word that my husband's cancer was terminal.   This was my answer.  To the best of my ability I let him own the show.  After all, he was the one dying.  I dropped what I was doing.   I took cues from him about what he needed and tried in every way to offer it to him.   After all, I wanted him to live.  We succeeded in turning a few months into three years.    My sacrifice on his behalf was sincere, but it was also my recipe for burnout, not to mention resentment.   I finally decided that since I'd be the one who would go on living, I needed to lighten up, and stop catering completely to him.  We loved.  We cried.  We laughed.  We said good bye.  We shared the sacrifice.

Below are this recently published book's cues on how to be a friend to someone who is facing cancer. 

• Don't talk about cancer in military terms, about it being a battle. 
• Don't talk about someone else who has been through something similar and made it out O.K. 
• Don't say "I know what you're going through" unless you actually do. 
• Don't tell your friend she looks great when she looks anything but. 
• Don't ask "How are you, really?"  as it prompts all sorts of unwelcome thoughts.

I have followed little of the advice above.  Here's my take on loving someone through injury, illness and dying, point by point.

• Fighting cancer is sometimes a war with many battles.  Talk about it this way if you want.  Cancer, like war, may require years of hardship punctuated by crisis and critical effort.  It takes courage and cooperation.   Speaking of it in these terms may instill dignity into the scary, shapeless, open ended experience of cancer. 
• Do talk of something similar, but listen to the sick person's story, too.  Maybe hope can be drawn from others who have made it through.
• If a person says "I know what you're going through",  they may be trying to build a bridge to us the only way they know how.  Is this bad?  Finding common ground even if our experience is different is humbling, but common ground connects us.  After all, we all suffer one way or another in life, don't we?
• A friend can indeed look great, and need to hear it, because what is beautiful is what's in his or her heart, not outside.
• Ask how they're doing, if you're interested.  In my experience, too few people ask how you are, really.  Maybe, if they ask, they will be there for you, really, when you need them.

Does this make sense to you?

I need more Goodbyes (No. this isn't a joke)

Keep saying Good Bye.  This is what someone, not a widow, advised me to do long ago.   Say more Good Byes.   Say Good Bye to his things.   She said that making room in my house was akin to making room in my heart for others.   Except that, 'Hello?!?', my widow's heart was already hopelessly empty.    Why was I going to underline the fact by emptying my house?    Yet I made the hundreds of donations to the dump and the library and the thrift shops.   Each new empty space I created underscored the fact that I was alone, beyond anybody caring about how I began or ended my days, about how I felt about things, about what I wanted for dinner.   Well, the spaces I created didn't stay empty long.     They still don't.

What I really need is someone who cares how I begin and end my days.    A confidant.   A BFF.  Some Moms have tight relationships with their kids and others, who want to hear the details of their day.  I didn't want to ask my step kids to be my confidants, and I didn't want to drive away friends with chatter only husbands, good husbands, can entertain.  I used my journal to record my thoughts, and finally this blog.

Much to my surprise, a confidant has appeared.  I've mentioned him before.  And this incredible BFF makes Good Byes doable, even purposeful.   But I have to ask: Which came first?  Making room in the house, then in my heart?   Making room in my heart, then in my house? 

I believe we never dangle all alone in space, beyond God's care and concern. Ideally, people are the 'boots on the ground' experience of God's love for each other.   But that's not how I experienced widowhood.  My husband's boots had fallen silent.  Other boots would come, help for a while, then depart.  Silence.  I felt very unappealing.   It was a very very long time before I pulled my own boots on and started walking.  That's me in the picture above, before I found my boots. 

Wouldn't you know, at this point boots on another pair of feet ambled in.  They have stayed awhile.  I'm making room for this dude.

Make room for others.  Because they're waiting, in anticipation and pleasure, to meet you. 

If I keep this up, I'll have a life and space in my house for him.

When Death leaves you in the Lurch

 



First, You Cry.  Remember that book from the 1970s?  In it, Betty Rollin wrote of her transformative experience with breast cancer.

I stumbled on a more recent book of hers: Here's the Bright Side: of Failure, Fear, Cancer, Divorce, and Other Bum Raps , published in 2007.   I'd say widowhood qualifies as a bum rap, wouldn't you?  Death left us in the lurch.  No way around it.

There is a bright side. I couldn't say this better, so I'll quote a large portion of her book.  For all newer widows reading, remember - I've been at this eight years.  Eight years.


"I woke up one morning and realized I was happy. This struck me as weird. Not that I didn't have all kinds of things to be happy about—love, work, good health, enough money, the usual happy-making stuff. The weird part is, when I thought about it, I realized that the source of my happiness was, of all things, cancer—that cancer had everything to do with how good the good parts of my life were.

When I thought about it more—and looked into it and started talking to other people—survivors, not only of cancer but of various other of life's infinite variety of bum raps—failure, divorce, illnesses and reversals of all kinds, death of a spouse, and so on—it turned out I was not alone. It turns out there is often—it seems very often—an astonishingly bright side within darkness. People more than survive bum raps: they often thrive on them; they wind up stronger, livelier, happier; they wake up to new insights and new people and do better with the people around them who are not new. In short, they often wind up ahead. There are even studies, scientific studies (!) that show that people often say they have benefited from the terrible things that have happened to them.

Coping well is part of this phenomenon, but there's more to it than that. Within each form of misery, there seems to be something of worth, a hidden prize waiting to be found. Sometimes it's found right away, sometimes not: a painful, debilitating divorce or widowhood can lead, gradually, to a new tranquility within and without. (Not to mention the possible emergence of a swell new mate. Have you ever encountered the particularly dipsy-doodle joy of a newly married widow or widower? A person who thought love was forever buried with a deceased mate, but by golly, here it is again!) "

..........

 

Thank you, Betty Rollin, for your eloquence. 

 

Widowhood, you left me in the lurch for a while, but you have given me new life.  I haven't had a sign of grief now, in what, weeks.  I'm happy. Wow.  I got to discover these ~

 

Faith in God and His/Her Provision

~~~~

 Doing what needs to be done 'well enough' is well, enough

~~~~~



A fighting spirit,  mine, and yours is there when I need it

~~~~~

A welcoming heart and open mind is all Life asks

 

Who would've thought, that terrible day death changed the landscape, that the struggle would pay off so handsomely?

 

 

I can start where?

Jules Feiffer  1973

I first saw this cartoon in 1973, and saved it.   I was then  on my way into my big bright future, scared and hopeful.  One thing I liked about this cartoon is its emphasis on facing fear and confusion with determination and humility.  There's always going to be a door behind us and one in front of us.  Challenge, or opportunity?  That cheery platitude of  "When one door closes, a window opens" hasn't been my experience.  For me, when one door closes the room is pitch black  - Jules Feiffer didn't draw that - and full of stuff.  Scary stuff, mean stuff, intriguing stuff, urgent stuff, nostalgic stuff.  It's all there for me to trip over, in its messy, imprecise self-involved way.   Ever since that husband of mine died, I've been groping my way to one door knob after another.  In each room I enter I smell fresher and fresher air.

Finally, my grief has cleared and I'm midwifing my new life.  I've had a busy month.  Major renewal, and minor upheaval.  My goal has been to get my art studio up and running by my sixth decade, which starts next week.  That studio has been the catch all for 'everything I didn't want to review - not now' for nearly two decades.  Photographs, letters, workshop materials, personal journals, posters, clippings,  books, artwork from my professional career, and artwork I created after that.  I felt lost after I retired, but eventually I stopped missing the career's ego gratification.  I loved my retired life more than working.  Then came the long period of my husband's dying, a time for action, not reflection.  I've no regrets for pushing art aside for that purpose.   Here's what I learned from that.

 "One sees clearly only with the heart.  Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Of course, the door of the room he and I shared slammed shut behind me, and the room I then found myself in, the 'grief' room, taught me how important it is to continue seeing with the heart.  That wasn't a room I wanted to stay stuck in, though.  I turned the knob, and surprise of surprises, entered the room my boyfriend is in.  Now together in pitch darkness, he's helped me find the knob for yet another room.

I'm turning the door knob.  New life.  Cleaning out my art studio is my way of walking through that door.  Everything is out of there except for my favorite books and clippings.  It's a clean slate.  It has a new linoleum floor and new 5' x 5' table.  Soon it will have a new display area.  The guest room has been converted into my art material storage room. Somehow, I managed to squeeze a bed back in there. 

Might I have something in me that needs visual language to express?  I don't know. Why does it feel like this next 'room' will teach me to live with no self-importance, with only my heart?   I'd be one lucky person, wouldn't I?



Am I better off without him?

"Goodness.  I didn't divorce him!  How can you even ask me that?"

But I do ask that.

Am I better off without him?

This whole idea came up when I looked through old files in my art studio yesterday.  I hate to admit it, but some of these files are nearly twenty years old. There are snippets of articles and notes.

I found a note my late husband wrote to me on March 26, 1996.

Dear ____,   What we did last night was devastating, and I'm still angry.  Yet I see you and our union as a blessed gift from a loving God.  I am sad that we hurt each other from our woundedness.  Love, ___

I guess the argument he's referring to was a doozy.  We had rough times in our marriage, especially a six year spell from 1991 to 1997.  Often, during this time, I seriously contemplated this question "Would I be better off without him?"  I stayed on the fence a long time, and some would say circumstances merited my departure.  Then, in 1997, I jumped off that fence toward him, toward us.   Not that circumstances were a lot better.  But, like the pearl which forms around an intrusive grain of sand, we faced what was hurting us and held on together.  We learned.  We grew.  We shed entrenched beliefs that were really harming us.  We had five very very good years beyond 1997.  And when his terminal disease hit in 2002, I unleashed every tool and effort to add months to his life, as did he.  Together we added 36 long months, each a hard won pearl in our strand. 

Am I better off without him?  I'm better off without the pain and daily struggle when times were tough.   Now that my grief is spent and I'm tickled to be alive, I'm better off without the pain and daily struggle his death left me.   And the pearl necklace we created?  It is in my past, in my heart.   Every once in a while I see evidence of it, like this note, which I'll hang on to.

Am I better off without him?  I am better off because of him. 

And, I am better off today because of the help I've received, and because of the choices I make.  Well, not all the choices.  But enough good choices mixed with these have added up.  I am better off than when I first lost him. 

A new strand of pearls is emerging now.  I have to remember that making pearls isn't fun, but it is worthwhile.  Turns out the strand won't be all pearls.  It has diamonds here now, sparkling in today's light.

Am I better off without him?  Difficult question.  I am blessed to have diamonds in my life at present.  I hope I will have more diamonds in that thing called the 'future', but the future has no guarantee.  In any case, I know I can make pearls from grains of sand, and try to do so every day.  If that most terrible grain of sand called death intrudes upon me once again I'll ask for help.  How would we make it through life without each other?

Do you see the day when you will be better off without your late husband?

A widow dating, with a good book

Dating a Widower , by Abel Keogh.

On the face of it, this book appeals to a very small niche.  But think about this.  Substitute the word 'widow' for 'widower'.  Then turn it around.  "What is it like dating me, a widow?"   The five points in its first chapter inspire me to ask  "Am I really and truly opening my heart, my space, my life, my future to this man I'm now loving?" 

After I, as a widow, started dating again, I discovered Abel Keogh's blog, specifically his "Widower Wednesday" posts.   I read about widowers and girlfriends or new wives.  I read about these women's joys, their heartbreak, frustration, and confusion loving men who had lost their wives.  Were they really now in the center of the widower's heart?  Were there red flags they should consider?  Red flags signalling that the widower isn't ready and willing to make her number one?   Red flags like his keeping photos of his late wife around?

As I dated, I had to ask myself if I prevented myself from enjoying new love.  Was I making unrealistic comparisons from cherry picked memories?  Was I not releasing myself from a commitment that death had already terminated?  And my fear - if I flung myself away from my past, would future love even catch me?  I looked at the photos of my late husband around my house. There I was, dating, and I still displayed his photos.    Red flag.   Nowadays, I have new photos of my boyfriend and me around the house.  Yet, as much as I care, stepping into the future with him sometimes feels 'don't tempt the fates' scary.  When I trust my soul, and realize that merging two lives is a process, my fear is calmed.  I believe I am meeting the criteria for putting my boyfriend first.  But this matters more: Is he feeling this?  Is the ghost of my late husband interfering?

Now, regarding dating in general for widows... I realize many legitimate reasons for dating exist, and a serious relationship isn't necessarily one of them.   But, if loving 'til death do us part' again is the point of our dating, Abel Keogh's thoughts in both his "Widower Wednesday" column and in Dating a Widower 's first chapter may be useful.   Have a look! 

One can link to Dating a Widower's first chapter here:

http://www.abelkeogh.com/writing/datingawidower.php  

Abel Keogh expands upon the five points I quote below in his book.   I insert brackets where I have reversed genders and added a minor variation.

.........................

"When it comes to [women] , there are five things about them that affects their behavior after they've lost a spouse.   

  
 1) [Widows] have an internal need for relationships. 

 2) [Widows] will stay in relationships with [men] they don't love.

 3) [Widows welcome men] they're interested in.  (Here I changed Abel Keogh's words: "Widowers pursue women they're interested in.")

 4) [Women] can only actively love one [man] at a time.

 5) A [widow's] actions speak louder than words."


What do you think?   Are these five things true for widows who hope to love again?

Something is scaring me

the "future"

Today's issues are enough. Don't invite disaster.

Time was, a decade ago, the future held heartwarming scenarios for me.   That was then, before widowhood. This is now.  Now, I'm afraid of counting on the future.  If I put my hand near this flame, I mean, this "future",  I'll not emerge unscathed.   Who of us can?   The 'future' has death written on it, mine and yours.   Why trust its golden lure?   Can it deliver something beautiful and good before it delivers death?   I wish I could have faith.  Instead, after the future took my assurance of tomorrows away with my late husband, I made a truce: I won't tempt it and it won't burn me.  (Like I can stop the future from happening by not dealing with it???)

Except ~ somewhere deep inside I have continued to build a foundation for a future.  Part of me hopes for and relishes the future.  How can I not?  Life, and people, and nature are precious and loving is most natural.  Part of me feels naive if I become enthusiastic about the future.  It's like I'll be Charlie Brown.  Lucy has the football just so.   Just when I really really want to kick it...

What is in front of me?  Is it really the 'future'?  Or is it 'fear'? 

What is it I need to learn? I need help sorting it out.

Have you faith in a bright future?

My self esteem is based on what?

Where are you on your 'widow' journey?  Still calling yourself a widow?  Nearly eight years out,  I'd be in deep do-do if I still identified myself as the gal who lost her one and only beloved.  O.K.  For you 'lucky' widows who had decades with your spouses and are now in later life, you're not in do-do, you're in a bed of roses (I'm joking).  But I may have another half century to manage.  I feel envious of older widows who say their one love was enough for a lifetime.  I planned on getting old and gray with the guy I married.  I was 49 when I found out that wouldn't be.  My own father is still alive and living independently at 99.   I know I should be happy I have good genes but ...

We all got our pink slips, the 'former Mrs' memo.  We were on the high end of the marriage seesaw then.   BAM!  We had to put ice on our sorry behinds and hobble away.

Now, we're 'survivors', but this begs the question, "Are my scars worse than yours?"  Lots of rosy mirrors in this pit. 

We're 'heroines'.  But real heroes don't call themselves heroes.

We're 'big, beautiful babes', but chill out, that's more than strangers need to know.

These identities need to become incidental props on a journey, at least for me, moving on nearly eight years later.

So, in the interest of research, I'm embarking on an experiment.  It's not sexy, it's not a page turner, it's nothing I'm asking any one to join me on.  This is my experiment:  I'm linking my self-esteem to how effectively I say "You're welcome" to me day by day.   To how tender and nurturing I can be to an emerging self who is still blinking in the glare of sunlight off the water.

We know what  squashes our spirit - Stereotypes.  Expectations.  Pulling rank.  We also know what floats our boat.  Love, in its many guises.  We're at the helm.  Choose a helpful and fun crew.  And enjoy the journey.

 Good luck to you, my friends!

Widowhood: Part 2

I've edited this page, and added what I failed to tell you my first post:

Widowhood.  It's like a scarlet "A", only it's a black "W".  Who wants it?  Where does it lead?

Our wedding vows said: "Until death do us part".   I guess one can quibble that we haven't proof "God" directs that show, but let's assume He (or She) does. Why does God sever a wife's obligation and commitment to her husband when he dies?   God's rather intelligent.  

The former 'wife' is given permission to move on.  She is instructed to move on.  Let the past be past, and all that.  Widowhood is a passage, not a destination.  Why then, is it so darn hard?

For me, the term 'widow' felt like a warm blankie the first two years.  I was numb, angry, wretchedly sad, but being a 'widow' would elicit sympathy and that consoled me somewhat.  Following that period, in what I'm calling my 'Widowhood Part 2', widowhood felt less consoling.  More like a corset stuck in 'autotight' mode, slowly crushing me.  Life was just about putting one step in front of the other, never getting a good lungful of air.  I had to free myself from that damn corset!  Was that corset my lingering connection to the man who loved me so much?  I so want to form a genuine new connection with my new circumstances, and want what I have now.

I surprised myself when I wrote in my January 3rd post "I'd finally let him belong to the past."  Was I happy?  Happier.  I guess my job was to put him in the past, to shed that corset, and live free or die inside it.

Now back to my original  writing in this, 'Widowhood, Part 2'.

So, God, I've a new set of wants, since I've been released from my old ones.  What do You think of these?

• I want to be female. 
• I want to be pliant and not compliant
• I want to answer to You
• I want to pursue creativity
• I want to pursue wonder
• I want to be an idiot
• I want to be valued
• I want empowerment
• I want to sink my hands into new soil
• I want to love
• I want to connect with the new 'he'
• I want to see life through other people's eyes
• I want them to see life through mine
• I want to be deliberate and not put off life 
• I want to live outside normal parameters 
• Outside 'married'
• Outside 'widow' 
• Outside 'single'
• But not outside this big, beautiful 'me'

Have you noticed the stirring of new wants?
  

Inserting our Lives

 These are some of the words I've applied to widow:

• Irrelevant Woman
• Misplaced Wife
• Has Been
• Leftover from a Couple
• There, There my Dear
• Misfit
• Nice Old Lady
• Threatening Cougar
• Stray Cat
• Whiner
• Loony Little Lady
• Wallflower
• Desperado
• Sage but Sexless Woman
• Burden
• Lady in Waiting
• Cat or Dog Lady
• Brave Woman Battered by Fate
• Calamity
• Infection I better not Catch
• Histrionic Loony tune
• Example
• Charity Case
• Therapy Client
• Mystery
• Inspiration

Instead of feeling anything like these, let's show up and show 'em how it really is

Whatever we were, or are, or are becoming, let's insert ourselves into life.  Maybe this means we've finished rebuilding a life, maybe it means we're still gaining freedom from that master named 'Grief", maybe it means we simply like seeing our own reflection. 

In any case, let's do it on our own terms, not on a 'widow's' terms.

How do you see yourself today?

A - OK.... now

Let's face it, widows.  It's not our fault that we're single.  It's not our fault that we hurt.  Our particular loss is earth shattering.  If someone else understands, hallelujah!  But if they don't, shrug and love them anyway.  Expecting special treatment after say, the first year is silly.  Really...

Widowhood is lonely work.  It's supposed to be.  At the end of the day it's up to us to choose how we will go on.  

Choose life!

Easier said than done, I know.  Next to impossible in the beginning.  Pushing that huge boulder of tasks and grief up the steep, rocky hill of life leaves us wondering if we'll ever get it to the top.  My experience?    People help out.  But they have their own boulders to push.   Leave them be.  

Let them leave us to our own devices.

By golly, pushing that huge boulder up that hill one grisly step at a time made me the woman I am today.   Stronger, fitter, wiser and happier.   We've all been there.  All done the hard part.  Pushing that weight up that rocky slope.  It feels like forever.  Looking back, it wasn't such a long time.  After five years, that boulder got lighter and the ground levelled off.  After six years, no big deal.  At seven years, I was eyeing the open sea, wading in now and again.   Nice.   But I was still looking back.   Stuck and scared.   Where to head completely on my own?   In a world of two's, a bold new course: toward love that has my name, and my name alone, on it.  I don't believe this is selfish, because with that decision joy returned.   Peace, too.   Evidently I was overdue for self love.  And he would have been happy I'd finally let him belong to the past.  

Maybe the difference between the weight of grief and the freedom from it is reclaiming our own power to choose. After all, Choice was something that was stripped from us when death came.

Joy is here for us.

Why did it take me so long?  I'm slow.  Why not sooner?   Well, exactly when is 'sooner'?  Common wisdom says it takes widows five to seven years to move on.   It took me seven.  To others, it looked like I was doing well a lot sooner than I really was. So many of us put on a happy face and actually fool others into thinking we're well, because we're rather private.  Stoic.  Proud.

I decided to take my private angst public, through this blog.  The reason is my belief: God continually offers us gifts, and if I couldn't find the gift in this tragedy, I wasn't looking hard enough.   One year ago yesterday I wrote my first entry.  I posted my efforts, holding myself accountable to my readers to find the gift in my tragedy and move on.   Now I'm considering moving on from this blog.

Like Julian of Norwich, I believe that "All shall be well, all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well".  Why?   Because God is love, and God lives in the present tense.   I can hold the gift of life and be filled.   No longer am I like a bucket so drained of life by grief, and so full of holes no one can console me.  I am healed.  Circumstances could at any time pierce my bucket with more holes.  I hope in the future I can be more resilient.

Here is what I had to do

• Recognize that I was that empty bucket full of holes, and nobody could fill my emptiness no matter how much love and attention they poured in.
• Plug the holes in my bucket myself.  Do this by giving up the illusion that all shall be well only if time reverses itself.   Or if only people would be more generous.
• Fill my bucket with all manner of things - a few old things, but mostly new skills, new attitudes, new friends, new surroundings, new interests.  
• Share my journey publicly on this blog.

Every day is a challenge.  For everybody.   

Good luck.  God, and Love, is with you. 


P.S. Please don't hesitate to share in my comment section.  I'll write back!

What can we give ourselves today?

It may be too soon.  The grief may still be carving its presence into our being.

But,

if we're ready.   if God is asking this of us.   if it is taking more energy to hold back than it would to let go.   if people who care and understand want us to be here for them now.   if we give ourselves permission, life will ask us to: 

 

~ Let go ~

 



My love to all who journey this path, kicking, screaming, limping, crawling.  Someone is here to love us.  Be he or she God, our departed one, our sister, our brother, our Mom, our Dad, our son, our daughter, our friend -  borrow their strength.   Some glorious day it will become our own. 

Number One in my heart

 

Used to be that my late husband was Number One in my heart.   He hasn't been for quite some time.   

I started fully occupying the 'Number One' bench this summer, after dating had yielded no suitable candidate for romantic bench warmer.  Indeed, in settling myself in on this bench, I wrote here, on August 21st, that Love, not fear, was now going to be in charge of my life. I made a commitment to live in the present tense.  And I assumed my life would be a solo act.  So how strange it was that five days later I became reacquainted with Joe, a friend I knew in New York City three decades ago.   He'd looked me up on Facebook.

Maybe you've read my last post  "Moving forward with the Emergency Brake on".  I've had some time to think about it.  Here's what I'm going to do.

I'm disengaging the emergency brake.  

O.K.  First and foremost, Love exists in the present tense and this is where I want to live.  Fear lives, if you can call it that, in the future.  So I've disengaged that darn brake, and I'm on the road. 

Why did I let two scary 'what if's' unsettle me?  I, or we, can deal with them.  The first 'what if' is my challenge balancing his needs with my own.  I've had no evidence this challenge is a problem.  The second 'what if' is death - one or the other will die first - if this romance blossoms into full love.   I've been there, and don't relish the opportunity to lose one I love again.   But I'll be O.K., with God's help.  Besides, who knows who will die first?  The only way I can figure out how to avoid these two 'what if's' is to avoid loving at all.   So.   Easy choice. 

I'm going to offer part of this bench to the man above.  Will he join me?

Moving forward, with the emergency brake on

"I'm alone. Who can help me out here? "  I once cried out.

Silence.  I will never forget that relentless silence when he died.  I begged for his help beyond his grave.  Silence.  Nothing.  Occasionally I'd be blessed with a glimmer that he was beside me, but damned if this glimmer was going to help me with something I really needed.  Silence.  Nothing.

Nothing to do but pick up those pieces and "Suck it up, Marine".

Let me tell you what life is like for this widow seven long years later: it is a lovingly crafted system with fewer moving parts, each designed to not overwhelm.  Discipline and indulgence teeter on a fulcrum of faith in God and the ultimate goodness of life.  I don't ask for perfect, predictable circumstances.  That would be dull.  Instead I ask for equilibrium.  After my long fall through hell before and after my husband died, I want peacefulness at the conclusion of each day.

I've long assumed that peacefulness for me requires solitude.   I've actually become a bit of a hermit, enjoying my own projects, my own timing, my own weightless independence.   Though I have felt the longing for union, evidently it's more in the abstract.   My first relationship as a widow was fairly insubstantial and never really threatened my equilibrium.

Now a man has come into my life.  A good man.  With him I feel a caring and a peace.  Peace with someone.  This is new.  I didn't even feel this sense of soul peacefulness with my late husband.  This new peacefulness is also extremely unsettling.  Does this make any sense?  What if I fall in love,  need someone, and lose what life I've created on my own, not to mention, lose him if he dies? I will experience another very hard fall into hell.  It cost me years to recover when my late husband died.  Rationally, I say this could be a long free fall into heaven if I let go. But this isn't how I feel. 

So my hand is on the emergency brake, and my life grinds forward.  This is the best I can do for now.  I accept that God is in charge, and I will try to take my hand off that emergency brake and place it on His.  God has always found a way to flow around, through, above and below a journey to hell or to heaven. 

Does anybody have any advice on this?  I could use some help.

Sincerely yours

One quality has marked my life: Sincerely Seeking.

I was born lost and clueless. I don't know about you, but I didn't particularly enjoy these feelings. Marriage and its commitment, settled my fears; it  felt orderly and natural. How can I express the enormous 'settledness' of union with a beloved?    Strong wills aside, my husband and I figured things out.  Love knit us together. 

Then he died, setting me adrift in a sea of widows and widowers, lost and clueless like myself.   I found great comfort and hope knowing how common widowhood was.   Some how this made it less scary.   Though there is no 'one size fits all' course for widows, seeing some navigate with courage and fortitude through that sea gave me hope.   We all know there is no going back; death wipes out the familiar landscape.   One must carry on.  The tools I first used, impatience and pluck, helped, but  weren't enough to bring me out of the sea of grief.  Many widows and widowers were making it to another side, establishing a happy, new life.   They were getting there.  Could I?  How could I?

I've come to believe the key to getting to shore is sincerely seeking a new life.  Sincerely letting go of the old.  Sincerity opens the way to

• what is real, what is true
• our wounds, so they can heal
• our unmet needs, so we can find ways to meeting them
• having our life mean something to somebody else 
• kindness from others
• kindness in ourselves to deal with callousness in others
• lessons, and more lessons
• our sheer grit - You Go Girl!
• courage to experiment, fail, and succeed 
• appreciation for our own very special qualities 
• facing our future even though death is in it
• facing our future, with love in it

Widowhood gave me two choices if I wanted to move on.  One: Desperation, okay in the beginning, but really tiring, like going around in circles.  Two: Sincerity, which can lead to something real: firm new ground.

It took me a while, a great while, but I resorted to the second one.  I'm going to stick with it.  I have crossed over, to a new life.   It's pretty darn good.    Seven and a half years out, my heart is bigger. My interests have grown and changed, and are satisfying.   My days are happier, on balance.  I enter this holiday season without dread.   I don't look back to the old life, wishing I could go back.   I've opened my heart to a new person.  Two new people, actually.  Me, and a new 'he'.

I hope this helps, if you're lost.

Down, not out... finally

Hurricane Sandy came along last week.  Funny how it reminds me of the way death approached, bearing down with relentless purpose, without consideration or gentleness for anyone it would harm.   Like the death watch, all one could do was prepare, then hunker down.  Like death, it claimed victory, destroying what it could.  Like death, it left survivors to rebuild from scratch.   Like death, it's really hard to find the humor in it.

But, you know, for most of us this hurricane wasn't death.  Sandy was strong where I live, and I hunkered down.   She blew over, only leaving me without power for six days, with a huge tree down and my precious routine disturbed.   Sandy was a mere blip on my emotional radar, especially when the power came back on.

True, a lot of people are in crisis, displaced, never to return to the life and neighborhood they knew.  How different is this from surviving widowhood?   We take stock.  Visible losses are attended to.  We rebuild a life.  New routines get established.  Everything looks normal, to others.  Feeling normal is another issue.  Healing the internal wounds takes the time it needs to take.  We couldn't do it without each other.

I hope everybody has survived Sandy intact.  More importantly, have you survived the death of your spouse intact?  Yes, and no.  Death gave me one really great gift - I take far less for granted.  And I've learned that being intact really isn't necessary for a really good life. 

How are you doing it?

Complaining?

One of the greatest gifts I was given early in life was the presence of a first rate complainer.  No way could I even cast a shadow in the glare of that dazzling giant.   So why add my humble voice to this perfect art form?

I'd simply like a little attention paid here.

Today's complaints

• The leaves refuse to stay stuck to the branches.
• The sun comes up after I get up.
• How can weight catch up with me when I'm moving every second of every day?
• Mice love my house.
• He isn't getting older now, but I am.
• If I buy more stuff my house gets more stuffed.
• Crossing that 'to do' off my list should only take one stroke.
• Accidents happen we I least expect them to.
• My favorite three R's are  redoing, resting, and redoing.
• Why, if complaining feels so good, does it sound so horrid?

What are your complaints today?