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?

You Reap what you Sow

I found out yesterday that my stepdaughter has a new baby girl, whom she adopted a week ago when she was born.  Congratulations!  Mom and baby daughter are together at her Mom's.  I'm happy for them and sad for myself.  My stepdaughter and her real Mom are close since her father (my husband) died.  I backed out of her life gradually after he died and she got married.   

I hadn't realized how far.  I found out about her new baby through her Facebook entry.  I've known her and her brother since they were teenagers, twenty five years ago.  They lived with their father and me briefly.  They've grown up to be wonderful adults with families of their own.  I love and admire them from a distance. 

I can only hope they admire and love me from a distance.

I contacted my stepdaughter via Facebook, congratulating her.   I've sent baby Julia a wonderful gift and will call her Mom when she's settled in.

Tears

I didn't cry at his funeral.  I didn't cry for a very very long time.  The learning curve for my new life required not falling apart. I trusted my grieving process.  God was in charge.  The SSRI's I took clipped the highs and the lows I probably would have felt, but I needed them to stay on an even keel.

I kept the house (our house), and now, after nearly seven years, I can handle its maintenance for the most part.  I'm blessed to have a house, and I don't complain.  I've learned so much!  Now I can diagnose and repair a sump pump if I need to - had to once during a flood in my basement.  I can haul buckets of water from the flooded basement for 32 hours straight - had to during an extended power outage.  I can install electrical switches, wireless networking, and surround sound systems.  I can start and use my new gas lawnmower, leaf blower and snow blower (I still need help starting my generator).  I can redecorate rooms with simple carpentry (moulding, mostly), wallpaper,  and paint.  I can use a power paint spray machine and fix it when it clogs.  I can install and maintain an electric fence around my property (for four footed garden interlopers).   I can haul 50 lb bags of rocks, and cut down small trees.  Right now my roof is leaking. The whole darn roof needs to be replaced. That I can't do.  My carpenter is pulling shingles and plywood off over my head and the Insurance Adjuster is coming tomorrow.

I was managing pretty well five years into widowhood.  I stopped the SSRI medication.  I was OK.  Odd. No tears.

I fell in love.  My heart came back to big beautiful life.  We parted after two months.

It was my time to cry.

Under Whose Wings?

Will a desirable man take me under his wing?  I wouldn't mind a little shelter from the storm, a little back up, a little relief when I'm on overload.  Though I have enough faith in God's love to meet my fear,  it isn't enough to ease real time overload and erase my loneliness as a woman.  I need people.  I need a central love relationship.  I'm trying to get along without it, and it's darn hard.

The help I need now is light years away from the type I needed in widowhood's  first years.  Remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs?   I've been addressing these from day one.  Had to.  Physiological needs - settled.  Safety needs - settled.  Love/belonging needs - in process.  Esteem needs - in process.   Self-actualization needs - in process.  At best my last three needs are met sporadically.  How do I make do with the sporadic connections of single life?   I want the consistency and sex and the give and take of a primary relationship!   So much for shelter by a desirable man.

Instead, I find my own wings are healed enough to offer shelter.  I invited neighbors over last week for my first dinner party.  My fear of being a capable enough hostess was allayed with enough preparation to actually enjoy the company.  Cleaning the house was number one.  A good enough meal was number two.  Enough wine was number three.  Can I grow into being a decent hostess?  I hope so!  I hope that hospitality may be a way of addressing my need for love and belonging. Goodness knows dating isn't.  Maybe someday...  In the meantime, family fits the bill for love and belonging, without the sex.  Neighbors fit the bill as well as they can.  They are less transient than most group activities I'd be a part of.  I really don't want transience.  The pain from the transience of my husband's life was more than enough for a while.

Life is transient.  Shelter, anyone?    

Losses

I prepare best I can for loss.   Insurance, cell phone, ID, phone numbers, copies off site, extra supplies, back up generator, 2nd car, friends, keeping needs small and manageable.   But nothing I did prepared me for the ultimate loss.   Terminal cancer.   Hearing the news is like being pushed off a cliff in slow motion.   When my husband and I hit bottom, LIFE would be smashed to pieces.   You can pull out all the stops, fight the good fight, but you're already over the cliff.  I was lucky.   On the way down I had time to treasure him and say good bye.   Then we hit bottom.   His heart stopped beating.  Mine broke.  Life shattered. 

There are plenty of blogs that speak eloquently to the newly widowed.  We need each other.  Like combat soldiers returning from the frontline, we have experienced a life shattering experience that few who haven't been through it can understand.  What I'd like to share in this blog is the creation of my new identity that leaves the past behind.  That accepts the transformative experience of widowhood as a passage and a gift.  I'm accepting that my life is about me, not me and another.  Not me and my dead another.  Not me and the stepkids.  Not me and my future another.  I'm bringing me centerstage. I just hope to stay out the the trap that it's all about me.  My late husband died six and a half years ago.  Widowhood doesn't cut it as an explanation, let alone an excuse for my life.  I'm post widowhood.

Rebuilding my life began as soon as the house emptied out and the donated food was consumed.   I felt like hell, but I was alive. I knew not to do anything really stupid.  The first difficult decision I made by myself was replacing the ratty old electric blanket on our bed.  Excuse me, my bed.  After that tiny decision came the more complicated ones.   Any person used to living on their own has long mastered decision making, but competence comes slowly to me.  I want nothing less than mastering the art of living.  These are the best days of my life.