Saturday, February 27, 2010
Sister, Mom, Husband - Need
I saw Shutter Island with my friends tonight. Leaving in the car I cried for my sister and what I have lost with her due to her mental illness that did not occur until her late 20s. Then I felt such a longing for my mom. My life is in a lot of turmoil with major decisions required and soon to face substantial personal losses. I have been under extreme stress for six years and the grief for my husband was only the beginning. If I cannot have a husband to comfort me and provide me guidance it would be nice to have a sister which leads me to really needing my mommy.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
6 Years, 10 Months - Widow Friends
I just spent Happy Hour with some of my widow friends. It is hard to believe that we are starting to click-away our 6-year anniversaries. I believe I am the third in line of twelve, one of the early ones. This is mentioned in conversation not as time without our husbands but as time together as friends. I have to do the math in my head to determine how many weeks until my next anniversary. The approaching day is no longer an overwhelming thought. I realize it is not a marker of a forward step in grief. The impeding day has stopped scaring me. It no longer haunts me with slow-motion recreations of the final terrors. Well that is almost true. I am sure a few days before I will re-enact the awful decisions, to tube or not to tube, to feed, to not feed, to restart the heart or not. I will examine again the envisioned mistakes. I will see his suffering. I will feel my suffering. I will contemplate the unbelievable denial. I will visit the ripping of us into me. Not to worry now, I have several more weeks before my mind becomes a traitor and revisits where I no longer want to go. Now I am in that nice window between the holidays and the death and the windows become longer every year.
Some people tell me it is time to move on from my widow friends and about two-thirds of the original group no longer joins us. However, we are not sitting around talking about our dead husbands. That is what others assume we do. Yet even in the beginning, we talked about the grief more than we discussed our husbands. Nonetheless, even those conversations stopped years ago. Now we are a regular group of girlfriends. Today we talked about everyones various trips to Thailand, Machu Pichu, Eastern Europe, and planned trips to Morocco, South Africa, Italy, and Guatemala. We talk about men. Relationships have come and gone since we all lost our soul mates. An eavesdropper may believe us a group of divorcées. Yet, there is that common thread that binds us. Sometimes there is a twist in our perception that is different from our married friends, our divorced friends, our single friends. After remarking that we have been friends for five years, one of the women asked the youngest what her plans were for the next five years. Her response was not typical for a beautiful young woman who is successful in her job. Her response was she has learned not to make plans. When she says this, she seems old. She is not like my nieces her age. When she says this, we all just nod our heads. I think of her wedding only weeks away. Her dress pressed and hanging on the closet door, sending out thank-you cards for the gifts that begin to arrive, helping guests with their travel plans, the bachelorette hangover, shopping for honeymoon clothes, looking into his eyes and knowing he is yours forever. Another revision to the seating chart seems catastrophic. Then her cell phone rings. Plans are not much different from dreams. Before there seemed a difference, one involved taking action towards goals and the other was fantasy. Now plans appear delusional.
Some people tell me it is time to move on from my widow friends and about two-thirds of the original group no longer joins us. However, we are not sitting around talking about our dead husbands. That is what others assume we do. Yet even in the beginning, we talked about the grief more than we discussed our husbands. Nonetheless, even those conversations stopped years ago. Now we are a regular group of girlfriends. Today we talked about everyones various trips to Thailand, Machu Pichu, Eastern Europe, and planned trips to Morocco, South Africa, Italy, and Guatemala. We talk about men. Relationships have come and gone since we all lost our soul mates. An eavesdropper may believe us a group of divorcées. Yet, there is that common thread that binds us. Sometimes there is a twist in our perception that is different from our married friends, our divorced friends, our single friends. After remarking that we have been friends for five years, one of the women asked the youngest what her plans were for the next five years. Her response was not typical for a beautiful young woman who is successful in her job. Her response was she has learned not to make plans. When she says this, she seems old. She is not like my nieces her age. When she says this, we all just nod our heads. I think of her wedding only weeks away. Her dress pressed and hanging on the closet door, sending out thank-you cards for the gifts that begin to arrive, helping guests with their travel plans, the bachelorette hangover, shopping for honeymoon clothes, looking into his eyes and knowing he is yours forever. Another revision to the seating chart seems catastrophic. Then her cell phone rings. Plans are not much different from dreams. Before there seemed a difference, one involved taking action towards goals and the other was fantasy. Now plans appear delusional.
Monday, February 15, 2010
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