7 Years, 1 Month - Advice for the Newly Berieved

What do I say to an old friend when she tells me her husband has died? My chest clinches. I still do not know the right words but I feel the pain hit me in the chest. What do I say the first day? It is too early to say most of what I would say. Do I tell her one of the best things that I was told? No, it is too soon to tell her it will get worse, much worse, before it gets better. What do I say when everyone has driven away and she says tonight will be the first night I sleep alone? Do I tell her it will be sleepless? Will she too wake up on his side of the bed, as she moved closer and closer, searching in her sleep for what was no longer there? It is to soon to tell her that she will grieve longer than is comfortable for other people in her life. It is to soon to tell her that her children will grieve too and it will break her heart. He has only been gone a few days. Do I tell her the longing sets in after the usual time you spend apart, say a work day? Do I tell her the longing aches after the time passes that is the longest time they have ever been apart? When do I tell her, that the ache deepens into a need that intensifies without satisfaction as the time becomes double the time you spent apart. How do I explain such a need, such a longing that you carry all day as your hunger turns to starvation? I cry. Not because I knew him so well but because I can envision her suffering and cannot stop it. She will walk through the fire alone.

5 Years, 9 Months - Other Widows' Blogs

I find myself reading other grief blogs today. I am not sad, more curious on the similarities of our paths. After posting a lengthy comment on one blog, I decided to paraphrase it here.

These are a few questions asked by another widow blogger with my answers. I am not sure if I should cite her blog so I am leaning towards anonymous. I will change this if this is improper etiquette.

1.) When do I take my wedding band off?
When you are ready, repeat this mantra repeatedly for all questions relating to 'how long' and 'grief'. However, I did succumb to peer-pressure, as I was the last of my young widow friends to take my ring off. Although I did not feel ready, I thought it might be a step required to move forward. That was years ago and I think it did mark a step forward. Nevertheless, every few months I find myself absent-mindedly rubbing the underside of my ring finger.

2.) If I am remarried, whom do I get buried next to when I die?
The parallel question, depending on your beliefs, is what happens when the three of you are in heaven.

3.) Are my in-laws still my in-laws?
I found In-Laws becomes an option that can be retained or negated by either party and may include some but not all members.

4.) Everyone says the first year is the toughest. Will something magically happen on ’year one’ to make the second year so much better?
The one-year grieving deadline is an outdated belief that needs to be rectified. What happens at one year is you fall backwards temporarily and then continue on your grief journey.

5.) Why do people commemorate the anniversary of someone's death?
The death anniversary almost forces recognition. Your body marks its approach before you even realize the date is nearing. It is better to have a plan than possibly find yourself alone and spinning backwards. The first year my stepdaughter and I went to Disneyland. That was sensory overload and the day ended in her screaming, ‘Why don’t we talk about dad today? It’s his day.‘ For the next few years, my we went hiking in National Parks. Being in nature together was very peaceful and positive. I believe if we had been alone in those early years, it would have been a day of uncontrollable grief. Now I purposely leave an empty calendar. I go somewhere where my husband and I used to go, maybe a restaurant or a walk on the beach. I may read or see a movie. I spend the day quietly, remembering our love and the memories, with maybe one short cry. The next day I am refreshed and back to my quasi-normal life.

6.) How long will my friends and family put up with me?
My widow friends agree that your friends and family hit the times-up buzzer long before you are ready. It is romantic to think they will always be there but do not count on it. Other than these friends, I have only met one other person who understood. More than a decade had past since she lost her child. She told me in about my third year that it never ends. This was just when I was convincing myself I must be wrapping up my last year before I graduated from grieving and returned to the old me. Now I understand. Grief just calms and tucks itself away in a corner of your heart, becoming a part of the new you.

5 weeks - Scared, Panic

I have bad feelings when I go to do some laundry. It is such a normal routine that I did hundreds of times in this house, with this machine, with you in the living room. Now it is just I. I am terrified when I think of you those last days in the hospital. I am scared that you are gone. Can it be forever? I have been planning a trip with your daughter using your ticket to see your niece graduate. I wish it were you and me or the two of us and the girls. I don’t feel like you are gone and when I try to think of it I feel panic rising up inside me that I have to stop before it reaches my throat. Where are you baby?

5 weeks - Regret

I read your autopsy report today and wailed. I thought of your shoulder injury and could picture the thin line running vertically when they described it. I could see your healed midsection scar from a childhood appendectomy like me. I was at peace to know there was so much cancer everywhere. I felt less regret for saying yes to stop the care aimed at curing you. Still, I wonder if we stopped chemo too soon. Was there any hope? Could we have at least gotten you to the ocean? I think now how you kept asking me to go to the water - the ocean, a pool, a hydrotherapy bath. How I could not help you. How I kept promising you ‘maybe tomorrow’. You were unable to speak. You had not spoken in maybe a week. When your family asked me how long it had been since you could talk I could not answer them. I did not notice that much because we could still talk without words. I know you. You know me. I know your looks and what they mean. Plus you had incorporated basic sign language symbols we had learned from our one-year-old nephew visiting you. We also used scuba diving signals. The sign to surface became the sign to raise the bed. To dive together side-by-side meant for me to come closer to the bed. Sign language for milk was a request for Ensure. The sign for rain meant to pour ice water on your head. I knew you wanted to get in the water when you made the sign language for fish on your last day. When I said maybe tomorrow, you said ‘oh well’. As if you knew there were no more tomorrows. Did you say this with your eyes, a shrug, a tilt of the head? I don’t recall because to me it was the same as if you spoke the words. I think of holding your head to my chest as you left, of telling you I would look after your girls, and I loved you. I said ‘I love you’ with such deep sadness as your heart rate continued to drop and you stopped breathing. I felt you go. When I looked a the heart monitor the flat line was eating the mountains like a Pac Man. I am lonely. Yet, not as lonely as before I met you. I am more at peace now. Now, that someone has loved me unconditionally, without fear, without jealousy, without their selves first. You loved me first and then your self and I am at peace. I am sure my loneliness will grow without you ever coming back home. I will be so lonely to go places without you especially the places we already had tickets for, the places we had planned, that we had scheduled to take off work, all the places we had on our list. How I miss you pumpkin. How I wish we had years and years. I fear I am sick too. I wonder what I will do. I am scared. How scared you must have been.

5 weeks - I thought of you today. I cried.

I thought of you today when I saw the bird on the picket fence. I thought of you today and cried in the bathtub remembering our third date. I cried because I miss you. I cried for the regrets. I cried because I want to travel with you and have you hold me. I wear your wedding ring on my finger. I made a list of things to do and they include showering and crying. I feel you with me all the time. I feel you catch a peek at me through the eye of a bird and hug me with the wind.