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.

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.

3 Years, 2 Months - Covering Mirrors

I now know why people used to cover the mirrors after someone died. I used to think it was to put aside vanity and focus on mourning. I think that is what the nuns told me when I asked. No, that is not the reason. It is because you cannot look in the mirror. You can lift your head. However, you are unable look forward with your eyes. If you accidentally catch yourself in the mirror the pain is overwhelming. That is you and you quickly look away. It does not trouble you that your roots are grey, your hair disheveled, your face without make-up your clothes slept in. That is not why you turn away from you. It is not the pain or sadness in your eyes. You just can not see yourself. You can not look. It is not that the look of sadness or the tear swollen eyes remind you of the pain. The pain actually bounces off your eyes' reflection and hits with force in the chest. You carry the pain everyday. Yet if you inadvertently see yourself in the mirror, unfortunately see your eyes, the pain not only resides in you but comes from without and rushes from the mirror to physically push you. I do not know how long it lasted. I avoided looking in the mirror for a long time. Then I would look but never at my eyes. I learned to put on make-up with minimal use of a mirror and never looking directly at it. Society should cover mirrors again.

3 Years - Expectations

I just need to tell someone. Maybe no one will hear. Maybe no one will read. Maybe I am naive. But someone hear me. No one hears me.

They applaud the steps they see as forward and ignore with mild contempt and frustration the stagnation. I don’t only move forward. I am in a rip tide with my mouth barely breathing, pulling out and under to the sea. You only see when I make a movement towards shore. I know to swim parallel to shore. I know it is what I need. But, the water is cool and warm and wraps me. I can go with the tide without so much strain. I am tired from fighting it. The constant fight and I am no closer to shore. Swim parallel? Swim and swim and pull, arm over arm, turning my head for breaths, keep going. But I’ll only be the same distance I am now from shore just a bit upstream, perhaps downstream. Can’t I just let the tide take me, take it’s time? It will calm in time. The tide will lose its power. It will wane and I will just be floating in the sea. It will be harder for you to see me from shore. But, I will be there, safe in time. Then I can swim without so much effort. It will be refreshing, invigorating. Why is it necessary to struggle so much now? I will be strong enough when the rip tide losses its power and then I can move towards shore.