Incomplete

I went to the cemetery today.  I don't really know why.  It doesn't bring me comfort.  In fact, it always upsets me.  I guess its a place where I can talk to Brian out loud where nobody will see or judge.

I don't feel particularly close to Brian there.  He isn't there.  His body wasn't buried - just a small bag of ashes,  I don't know what was harvested from his body - I don't want to.  During the last months of his life they cut him open too many times.  I saw the scars, I saw the staples, I saw the huge open gaping hole they left after the second surgery, and I saw his excruciating pain every few days when they changed the horrific dressing on that wound.  No.  Wound isn't the right word.  It wasn't a wound, it was an incredibly large incision made to repair his ruptured stomach after the first futile surgery left him vulnerable.  I saw the blood, the asitiis, the chemo, the nutrition - so many things that nobody should ever see.  And I saw him deal with all that with such courage and grace while I fell apart.

He wanted to donate his body to science, and I wanted to honor his wishes.  Still, the thought of them cutting open his lifeless body, removing organs, or bones, or tissues that once kept him alive feels like desecration.  I love that he wanted to help others through his death, I hate the thought of it though.

So his grave is not a place where he rests.  Its not a place where his body lies.  It's just a hole with some ashes and a stone to tell people that he was once here and that he matters.

Rest in peace.  What a ridiculous expression.  There is no rest in death.  Only the living can rest.  Brian isn't at rest, he's dead.  Gone.

People say the strangest things.  The other day I posted a photo of a yearling on my Facebook page.  It was beautiful.  Tyrone commented that it was Brian coming back to look after me.  I know it was meant to be comforting, but it was disturbing.  I don't see or feel him in the sun, the rain, the deer, the flowers.  Those things are not reminders of him.  If anything, they are reminders that he is gone.

And I'm alive.  And by most definitions I'm doing well.  I have wonderful friends, I have love, I work, I breath.  I experience joy and pleasure; but life isn't easy.  It's incomplete.  I'm not lonely, but I'm alone.  I have amazing friends, incredible support, more love than I deserve, but at the end of the day I'm alone.  I'm no longer sharing life - just moments of it.

And somehow the worst part is that I'm getting used to it.  At some point others assume that I'm done grieving and that everything is okay.  And in many ways I'm no longer actively grieving.  I accept that he is gone. I accept that I am no longer his wife.  I accept that this is my life, my reality.  I'm somehow moving on and starting to think about my future.  But I don't think that I will ever heal from experiencing his death and the unfairness of it.  I try to remember that I didn't have the cancer, that all that happened to Brian - I was just a witness to it.  But, how do you witness pain and death and heal?  How do you accept the death of a wonderful person who was only given 48 years of life?

I'm healthy, and I expect to have many years ahead of me, but Brian's death ended the life I knew and loved.  I'm alive, but somehow my life feels unnatural, inorganic.  Life now comes in moments and spurts.

I suppose every widow feels this way, but nobody warns you about it.  When the period of mourning is over - when you are forced to live a new reality - everything is unfamiliar.  That isn't a bad thing, but it is uncomfortable.  Maybe that's what is hard - feeling comfortable in a strange life.

I know that I have a pretty good life.  I am grateful for so much, and I don't take it for granted, but building a new life is something we do in solitude.  And I'm not good at solitude.

I so glad that this loss didn't rob me of the ability to love.  Life without love would be horrific.  I love, I laugh, I live, but I'm still waiting for the day when things feel comfortable, right, and complete.

Packing away

Brian is dead.

I felt his heart stop.  I heard his last breath.  I held his lifeless body in my arms.  He's gone, and my broken heart no longer forgets that.  I no longer reach for him in the middle of the night.  I no longer turn in search of him for love, support or comfort.  I have accepted the tragic reality that fate ripped him from my life too soon.

Our time together was brief, but oh so amazingly special.  I carry his love in my heart; I carry his spirit in my being; I mourn for the man, the love, the marriage, the life.  I miss him.  But Brian is dead and I am not - even if at times it feels like I died too.

In recent weeks I find that I am able to start thinking in new ways.  My sadness is less paralyzing, my loss less crippling.  I am able to look at my life without Brian and to recognize that I want and need more.  I can not accept living in this void forever.  I want my life to have meaning.  I want to live with hope for tomorrow.  I don't want to replace Brian - he is not replaceable - but I want to respect his greatest gifts to me.  I want to live my life with love and laughter.  I want to feel peace in the warmth of the sun on my face.  I want to feel happiness in the wonders of nature.  I want to delight in the happiness and good fortune of those around me.  I want to take control of my life; to change stressful things that are in my power to change. I want my life to be about living and not about obligation.

Since Brian died, life has been overwhelming, stressful, and harsh.  It has been about acts of survival instead of acts of living.  I realize now that it is in my power to reduce my stress and make my life more manageable.  I know that there are steps that I can take to improve the quality of my life if I can muster the courage to take them on.  I also know that this is what Brian would want for me.

So this past weekend I stood in the mess that we used to call our closet, and acknowledged that my inability (or refusal)  to organize Brian's belongings has not spared me pain.  It has made my home unmanageable, and has added to my stress and anxiety.

The thought of going through Brian's belongings, of giving away his things, of throwing away his things has been so painful, that I have allowed my home to be a source of stress instead of a refuge from it.  It has to change, and I am the only person on earth with the power to change it.

So, on Saturday afternoon I grabbed boxes, removed all of Brian's clothing from the closet and the chest, and sorted it all to give away.  Keeping the clothing doesn't keep Brian alive.  In fact, keeping the clothing has become more like a slap in the face with an unneccesary reminder of his absence.

I wasn't prepared for the searing agony of this task.  The hot tears and physical pain took me by surprise.  Despite the fact that I recognized the need to simplify my daily life by clearing out his closet space, the act of doing it felt like reliving the moment when the doctor declared that Brian was dying.  It was truly awful.  But, it was just his clothing - it wasn't him.  It no longer held his scent, it was no longer a reminder of his life.  It was just stuff - stuff that was never really that important to him.  The long long list of wonderful things that made Brian so amazing never included words like "clothes horse" or "fashionista".  I realize now that hanging onto everything that was his is not a source of comfort, but rather a source of stress.

The task has just begun.  If going through his clothes was difficult, sorting through his books, his tools and his other belongings will be infinitely harder.  I don't want to do it, but I know that I need to for my own sake.

Keeping his clothing didn't help to eliminate the void left in the wake of his death.  Removing his clothing, however painful, does make room in my life for peace, order, and hope.  I know that with more space I can keep my own things more organized and that will reduce my stress.  I also know that with less stress, I will be better able to experience life, laughter, and love - three things that Brian wanted for me and that I desperately want for myself.

And I think, that as hard as this all is, it is a sign of healing and growth.  The fact that I can recognize my stress and take painful steps to reduce it is good.  The fact that I'm able to start thinking about simplifying my life, means that I am really starting to choose life rather than giving it lip service.  The fact that I can even entertain early thoughts of someday selling my home - our home - and moving to a smaller condo that would require less time, effort, and money to maintain, means that I am truly seeking balance and making strides in that direction.

I am alive. I am able to love.  I am able to declutter my home, declutter my head, and declutter my heart; I can make room for all the good things that I crave.  Feeling love and joy doesn't mean walking away from Brian, it means carrying him with me into the future.










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Homesick

"When you lose your partner, you lose your intimate, domestic life. You lose the one who is equally committed to your life, present and future. You lose the intimate daily details of life. You lose home."

These aren't my words, but they are similar to things I've said.  When Brian died, I lost more than my husband; I lost my life.  People who haven't watched their spouse die can't really understand this.

We're expected to mourn and then return to life.  Go back home, go back to work, return to life.  But when your beloved dies, you become homeless.  You're home becomes just a house filled with souvenirs. You can't return to your life, because the life you knew has ended.

You have to discover a new reason to live, create a new home in which you can feel safe, open yourself to the possibility that you might someday find happiness again.

I can't feel at home in my house, but I'm not ready to pack up my souvenirs and move.  My life isn't here, but ours was.  The thought of moving is like walking away from everything comfortable, familiar and desired.

With Brian, home could have been anywhere.  On my own, I feel homeless despite the fact that I own a very beautiful home.

I don't know how to process these feelings.  I accept that Brian is dead.  I accept that that part of my life is over.  I know that he wanted me to be happy and to allow myself to love and to be loved.  What I don't know is how to create a home alone.

Alone

Life goes on whether we want it to or not. There are good times, bad times, challenging times..... No matter what is happening, you feel the loss. Family cares, friends are kind and generous and supportive, but at the end of the day when you face life without your partner, you face it alone.

I'm luckier than most. I'm blessed with a lot of people who love me and who help me so much. I'm so grateful so I feel so guilty to admit to feeling so alone.

I'm tired of pretending that I'm strong or brave. I'm tired of trying to hide the depth of my fears. I'm tired of living alone and pretending that any part of that is ok.

Brian was always there for me, and I hope I was always there for him. Lately I question if I was there for him in the way he needed in the end. I hope that in his illness he didnt feel as alone as I feel right now.

Surviving

Sitting out on the deck in the dark. Remembering a night almost ten years ago. July 2004. The night Larry finally moved out. I rushed to change the locks, and then I sat alone in the dark on the patio, and I called Brian. We talked and listened to the thunder.

There was so much hope, so much promise. I had such a sense of relief. I had survived.

And tonight I sit alone and listen to the crickets. Lola is lying at my feet, happily dozing. She feels safe.

I'm trying so hard to remember how I felt that night.  I've survived once more, but there is no relief. No promise. No safety. The solitude offers no comfort, but it has become familiar.

I've learned so much and so little in ten years. Everything changes; everything remains the same.

Bullshit

Sometimes I think that Facebook's main purpose it to expose us to crap that will piss us off.  Like this quote that I saw on Facebook tonight:


"The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you’ll see their flaws. That’s just the way it is. This is why marriages fail, why children are abandoned, why friendships don’t last. You might think you love someone until you see the way they act when they’re out of money or under pressure or hungry, for goodness’ sake. Love is something different. Love is choosing to serve someone and be with someone in spite of their filthy heart. Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and sacrifice, it’s seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse to jump ship."



Seriously?  I don't think so.  I agree that love is patient, kind and deliberate, but I've know real love and it was never hard. Love doesn't mean not having or recognizing each others' weaknesses. Love means that dispite our weaknesses we treat each other with kindness and forgiveness. Love should never be pain or sacrifice. True love, for me, was perfect. The only thing painful about it was watching him die - and because I loved him so, there was nowhere else I would have been.

I have more love in me, and I believe that I can experience true love again.  And I won't accept that that means accepting pain and sacrifice.  It means having the grace to treat another lovingly even in difficult times and circumstance.  If it feels "hard" to love, you may be doing it wrong.

Bad Days

On good days everything seems OK.  You let your guard down.  You smile, you laugh without being self conscious, you allow yourself to experience joy; and it all feels great.  Until it doesn't.  Until you have a bad day - a day when the sheer frustration of trying to get something done makes you want to to scream, when pain makes you want to crawl into bed and hide, when every crazy crawls out if the woodwork with selfish demands,when the fucking random unfairness of life reminds you that you are nothing and your life means nothing.

Those days hurt.  Not like a pounding headache, or a bleeding wound, or a blistering burn - they hurt like an acid eating away at the very core if your being.  They wipe away your confidence, your self-worth, your reason to fight.  They strip away your purpose, question your ability to trust, take away your hope and leave you naked and defenseless in a hostile world you thought you left behind.

And you see it happening, but you're not strong enough to stop it.  So you question everything, you become passive-agressive, and you hate yourself for it.  And you just want someone to make it OK again, but nobody can.

So you medicate away the pain, and you hide the self-doubt behind a pretty shade of lipstick, and you know that if you just bear it for a few days everything will start to feel OK again.  And maybe the next really bad day will take a little longer to arrive.