Just a thought

Disclaimer: I am not having any of the mentioned issues with anyone currently, but I have in the past and this picture made me think. 

I have seen this picture circulating on social media a lot lately and it made me sad. It makes me sad because it is such an accurate depiction of our society and it's so backwards of how it should be. We have all been conditioned to believe that we have to put ourselves first because no one else ever will. I'm talking about all our interpersonal relationships; parents, kids, spouses, etc. Our life experiences have taught us that if we put someone else first, they will just use us, lie to us, cheat on us, or steal from us. Our pride convinces us we have to be SMART and look out for ourselves above everyone else because we've all be broken by someone and we can't let that happen again.We can't trust anyone completely. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating being stupid. If someone has shown you over and over again that they cannot be trusted then believe them. But the problem comes in when ONE someone has broken your trust and you find it hard to trust EVERYONE. I've been there, I understand the issues involved. Putting someone else first is the ultimate vulnerability and sacrifice. Putting them first means you love them more than you love yourself. The problem is, no one does it anymore. It's become all about YOU because someone somewhere along the way betrayed you and you're not ever going to let anyone do that again. Sometimes it seems like a horrible balancing act because once you've been burned, you will see flames everywhere, even when there are none. Do you attempt to put out the fire before it starts or do you wait and see?

The only way to fix the backwards cycle is to have a little faith in humanity. Put other people ahead of you and maybe instead of teaching them you're second, it will teach them to put other's ahead of them. If you both put each other first, your relationship will be enjoyable instead of strained. 
Life isn't perfect, you will get burned sometimes. 

I've tried it both ways. I don't like who I am when I put me first AND It also really sucks when I put someone else first and I get betrayed. I have a choice to make; I have to decide if I would rather protect myself and try to keep from getting hurt or try to make someone else's life better because I was in it.

If I spend my life putting me first, then no one will notice when I'm gone. 

Life of Memories or Life of Love

A lot of people think it's a choice; if you plan to move forward after loss you have to choose between a life of memories and a life of love. It doesn't work like that. I have chosen to move forward and have a new life of love with Joey, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned the memories I have of my previous life with Steve. None of it is easy to explain and everyone deals with it all so differently, but I'm going to try to put my thoughts into words.

It has been two and half years since the last time I heard "I love you" come from the lips of the man I thought I would be with forever. A lot of life has happened in that time span and a lot of grieving has been done. I do not pretend that the pain will ever completely end; there are moments that make it hard to breathe, but those moments are fewer now. Now, I can look back at memories of him and just be happy that I experienced the life I did, with him. It's true that some things fade with time, but the thing that really doesn't fade is ME. Who I am is a direct result of who we were together. You cannot take a 17 year old girl and give her 19 years with someone and expect her to come away the same way she went in. Steve and I created a beautiful life and marriage; it took a lot of years to get it there, but it was beautiful. Every cell that makes up me is born from the strands of DNA that made up US. He died earlier than anyone ever expected and when he died I went into full on identity crisis mode. I have mourned the loss of him, and of course I still miss him, but the pain that still stings the most is that I miss what I was to him. I didn't sign up for an identity change, I was just thrust into one. My identity was so intertwined with my marriage that apart from Steve, I didn't know who I was and I certainly didn't like what I was feeling.

As Steve's wife: I was needed, not in the make me dinner sense of needed; he depended on me to do everything in this life together. I was wanted, he wanted to be with me 24/7. We never wanted a break from each other. I was the most important person on this planet to him, there was absolutely nothing that man would not do to for me. He supported me with everything I did; he always had my back. He was proud of our relationship; he loved the fact that everyone thought we were newlyweds. I was protected and I belonged to him, he wasn't like a jealous husband type, but he was a fierce defender and always felt safe with him. The bond between us was unbreakable. The connection we had was incomprehensible. 

When he died, who I was seemed to be dying too. I was no longer needed or wanted in the same way anymore. I was no longer the most important person on the planet to anyone. I was alone, scared, and belonged to no one. After months of dealing with all of these emotions, I started to develop the tough exterior everyone could look at and feel like I was fine. People could understand my grief in dealing with the loss of my husband, but most people couldn't grasp the grief I felt from dealing with the loss of my identity.

I think when a someone experiences a love that went the depths of mine and Steve's and then they lose it, they often choose to put up walls and protect themselves from the possibility of that kind of pain again. I know I tried to build an impenetrable wall; love, like what I had, comes at the impossible cost of grief like this.

I discovered that no matter how hard I tried to build that wall, I couldn't build it high enough. We are made to connect, we are made to love. Take it all the way back to the beginning when God made Eve because it was not good for man to be alone and sprinkled everywhere you look throughout the Bible, connection is vitally important.

What I am trying to say is that  I can now think about Steve and be grateful to have had him the time that I did; I can even look at all the mistakes I made (and I remember new ones, all the time) and the regret I have and I can keep myself from dwelling on them to the point of obsession. They are things that will forever bother me, but I can move past them. What I have had the most trouble processing is the loss of who I was to him. But, what I realized is that who I was with him on September 11, 2013 took years and years to become. On December 9, 1995, I was a very different person. It took a long time to build that kind of connection between us. It took years and years of learning each other to be able to sit across a room and know with one glance what he was thinking. It took a very long time for me to realize that he was my rock and he was why I felt safe. None of those things happened overnight. While it seems like I completely understand that concept, I'll tell you it is hard to look at what Steve and I built over all those years and see that it just vanished in a moment. It's so hard to think about allowing myself to be that vulnerable again.

So the real question is, what if I spend years building all of this again with Joey and it vanishes; I've set myself up to pay the same price I paid before. Is it harder to allow yourself to be that vulnerable the second time around, YES! Yes, it's harder, but only because this time it's deliberate and you know the cost. The first time, I was immature and naive and I had no idea what I was doing.  It was the grace of God and our determination that got us where we were. This time, I walk into a relationship with my eyes wide open, my heart having been ripped from my chest and returned with a piece missing, knowing that when this ends one of us will be paying the ultimate price for loving the other. It probably all sounds so haunting when you read it, but it speaks to me of the amazing ability for the heart to keep beating and the spirit to continue to want that deep connection. Believe me, I tried so hard to stay alone. But God, had other plans and I decided that if I was going to LOVE someone again, I was going to do my best to have the least amount of regrets possible.

It's different once you have had an amazing love story and lost it. Your fears change from being afraid of losing someone (that's still there to some degree) to a different kind of fear. I have already been through the most painful tragedy a human can face and I survived. I am a different person because of the lessons I learned through the pain. It may sound cold in some way, but I know that one day I will lose Joey or he will lose me; death is a fact of life. My biggest goal is to spend the time we do have together building a life of love, enjoying the journey, and when it's finished, having the least amount of regrets as possible. I now have a better comprehension of how important it is to show love in the way your partner sees it. As a result of what I've been through I've learned that when it's all said and done, if I'm the one left standing here I will ask myself "Did I put him first, Did I focus on what he loved to do, Did he know how much I loved him." I have a different perspective on life and love now. My love is much more deliberate than before. While, it is still a feeling, I choose to make it more about his feelings than mine.  Now that I know how strong of a bond two people are capable of having, how deep the connection can go, I'm excited to see my relationship with Joey develop deeper roots over time. We have poured the foundation to build a beautiful life together. After all, It's the journey, not the destination.

Done!!

Have you ever just felt DONE! Finally reached a point, where you are done fighting and trying; just DONE! I can only think of a couple of times in my 38 years that I have been there, and I'm there. Everything is broken, I'm sure in some ways it always will be. There are moments when it feels like I have glued the pieces together, but they are fleeting. I have embraced my "new normal" but I'm not talking just about the loss of my husband here. I'm talking about life in general. I'm one of those people that tries to do whatever I can to help in any given situation, when I really should just sit back and do nothing. It's like an addiction, I get a high off of helping someone solve a problem. 98% of the time the high was worth it. but there are a few occasions when I crash instead. The crazy thing is, the crash usually isn't because I couldn't solve the problem; it's usually because the person needing help becomes hateful, arrogant, or full of such selfish pride they can't see who is on their side and who isn't.

I understand the world is a cynical place and tons of people are out to help themselves, but  NOT EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET YOU, some people are genuinely nice and want to help with no ulterior motives behind their help. So, here I am again today after attempting to help someone and getting treated like a suspect deciding I'm DONE!

I know me well enough to know that I am overwhelmed and exhausted right now, but somehow I'll find the motive to keep trudging along until I am strong enough to actually fight again. The problem with that is, I wonder how many times I will try to help before I just change who I am and give up.

It's been a frustrating week, life has not been great this week. I am dealing with the fact that my 11 year old daughter has a life long auto immune disease and has to shoot herself with a MINIMUM of 4 shots a day. I found a pump she agreed to wear and her insurance REFUSES to cover it. What is wrong with the world? She's 11, she could go get birth control or an abortion, but she can't get an Insulin pump.
We got to a restaurant and order her the kid's pancake. It's supposed to be one pancake and turkey bacon. They bring 3 huge pancakes! I already looked up the carb count for the one pancake and dosed her the appropriate amount of insulin for one. Now they have brought 3 and she wants to eat it and argue about it. I'm TIRED! It's not even my disease and I"m tired. I'm tired of being the bad guy ALL THE TIME, I don't get a break where her Dad can take over her care and I can just be fun. Who, am I kidding, her Dad was always the fun one anyway; she would just bat her eyes and he would let her have it. She's not to the age, that she can handle it on on her own; she does her own shots, but carb counting and dosing has to be done for her. I am so paranoid that she will be overdosed, I have made it a double check system around here. Every shot has to be double checked by Angel and another adult. I want her to be able to eat what all her friends are eating without having to count the carbs and stick herself with needles. I want her to be able to go to friends houses for a few hours without worrying about a hypo and the parents not knowing what to do.

  I AM TIRED! I wanted the insulin pump so it would give her the freedom to do more and eat more. She wouldn't have to stick herself if someone offered her a cookie, she could just tell the pump to give her more medicine, but NO, Insurance refuses to cover that and of course it's not affordable to do without Insurance.

Now, I have to find the strength to go fight an insurance company because nothing we can do will fix Type 1 diabetes and some corporate morons somewhere need a wake up call.

ANCHOR

We recently took a vacation to Florida; it's the first time I've been here since Steve and I took the girls in 2011. I did o.k. I think. I was really good until we stopped at the same rest stop where Steve had taken a picture of me and my girls under the "Welcome to Florida" sign. As soon as we pulled in there and I realized where I was, a flood of emotions hit me. 

By the time we arrived at our condo, I was doing better. Until, we went for a walk on the beach. I watched Jamie and Angel walk and leave footprints in the sand and then I watched the tide come in and wipe them away as if they never existed. The impact of that simple yet very complex moment hit hard.  All the things that Steve and I did and the "footprints" we made together  vanished so quickly and at some point it will be as if WE never existed. In 100 years, there is nothing on this planet that will prove the love we had for each other. There is no DNA combination of us that will continue on for generations. There's nothing left but my memories. Just like the ocean tides wiped away the girl's footprints, time will wipe away any existence of US together. It is impossible to wrap my mind around something that can mean so much to two people just vanishing and not only vanishing, but after I'm gone,  no proof of it's existence will remain except for a marriage license document and very few pictures we took together over 18 years. All of that hit me pretty hard while I was standing there watching the tide roll in and out. It took me a couple hours, but I re-focused and snapped back to the reality that there's nothing I can do to change any of it now.

I will probably forever grieve in different ways, but I can't anchor here. 

I have finally come to a place where I have found a new "normal" and, naively, I thought things like this wouldn't take me by surprise anymore. I was wrong! I've been struggling for a few months with realizing that the longer I continue to live the more distant my previous life becomes. Sometimes when I think about Steve or situations we experienced together, it feels more like a dream than reality, and I hate that. I know it's a natural cycle of loss, but I guess I had hoped it wouldn't happen to me.

The only way to keep it from happening is to stay so buried in the pain that you can't live.

For a while, I didn't have a choice; I was buried. But, eventually I got to a point that I felt like our love was somehow diminished if I tried to stop hurting so much. I felt like it somehow meant I didn't love him enough, if I was able to find a way to live without him. It wasn't guilt, it was something completely different; I don't know how to explain it. I'm a pretty black and white type of person, not many shades of grey exist for me. I finally had to give myself permission to figure out how to live in a shade of grey when it comes to all of this. I couldn't be black and white with this level of tragedy. I couldn't stay buried in grief and I couldn't just move on like nothing ever happened. So, I've been charting new territory and learning how to keep living , yet giving myself permission to grieve when I need to. It is a different kind of life and just like everything in life, I know I will screw it up sometimes, but I'm living and doing the best I can. I'm finally to a place where I can say, 

Life is good again; it is different, but it is good. 

P.S. The rest of our trip was wonderful. We made many new memories and took TONS of pictures :)

2011 - Me and the girls

2015 The Girls

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Top 10

Merry Christmas! This is not going to be a cheery message, but it is one that needs to be given. Not everyone had a wonderful day today and we need to be mindful of those people. We cannot let ourselves forget about the widow and the orphan, the homeless, the less fortunate, etc.

A week ago, two of my friends began the tragic journey through the grief of losing the love of your life. One of them was a man married to a High School friend of mine, Laura. They had just suffered a miscarriage and then she was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer and died about a week later. They had no living children. The other was a man who had beat cancer twice, but the side effects of the transplant eventually killed him. He left behind my friend, Brianna, and their four children. It's impossible, now, for me to hear about someone losing their spouse and not immediately go back to how I felt in those first few minutes, days, and months. I have not figured any of this out, but I understand the pain. I cannot lessen the pain for them, but I think I can offer some insight to those watching them suffer and have no idea what to do. If you REALLY want to help, here are some tips:

1. Pray for them. In the moments of my greatest depression and doubt, I found comfort knowing that there were people out there who cared enough to pray me through it.

2. Be there. A lot of people say "let me know if you need anything" which is understandable. You don't know what to say or do. But, a new widow is struggling to put one foot in front of the other, struggling just to breathe; they can't tell you what they need. I had ONE friend who called me or texted me EVERY DAY for almost a year. ONE! Thankfully, she was one I could be real with.  When life got hairy for her, another friend showed up about 16 months in and checked on me every day. There were other people who periodically popped in. But, a person grieving this deeply needs a connection with at least one person every day. There is no time frame to how long they will need someone available to talk. Some days they will be very closed off and not talk, other days they will scream and yell.

3. Be o.k. with just being there and not knowing what to say. I was looking for someone to talk to especially about the deep things. I didn't need someone to judge me and tell me I was wrong. I needed someone to accept my doubt and understand that everything in life was now impossible for one person to deal with. This is not the time to be a judgmental christian. This is the time when people are searching for hope, not damnation.

4.Financial stability. Some people have life insurance policies that will help cover costs. Most of us do not. If friends and family had not rallied together to help us I would have lost the house and wouldn't have been able to afford to bury my husband or buy a headstone.

5. Help them remember to pay bills, eat, buy basic items. It's called widow fog; it happens to all of us. We feel like we are losing our minds because we can't remember anything.  I had the money to pay the water bill, I just forgot to pay it, until they shut it off.

6. Balance. There is a delicate balance between allowing a widow time to grieve alone and not leaving a widow alone so much that they get depressed. It's tough to figure out, but if you pay close enough attention you will see the signs of what he/she needs. They need to be able to fall apart without their kids seeing it, yet they need their kids to give them some reason to keep going. They need to cry alone, yet they need you sitting there to tell them they aren't alone and it's normal.

7. Take your cues. A widow will go through so many different emotions in one day and sometimes a million emotions at one time. Sometimes they will want to talk about their spouse and remember the good times, other times they would prefer that no one mentions him because they know that 'right now' they just can't hold it together. The best way to handle this is listen to them talk. If they are talking about him then it's safe for you to, if they aren't, then maybe you should wait. This also goes for pictures, some widows want tons of pictures around. Some do not want any at all. It was too painful for me to see pictures for a long time.

8. Profile pictures. Many people will change their profile pictures to one of the deceased pictures or they will go back through the deceased facebook posts and pictures and like them. Guess what? that shows up and their widow has a minor tachycardia event because it looks like her husband is posting from beyond. I know this is something that most people do not even think about, don't feel bad. Just consider waiting until the initial shock has had time to set in before doing these things. It's wonderful for us to know the impact our spouse had on the world, but it is a little much to deal with at first.

9. Handyman stuff. It's almost a scientific fact that when a man dies, everything in his wife's life falls apart. The house starts leaking and the cars break. Basic things like cutting the grass need done and he was the only one who knew how to start the rigged lawnmower. Help her out.

10. Help keep things as normal as possible for the kids. I was reminded of this again today. My kids have always gone shopping with me for his Christmas stuff from them and he took them shopping so they could buy me what they wanted. They are not old enough to drive, so they can't go out an shop for me on their own.  They wanted to surprise me on my birthday and then again today, on Christmas,  and didn't have the chance to do it. I didn't even think about asking someone to take them.
We also use to bake pies every year and this year was so busy, I just bought pie. That was a bad idea. The pie tasted just fine, but I messed up another tradition for them. They lost their Dad, the least we can all do is attempt to keep everything else as normal as possible.

There are no time frames on grief or how long a widow will need your help. They will feel like they are in your way, so they will pull away. They will feel like a third wheel to their married friends and quite honestly it will hurt, VERY BADLY, to see other couples happy and living life, so they may retreat from married friends for  awhile. Don't get your feelings hurt, imagine what he or she is going through and be patient. No matter how much they pull away, DO NOT WALK AWAY.

Life is fragile..Handle with care.

Brianna's Story: https://www.gofundme.com/m8bqj5ec

Laura's Story: https://www.gofundme.com/zse476sy

20 Year Anniversary December 9, 2015

Today, Steve and I would have been married for 20 years. We were supposed to renew our vows today; he actually came up with the plan somewhere around our 12 year anniversary. I've reflected a lot on our marriage and who we were together. Those are things that you often don't spend a lot of time dwelling on while you are in the middle of them. Once it is gone, you think about it a lot. Our life together was God designed and it was absolutely beautiful. I probably don't need to re-hash most of the things already disclosed in this blog. Everyone knows the first few years were a little rough, but then we found our stride.

I was an immature child when I married Steve; I grew up being his wife and the mother to our kids. He was exactly what I need and everything I wanted, which has made letting him go an almost impossible task. Once you have what we had, losing it is a pain that I really couldn't see ever getting any better. There have been so many days that I was disappointed when I woke up alive. I knew my kids needed me, but they needed him too and most of the time it felt like I needed to be where he was more than anyone needed the shell of what I had become. I don't really know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I woke up and I was o.k. with being alive and then one day I woke up and I was happy to be alive. It takes a while to get there and to be completely honest there are relapse days, but not near as many as there used to be.

I can talk about Steve and our life without crying all the time, which is good. Unfortunately, now that I have let myself heal from some of the pain, Steve seems more distant than he was, but I'm pretty sure that is how it goes.

I finally went to the grave site today...

Today has been horrible, I woke up with the feeling that I just needed to stay in bed all day. Life is extremely stressful right now. It's finals time and I'm preparing my house to sell, so we can move. Everyone told me to wait one to two years before I made any huge decisions. It's been two years and I still want to move out of this house. There are some things that are just too hard. Some places I still have a tough time going to. It is only because we had such good times in those places, I can't go back there without experiencing an overwhelming about of sadness. So, I do my best to avoid them. I look at this house and in almost every room of this house we made a huge change. We remodeled so much of it together and it's hard to look at it every day.

Anyway, back to today. I finally got up and studied for my Wills, Trusts, and Estates exam and it just felt wrong. This is supposed to be my 20 year anniversary and I'm trying to study, but I can't concentrate because today was supposed to be so different. So, I went to the grave. I've been avoiding that place for 27 months. I've tried to imagine me going and it never works out good in my head. People have encouraged me to go thinking it will help somehow.

I really don't know if it helped or hurt or did anything for me. Knowing that everything we were, everything we had, is in a box in the ground with a headstone on it doesn't make me feel any better. But, I already knew that anyway, so it really didn't make it any worse. Now, I just have a mental picture of the space where my husband and my former life are buried. The source of pain comes from knowing what I lost, not from knowing where it is. I know where he is and I know he is happy, even without me. That box in the ground only holds the body he wore, but it represents so much more for me; 18 years of life and love and memories and becoming everything we were together is also in that box in the ground.

A while ago, I came to the point of being able to keep moving instead of standing still because I finally understood that he is still living (in heaven, I'm not crazy) and he's happy with where he is. He still experiences joy and happiness, he doesn't need me anymore. The grief still exists and I will always love him and miss him; I will always wonder why. I've let myself grieve his death and I've let myself grieve the loss of who I was and who we were. Going to the grave seemed like the right thing to do on what should have been our 20 year anniversary. I also wanted to know if I would experience some unexpected feeling that I hadn't allowed myself to feel yet; I didn't. I felt the same things I have felt for 27 months: anger, sadness, pain, and regret. Nothing can be done about the anger, sadness and pain, they just have to come and go as they will, but I have learned a lot from the regret. I can use the regret to make me a better person from here on out.

Regret is a powerful teacher 

Happy Thanksgiving. Two years later

Happy Thanksgiving! Savor the day...I never would have imagined that Thanksgiving 2012 would be the last Thanksgiving I would remember for years to come. Continuing to live is the hardest thing I have ever done, but I'm starting to find the new normal everyone told me about.
Life is certainly different now, but I'm in a better place than I was last year at this time. I was reflecting yesterday that I do not even remember the last two holiday seasons. It's incredible what the mind blocks out.
I'm thankful for the family I have and Joey's family that is quickly becoming family to me as well. I'll also repeat what I said Thanksgiving 2012; right after Steve died: " I am grateful for people who purpose to pray for us. I read another blog that said it so perfectly, "Friends you thought would be there won’t be there, and people you hardly know will reach out." It is exactly like that. There are people that I have never even met or some I haven't seen in years that text or facebook message me just to let me know they are praying; that means more than I can ever say."

It is still exactly like that!