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!

What's The Difference?

Many people talk about Chapter 2 love being different, but what is the difference? There are a lot of differences, but the most obvious difference is that you LOVE HARDER. There is an awareness you never had before of how easily this can all be taken, so you do much more than you ever thought of doing before to preserve it. You also really do learn not to sweat the small stuff. Maybe it's because you are so much more aware of what the big stuff is. You become very intentional.

It’s no secret that I, like many widows, live my life through a lens of regret now. That perspective shapes everything in the present and future. I do not make one single decision anymore without thinking about what regrets I might have later. It could be classified as fear, but I think of it more as a past experience I never want to repeat. We will all die, it’s inevitable; but, if you have to outlive those closest to you, minimize the regrets.

I want my life to prove to everyone who knows me that school is important and work is important, but NOTHING is as important as the people I love.  I would give up everything I want in life to make them happy.

I was thinking about a conversation Steve and I had in which I thought he may need a medical device and he didn’t want it. His basic position was that it would reduce his quality of life for two reasons, 1. He couldn’t easily snuggle up to me at night. 2. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. My position was that if he needed it and didn’t get it then his quantity of life may be shortened. Now, I really don’t know if him not having it had anything at all to do with the outcome; probably not. There is also the possibility that the device could have improved the quality of his life too, I don’t know. The point is that Steve felt like it was a quality of life issue and it was quality of life versus quantity of life, he was all about QUALITY. I spent a lot of time trying to increase quantity of life and it didn’t work. * In hindsight, I can see that quality trumps quantity. Length of life is definitely important, but happiness is MOST important.

I often took for granted that Steve knew how much I loved him and wanted to be with him.  Now, I wish I could look back and think of all the times I intentionally proved my love to him.

The biggest difference between past and present is that now I try to intentionally make love my highest priority.

 *I’m not advocating for anyone to stop using medications and medical devices. 

Secondary Loss

Secondary losses are losses that you experience beyond the loss of your loved one through death or divorce. 

As we celebrated his life at his memorial service two years ago today, I never thought I would survive this long. 

At first, I was so overwhelmed by the loss of Steve, that I didn't understand the gravity of everything else I had lost. It doesn't take too long until it all hit me. As if losing my husband and best friend was not enough, I lost my identity as well.

I went from being someone who only needed to help make decisions to the only person being relied on.

I wasn't built for this. People have been telling me for 2 years how strong I am, and all I can think of is how weak I am. If they could see what goes on in my head, they would never even consider saying I'm strong. 

I wasn't built to lead; at the core of me is a strong desire to HELP make life better for other people. I have no desire to lead anyone,  let alone myself.

People think that just because I am in Law School I must be a leader, not all lawyers are like that. Again, my passion for law is there because I desire to HELP people that need help.

I'm sure there are many women out there that are wonderful leaders and love it. I'm happy they are happy. I, however, do not love being the only one responsible for everyone and everything in my house. I hate being the only one making all the decisions. I do not like that my daughters have watched me struggle to figure out how to do all of this stuff I wasn't supposed to do alone. I completely understand that some people will view it as a good thing for my daughters to see me survive, but that is never what I wanted for them. I wanted them to grow up seeing me be who I was designed to be, not who circumstances forced me to be. 

The Hebrew word for woman in the bible is also the same word used for wife and it means "helpmate". All these years I have been a help mate and I absolutely loved that. 

If you have ever survived the death of a spouse or been divorced you may understand my position. When we are no longer a spouse, our roles in life change. If it is due to death or a contested divorce, we didn't have a choice in the role change and it really feel like who we are has been stolen.

Something as simple as picking a hotel room, a dentist, or a doctor has become a major issue for me. Most of the time I just want to throw the computer and run away because I'm tired of always having to make these decisions alone.

I miss who I used to be. I miss everything I was to him. The role I played in his life and being that important to him.  I'm just spiritually, physically, and emotionally tired of having to be someone I'm not.

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