mandeldog

The one year mark was on November 24th - this year it fell on Thanksgiving Day. I had some strong weeks toward the end of the summer - a spiritual teaching that I heard and a comment from a fellow griever at the grief group. Perhaps six weeks of strength: feeling strong, feeling like I could go beyond it with just a little will and focus. And the one year mark was approaching... So the strength slipped away and the grief resumed about a week into October. That was not good news and I felt confused, as if I were starting again. To accept grief or reject it ... and yet, I couldn't reject it, it kept coming. I knew that accepting my emotions was necessary, but I hesitated to do so ... they hurt so much and I have gotten so tired of pain. So that has been a new chapter - new grief leading up to the anniversary of my wife's passing. And really, it has stayed with me since. Something about the year drawing to a close, the darkness setting in the late afternoon, and now, the cold and the snow. I think I can make it through Christmas - but somehow, all of those holidays including my birthday in late December ... it's seems like a lot. Hard to get through all of that. It was a really warm and sunny autumn here, so I could go out and walk pretty much whenever I wanted. Now it's too cold for comfortable walking - but we will have some warmer days and I will need to do some walking then. I would like to say that probably the hardest and most difficult thing in life has come into our lives - and that is death. The reality of death. When death comes knocking at your very own door, you will learn so many lessons, so hard to absorb. And so difficult to rally and get back on life's train when you've been knocked down in such a hard and brutal way. A friend of mine from the grief group gave me a sheet listing Worden's Four Tasks of Grief. The first is "To accept the reality of the loss." I understand that that can be a lifetime task. But when that reality really hits you for the first time - and it hit me about three days after my wife's passing - it was like being hit by a train. Like that big old freight train just went roaring right through my heart and soul. There was a lady at the Friends' Meeting where I attend who told me after a meeting one Sunday after my wife's death that my wife and I were going to help the others face death. And my wife could well be such an example to anyone. But I was just showing my strong face. I said to her, "can you see me lying on the bathroom floor, curled up in the fetal position, and sobbing my guts out?" I didn't say it to be mean, but just to let a little reality into the room. It can be like a little fresh air sometimes. So, thanks for listening. Just thought I'd put a message in a bottle and let it float out on the waves - at The One Year Mark.

Thank you for all of your kind replies. Rita did not die in the hospital where spent all of that time, but in a nursing home a few blocks from our home. That is where I go to visit ... I look up at the window of her room and tell her how much we all love and miss her and what is going on here. She so much wanted to visit our brand new and first grandchild (a granddaughter) in California but knew that she would not have enough time to do so. So I told her that my daughter and I were headed out there to meet this tiny little lady ... and at the very end I said ... "and I'll see you soon." That kind of surprised me. Yours, Bill

Today, Saturday, I visited a friend at the hospital where my wife and I spent so much time. I haven't been back since her passing. Although my friend is going through a very challenging time after a serious operation, she will walk out of there with hope of something approaching full recovery. Rita and I were not so lucky. After I visited, I returned to the outpatient surgery waiting room where all of this began. In September of 2014, I waited to hear the results of my wife's cardio-version, to correct irregular heart beat (atrial fibrillation). This had been discovered in an appointment with a cardiologist that my wife made after reading a book on heart health. After a long time, one of the doctors involved in the procedure came out and told me that the cardio-version had gone well but that they had detected that my wife had a leaking heart valve (atrial valve). So that was the second little slip on what turned out to be a steep icy slope. We returned to the cardiologist who was happy to inform us that the repair of the heart valve would involve open heart surgery. We went through a lot of tests in preparation for surgery, including the cardiac catheterization to trace the arteries of the heart. I remember when we were in the prep room, looking out the window and noting that the cancer center was right next door. In December, Rita had open heart surgery and the heart valve was replaced. She was then in the ICU for ten days and then in a regular hospital room for about three. Her total stay was thirteen days - a long time. She then returned home with a home health care nurse visiting a couple of times a week. Rita's recovery was not quick and over time I had some feelings that all was not right. She had a lot of edema, shortness of breath, and other heart related symptoms. When we returned for her follow up appointment in mid January, 2015, Rita was clearly not well and had not recovered as expected. The doctor returned her immediately to the hospital. She had extensive testing during this time which revealed that Rita had amiloidosis of the heart. This meant that her body was producing a bad protein, amyloid, which was going into her heart muscle, stiffening the heart and preventing it from pumping properly. We learned that once this protein entered the tissue there was no way to get it out and that Rita's recovery would be limited. Later testing showed that Rita had multiple myeloma, AL type, which caused the production of the amyloid protein and all of the effects to the heart as well as to her kidneys. By February, another heart doctor told us that Rita's prognosis was six months to a year. That news was devastating, as you can imagine, but in some ways the best information that we had gotten, because it allowed us to live out Rita's last months with a realistic view of what was to come. We spent her last months making her life as comfortable as it could be, dealing with lymphadema (swelling of legs), pressure sores and such. We also saw an oncologist and Rita agreed to take chemotherapy to see how it would go. At first, reduced amounts were not too bad. But then the doctor wanted to up the amounts to see if we could get her numbers down (always numbers ... never people). I didn't want to affect Rita's medical decisions but I wish I had questioned the increased chemo from the get go. Once Rita was on that, she was gone four days a week, completely wiped out. I think that affected me more than I admitted to myself. I kept going to those weekly appointments with the oncologist although the whole thing was making me angry and I was starting to lock horns with the doctor. Rita started skipping the chemo from week to week in order to spend quality time with our children and friends, and finally, on July 17th, 2016, she told the doctor that she didn't want to take chemo any more. I am very proud of her for that. As a result, our last months, until November 24th, when Rita left this world, were good ones - Rita was there for me and I was there for her. How many times I held her and told her how much I loved her - and she knew how true it was. Rita and I were a couple for 46 years and married for 44 years. As I said in the grief support group, I cared for her during that last year of her life, and she took care of me for all the rest of the years - so now I only owe her 45 years. :-) There's more to tell ... the difficulties of care giving ... and the gift of being able to care for my wife. How much I love her. How much I miss her ... but know that she had to move on. Thanks for listening to all of this ... it's taken me a long time to be able to share this here. Bill (that's my real name)

Andre, that was so moving. It brought tears to my eyes. I am so sorry that your loved one had so much pain in the last part of her life. That must be such a challenge. My wife and I talked often of how hard it is to bear pain. My dear one, miraculously, did not have physical pain. For that we were grateful - but I can fully understand how difficult that must have been both for your loved one and for yourself.

It will probably be some time before I can tell the story of the loss of my dear wife of 44 years (46 years as a couple). But that will be helpful to me and I know that I can do it here. Let me say that I am now at about three and one half months (I said a final goodbye on November 24th). Most of the deeply wrenching anguish seems to have receded - although I still have weeping moments that come on their own. I realize that in these moments of what I call "pure grief" there are insights into aspects of my grief that have remained hidden or obscured. Just two days ago in the morning I was going to meditate but ended up crying, and what I expressed (verbally - I speak out to her during these times) was deep grief that I should have gone with my dear one when she left - to help her on her way and to protect her on her unknown journey. There is so much of that - that I was my wife's protector and that I was unable to protect her against the disease that took her away. I was able to provide care for her during this last year of her life but we knew that she had only a short time to live and so everything that I did was only to help her be more comfortable or to prevent things that would have added to her suffering (like lymphedema (swelling of the legs) and pressure sores). I will not speak here now of the ups and downs of caregiving, which many of you know. Just rest assured that although I was able to function pretty well most of the time that my behavior from time to time was unacceptably angry - due as I realize now from the very powerful stress, both physical but most particularly emotional that I was under during the months of our last year. One of the fears that I have carried is that of being some kind of social pariah because I have suffered this loss. The great majority of people are walking around quite involved in the business of life and consciously or unconsciously trying to keep death at a far distance. I fully understand that and I have also lived that way most all of my life. I feel that when we lose our loved one a door opens on a reality that is extremely hard to understand or experience. We all have some kind of faith - if only the faith is life is fair and secure - and this deep irrevocable loss calls all of this into question. I understand living on the side of life and keeping the bad stuff at a distance. I knew before that bad stuff happened - it's just that it happened to other people, not to me, not to us. Now I am a person at whose door Death came a knocking and I can just accept that to whatever degree that I am able to muster. Other people will continue with their basic dance of denial as long as they can until life and death upsets their apple cart in turn (mixed metaphors - how about dancing around the apple cart?) And I hope that I can offer at least a little more solace or understanding that many have done to me ... Which opens the topic of "crazy things that people say." I can't even remember them all but some have been profoundly unhelpful. There are two ideas here: first, that people don't understand what you're going through ... to which I would add a second: people are afraid. To this day, I understand an unwritten rule: don't talk about it. Say you're "fine." It's just like daily life where people ask you how you are - they don't really want to hear. Just say "fine" even though you're usually not. Same here. Today a woman who came to the memorial service (for which I am grateful) asked me how I was and I just said "fine." That meant basically that I didn't want to discuss it because trying to do so just causes a lot more pain than bearing with what I've got on my own. Also to mention that some people are very compassionate and open about the scene I find myself in. But even they don't know the real deal. When I go to the grief support group I am surrounded by people who have gone through it and know the nitty gritty and what's it's like to like to live in the frying pan. I just wanted to say that losing our loved one is at first like getting torn into two physically and psychically and a gaping hole that is vast and unfillable. But after these months - short months and yet so long - that gap, that hole is perhaps less vast and less intense. I love my dear one more than words can express - I love her so much and so wish that she were still here with me - my irreplaceable loved one, my dear, my companion, my ever kind and compassionate loved one so dear to me and dearer and deeper and closer over all those many years she walked with me on the face of this earth. So that reality - that major part of my life - will not change. My gratitude to her will not fade - for all that she did for me over so many years, making my life so easy, so enjoyable, so rich and full. But still, there is some healing from the deep anguish of grief, and I am grateful. Perhaps our paths will cross again. A deep spiritual love grew between us, especially over these last years. Perhaps that love will draw us again together. But beyond that, I wish for her free and unimpeded travel in the spiritual realm, protected from all harm by those high spirits that surely will recognize the purity and kindness of her life and deeds. Thank you for listening.