MickeyW

Stephen-- Sounds like we've been living parallel lives. My wife of 34 years died in April of cancer--we also knew for a while that she was terminal, and i also thought i was "prepared" or whatever--I had stayed home with her for her last 6 weeks, taking full-time care of her until the end. I had done what I thought was a lot of "pre-grieving" and felt i knew what was in store for me. WRONG! I was totally numb for my first 7 weeks--I went back to work, shuffled thru the routine, also stopped eating and lost weight (my son is still at home and he made me keep serving dinner, and made me eat with him, but I still went down into the 120's (pounds!), a dangerously low weight I'd not seen since I was 16 years old. I tried drinking, but got too sick, so turned instead to grass... I also found a woman, jumped into bed with her way too fast, like 2 months after the funeral, and made quite a spectacular mess of things. (By the way--we've since become friends and are still seeing one another, but it was way messy and very painful all around.) After all of that, I FINALLY fell apart (or "melted down", as you put it)--I mean really broke into tiny pieces emotionally--crying jags that would last 3 hours, dizziness to the point of confusion and disorientation, I was inconsolable and The 4 weeks since my melt-down have been very difficult in every way--I feel like I barely know who I am sometimes. I'm just beginning to understand how difficult the work of "grief work" actually is: Can't sleep, can't eat, tired, numb, disoriented, resentful of the huge mess i've been left--funeral expenses, canceled health insurance, loss of her salary, raising my kids by myself, making all the decisions by myself--JUST when I have no emotional strength or resources to do any of it... and no help from my partner, my wife, my counsel and best friend, no comfort, no support, just when I need her the most. Yeah--it isn't hard--it's merely impossible, but somehow i have gotten thru 3 months without wrecking a car, getting fired from my job, bouncing too many checks, or alienating too many people for being so difficult and sometimes just impossible to be with. The crying myself to sleep at night still goes on. The laundry piles up, the weeds have taken over her flower garden, my son is unsupervised too much of the time, and certain chores i just keep putting off--her mini-van in the garage has not been started in months, and now won't start at all... BUT--Stephen--you and me, we trudge (often with no motivation, no enthusiasm and no faith) through each day, sometimes hour by hour, until it adds up to a week, another month, and somehow we've put 3 months--three impossible, heartbreaking, mind-numbing months--behind us. That in itself is an accomplishment, no matter how much we've f@*ked things up. I know for me--with the Jewish high holy days, her birthday and our anniversary all coming up in the next couple of months, that the immediate future will not be any easier, and maybe even harder to endure. But it'll be six months, and then a year... and hopefully, the shape and flavor of this new, weird, unwanted life will start to become clear enough to take some ownership of it, to begin to live in this new life with some small degree of comfort and ease. that's all we can pray for. Michael

My love once sang to me a song of life together, joyous, long she sang to steel us to the dare to hold to love, to always care, not give in and never fear. “You walk the world,” she told me true, “Where you go, I will be with you.” She brought me faith and I stood tall I brought her strength, we couldn’t fall. Our innocence allowed ideals, our unity would make them real. Against all reason and advise set out together, made a life. Made a life of love’s devotion, faith in every scheme and notion felt our future had to be what we'd planned for faithfully. Now, despite our hopes and dreams I end with only memories. Why did forever become so short? Why did our future have to abort? How did always come undone? How did my sorrow replace such fun? You left me our children, pale mirrors of us. You left me alone, trusting too much. You took the sun, the stars and seasons, leaving me no rhymes or reasons. I found your picture, aged seven or eight; Walking with Mom through garden gate, smiling, innocent, trusting and glad, holding hands with adoring Dad. Did you go to be with them again? Have you finally stepped out of the rain? Are you younger, happy and whole, safe in the peace of the sheltering goal? You left me a song which had no words. I tunelessly sing like the mindless birds. My life without any promise to pledge, I sway confused on razor’s edge. I cannot seem to pick up pieces of this grief never ceases. Now my life lies shattered in shreds with nothing but heartache, denials and dreads. I’m left with a song and no harmony, life’s hollow, cold, silent, empty. My life’s wondrous gleaming shining delight was taken with you in the dead of the night. My hopes unfilled my dreams have been broken, the roads not traveled and vows unspoken. Our future’s promise corroded to rust, lost and lonely, lying in dust. I lay in bed at night and toss, sob secretly in silent loss, keeping close my chronic sorrows saving them against tomorrows’ hopeless joys, fear they reveal perpetual pain that will never heal. Michael

rgangel-- I'm kind of right there with you. We found out about my wife's cancer recurrence (she'd been in remission for over 2 years)in the end of February, had one round of chemo, and it went quickly downhill from there--she died 4 weeks ago today, less than 9 weeks after the diagnosis. I, too, feel like those 2 months accelerated my grieving process--I already felt like a widower during much of that time, especially toward the last few weeks when she was largely unresponsive. I kept her home the entire time, and took off work to care for her. I have also had very little of the intense emotional reactions--numbness, mostly, but "handling it really well" seems to be the label everyone has put on me. I don't think there's anything wrong with that--we're just handling it in our own unique way. The weeks of illness prior to the death are certainly part of it. Having a child to take care of is another. Although mine is older, I still have him home and dependent on me, so falling apart is not really an option--he needs food on the table, clean clothes, and supervision, so I'm on-duty. Maybe that also keeps us from wallowing in our own grief, I don't know. If you're not crying every 2 minutes, don't worry, that's also okay. I occasionally cry at certain triggers around the house--which I try to avoid--like her "things" which are still all over the place; her glasses on the dresser, pocketbook on the window seat, cell phone on her desk--and the nights are particularly difficult, when the house is quiet and seems more empty after my son is asleep--but mostly, being absorbed in the mechanics of day-to-day life, and taking care of all the administrative paperwork associated with dying (gotta shop for groceries, change the oil in the car, file more death certificates for insurance, apply for social security survivor's benefits, etc, etc...), who has the time to be weeping continuously? I miss her terribly, miss our life together, miss MY life, which is now gone--but I guess some of us appear, at leat, to just go on with it. Michael