Three Months And The Numbness Has Worn Off

[HAP]

My wife died three months ago. And i lost my mother in February 2010. My father was the second person I called after my wife died (I called her sister and father who live in the same house first). The first thing my father said was, "And now you know that there is nothing anyone can say to you right now that will really make this feel any better." He was right about that--but I wish he had not been quite so blunt about it. But his loss was still--and is still in many ways--as raw as mine. And we tend in my family to say what we mean, even when it hurts. It was his way of trying to say he understood that moment.

My wife was diagnosed with neuro endrocrine cancer that had metastasized to her liver in August. She went into the hospital November 14 for open heart surgery to replace the valves in the right side of her heart that the serotonin from the tumors in her liver had destroyed. There were some early setbacks, but by December 5 her doctors were convinced that we had turned the corner--that she would be in rehab by January 1. I had not left her side in intensive care except to eat and once every 8-10 days drive home to get clothes and pay the bills. I went home on December 7 to do that when friends came up to visit. I brought enough clothes to last to Christmas.

December 9 she wanted to take a nap. An hour later the nurse tried to take a manual blood pressure reading because the regular cuff didd't seem to be working right. It was. Her blood pressure had dropped badly. Just before noon her oncologist came through the door. We had asked all her doctors to be straight with us and not sugarcoat any situation. Jane woke up long enough to hear the doctor tell us, "There is nothing more we can do but make you comfortable." She woke up again just before 6 p.m.--and stayed awake just long enough for us to say our good-byes.

She died in my arms December 10 at 7:57 p.m.

When i got home the house had an eerie silence to it I had not felt before. But there was a funeral to plan. One of my brothers came out from the west coast and helped me find the flowers and make the collages for the wake--my hands were shaking too badly to tape the pictures down. I talked with the priest and the funeral home. I helped carry her casket--I said i had carried her over the threshold the day we married--and i was going to carry her over this threshold as well.

A few days after the funeral I went back to work. My wife and i were both school teachers in the same building. We saw our students as our children--and Ii told my principal our kids had been without their father long enough. Besides, I could hear my wife in my head saying, "What are you going to do here? Stare at the walls?"

I got through Christmas and New Years by going out west to visit my family.

My friends have been great. They call me. they invite me out for dinner, they continue to send me cards and emails.

People tell me I am incredibly brave and strong. But I don't feel either one. I put on a good face every day. And some days I actually felt like I was doing ok.

But the truth has been something else. I read about the grief process. I keep taking baby steps every day--sometimes it is second by second. My body craves escape, but I know i can't drink--my family has big addictive personality issues. But i had a healthy addiction to my wife.

I expected Valentine's Day to be awful. I wrote my wife a poem--as I did every year for both Valentine's and our anniversary. I put it on her grave with a card and some flowers. And it wasn't the best day of my life but I got through it. And for the three month anniversary I did some similar things--and i got through that day, too.

But last weekend--on Saturday--I was washing the dishes and staring out the window--as I have done many times in the last three months--and suddenly the numbness was gone and the dull ache exploded into searing, mindless emotional pain. I stood there crying uncontrollably. When i finally stopped I got in my car and went to a local mall and just walked incircles for a couple hours.

On Sunday i was picking up her craft room. There was a bag on the floor. I opened it. Inside were the clothes she had worn the day she went into the hospital. They still smelled like her--and i could not stop crying.

I went back to work on Monday. "What are you going to do here? Stare at the walls?" But I am writing this instead of putting together the test I have to give tomorrow--instead of grading the papers that have been stacking up on my desk all week.

Because suddenly the numbness is gone and the stitches I have put into my soul to hold it together have all ripped out. This is not something I can say to even my best friends who have not been here and do not understand that there really is nothing anyone can say that will make this feel any better--and that every platitude just makes the whole thing feel worse.

So thanks for listening. There is some relief in being able to set my feelings down on paper and share them with people who actually know what it is I am trying to say. Sorry this is so long. It started out to be much shorter--but once i got started it was as hard to stop as those tears this weekend.

We will all get through this.

HAP

[Lainey]

I'm so very sorry for the pain you are going through,you have found a safe place to be able to express your feelings.

I'm into this journey for 15 months now and believe me, I still get the gut wrenching pain that feels like my heart is going to explode into a million pieces. Thank goodness the experience comes less all the time, now mostly I carry a deep sadness in my soul.Will it ever go away? According to the oldies on this site.. not so much. But I can live with the sadness, the uncontrolled crying made me an emotional wreck for awhile.

Have you considered going to group therapy or councilling one on one? I went to both and really learned alot about grief in th group. I was able to talk to others that were in the same process I was in and we shared many tears and a few laughs(Yes there are things to laugh about).

Maybe you went back to work too soon, especially if you were in the same school. Is it possible to take more time off?

I'm glad that your friends are there for you, I've found many of "OUR" friends have disappeared,I try to understand but can get very bitter when I think of them.

Please keep posting here and don't worry about how long it is. There is therapy in writng and getting it off your chest.

Lainey

[Deb625]

Dear Hap, I'm so sorry for you loss and glad you found this site - a place we are all so very grateful for, though would all prefer not to be on. I know for me that I did a tremendous amount of "things" in the first 3 months - I honestely don't remember - our bodies protect us through the shock and we move forward getting through the funeral, paperwork, everything this widow world thrusts upon us. My father said you have lost a piece of you - a large piece. It is so true. We now live alone, without our best friend and partner to share our day with, our future has changed - it is hard, it hurts, it is not fair. We do get through. It will be 10 months tomorrow since my Michael passed. The tsunami's of grief still come, not quite so often, somedays the grief is just gentle waves... I haven't had a day without tears and simply miss Michael - of course I do, he was a part of my everyday for years and years. We are all here learning simply step by step and sometimes breath by breath... Be gentle with yourself, take support anywhere you can, try to eat, sleep, drink plenty of water - you will feel, it is painful and it is okay, you won't "get over", however, you will get through, when days are sad, always remember tomorrow is another day... Take care, Deb

[HAP]

Lainey,

I am going to a grief group. It has been helpful, but the sessions are a long way between. I am looking into a grief counselor for some one-on-one work.

School, so long as i stay out of her part of the building, is actually being very helpful. We both have many friends there and they try to keep an eye on me on a daily basis without being overly obvious about it. Actually, one of the worst times I had was over February vacation when I did not have those folks and my students--bless them, they really do look out for me every day--to help keep my mind occupied. But i may try taking an extra day off here and there when things get overwhelming. The teacher gene is the big problem. I hate missing time with my students. I'm not sure I can explain how important our students are to both of us. Many of them came to both the wake and the funeral crying s though they had indeed lost a parent. They really are our children.

But I will take your advice beyond that. Clearly you have been on this path a lot longer than I have. I have to take care of myself if i am going to be able to continue to take care of others.

Thanks,

Harry

[LarrysGirl]

Harry, I'm so glad you have found this site and shared with us. I lost Larry Nov. 2005, so I am jokingly referred to as one of the "old timers". If it was not for the support and understanding here I probably would not have survived. I could let out all the feelings without be judged or misunderstood. And as you know, unless someone has lost their spouse, partner, they really don't or can't understand what we are going through. I hope this site will be a source of comfort for you as you find your way. Deborah

[Dimcl]

Harry, I'm 4 1/2 months into this, and I commend you for being able to go back to work right away. I found that my brain wasn't working on all cylinders for about 3 months and now I feel like I'm starting to come out of the fog. And it's not my age - I'm only 57! I couldn't have concentrated enough to go to work (I'm retired), so the fact that you could says much for your determination. And that goes for all of those on this board who have done so.

As for people telling you that you're brave and strong, but you feel like you're putting on a face, I think most of us can relate to that. I feel like I should win an Oscar for Best Actress much of the time. Even people who love us dearly and who have the best of intentions, but who don't understand the process, become wary of asking of how we're doing, because they really only want to hear that we're "doing better". Now, if I'm having a bad day, and am asked that question, I just lightly say, "I'm doing really horrible, thanks" and move on.

As for those searing, uncontrollable waves of grief, there seems to be no answer except to ride them out. One thing that I do (which others on this forum can't yet do) is to immerse myself in my husband. By that, I mean that I look at all his photos from all the years, I look at his military memorabilia, I look at all the work he put into our home, I just totally soak him up and that seems to help me more than anything. It is such a joy to appreciate who he was and how smart and sexy and talented he was. Almost against my will, I find myself smiling and the pain eases.

Glenn was my heart and now there's a big, black void there, but I know that he'd want me to soldier on, as he would have done were our roles reversed. My little bit of consolation is that if one of us had to leave the other behind, I'm glad it was Glenn first because I would not want him going through this. I look at the pain as the trade-off for the wonderful 34 years we had together.

Please tell us about your wife... her name, her stories, your life together. Most of us find that talking about our loved ones in this safe haven helps tremendously.

Hugs.

Di

[Guest Nicholas]

It all sounds so similar and so sad, only I cry all the time and did from the start.

[kayc]

Hap,

I'm sorry. Sometimes there are just no other words to say. We keep busy, we try to deal with it in our own way, but it's still there. We learn how to live with it eventually, but it's never the same, we are different people "afterwards". I'm glad you still have your dad.

[HAP]

I went for a walk each of the last three days. Before Jane got sick it was something we tried to do as often as we could. In the winter we would go to a local mall. ( I went to a different mall when I melted down this weekend. I wasn't ready to deal with our regular walk. Not yet) As the weather warmed we would walk around the neighborhood, sometimes going 4-5 miles in a single trip. When we had to pay city bills we would walk up to City Hall and then take the long way home, wandering through other neighborhoods and looking at the changes that had taken place since the last time we had gone that way. When summer came she would go off in the morning to play tennis with her sister and i would go for a run, then come home and work in the yard until she got back. In the evening we would go for another long walk, working over the things we had to do and the things we had seen when we were apart.

The first walk was awful. Every step reminded me she was not there. And I forgot the route I had chosen, though not our normal route, had been the one we both realized something was really wrong on. She's had to sit down on the curb and rest after less than half a mile. We both thought it was just leftover weakness from the H1N1 she had gone through the previous fall--but it determined her that she would go see the doctor earlier than she planned. But I read somewhere that walking would help clear my brain--and a neighbor who lost her husband a dozen years ago had told me that walking had helped her get through the worst months after his death--so I kept going, changing as much about the rest of the walk as i could. The second night was a little better. I avoided going by that spot, but took the route we usually walked when she was healthy. It was hard. I debated a thousand ways of looking at what happened and another thousand ways i should go in the future. But i felt better at the end. And it gave me the strength and the focus to write what I set down last night.

I went again tonight, though I got home later than usual and was tempted just to stay home and grade papers. I am glad I made the effort. My mind seems a bit more settled tonight. The walk was more meditative--the way my walks were when I did them by myself if she had to be somewhere else--or early in the summer when I was just building up my legs toward being able to run. Coming up the stairs, knowing she would not be here, was hard. But I got through that tonight, too.

When i was very young my great aunt Lulu died. I was very sad about that. But both my grandfather and my grandmother said anyone as good as she was went straight to heaven. Anyone as good and kind and dedicated as my Jane was I know went straight to the same place.

But that knowledge does not fill the empty spot in the bed. It does not give me the hug at day's end nor the one when we first awoke nor any of the conversation and small touches that filled our days.

Half my soul is gone.

HAP

[Lainey]

Harry,

You are so, so right when you say half your soul is gone. I feel exactly the same. There is a huge black void in my body/heart that is filled with a deep sadness and longing for Lars.I really doubt it will ever go away.

You are doing things for yourself now and I think we all have to focus on that point or we would never move beyond where we were.

Lars and I also did alot of walking, we loved getting up at 5AM in the summer and getting out. In 2002 he started having problems with leg pain, so we had to slow down the walking, he was stubborn and went regardless of how painful it was. By 2006 he was only able to go around the block and the pain was so bad he gave it up finally.The sicker he became the more I became the caregiver and really had no time and energy to walk.Once he passed, I got back into it slowly, I went to a fieldhouse instead to make it easier. It has done wonders for me, especially on those days where all I wanted to do was stay in bed and feel sorry for myself.

Keep up the good work.

Lainey

[LostmyHoney]

Harry,

Im so very sorry for your loss. I wish you peace.

Rachel

[nats]

HAP,

I feel your pain and grief as if my own and can relate to every word you post...I pray God will carry and comfort you

during this new journey...you have found a good resource here with many caring individuals going down the same rocky road journey....

reading your story brought back some vivid memories of my own wife's passing but with God's help and everyone here each day goes a little better....

May God Be With You

NATS

[HAP]

Thank you all for your kind words and positive thoughts. It has been about a week since I joined this group and I cannot tell you how much better writing to you and listening to you has made me feel in that time. I know there will be hard days and weeks ahead, but I feel a bit more confident that I will get through them because of this group and these experiences.

I have my third support group meeting tomorrow night. Those folks have also been very good for me, but because the group only meets once a month the impact of that time is somewhat more limited. But having a physical presence also has great value for me.

I am not going anywhere, but I've always believed in the importance of thanking people--even when they say they are just doing their job. And you have all been doing far more than just a job.

Thanks,

HAP