Reflections and musings

[Marie Lee]

On March 5, 2016 at 4:50 PM, Guest said:

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to “get through it,” rise to the occasion, exhibit the “strength” that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.”

Excerpt From: Didion, Joan. “The Year of Magical Thinking.”

 

 

The unending absence that follows, the void..........

so well put..Tks !

[Brad]

C.S. Lewis begins his book "A Grief Observed" likening grief to fear.  I don't know why that struck me but it did.  Today I ran to the store to pick up some groceries.  As I was sitting the the car, waiting to back out of the parking spot I felt that emptiness in my gut, I noticed that my heart was racing just a little, I had that sensation of fear; of grief.  I have no idea what precipitated it: my actions were routine, I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, it was just there and it lasted until my driving distracted me from the sensation.  I have had this sensation repeatedly for the past nearly fifteen months.  

Today marks 450 days since Deedo died.  450 sounds like such a large number and yet I still am surprised at what a challenge it is to get from waking up to going back to sleep that evening.  

I've been making initial plans for my Europe trip next summer: lots of tears shed as Deedo and I have been talking about Europe since we met.  Deedo lived in Germany for eight years and always wanted to take me to show me around.  Our house is full of her treasures: lots of copper pots, antique clocks, figurines, all of which she knew the history and importance; I should have listened better.  This was going to be our retirement trip.  Little did we know I would retire to take care of her.  She invisioned us jumping on a cheap last-minute deal to spend a weekend in Venice.  I always figured I would be fortunate to make there once so I might as well see as much as I could.  I've always been one who believed bigger is better, Deedo: less is more.  This is one trip that I will get my way although if truth be told she always acquiesced.  Maybe the planning is giving me a delayed trigger.

[Gin]

Brad,

I had that gut feeling today, also.  I went to a book club where the discussion was about the Wright Bros.. Al and I never went to a book club together, so I thought I was safe.  I kept thinking about how much Al would have enjoyed that book.  He was almost blind the last several years, so I used to read out loud to him at night.  He would have understood some of the subilties that I did not.  So even when I try to do things that we never did together, he is always involved.  From there to the grocery store, where I focused on things he liked.  Tears flowed again.

Gin

[brat#2]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

Today I ran to the store to pick up some groceries.  As I was sitting the the car, waiting to back out of the parking spot I felt that emptiness in my gut, I noticed that my heart was racing just a little, I had that sensation of fear; of grief.  I have no idea what precipitated it: my actions were routine, I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, it was just there and it lasted until my driving distracted me from the sensation.  I have had this sensation repeatedly for the past nearly fifteen months.  

 

Brad and Gin, I have those feelings all the time too.  Out of no where the feeling will hit for no real reason, no specific thought and I thought I was going crazy for feeling like that.  This grief is not for the weak, although I'm feeling very weak lately.  Let's hope that this feeling will get easier over time.  Hope you both can find some peace today.

Joyce

 

[MartyT]

My dear Joyce, feeling weak is not the same as being weak. The people here are some of the bravest, strongest people I've ever come to know ~ and you most certainly are one of them  ♥

[KATPILOT]

I second that!

[KATPILOT]

Brad the fact that you are going is a major thing. To do what you would have done together has such meaning not only to your healing but your future as well. By living and growing is how we honor them.  It's how we honor ourselves. Deedo is way to special to give up living because of her loss. I suppose I'm just saying what you already know.  So when you go and you buy something, I bet you will learn the history of the piece. The way I look at things now is not the same as I did when Kathy was here. Now I look at things with more than just my own eyes. Do they go with us?  

I know what I believe.

[Margm]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

C.S. Lewis begins his book "A Grief Observed" likening grief to fear.

Most of my grief is fear.  I go somewhere alone and I beg Billy to help me.  Anything alone, I beg him to help me.  I am not afraid of the people, the places, it is just the aloneness that brings on the fear.  And sometimes we are alone among a thousand people.

[Brad]

2 hours ago, KATPILOT said:

To do what you would have done together has such meaning not only to your healing but your future as well. By living and growing is how we honor them.  It's how we honor ourselves.

I think I can do this because it was always in the future; it wasn't real.  The Sunday before Deedo was diagnosed I made the final payment on an Alaskan cruise we had planned for the summer of 2014.  Instead we spent ten weeks at Hope Lodge while she went through chemo and radiation.  We had also paid for a Fall Foliage Tour of New England for October of 2015.  Instead I was deep in the throes of early grief.  I could hardly talk without sobbing.  Both of those trips were very real and I don't know if I'll ever do either one.  Right now there isn't much interest.

Marg - the fear or sense/feeling that is so closely related to fear generally catches me by surprise.  I don't notice it on a day to day or even week to week basis.  It's a sneaky little thing.  What I do feel is all encompassing sadness that so much joy is now gone: there is no one to share those poignant moments with: no one to talk to: no one to caress.  But every now and then my pulse quickens and not in that wonderful way it would whenever I saw Deedo, it just quickens and my stomach feels nauseated and a sense of fear comes out of nowhere.

[Gwenivere]

I know the biggest description of my grief is fear.  Fear and loneliness.  I thought it would be the sadness which is big too.  It's just so hard losing that safety our partners provided by thier mere presence.  They might not have been able to fix everything, but it human nature to want someone to turn to when things feel overwhelming.  Anxiety is tough too and I think one of Martys articles said this should be a stage of the grief cycle.  I've never felt so edgy constantly in my life.  It's knowing I have no one I can lean on, call or melt into to not feel alone I what has become a huge world.  I often feel so insignificant now.  

[Margm]

Brad, I have a congenital tremor.  I also have had a ruptured colon.  My shakes go along with how my stomach feels.  I think you probably know  what I am talking about.  Billy used to wake up somewhere around 10:00 a.m. or later..  My shaking and my fear are worse at this time.  I usually take a Xanax when this happens, but the efficacy of the Xanax wears off if I take more than I am supposed to..  Today and yesterday I just suffered through the shakes and the fear.  I cannot take more than 2 a day, so I don't want to use it  unless absolutely necessary.  So, it has been over a year and I still have sadness grief, of course, but I have shaking fear grief more than anything else.  I have doc's appointment next Friday, but because of the condition of my "innards" I cannot take most medications anyhow.  I hate this fear, but I think I am stuck with it.  

[kayc]

17 hours ago, Gin said:

even when I try to do things that we never did together, he is always involved.

I think this explains our reactions sometimes.  They are very much a part of us, so that no matter what we encounter, their absence is sorely noticed.

[kayc]

10 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Anxiety is tough too and I think one of Martys articles said this should be a stage of the grief cycle

It very much is!  I don't need an expert to tell me that it is so, I have experienced it and witnessed it through countless grievers and what they've experienced.  Anxiety remains a part of this journey.  Maybe not for everyone, but for many.  It is something I continually work at.

[Brad]

“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.” 
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

 

I'm nearing fifteen months since my world became empty.  Rarely do people ask how I am coping.  For them, they have moved on and I am left still seeing myself as having a world which no longer makes sense.  The void is ever-present.  The loss still controls my thoughts.  I've settled into a comfortable routine.  I found pleasure, joy, gratitude, humor: but they all are still tainted.  I search for things that will help assuage my funk.  I am fortunate that I can see my grandkids any time I need a fix.  I am fortunate I am surrounded by trails I can wander while I ponder where I am headed and what it will take to get there.  I am reminded of another passage from Joan Didion's book:

“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead. ”

I'm not ready to relinquish, I still want Deedo here in my thoughts and my life.  Yet I know someday I will need to stop living for her and start living for myself.  I try but I'm not there yet.  The day will come.

[KATPILOT]

Brad I think the whole letting go thing is completely messed up. While we cannot keep the dead alive they are still who they are, spirits on the other side of life. When we die something of us remains and something of us exists somewhere else.  I for one cannot accept an end to us when we die. It makes no sense that when we die that's it, lights out, nothing exists anymore. Then there is proof of a spirit world that is so powerfully documented and experienced by more than just myself that can leave no doubt. Having said all that I wonder what would be so wrong with holding on to Deedo or Kathy or anyone who was loved. We can stop living for them anytime. We can live our own life and we can choose to hold on to them regardless. I've done a little bit of reading but frankly I haven't much of a clue to what it's like on the other side but I can say that I have faith. I have faith in something unproven. I have faith that Kathy is with me sometimes. I'm living my life yet I'm holding her close. I wonder if that makes any sense. 

On another note you have experienced first hand what it's like to be left behind by others who have gone passed the grief they felt for Deedo. Rarely do people mention our loss or even bring them up. But our grief continues.  As we are left behind among our friends and family in this grief's journey, we tend to feel a lot more alone huh? Grief is indeed a lonely journey traveled by the one who is left from a deep love affair. That love affair was the most intense the world had ever known. We however had it and that deserves holding on to.

I wish I had your trails to walk. There are times when I want so much to be alone for it's easier to be alone by yourself than alone in a crowd. Only in my home can I find solitude but sometimes I need to just go somewhere else. I need to get out of this valley and away from humans. I did it last year in Maui on a trail that led to nowhere and nowhere was the place I could scream out her name and only she would hear me.

[Margm]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

 I try but I'm not there yet.  The day will come.

I actually think that day won't come for me.  Maybe it is my age.  I do not have him physically with me other than his "I am you and you are me" but as long as I have that, I have him with me.  Certainly as long as I talk to him, even if I cannot see him, I feel like maybe he hears me.  Does not matter, it is how I feel.  I keep thinking about my cousin talking about our aunt.  She was mowing her yard talking to our dead uncle.  My cousin thought she had lost her mind.  I stand out on the porch of the apartment and talk to Billy out loud at night.  I am not loud with it, but certainly someone who does not understand (like my cousin did not understand my aunt) would shy away from me.  I don't care.  It is what it is.  If I did not believe that some day I might be with him again, I would have gone ahead and taken the 50 morphine in the deep woods.  No one has to believe like I do, but I feel I will be with him one day.  And even if my faith is the size of the mustard seed, I still have it, and if I can move mountains with that small a particle of faith, then I will see him again.  Until then, I will keep reaching.   

[Brad]

56 minutes ago, KATPILOT said:

 I for one cannot accept an end to us when we die. It makes no sense that when we die that's it, lights out, nothing exists anymore. Then there is proof of a spirit world that is so powerfully documented and experienced by more than just myself that can leave no doubt.

So much to respond to:  I don't read the quote as saying there is no more existence, just that Deedo is no longer here on Earth.  I believe that if I am to move ahead with my life, at some point I will need to stop living for both of us and go back to living for myself.  I was happy before I met Deedo.  There was a time when every decision I made was not based on Deedo.  I will never stop loving her but I do think that at some point I need to start living for me.

 

1 hour ago, KATPILOT said:

Having said all that I wonder what would be so wrong with holding on to Deedo or Kathy or anyone who was loved. We can stop living for them anytime. We can live our own life and we can choose to hold on to them regardless.

I see nothing wrong in holding on to our loved ones.  For me it is a question of tryiing to find myself and how I belong in this new normal.  I still see myself as BradnDeedo and not as Brad.  My new normal is as Brad and BradnDeedo is no more.  At some point I will need to identify myself as Brad.  I'll need to change my social media to Brad.  I'll need to change mailing labels and checks and addresses to Brad but for right now it is still BradnDeedo.  My two email accounts are BradnDeedo.

1 hour ago, KATPILOT said:

On another note you have experienced first hand what it's like to be left behind by others who have gone passed the grief they felt for Deedo. Rarely do people mention our loss or even bring them up. But our grief continues.  As we are left behind among our friends and family in this grief's journey, we tend to feel a lot more alone huh? Grief is indeed a lonely journey traveled by the one who is left from a deep love affair. That love affair was the most intense the world had ever known. We however had it and that deserves holding on to.

Amen and the loneliness seems to intensify as time goes on.  Initially it was the excruciating pain of loss but as time progresses that pain is slowly replaced by that asphyxiating emptiness.

1 hour ago, KATPILOT said:

I wish I had your trails to walk. There are times when I want so much to be alone for it's easier to be alone by yourself than alone in a crowd. Only in my home can I find solitude but sometimes I need to just go somewhere else. I need to get out of this valley and away from humans. I did it last year in Maui on a trail that led to nowhere and nowhere was the place I could scream out her name and only she would hear me.

You could have my trails to walk. Just hop in your plane - it's a short 45 minute flight and you have a place to stay.  You can scream to your hearts content and only the squirrels will object.

 

1 hour ago, Marg M said:

I stand out on the porch of the apartment and talk to Billy out loud at night.  I am not loud with it, but certainly someone who does not understand (like my cousin did not understand my aunt) would shy away from me.  I don't care.  It is what it is.  If I did not believe that some day I might be with him again, I would have gone ahead and taken the 50 morphine in the deep woods.  No one has to believe like I do, but I feel I will be with him one day.  And even if my faith is the size of the mustard seed, I still have it, and if I can move mountains with that small a particle of faith, then I will see him again.  Until then, I will keep reaching.   

I talk to Deedo all the time; occasionally it might make sense.  Most of the time I'm letting her know how much I miss her and how empty life is without her.  I also believe strongly that we will once more be together.  I don't believe in organized religions but think of myself as very spiritual.  I've mentioned before that I hope Deedo cannot see me.  I know how devastating it would be for her to see me in the kind of pain I am in.  That being said I would like her to know of my successes just not my struggles.  But then I don't believe you can have it both ways.

[Margm]

I have not made a search for a church to a serious degree.  I liked a pastor on Sunday morning TV.  Baptist.  My friend had recommended him.  I told my daughter's partner about him and this certain Sunday he preached of the sin of lust, adultry and homosexualty.  I called her back and told her not to watch.  Of course he admitted to having lusted in his heart.  I got to thinking it was not his heart he was thinking about, and I decided he might have to order take out for dinner, if I was his wife.  

I think I prefer Catholic.  I do cling to lifelong beliefs.

[Gwenivere]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

 I believe that if I am to move ahead with my life, at some point I will need to stop living for both of us and go back to living for myself.  I was happy before I met Deedo.  There was a time when every decision I made was not based on Deedo.  I will never stop loving her but I do think that at some point I need to start living for me.

Amen and the loneliness seems to intensify as time goes on.  Initially it was the excruciating pain of loss but as time progresses that pain is slowly replaced by that asphyxiating emptiness.

I'm not living for the both of us so it's hard to relate to that feeling.  There is no more Steve and Gwen and that is so hard.  It's so glaringly apparent he is not here and has nothing to do with anything I do now.  I,too, was happy before I met Steve, but once he entered my life I experienced a happiness I never knew existed.  Going back, if possible, to being content (I cannot imagine actual happiness at this point) would be settling.  I'll never come close to feeling life as I came to know it because of him.  My feeling is you can't have that experience, lose it and ever come close to feeling life is full again.

Emptiness is the worst feeling I deal with every single day.  It does literally make it hard for me to breathe at times.  The mind and body are so tied together in this.  That's so evident in love songs I hear that crush my heart now.  Everything I see and hear now that was a part of our life feels so very changed.  Something what once was just background or fun feels almost alien now.  It's frozen in time.

Saturday is 2 years he will be gone.  I look around me at what has and hasn't changed.  Things I had to change and the more numerous things unchanged of what we constructed.  I'm glad you have your grandchildren.  Something living that came from your union. Never worked out for us so it's really dead around here.  Friends are off in thier own lives.  I know you still have the time alone and that is so tough.  

[Brad]

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

 I,too, was happy before I met Steve, but once he entered my life I experienced a happiness I never knew existed.  Going back, if possible, to being content (I cannot imagine actual happiness at this point) would be settling.  I'll never come close to feeling life as I came to know it because of him.  My feeling is you can't have that experience, lose it and ever come close to feeling life is full again.

Gwen, this really does sum up my feelings too.  I can't imagine ever finding anyone who could see me the way Deedo did, warts, scars and all and still give me that requited love.  But then every time I go there I'm reminded of a gal in one of my support groups who had just buried her third husband.  What she said was that she knew she could never love anyone as deeply as she loved her first husband, then he died and way down the road she met number two and found she loved number two more than number one; and then he died.  It was the same with number three.  It was after his death that she figured out that she was able to love all three complete and unequivocally.  Now I learned a long time ago to never say never.  I don't know what my future has in store.  I do know that any woman would be insane to want anything to do with me and the baggage I am carrying; but then Deedo was that crazy...

 

[KarenK]

I think we are all silently screaming "I WANT MY LIFE BACK". I do not like this new life that I am living, nor the stranger that I have become. That will never, never happen so we just trudge forward. Trudge seems to be my normal speed now. I tire out so easily. A trip to the store and the library and I am ready for a nap. That is certainly not me, but the me that I have become. This week feels like someone has dumped a bucket of sadness over me. No particular reason. It just "is what it is".

[kayc]

I don't think in terms of living for both of us either.  But he is and always will be a part of me.  I can't go back to who I was before I met him, as if none of this ever happened.  We continually change throughout our life, and for me, knowing him changed me, his dying changed me, I am continually changing and undoubtedly will continue doing so.  But always, he will be with me, a part of me and I see no need to move on from that, no desire to whatsoever.  It is not that which holds me to my grief, it is in knowing him and what we had together and missing that.  I don't spend undue time sitting around thinking about it and being morose, it's more like I carry my grief with me throughout my day as I am doing other things, being with people or being alone, it's just there, always there...

[Gwenivere]

11 hours ago, Brad said:

I don't know what my future has in store.  I do know that any woman would be insane to want anything to do with me and the baggage I am carrying; but then Deedo was that crazy...

I think there are times we can sense our future.  I know many have remarried, my mother did when I was 4.  I'm sure she didn't plan on or look for it.  I look at who I am, the age I am, the changes that this has caused and know I am on my own now.  No one will ever fit into my life in that way.  Maybe if I was younger and hadn't had 39 years of the perfect person for me and now 'set in my ways' as they say....who knows.  Part of my baggage is knowing no one will ever fit with me again.  That is something I work to accept.  I had the best and now I have to go on alone.  

[KATPILOT]

My daughter-in-law is Japanese. Her father died before my wife did and her mother of course will never marry again. In the Japanese culture you never marry again. It is simply an accepted fact that once you have found perfection then you can never have it again. This is not at all western culture but for me it just holds true. We don't always marry "perfection". I had been married before and it was kind of like twenty years of hell.  When I met Kathy it was like magic. Everything about her was perfect and of course I saw her through rose colored glasses but when I took them off she was still perfect. Plain and simple. I knew it when I met her. I knew it every year of my life after we married and I have known it for the last five years eight months and eleven days. I had found perfection and I'll have words with anyone who would say otherwise. So it's just very easy to accept my life now and it isn't like I wanted it this way. It isn't like I want to be alone or without all I had. It just is what it is. Like you Gwen I work to accept it and if I am to go it alone then I have to find ways to make it less painful and more interesting than just sitting around feeling sorry for myself which I did for quite a while.  There came a time in my life when I had to start living again and being without Kathy is just going to be difficult. I am reminded of this which I once read and then read again and again until I understood it.

[KATPILOT]

Sometimes I forget and have to read it once more.