Friday, April 21, 2017

Thank You Laurie!

Even after over three years of Jeff being gone, I still have moments of extreme grief and the guilt of moving forward.  See my previous post called My Guilt Monster Made A Comeback.

When this happens I try to find solace in other widows' stories and advice.  Laurie Burrows wrote a wonderful article that helped bring me comfort recently.  Here is the link and I also copied it below. Hang in there brave widow warriors.  We can get through this together!

The Ultimate Goal In Grief: Embracing A New Life


“Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I know that I have absolutely no choice about the path I must walk in grief. I also understand that I do have a choice in how I cope with my grief, and how I adapt to the loss. Many cope by being “loss-oriented” in their style of grief. The loss defines them. It took me a while in my mourning process to select the good style of grief, which is “restoration-oriented.” This type of grief focuses on the loss of Peter, but allows me to rebuild my life. I continue to have moments of sadness and “grief bursts,” but I am working hard at establishing new habits to reduce the power of sadness, so that it no longer overwhelms me. I am choosing to take charge of my life, integrate my lost love into my heart, and move forward to find my new restored existence.

I decided to put this theory into practice. I set up a sheet listing the loss-oriented items on the left side of my paper, and the restoration-oriented ones on the right. On the left, I listed my yearning for Peter, my sadness at looking at his picture, my memories of our life together, my sorrow at not having a partner with whom to laugh, my loneliness, my lack of a husband to help when my meniscus is torn (damn!), and my empty and slightly hamstrung heart. This is the part of grief work that I call the heavy-lifting.

Then on the right side of the paper, I listed the restoration-oriented ideas that help me to move on with my life. and distract me until I can fully cope with my loss. My writing is my savior and a total boost forward in my process. Setting up a website to invite other widows and widowers to talk is a great distractor. My grandkids, period! Cooking a dinner for friends; watching a funny movie (yes, even Bridget Jones Baby made me laugh a little); watching the Acorn TV series A Place to Call Home; walking with a girlfriend; talking to my pals who keep me buoyed with their friendship; popcorn and chocolate ice cream; and finding strength in the fact that I can take care of the finances by myself!

I am sure that a new life will start for me when:

· I will develop new skills, interests, and abilities; as long as it is NOT playing Mah Jongg!

· I will learn to cook beautiful dinners for me, myself, and I.

· I realize that grief is individual and I can choose to go on this journey on my own time table, in my own style, and with the use of humor as a tool. A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says “why the long face?”

· I give myself permission to heal my wounds of grief in a positive fashion. I will try to be positive and cheerlead myself to get through grief.

· I will believe that failure is a form of learning and not get down on myself for “grief bursts.” Self-compassion, Laurie, self-compassion!

· I will be grateful for the love I had, even though I am mourning it deeply. I will try to imagine nostalgia as sweet, and focus not on my deprivation, but on how good it was when our love was alive.

· I will laud my anger for the temporary insanity it brings.

· I will be thankful for the grief that won’t go away, and my fear that it will, and the void that might swallow me up.

· I will appreciate the legacy of kindness that Peter instilled in Nick and now my grandchildren.

· I will celebrate small successes as if they were grand successes.

· I will value living in the now as a precious gift.

· I will refuse to see myself as a victim.

· I will finally fully fathom that Peter would insist that I enjoy the rest of my life.

If I think of the word widow as one letter shy of window, I can look outward through the window of my widow’s soul and move forward into the light again.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

My Guilt Monster Made A Comeback

Last night my guilt monster waged war against me...again.  I think it had been strategizing for a while.  Looking back I noticed that I had a hard time catching my breath and I felt a bit irritable but couldn't quite figure it out.  I was so busy with work, appointments, organizing Easter with family, and just life in general that I didn't take the time to stop and reflect, I just kept pushing forward.

Last night, I finally got the chance to take my dog for a walk.  I try to walk her for about an hour two days a week or more, which is the time I take to reflect and think about what's going on in my life, problem solve in my head, and just kind of check in.  I haven't been able to do this for a couple of weeks.

What I figured out on the walk last night was that I'm feeling guilty.

I am in escrow to buy 6.24 acres of land using some of the money that Jeff left behind.  I haven't touched any of Jeff's money since he died over three years ago.  I realized that I am spending Jeff's death money to buy land that I may develop with the new man in my life in the same month as our wedding anniversary.  The guilt of that is overwhelming.

I know in my rational mind that Jeff would want me to be happy and blah blah blah, but I just can't seem to not feel guilty about it in my emotional mind.  My financial adviser advises that I need to diversify and make this money work for me to secure my future and have a comfortable retirement, but I feel like I'm stealing from Jeff to fund my new life with a new partner and I can't help but feel extremely disloyal.

Last night after walking my dog, I broke down over all of these feelings that have been building up subconsciously.  I had a pretty bad breakdown and Wyoming had to help me pick up the pieces.  I don't know how he is so strong.  I don't know how he dates a person and a ghost at the same time. He admitted that sometimes, when I am grieving for Jeff like I was last night, that he feels like he is on the "back burner."  It doesn't help that we are still long distance.

I see where he is coming from, but my grief and guilt are so dominant at times that I have nothing left to give.  I want to apologize to him for being so damaged but I stop myself because there really is no apology that is appropriate.  I am grieving my husband, my lost partner, my life mate.  I am trying to move forward.  I take a few steps forward and then take a couple back.  I know that this is normal, but I also acknowledge it is unfair to Wyoming.

I thought that I had figured out my guilt monster.  I thought that I had it beat.  But it's a sneaky guilt monster and it made a big comeback.

I feel exhausted this morning after the storm of guilt and grief last night.  But I also feel cleansed.  I haven't had a really big breakdown like this in a long time and even though I think of Jeff daily, I haven't felt such guilt and grief for a while.

I think the combination of our anniversary, closing escrow on this investment opportunity, the fact that Jeff was diagnosed at 37, which is the same age I am right now, all combined to make the perfect battlefield for my guilt monster to make a comeback.

Well, I'm here to say that I survived again.  I have some more battle wounds and it was an exhausting fight, but I feel like I gained some new weapons to fight my guilt monster and I'm still standing.  I'm still here trying to move forward.  My guilt monster hasn't beat me and it never will but man does it fight hard.   I plan on continuing to fight to move forward.  I will close escrow in less than a week.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Wedding Anniversary

My sixth wedding anniversary is coming up in a week. Jeff and I were married April 8th, 2011.  The first part of April is very busy since my twin nieces were born March 31st and both my mom and my brother in laws birthdays are in the first weeks of April.

People usually remember Jeff's birthday and sometimes even the day he died but our wedding anniversary is a date that I tend to have to remind people of.

Yesterday, I was busy making my nieces birthday cakes and about 50 cupcakes for their 5th birthday party for today and I decided to take a little break on the couch in between bakes.  I was just pondering about my anniversary and where my life is now since we were married when our wedding song came on Pandora. I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again, I rarely hear our wedding song so when I do hear it, I believe that it's coming from Jeff.

At the very moment I was thinking about our upcoming anniversary, Jeff was saying hello.  I haven't cried in a while over missing Jeff, but when I heard our song I started bawling. I've definitely moved forward in life since he's been gone and I know that he sees and knows what I'm up to, but it is always so awesome to get a sign that he's still with me.

So I had myself a good cry for the duration of the song. It's hard not being a bit sad and nostalgic around our anniversary. Once the song ended, I wiped off my tears, picked myself up and finished making cupcakes.