All I Want For Christmas Is…

…a fast forward button. I’d like to get the next 7 months out of the way and not have to actually live through them. I’m tired of the day-to-day struggles, the ever expanding mounds of paperwork, the family tensions, the phone calls, the uncertainty of what’s going to happen next. I would like to wake up and it’s next summer and everything has happened, everything is settled, everyone is happy or at least happier. I don’t want to live through the first anniversary of Mike’s death. I don’t want to survive turning the calendar to 2013 and leaving Mike behind in “last year”. I don’t want to go through Christmas, New Years, his birthday, Valentine’s Day, Leah’s birthday and our wedding anniversary without him. It’s hard enough going through every day, regular days, without him.

So Unlike Me

The other night, my mother and I were sitting around watching some truly horrible reality television when she asked if I had anything gooey and chocolate-y around. A quick check of the freezer revealed that no, I did not. It was 9:30 at night. I put a pair of jeans on over my nightgown and became that woman. That disheveled woman wandering the bakery at Giant at 9:30 at night. Utterly, shamelessly, obliviously in my own universe. I haven’t been in that place since I was up night after night with a newborn.

My mother was alternately dying laughing and absolutely mortified. Mike and I had a Christmas tradition where on Christmas night after everyone went to sleep, I would sneak out to McDonald’s in my pajamas and get burgers at 11 o’clock at night, but there’s a big difference between going through the drive through with a coat on and wandering around Giant out in the open.

Looking back on it, I’m a bit mortified. But I got cake.

I’ve been re-reading some old journal entries on my blog and trying to remember the person I was before July 12. From what I can gather, that individual was organized, neat, competent, spontaneous, independent, and fun to be around. Today I live in a home that is cluttered, I can never find my keys, wallet and phone, I seem to be constantly asking friends and family to keep me company, I can’t find it in myself to return phone calls, and I seem to be fearful and needy.

Being in my home is both a blessing and a curse—I hate being there where he died but I hate going out. Our home was Mike’s pride and joy—we occasionally talked about getting out from under it, but he said he’d just be devastated if that ever happened. It was tangible proof of all he’d accomplished after a youth of being told he couldn’t possibly amount to much. We lived in our home 3 days shy of 7 years on the day he died and were talking about all our good memories. Now all I can seem to remember is that night and the four month expanding nightmare that has followed. But if I should leave it, I will be in a place without him, a place he never knew, and I can’t imagine that either.

I cling to Leah as my lifeline, but I also secretly want her to leave me alone so I can lie in bed and cry. She is the most patient and sweet little spirit, far too good to be stuck with such a mother as me at the moment. And I have always prided myself on being a darned good mom.

For three years, I worked hard to cultivate a positive attitude and general optimism about everything in life. Mike’s death robbed me not only of my husband, but also of my sense that things would work out for the best and everything would be alright in the end.

I loved who I was as Mike’s wife, but I don’t much care for myself as his widow.

The third in my reflections for my writing-based grief support group…

The Complete Picture

Leah started preschool this year. We recently had our first parent-teacher conference and as the teacher was telling me about the things that Leah enjoys doing, I interrupted and asked, “Leah who?” The kid she was talking about was almost certainly not my kid.

I’ve had the feeling since Mike died that there was a big part of him that I never really knew. I recently met with another woman who was widowed at a young age 5 years ago and after her husband’s death, she compiled letters and stories from all the different people in his life so that her young children would know their dad. I love the idea of this, as if it fills in the blanks of what people might have seen of him that I did not.

I participated in less than half of Mike’s life. It wasn’t until after he’d died that I ever got to see his baby pictures, that I sat and talked with his friends from high school, that I got to know the close friends he’d developed on long commutes on the VRE and at work—people with whom he spent far more time during the week than he did with Leah and me.

I saw him interact with his family from time to time and with our daughter, but who was he when I wasn’t around? I have spoken with several people who have asked the question, “Did he talk about me much? What did he say about this situation?” Sometimes I can tell them, sometimes I can’t. A message on Facebook said recently, “I’d like to have heard more about our impact on Mike.” I couldn’t respond. I don’t know.

I remember him as a lovable goofball, intensely devoted to me and Leah, only slightly less devoted to the Patriots and ketchup, intensely patriotic, and I never knew anyone who loved their life more. He had a lousy singing voice but it never stopped him from singing loud and proud, he had a wonderfully strong New England accent that I always loved listening to and caused a few funny misunderstandings, he liked to write cheesy poetry, he had a memory like a steel trap and could tell you just about anything about anyone he’d ever met, down to the date and time, he liked to play practical jokes, he hated vegetables, and he had a heart of solid gold.

That’s not the person they knew at the office. It’s not the person they knew in high school. It’s not the person Leah knew, or Mike’s sisters knew, or his friends knew.

I am now collecting stories about Mike from everyone who’s willing to participate, but I feel sad that it’s all just vignettes and pieces of that beautiful human being, who was so much more than a story and who took it all with him in the end.

Well… That Just Happened

Much as I hate the stupid little clichés that seem to pop up on a regular basis, “That just happened” is pretty appropriate any more… 

So it’s just over two months since I’ve been widowed…  I still can’t believe I’m a widow.  It is absolutely nothing like I expected.  There is a part of my brain that can’t quite wrap my mind around the idea that Mike is gone and he isn’t coming back.  I cry on and off, I engage in magical thinking on and off (apparently adopting the cat wasn’t enough to piss him off and make him come back to yell at me), I think of him near constantly, and the small things are becoming the big things. 

I’ve met a lot of people in the past 2 months.  I have a ton of phone calls to return when I get around to it.  Friends have been so kind, but I don’t feel like really talking to anyone.  I’ve been truly touched by all the cards and letters I’ve received, the emails, the donations to Leah’s future.  I won’t have to cook Leah and myself dinner until sometime in October courtesy of my MOPS group, and much of the time I don’t have to worry about lunch either.  People have babysat, cleaned my house, made and returned calls for me, done yardwork, put me in touch with counselors and support groups, driven me around town, and made emergency runs with donuts and chocolate.  It’s been extraordinary, the support I have.

The bills are piling up.  I’m trying to figure out what to do about the mortgages and the house.  I haven’t paid the mortgages in 2 months and have applied for a modification.  I will not come out of this situation with a lot of money.  I will have to discipline myself to stick to a firm budget. 

But for the first time in forever, I don’t really care and I’m not really worried.  After all, the worst has happened.  My beautiful, smart, kind, funny, wonderful husband is gone.  We fulfilled our marriage vows “till death do us part”, and now he has died and we are parted.

I miss all the little things.  I miss hearing his watch click shut at 4am when he’s deciding to get out of bed and go to work.  At least once a day, something happens and I immediately think, “I gotta tell Mike about this!”.  I miss “Attagirl, Susan” when I accomplish something big or small.  I miss his hugs, he hugged like he owned you, like if he let go, you’d float away and vanish.  I miss changing his hearing aid wax catchers.  I miss a bottle of ketchup on the table all the time.  I miss sleeping in on Saturday mornings and waking up to giggles from Mike and Leah both.  I miss hearing him yell at the Patriots and the Red Sox, and singing at the top of his lungs.  I miss my morning emails, and the news articles that I never bothered to read.  I miss making him take and return phone calls.  I miss sitting at the train station and meeting his friends when he got home at night.  I miss cutting his hair.  I miss snuggling in bed and getting him to turn over.  I miss him coming down with a variety of exotic ailments.  I miss his same 5 stories over and over again.  I miss dreaming about our future.  I miss evenings in his office and how he’d say, “you’re not bothering me, I love being in here together.”  I miss “karaoke” nights.  I miss his laugh.  I miss his funny faces and his chewed up finger nails.  I miss his voice and his smell.  I miss being loved like he loved me.

I would do just about anything, anything at all to bring him home, to make this different.  The last 2 months are a blur, and it seems so unfair to still be here, to still be living when I have so little to offer the world and he had so much. 

Please don’t avoid me.  I need to hear about how you miss him too.  I want to hear your stories and what kind of a person you remember him to be.  Say his name.  Risk making me cry.  Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who remembers and misses him because everyone is so darned worried about upsetting me.  I’m already upset.  Talking about him and his love for all of us and the silly things he did helps me.  Invite us out.  Sometimes we’ll come, sometimes we won’t.  I love keeping Leah busy and keeping the pressure off me a little bit.  But some days I just want to hibernate and hide. 

Please don’t pity us.  What has happened is awful.  What’s to become of us, I do not know.  But Leah and I were so lucky to have had Mike and we are so lucky to have each other.  Offer your condolences, your sympathy, but not your pity.  We are going to be ok. 

Please ask how I am.  I will continue to answer “I’m OK” unless you seem to want to hear more and then I will give you the full on answer about good days and bad days and surviving.  Please ask how Leah is.  She is OK too.  But we love knowing that people are thinking of us both.

Please be patient with me.  I don’t feel like writing letters, talking on the phone much…  Most everything has lost its meaning.  The prior joy I took in Facebook and email is gone.  I’ve never been a phone person in the best of circumstances.  But leave messages, call, email, write a note and send it.  I do keep a list and someday I’ll return everyone’s good wishes.  Understand that one day I may feel like going out and doing a bunch of things and then I may not want to leave my house for 3 weeks.  I’m doing the best I can to make sense of thoughts and feelings I don’t even understand myself.

Please don’t take it personally when I don’t want to go to your church, talk to your counselor, try your drug regimen, eat your macrobiotic diet, or start doing your yoga routine.  I have a crappy relationship with God right now, I’m not ready for counseling, I’m not good at taking pills, I can barely reheat food much less try a whole new cooking lifestyle, and I’m lucky I can touch my hips, much less bend over backwards and touch my toes to my nose.  I’m appreciative of all your suggestions, but I have to go about this my own way and in my own time.  Keep your dietician’s number handy though, and I might use it in the future.

Thank you.

For now, I will keep on keeping on, for our daughter and for him.  My life has to mean something more now.  It’s only fair to him.