Tag: devastated

It Isn’t Their Sea

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I’m bleeding but somehow no one can see the blood draining every living breath from my body.  

I’m laying here, riddled with bullet holes, bright red blood pouring from every entry and exit wound.

But they go on about their business. Life is a hurry-scurry event.

No one realizes that they may slide dangerously on the thick but slippery, scarlet, coppery-tasting substance at any moment if they’re near me.

They’re not ignoring.  They’re not cold.  They’re not cruel.

They just cannot see the flood rising beneath their feet because it isn’t their sea.

The Breath of Life

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God fixed my broken pieces, but He did it by way of a soulmate he grew, hand-plucked and then planted right into my life. Now my pieces are struggling to remain attached to each other.

My mind keeps going back, over and over and over, to the moment the doctors walked down the hallway toward me, the disastrous results of my husband’s code blue evident on their faces. I cannot stop feeling what it was like to pleadingly and raggedly cry out “No…NO…NOOOOOOO!!!” and then slide down the wall in sobs as my legs failed to hold my weight.

I think I “knew” when I left his room. I’m a nurse. Not only was he not breathing but he had no airway. In the back of my mind I knew the statistics. I knew the potential and likely outcomes at that point. I knew my likelihood of loss. But I was praying for a miracle. I was holding onto hope like I was falling off of a cliff where the raveling thread of someone’s threadbare sweater was all I had to hold onto. I spent about an hour, give or take, grasping that tiny thread so tightly that it wore shreds into the skin of my palms. Or maybe that was my fingernails.

And then I drowned.

I could feel myself suffocating as I slid down the wall. As one doctor said “go get her a chair” and then told me to tuck my head and breathe. I had been holding onto the ICU visitor phone asking if my husband had been brought over yet when I heard them coming down the hall toward me and I remember seeing the handset hanging from the cord, the cord dangling, as I sat in a crumpled heap on the cold hallway floor. I remember men who had walked toward me, four abreast, all of their faces dour, the one clearly intending to deliver the news just a step ahead of the rest searching my face as he prepared to end my life as I knew it. And I could not breathe. I don’t even know how the cries for mercy made their way out except for the breath of wind that caught in my throat as they approached.

My chest clenched. I don’t know what happened to my heart but if you told me it had stopped beating right then, it would not surprise me. I wonder if that’s what cardiac arrest feels like. I wonder if my husband felt like that, too.

I read a post the other day where a widow said that her husband had “died” once before, during a heart attack, for several minutes while they resuscitated him. When he “died permanently” several years later he wasn’t afraid to go. He had told her that during that first time, he knew exactly when he left his body because the pain stopped entirely, there was suddenly no fear and a sensation he could only define as “euphoria and complete peace” overcame him. He thought to himself that he was leaving this earth and he was okay with it. He didn’t bewail the fact that he was leaving others behind but just knew he was safe and that it was okay. He was okay and they’d all be okay.

I hope that’s what it was like for my husband. Of all of the people I know in this world, my husband 100% deserved peace. He spent many years of his life not having it.

There’s a part of me that wishes he’d know how much we miss him, how much we mourn his loss, but not when I think of what that would put him through. So I guess I just want him to know how much and how completely he was loved and how important he was to people here. I hope he knows now that he made a difference, left a legacy of goodness, kindness, compassion, empathy. And I wish I could see his sweet face when he realized that. I loved the way his face lit up because someone really saw him. When someone saw him as the person I already knew he was.

We take breathing for granted. Air goes in; air comes out. We don’t even think about it most of the time. I’ve had many days since that night, well, that early, early morning, where I had to force myself to inhale. It truly felt like my body wouldn’t do it automatically. Or to exhale just so new air could come in. I remember thinking, theoretically, if I didn’t breathe right now, how long would it take? It felt unnatural to just breathe. Like it feels unnatural to be here when he isn’t.

I believe my heart shattered into a million, zillion pieces that day so how can it still feel like my heart is breaking? Or does it heal a little and the scabs then get ripped open every time a thought crosses my mind, those hundreds of times a day. That cannot be good for healing but I don’t know how to stop it because I never know from which direction the assault will come barreling toward me. It’s completely indiscernible until it hits, until my heart plummets to the ground again beneath blood and ash.

Four of “Lillian’s fish” (our granddaughter’s) died from lack of oxygen due to the hurricane this past week; I had no generator to power the aerator. Scott named them Lillian’s fish (even though we’d had them since early 2022) because she loved watching them from soon after she arrived on the outside of her mommy. We subsequently picked out even more colorful fish to entertain her. The fact that some of those fish died, ones he wanted her to have (albeit at our house because he thought that would make her ask to come visit more) has made me cry more than once. Going to the store where we bought them to get her a few more tomorrow will make me cry again…hopefully I can hold it until I get to the car. I’d rather lose my bladder in public than fall apart. People “get” medical issues (like whatever they might assume would cause me to urinate on myself) better than they “get” grief. Grief makes people uncomfortable.

But now, when I say “Lillian, where’s PopPop?” (she is eight months old now,) she turns her head and looks to his picture. That made me cry the first time but kind of makes my heart smile now. I tell her “PopPop loves you, Lillian. That’s Lillian’s PopPop.” She studies his photograph in a way that makes it look as if he is familiar even though she was only just over four months old when he died. It’s like she is trying to remember where she saw him and can’t quite place it, her face so serious and contemplative. It’s a poignant experience because she usually gets distracted so easily but she stares at his photo for a long time without looking away.

And so I breathe. There are moments sprinkled, however sparsely right now, throughout my days that cause me to breathe.

According to my research, Ruach is the word spoken three times in Hebrew scripture for the breath of God. It’s not described so much as a physical being or an entity but as God’s essence that creates and sustains life. Sometimes it is translated as “Spirit of God”, the Holy Spirit.

However, the actual Hebrew term for “spirit,” ruah (notice the similarity) is used 389 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Ruah is translated using three different words: wind, breath, and spirit. Context decides the translation, but in Ezekiel it is often used with dual context, like breath and spirit are the same thing.

So the Holy Spirit IS breath. Not all breathe by nature of the Spirit’s breath, although all are invited to, but when my natural breath fails to sustain me, the Holy Spirit can. Yes, at some point my body will fail and the Holy Spirit will leave my earthly domain as my own spirit exits, but when my mind no longer wants to breathe, I have a backup generator as a Christian. I didn’t have to go to Lowe’s and pay a hefty sum for this one as it was bequeathed to me and all I had to do was accept the gift.

If you’ve ever been through a high-force hurricane, you know the value of a good generator. And, oh, have I been living in the eye of a hurricane these past almost-four-months. I’ve been living on the strength of my generator ever since the power went out in May.

I’m just going to keep filling up that generator with fuel because without it my life is so very much more uncomfortable…which doesn’t even seem possible but, alas, it is true. It turns out that the Word and prayer are the only fuel it accepts. The dual power generator I have at home (which spontaneously elected not to function following hurricane Idalia this past week) works on gasoline or propane. They’re a lot more expensive.

As you read this, I hope this week finds you healthy. If you are grieving, I hope you have the generator of breath. If you don’t, I know where you can find one for free.

Just Another Hurricane…

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Everything brings a memory. Ev.Re.Thing.

Idalia is the first hurricane to come since he’s been gone.

He used to help me figure out what needed to be moved around or put away from the back yard. My boys have all offered to help, thankfully.

We used to worry whether the power would go out at night because he wore a CPAP every single night (because he planned to be around for a long time and untreated sleep apnea is not a good way to plan for that.)

I never really worried about the storms because we’d snuggle on the couch, watch movies or good TV, and make popcorn (as long as we had power.) When we didn’t have power, we’ve cooked on the grill outside til it came back on once it was safe to be out there.

Our pool house flooded one year. So much wet stuff. Scott got floor blowers out there, we moved everything we could together, and got it all dried out. It was a mess and an inconvenience but I’m not sure what I’ll do if I have to handle such an “inconvenience” alone. Again, I have my boys and they’ll help with anything I need (and I am so very grateful for every single day I have them and am so thankful they’re all near now) but I still just miss him always knowing what to do and always having a way to figure things out.

Yes, I’m an adult and I was a single mom for years. I’m capable of figuring things out for myself but I just don’t want to anymore. It was so good having him to lean on when life just felt overwhelming. And I guess I never truly knew what overwhelming felt like until now.

Funny how lightning and Thunder crashing outside my windows can bring back so many memories of trying times but now they seem like beautiful memories.

If you still have your person please know now that the things that feel like bad times are still really the good times because you’re doing life together. You aren’t facing the world alone.

For you, this is just another hurricane.

The Cemetery

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July 21st, 2023

***Trigger Warning*** This post has some graphic imagery related to being a widow at the cemetery. Please read with discretion regarding your own sensitivities in this area.

The cemetery is hard.

People tend to think you should go there a lot, “spend time” with him, maybe that will make you feel closer to him.

It doesn’t.

If anything, it does the opposite.

When I am sitting propped up on pillows in my bed at night, I can close my eyes and listen for his breathing, wait to feel the covers rustle on his side of the bed, catch a smell that reminds me of date nights because I sprayed his cologne on a little throw pillow.  It’s an elusive feeling, almost ethereal – like you can almost see him there or, if you close your eyes, turn away and turn back, maybe it never happened at all.  Sometimes, I fall asleep now trying to listen, wait, smell….  

The cemetery, though…

Everything around me screams that he is gone.  All the way gone.  No mulligan.  No do-overs.  No rewind button.  No, no, no…

I know that he is not there.  Not his spirit.  I hope today, when I was there at his grave, that he was deep-sea fishing in beautiful turquoise waters, with a sailfish (the bucket list fish he never caught here) on the end of his line in the great ocean in the sky.  I feel sure Heaven has oceans, somehow.  Since there must be beaches or us Florida people might be slightly disappointed. (I kid, I kid…)

No, I know he is not there…but I do know that his body is.  I saw him in that wretched casket that they want you to think of as having a “beautiful finish” when you’re looking for one to lay them in…so you can put them in the ground inside of it.  (Mind you, I know that these people are doing a very difficult job in the very best and kindest way that they know how.  The people I dealt with were full of compassion.  But nothing in the world would have made me think that any casket that would be “laying him to rest” was beautiful, in any way.  I think they would all understand me saying that.)  I know this is a lot of imagery.  Sorry, not sorry.  It’s stuck in my head every single day and you’re reading to find out where my head is these days or because you’re looking for answers as to whether what you see, hear, feel, smell during grief is “normal.”  Well, here it is.

As I kneel on the ground beside the place where a few random weed-looking leafy things have begun to sprout up over the dirt that still sits, too recently disrupted to contain grass (note to self:  bring grass seed and watering can next time), I know his body is approximately (if folklore is correct) six feet beneath me.  He was six feet even.  If they’d stood him up in there, he could reach me. 

The body, his body, that I used to wrap my arms around and he’d kiss my forehead then rest his chin on my head as his arms, so much physically stronger than my own, wrapped me up in a safety that made me feel as good as the forehead kiss.  The body, his body, his chest that I would lay my head on at night and his chest hair would tickle my face but I didn’t want to sit back up.  The body, his body, that was the keeper of his voice as he would tell me how much he loved me, that I was the only woman in the world to him, that I was beautiful, that I was smart, that I was talented…and all the things that I felt that day that I was not.  He always gave me back things I thought I had lost.  He also gave me things I had never even thought to have.  Some memories that I will hold like glittering treasure within me.

I don’t have to “sit there and think about” his body being beneath me in the dirt, lest you’re saying, “Try not to think about that part; think about those memories.”  As my tires crunch against the gravel when I pull into the gates by the road, these thoughts, the unbidden and unwanted ones, are already coiling around me, squeezing the breath from my lungs.  I was here in May and there was a flag laying over him…it’s in my house now.  So, as I actively try to think about good things.  About where he really is right now, about his smell, his sound, his touch, his face, his eyes….I’m trying…I’m trying…I’m trying…nope.  There’s the dirt again.  Still there when I open my eyes.

Today I had AirPods and my iPhone.  There is zero cell service where he is but I have all of the important songs downloaded so I can listen offline.  I played music and, although it made me cry, with harsh sobs that hurt my throat and squeezed my chest and weakened my knees until, there I was, down on the ground with them in the dirt beside him.  I stay there so long that my legs begin to have pins & needles from kneeling so I pull them around front and cross-cross them, always ready to leave but never ready to leave.  So more music.  More memories.  More crying. But maybe distracted from the dirt a little bit.  I look up to the sky, knowing God sees my tears and counts them, saves them.  I feel a tear slip off of my chin and watch it drop to the mound of dirt below me.  It makes me think of the movie Tangled.  It reminds me of when Flynn Rider died in the end and, as she cried, Rapunzel’s tear dripped onto his chest which began to glow as he returned to life.  I randomly think that if his chest started glowing, I couldn’t see it from up here and I wouldn’t even know…at the same time that I remember that cartoon movie are cool but the caricatures can do things we never can.  Not ever, ever.

The sobs have stopped.  The dirt is still there.  But, I feel, somehow, maybe a strangely odd bit better.  Like all of those tears, all of those rib-racking sobs, had been hidden away in a pressurized compartment which was becoming too full, the compression becoming too much for the steely outsides.  Now that they’ve been released there is room to store them up again for awhile, I guess.  I lean back with my hands on the ground behind me and haphazardly wonder whether anyone was in the cemetery witnessing my display.  When I walked from the car, I could only see one grave…now there are others all around.  I glance furtively around, not because I care if anyone saw my ugly crying, but because there may be someone else who needed their moment of depressurization.  No one.  But still, it’s time to go.

I had felt dread coming here.  I know what it means to be here.  I know how it feels to be here.  I know he’s here but he’s not here.  But now it feels as if I don’t want to leave because I’ll be leaving him again.  (Yes, I still know he is not actually here; I cannot control the inert thought pattern.  As I said, they do their own thing, coming and going as they wish and I do not own the key to the lock that would keep them out.)  When we left my sister’s house after my nephew passed away so that we could drive to a place to stay for the night while the police finished their necessary plundering, she began to cry and said “I can’t leave him here alone.”  All I could say was, “Julie, he won’t be alone. They’re going to take care of him.”  Because he wasn’t fully gone in her mind yet, and being taken care of was important. 

This makes me wonder when I will really, fully believe that he is gone.  Gone, gone.  The for real, this is it, never going to change, like it or not, imaginary breathing beside you in bed is GONE, gone.

There are times when I fall apart because I think I’ve just realized it, that this is all really real.  And then my brain throws out flares and pulls the rip cord that inflates the rescue raft and there’s some kind of chance, theoretically, that this is all just an awful dream.  *pinch*pinch*sighhhh*

Driving across the crunchy, loose gravel is just as hard going out as it was coming in.  It’s for a completely different reason but I can’t describe it.  I’ve not said one word to him while I was here.  Because he’s not here even though he’s here.  And if I want to talk to him, I’ll do it in our bedroom at home because it feels more likely that, if there were holes in the floor of Heaven, that would be the place he’d most likely hear me from.  I hope he only ever hears the “I love you”s and “I miss you so much”s, not the sobs.  I would never want him to be as sad as I am, not ever.  I guess now he never, ever has to be.

I love you, baby.  I miss you so, so much.  One way or another, we’ve got this, K?  See you later.

Reality is an Evil Houseguest

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June 22nd, 2023

I thought I was figuring this thing out.

I thought that I was really trying to get myself to see the truth. That it is real and that he’s actually gone. Forever, from this world. I thought this because, in the numb place that I often seem to live, I would say to myself “Jen, this is real life. He isn’t coming back. He won’t just walk in the door. This isn’t just a dream.”

How can someone who was so ALIVE and so consistent, and so steadfast just be GONE? Disappear. How?

As if truly believing it would check off some box in a list of necessary chores in order to reach ultimate healing, I tried to persevere in my quest to find “healing” from these wretched battle wounds. As if it meant I had risen one more rung on the ladder that would lead to my being capable of living again.

I was wrong.

There is no ladder, no list. They tell you about the stages of grief but they’re not sequential and they’re not one trip only. They’re just willy-nilly, all over the place and there is no structure to them at ALL!

But the strangest part is that, although I consciously thought I was trying to figure it all out, to definitively make progress, it was all a ruse. My brain was somehow playing a double agent. What a crock.

Apparently, my subconscious has other plans for a surprise reveal all on its own. I feel like I am on one of those makeover shows. “Here comes the new you! Hope you like it! But if you don’t, TOO BAD. What’s done is done! Enjoy! Annnnnd, heeeeere’s Jennifer!”

For the last couple of days, I can’t really explain it properly in words, but I have been feeling The Truth about my life and my future trying to break the door down. It’s like certain smells (especially), music, things I’ve seen are trying to push through and devastate me with some big news. It feels like standing at the precipice of a giant cliff, leaning back as far as I can, and swirling my arms madly, backwards and in circular motion, to keep from going over the edge. It feels like a knobby, old, gray hand with long, ragged fingernails is flexing around a slightly open door and trying to push inwards as I lean, with all of my strength, against the door to keep it closed.

STOP!!! No!!! I don’t want to know! Don’t tell me! I like this numb, fantasy world better! STAY OUT!!!

And yet I thought I was trying to “make progress” by letting it in…

…

I know that, at some point, The Truth will cross that threshold and it won’t be gently. It will be in spectacular fashion, crushing me beneath the heavy door and the door frame as it crashes and pummels its way in. It will be far from painless. It will be devastating.

Somehow I know that the sadness and loss I have felt so far is minuscule, insignificant, microscopic compared to what The Truth will bring as it breaches my consciousness.

As I now fight off the entering darkness, it is a strange feeling. I thought I wanted “progress” in this grief journey, to move ahead toward healing and some sensation of “normality”.

What it is instead resembles a severe burn patient who knows that the time for debridement is coming nigh and that this is the only way forward but is a treacherous, painful, horrific pathway to submit to just for “healing”. What scars will I be left with when it’s over? Will people even know it’s still me? Can I survive the onslaught of misery that comes with it?

There is another Truth that is alive and well, though. It is the Truth that matters and Scott is already viewing His countenance.

The Way. The Truth. The Life.

No other truth surpasses the importance of this Truth. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

So, again, I turn to the only place my help comes from. Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy (Ps 61:1-3). He brought me up out of a horrible pit [of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay and He set my feet upon a rock, steadying my footsteps and establishing my path. (Ps 40:2)

This song is an old one, from when we lived in Saudi Arabia and had private worship in people’s homes, when we weren’t allowed to have church. It still sticks with me when I need it.

“Oh, Lord, in the morning, will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up.”

How. Can. This. Be. Real. Life?

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June 22nd, 2023

I’m going to give a GRIEF TRIGGER WARNING on this one again. Stop here if you don’t want to potentially be thrown back into your own space of grief. But know you aren’t alone if that happens sometimes.

Some nights the flashbacks are bad. I can’t make them stop. The last moments, even the last hours…but especially the last moments, were bad, the stuff of nightmares. It was a nightmare…except it wasn’t.

I beg to wake up a lot. I think about how maybe I passed out in his hospital room and they had to put me on a ventilator and maybe this whole thing could just be me, tripping on propofol or fever dreams and whatever else they’re using to keep me sedated until they can extubate me. Maybe I’ll wake up as they wean me from the meds and he’ll be standing there over me, worried but thankful to see me coming out of it. He’ll be holding my hand and asking me to squeeze his so I will. And I’ll tell him about the worst and longest nightmare I’ve ever had.

And we’ll go home. Together.

I know. You don’t have to tell me because I already know. It sounds crazy. It’s a ridiculous concept but oh, what if it wasn’t? And so, on bad flashback nights (not as infrequent as you might think), I allow my mind to wander through scenarios like this; it is easier than the alternative.

I’ve started counseling and she has worked up a treatment plan based on some fun mental health diagnoses that have been precipitated by the events of that fateful May night. I have assignments to do between appointments and specific goals we’ll work toward. They feel pretty unattainable right now but God did not give me a spirit of fear but of power, and of love, and of a SOUND MIND. I am healed and whole, in Jesus name. And I’ll keep claiming that until I see the results of it.

The point of this post is this: if you are grieving a huge loss, a life-altering one where nothing will ever be the same again,

You👏🏼are👏🏼not👏🏼crazy👏🏼or👏🏼alone👏🏼

The swirling, raging, tumultuous thoughts in my brain cause physical symptoms that feel unbearable at times. It sort of feels like it’s in your stomach but sort of in your chest but sort of in your arms & legs. Your hands shake uncontrollably. There’s a wrenching ache. It’s terrifying. But it’s not crazy. Are the symptoms psychosomatic? Maybe. Maybe my brain is making me feel this way but that doesn’t mean the symptoms aren’t real. It doesn’t mean that reliving that night over and over doesn’t make you have very real, physical feelings.

And there are irrational fears of something happening to someone else that I love. Something sudden and that I personally have no control over, just like with Scott. Thoughts that are difficult to tamp down but that I also use scripture to fight. And sometimes I have to get out books to find them or Google parts of the verses to be able to read them because, in my panic, the whole scripture won’t come to me. When I find them, I read them over and over…and over and over and over…

When I do this, eventually a peace falls over me. I feel comfort around me. I get sleepy. I fall asleep. Unfortunately, I often wake with dreams plagued with the same flashbacks.

And yet some mornings I wake up in the numb place again, my mind not believing that this is all real.

How. Can. This. Be. Real. Life???

Subconsciously, my mind can still convince me that he’s on assignment at work and will be walking in the door any minute now. I’m not sure how this works because we never, ever, since we began dating, have gone a single day without talking at least twice a day. We either saw each other or were on the phone or FaceTime, at the very least, every morning and every night. How could he be coming back home if I haven’t even talked to him in over a month? But my mind seems to accept this silly charade for periods of time. Another strange mind trick. When I’m wrapped inside the numbness, I can tell myself, “Jennifer, it is really real. He is gone. He’s not coming back.” and even then I can’t FEEL it. I don’t fall apart or lose it or cry or scream or throw up then. I just don’t even feel it. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 makes you feel like you’re going crazy, too.

It’s funny how your own mind can protect you.

And then the guilt hits because it’s part of the cycle I’ve come to recognize. The guilt over not feeling it sometimes. The guilt over still being able to smile at my granddaughter or hug the kids or just be here, in this place he can’t be anymore. Guilt over not doing enough before he died. (Yes, I know, there was nothing else I could have done…but just like the numbness doesn’t make sense, the guilt isn’t something you can talk or rationalize away.)

Tomorrow will be a better day. I’ll be back in the numb place by morning. My brain will keep me wrapped in bubble wrap all day and then I’ll have no idea when the cycle will start over.

Tonight I pray for peace. I pray for comfort. I will read scripture from the anxiety and grief and depression chapters of my categorized prayer and scripture book. And then I will eventually sleep after my angels battle the enemy and take over within my warring spirit again.

This grief thing isn’t pretty. It’s brutal. It’s consuming. It’s a Cat 5 hurricane barreling through your heart over and over again, day after day. You will have to do some parts of it alone and that is okay. Just remember that you’re NOT alone. God is with you, no matter what it feels like at the time. You can also reach out to people to listen when you’re ready to talk it out again. Don’t give up.

All of the Things…

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June 2nd, 2023

Finances are a big thing for anyone. They’re definitely a big thing in marriage.

When Scott and I were dating, engaged, and then married, we had both been married before. We both had children from previous marriages. We both had financial habits and had suffered financial damage from those marriages/divorces. We each had our own way of doing things as a result of those past marriages. We both were a little gun shy about letting someone else have any control over our financial situations.

I’ve said before that I was fiercely independent. I’d been raising three boys on my own for quite awhile and had found a sort of balance. I had often worked a lot of overtime to make ends meet but I had found a way to make that work. I didn’t want to rock the boat.

Scott had worked a lot of overtime just to stay afloat during his previous marriage due to overspending habits he had little control over. He was more recently divorced and he wanted to maintain his newfound control over money and he didn’t ever want to be in his previous financial condition again.

We overcame that together. Trust was a huge part of it and yet we still had hiccups trying to figure it out along the way. We both made mistakes and we solved them together. Ultimately, because of that trust, I gave over my control to him. Mind you, I still had the ability to use money anytime I wanted to but we talked about things, agreed on how to manage situations, and managed to figure it out together without causing friction.

I confess that Scott spoiled me, a lot. If he knew I wanted something, he just wanted me to have it eventually. His last large gift to me was at Christmas last year. We had a new grandbaby on the way, our first. He knew I love taking pictures and how much I love going through photos of the boys when they were little. He’d comment on what good photos they were. So when Lillian was nearing arrival, he bought me an expensive camera and many setup items to be able to take quality photos of her. (He was every bit as excited about her getting here as I was, so much so that he stood behind the curtain in Patrice’s delivery room and audio recorded Lillian’s first cry and the ensuing elation.)

So allowing him to manage most of our bill payments, frivolous spending money, and big purchases (still with my input on bigger purchases) became easier and I was comfortable letting him “take over.”

But here we are today…

Today he is no longer here to manage things. It’s not that I can’t start doing it again. I just don’t want to. I want him to be here; having to manage the bills and money again is just another reminder that he is not. There is a kind of defiance in me that wants to say “This isn’t what I wanted so I’m just not going to do the things I don’t want to do.” Not a very effective strategy for the future.

There are also issues related to income, obviously. When I say Scott retired me two years ago, I mean that I fought him on it before we got there but relented after awhile, so that’s why I say “he retired me.” He knew the mental trauma of being an empath and a nurse had taken its toll on me in my nearly thirty year career and he hated what it was doing to me. I was miserable. I still had, however, the idea that I needed to provide, too, because I had been a sole provider for so long prior to meeting him. Even though Scott went into the military straight out of high school and went to war soon thereafter, he would say “I haven’t even been a nurse for twenty years and you have been for almost thirty. It just makes sense for you to retire awhile before I do. Plus you can visit me a lot more on assignment and I miss you!” Even though he had worked just as many years as I. A compelling argument, though; I’d get to spend more time with my person. Thus I “gave in” and retired from my nursing career. And I loved it.

Yes, I struggled with “purpose” but then Lillian was on her way and I was going to be a stay-at-home Lolly (my “grandma name.”) while my son worked and finished college and my daughter-in-love started nursing school. So getting used to it wasn’t as hard as I had imagined. My life had somehow become perfect. The best husband ever, best kids ever, best new daughters ever, and the perfect new granddaughter.

It’s a tragic and devastating fall from perfect to now. I still have so many of the perfect pieces but the one that is missing means you can’t ever have the satisfaction of completing the entire puzzle.

Now, suddenly, the debt-to-income ratio feels suffocating and that makes me want to deal with it even less, despite the fact that, in the middle of grief, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰.

When your mind is at its most defenseless and distracted place, it is necessary to find a way to complete tasks that not only break your heart all over again (telling what feels like a gazillion people that my husband has passed away and hearing just as many “I’m sorry for your loss” comments) and that are important but feel impossible.

Asking for forebearances while you figure things out. Seeking ways to be creative with expenses. Cancelling unnecessary expenditures like TV streaming services, lawn maintenance service, the highest speed internet plan. Googling what probate even 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 when you really just knew that it was something that happens when someone dies before. Talking to attorneys. It all just adds up to a LOT to think about when you can’t concentrate enough to string sentences together in conversation at times.

This is not a plea for any kind of sympathy. Remember, this is part of the grief journey I’m sharing and it won’t hurt my feelings if you skip this “chapter” of it. It’s a part of my new reality. It’s just another one of the things that I hate about this “new normal” everyone keeps talking about.

“You’ve just got to find your new normal.”
“What if I liked my old normal? Can I return this one without the receipt? Do you allow exchanges?” But this wasn’t buyers remorse. I never agreed to this…it wasn’t my idea…let me speak to the manager…

So now, with a brain full of mush, I’m trying to think straight enough to do all of the things.

And I’m still going to remember that God is in the smallest details. He has a way of giving me guidance on how to proceed even when I least want to proceed and don’t even know how.

I’ve always said that I’m not good at subtlety and God is a master of it sometimes. I’m the girl who wants the neon signs (like the day I met Scott for the first time.) But I’ve also always said that I k͛n͛o͛w͛ God is speaking to me when the voice in my head says something that I would never suggest myself. Today He is saying “You can do this.” And that’s not something I would say right now at all.

I Worship…so I will go take a shower.

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May 31st, 2023

I need to take a shower. I need to wash my hair. I need to shave my legs, it is summer now and my leggings are getting too hot. It became summer this past weekend. The first full season without you and I hate it. I hate it…I hate it…I hate it…

I need to, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to get up, get out of bed. I don’t want to face another day when you’re not here. I don’t want to cook or clean the house or feed the dogs or…or breathe if it’s not the air you’re breathing, too. I don’t want to…I don’t want to…I don’t want to…

Somehow I’m doing it. Somehow I am still breathing when you’re not here. I don’t want to leave here. I just want you here 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 me. I want to feel like anything I do matters when you’re not here to cheer me on, encourage me, remind me of my worth. I want…I want…I want…

I picked out the footplate for your grave yesterday. The military is honoring you with one. It will have your name, your war, your medals of valor listed on it. It will have your birthdate and the day you left us. It will say you were a loving husband, son, father, and a doting PopPop. I still have to pick out our headstone one day. I don’t want to…I don’t want to…I don’t want to…

I worship. God hasn’t given me a spirit of fear but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. My only comfort comes from Him. He is in the music. He is in the lyrics. He is in the pain. He is in the heartache. He eases them a little more, I’m sure a little more each day but it’s like watching the kids grow: you can’t see the changes day-by-day…only in retrospect. But I worship…I worship…I worship…

I worship. And so now I will go shower…

Losing You, Piece by Piece

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May 29th, 2023

I lost Scott’s wedding ring today.

Spoiler Alert: I found it later; don’t panic (like I did). And Godwink ahead if you choose to keep reading.

I have been wearing it on my thumb since the last day that I saw him. He gave it to me for safekeeping prior to surgery. I didn’t know I’d be keeping it safe for him forever.

It’s been a “worry stone” of sorts for me since I began wearing it. I use my other hand to twist it round and round nearly constantly. It’s a reminder of him. It’s something I have left of him, of us. He was so proud of it because I chose it for him and it has deer antler embedded into it. I chose it because it spoke to me, it said a little something about who he was. And he loved it because I chose it thoughtfully, specifically for him and likened to him and his tastes.

It’s really heavy. I wasn’t expecting that when I ordered it. Many times I have offered to buy him one of those silicone bands to wear while at work and he would always say, “No, I want to wear this one; you chose it with your heart and I want it with me.” He never took it off. But that day he had to.

When I realized it was missing from my thumb, I did panic. Owen said “Try not to panic, mama. It’s in this house; we will find it.” I knew I had been wearing it just beforehand, within the hour at least. I had cleaned out the fridge, putting some things in a large, black trash bag for garbage pickup tomorrow. I had loaded the dishwasher. I’d sat on the couch. I had fed the fish. And, as I cried, I searched each place, over and over again. I emptied the entire trash bag, piece by piece, onto my kitchen floor and searched and shook the entire thing, turning the bag inside out. My sweet Owen came and helped me turn over the couch and search between cushions. As I got discouraged, I said a few times “It’s okay. It’s lost, son. There’s nothing more we can do. Hopefully it will turn up soon.” But he kept searching and trying to help me retrace my steps, keeping me on task. I searched the trash bag two more times because, as heavy as the ring is, it should have made a loud noise if it hit the floor and rolled so falling in the trash bag made the most sense. All to no avail.

We finally stopped looking and I sat on the couch, staring into space and realizing that I had now lost another piece of him, even though it’s not actually him. A memento? A reminder? None of these seem right because it was chosen just for him. It belonged on him.

I agonized over whether to put it on his finger prior to the funeral. He never wanted to be without it. He wanted to wear it always. He would have wanted it on his finger. But ultimately I decided that my husband, above all else, wanted me to feel safe and happy. He was no longer in that body but I could keep this one little piece here with me and he would want me to if it brought me any measure of peace in his absence. And then I lost it. I lost his ring that he loved.

I’ve lost quite a bit of weight since May 9th. This morning I had been washing my hands and it nearly fell off. I thought, even my thumbs are getting skinnier…crazy. I nearly took it off then but I have become accustomed to having it on and I didn’t want to be separated from it. It’s strange how important tangible things are in the absence of love lost.

I rose from the couch, probably an hour later to go to the restroom. And, lo and behold, the ring was IN MY PANTS (not a pocket, INSIDE). Apparently, when I had gone to the restroom earlier and had used my thumbs to pull my leggings back up, the ring had gotten trapped by the waistband and just pulled right off, resting just under the waistband. When I completed the same action this time but to pull them down, my thumb slid right into the ring again. (Don’t ask me how I didn’t feel it there. I suppose my skin had warmed it and it was being held snugly by the elastic waistband.)

Such a long time of searching, just to find that it was with me all along but I couldn’t feel it because I was in a panic, fretful over my loss and despair.

Isn’t God like that, though? I can’t feel Him near me these days. I try to pray. I try to worship. I try to sing. I try to search for Him so that He will come near. I try the most likely places (like church) that He should be (although I know full-well that He is everywhere). I’m so distracted by my searching, in a manner of speaking, that I forget that, even though I can’t feel Him, He is still here, so close to me that His warmth feels like my own. So, maybe I am feeling Him but I’m just looking for a more tangible way to realize it. I feel like I need to SEE the evidence to know it for sure. But the real evidence is already there. The real evidence is that He has been there every other time, without fail.