Tag: funeral

Anniversaries are Supposed to be Happy Occasions…right?

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I didn’t make a post yesterday because I needed, for my own sanity and ability to put one foot in front of the other, to essentially pretend that it was another, everyday kind of day. None of my days will ever be the kind of normal I want them to be again; yesterday was certainly anything but “normal.”

May 10th. One year. A whole year. The longest year of my life and yet…wasn’t he just here yesterday? I will continue to say that I really don’t understand how time works after all of this. Or how it can be that my brain knows he is gone but my heart…my heart still thinks he’ll walk in the door any minute. My heart still jumps when I see his location on my phone and it says he’s home. For a split second, every time, I want to get up and go find him. And then after the split second comes the sinking feeling that he cannot be at our home because he has a new one with Jesus.

Tornados hitting the county, a tree falling and crushing my new baby almond tree, my patio furniture being slung all over the place, and no power most of the day while Lillian was with me kept my thoughts busy in the early morning. We hid in the hallway and played with flashlights with all of the curtains, shutters, and doors in the house closed until the danger had passed, then walked window to window to survey what damage we could see from inside. Soon after, a sweet friend took time out of her own busy, kid-filled schedule to just come sit in our powerless house and talk with me for a couple of hours. We talked about a myriad of things but really didn’t focus on Scott. Oh, I thought about him all day long..he’s in most of my thoughts every day…but I couldn’t really talk about him yesterday. I had wanted to spend the day celebrating who he was but then realized I could not talk about him much at all on this “anniversary day” or I would lose what composure I was managing to maintain, a slim cord wrapped around the bulging chaos of grief that wanted to spill out. So I just kept pretending.

A little later my kids started showing up to hang out while we all waited for power to return at our respective homes. We all laughed at Lillian’s antics, which tend to amp up when there are so many of her favorite people there to watch, and everyone tiptoed around what day it was…or more accurately, around what this day looked like, felt like last year. With no power, no TV or music or phones for distraction, it was a blessing to be occupied by casual conversation with others the whole day.

Luke and Patrice asked me to eat supper with them but Austin and Taylor had already invited me to go out to dinner with them at the beautiful 406 restaurant. They took me with them to their anniversary dinner and then insisted on paying for my dinner and theirs. I didn’t realize last year that it happened on their anniversary. I’ve found, along the way, that there is a LOT I don’t remember at all about those days.

Our power was restored and, thankfully, I was able to get some sleep with the A/C on. Much needed sleep because, although I’ve been dreading the arrival of this date for awhile, what I didn’t anticipate was the 9th being much worse than the 10th this time around.

The 9th, throughout the day, was a replay of what we were doing this time last year. Waiting for him to be called to pre-op. Kissing him goodbye in the pre-op area before they took him back. Telling him I loved him and he was going to be fine; I’d see him when he woke up. Sitting with his parents in the waiting room while he was in surgery. Saying goodbye to them while I was waiting for him to be taken up to a room. Seeing him at 7:00 p.m. And then it got really hard. You see, I never saw him on the 10th. Well, I did. I laid in the bed with him but he was already gone. Re-living, again, the hours from 7 p.m. to 11:43 p.m. was brutal. And then remembering the time from then until 12:45 a.m., frantically pacing a waiting room I had been shuffled to and left alone in, trying to get a hold of people I needed, until doctors came to tell me it was over…life, as I knew it and loved it, was over. And the feeling of the cold wall against my back and my shoulder as I slid to the floor, unable to hold my own weight. No. No. No.

That film has played in my head many times during sleep over the last year but usually, while awake, I’ve been able to redirect myself. There are too many whys, what ifs, why didn’t I’s, why didn’t theys, and the ever present “what else could I have done; what should I have done differently to make them save him.” I don’t have a choice when I’m asleep, until I wake in sweat, but in the daytime I can usually waylay the thoughts, except for this time. It’s like when you think about the Challenger explosion, or 9/11, or the Oklahoma City bombing, and you not only remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at that moment but you can feel the shock and devastation you experienced then. This time I was unable to let go of it until I had walked through much of those hours again. The last hours. I’m sure “anniversaries” are different for everyone but I now know that the anniversary of the day before will always be harder than the day they officially called off the code and delivered news to me. By then, he was at peace…and I was desperately clinging to strands of faith that one day I’d find peace here before I go to be with him again.

Looking back, this year has been a picture of God’s hand at work after tragedy. Friends I’m blessed with rallied around and poured love over our family. Some of those same friends have been very steadfast throughout this whole year, understanding that this wasn’t a pain that would disappear after the visitors and meals stopped coming, after the funeral was done. Financially I shouldn’t have been able to maintain what I have been able to thus far. Many times I thought I may be forced to break mine and Scott’s promise to the kids that I would stay home to keep Lillian at least until her mama finished nursing school…but God. Every time I prayed I could keep the promises that Scott and I had made, every single time, God made a way. While I will have to return to work soon, it won’t be before what we committed to. I’m not sure what that work will be but God has given me a year to heal and learn how to manage my grief before needing to concentrate on whatever my new job will entail. I do not even have words to express how thankful I am for this time.

And Lillian, my beautiful, sweet granddaughter. God knew, long before we did, how much she was going to be needed in our family, the light she would bring in darkest sorrows, the joy she would spread even when sadness seemed to reign over everything, the hope she would sprinkle over grown ups, not even knowing that she was doing it.

I haven’t posted much online lately but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing about him. This last month, especially, has given me much to write. Now, though, for the most part, I am saving my words for print. I still have a lot to learn about publishing and a lot of choices to make about how to do this, but if everything goes well, and I believe God is in it so it will happen, I will have a book out sometime this year. I always thought my novel would be the first (and really only) book I would write but this book has written itself in my words but by God’s voice of hope intermingled with my trauma. I’ve decided to finally tell about what happened to my husband and how he died…why he died. I have also decided to add in some other very sensitive subjects about loss, widowhood, and being left behind, that I have written over the last year but decided were not social media material. They’ll be in my book. I’m saying this now because Scott really wanted me to publish my novel. He was proud of my writing, even when I felt like I couldn’t get it right, sounding like I wanted. He believed in me so much more than I ever have. He encouraged me endlessly to do this thing I never felt worthy or capable of doing with any success. I do not care, though, about success in an author’s terms. The success is in completing another thing we had planned to do together. This first book won’t be my Christian fiction novel, although I hope to one day finish the other half of it, too, but this book was born of pain and healing, of loss and still living, of devastation clinging to hope. And it is filled with him.

Today is the 11th. This year has been like a marathon (and I 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 running) with those little tents throughout the race where you stop to drink or fuel up before continuing on. My stops weren’t fuel ups, though. They were days I had to get through. Instead of marking my progress by how many fueling stations I had passed (I don’t even really know what marathoners call them) my progress was marked from one day I made it through to another. Holidays, birthdays, probate dates, and tasks completed. The thing about this marathon, though, is that when I finally felt my chest hit the ribbon at the elusive finish line…it wasn’t the finish line at all. It was yet another starting line and I cannot leave until I finish. But when I finish this one, there’s still only another start again. Every marathon, every year that passes, flows into the next and the next with no end, like some ride that you cannot step off of because it never stops moving so, so fast. I’ve gotten through all of the “firsts.” Now I have to learn how live without just surviving each day. So starts a new year…and God will still be in the outcome.

Panic Paralysis

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May 25th, 2023

***GRIEF TRIGGER WARNING***

I had a panic attack today.

Not the “the teacher called on me and I didn’t know the answer so I had a panic attack” kind, or the “that car stopped in front of me so fast I had a panic attack” kind.

The “feel like you cannot get a breath in, heart palpitations and speeding up to feels-like-it’s-bursting, can’t feel your hands, whole body shakes” kind.

I know that I have to start making myself do things. By myself. I know that I have to find a way to go on. So, practice is what makes that happen, right? Face fear in the face, head on. Just do it. Insert better slogan here.

So I ran a few errands today in Lake City that have to do with what’s been going on: VA to discuss financial issues, bank, a couple of doctor’s offices to let them know he’s gone. For the most part, staying busy is like staying vigilant against the next oncoming slaught of “the overwhelm;” I don’t like the place I call the overwhelm. I had no idea I was headed straight for it. I went next to the place that sells monuments, otherwise known as gravestones or grave markers.

I looked through photographs, walked around and looked at the ones outside, considered options, and was given a folder full of photographs and catalog choices to take home and consider. I remember thinking that some of them were “pretty.” Isn’t it strange to think of something as “pretty” when it symbolizes the end of something beautiful?

I walked to my car. Felt a little wobbly in my legs on the way there but toughed that out. Unlocked and sat in the car and closed the door. Went to reach for the button to crank it. And then it hit.

This isn’t the first one. It was the worst one so far, though. I knew I couldn’t drive for a bit even though I wanted to get out of there, so I sat. I started trying to control my breathing, pushed my seat back and lowered my head toward my knees. I pulled my phone out and opened pictures of him, when he was here, when he was with me. I can’t tell you what I was trying to replace in my head with those photos but one day I will. But suffice it to say that it’s very difficult to get rid of and it has plagued me almost constantly.

I did it. I got it under control. I don’t know how long I was there but I began to lose the numbness in my hands and my knees stopped the shaking feeling. I stayed until I was back in the numb place again.

The numb place is where my brain takes me when I can’t handle anymore. I’m glad it’s smarter than the conscious me because it’s a lifesaver. I’ll feel guilty for not being 100% miserable for awhile, and it doesn’t make me forget anything. It just makes me feel…less.

I’ve felt these things almost come over me quite a few times since the 10th. And “attack” seems like an appropriate descriptive term. A lot of times I’ve realized that if I take some slow, deep breaths right when I feel it coming, and intentionally focus on something other than what is triggering it, I can recover before it overwhelms me. Like in the grocery store yesterday. But this one came so quickly, so out-of-the-blue, that there wasn’t time to head it off.

Yesterday’s almost “attack” was over pickles. I went down the condiments aisle and realized I never have to buy pickles again. I don’t like them, but Scott loved them. I wish I needed to buy pickles. That’s how insidious the emotional terrorism is. Most times it doesn’t even make sense that it would be something to cause such distress. But I took some deep breaths and focused hard on which ketchup bottle and what kind and size I wanted to get and whether generic would taste different and whether I needed mayonnaise at home, too. And then I still felt sad about the pickles but had averted the meltdown, the fear of how I can live when we don’t even need pickles…see how silly that sounds?

But silly doesn’t even enter the equation. It’s real, and raw, and threatening, and terrifying, and devastating. It feels like your heart is literally tearing, vessel from valve from chamber, inside your body. It feels like you’re dying because, inside, you already partially have.

I know that people who love me don’t want to hear descriptions of how much I’m hurting. I know it hurts them to know that I am. But this is something that doesn’t hide in the dark, even when I try my best to keep it out of sight. It’s lurking inside me every moment of every very long day. The last two weeks feels like it has taken two months to pass.

But somewhere, someday, someone will be trying to live through this and I HATE that for anyone else. And they may remember my writings and know to reach out to me, to ask how I did it, how I lived through it. Right now, I don’t even know what I would tell them yet. Every day of this is an unhappy surprise, but one day I’ll figure out how to get a hold of it. One day I can tell them what I did and that their journey may be different but I’ll walk beside them.

I understand now why people in the Bible, you know, in the “olden days”, wore sackcloth and covered themselves in ashes when they were grieving. I literally want to. I haven’t put a drop of makeup on and have barely brushed my hair since it happened because I just don’t want to. What’s the point? But if you poured ashes over me, maybe I would look how I feel. Burned down to nothing. Ash.

And yet one day I will still find a way to rise from them, by the strong, gentle grace of God.

Funeral Finality

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May 23, 2023

Today has been hard. Funerals are hard but this…a whole different level.

I want to make something clear, though. I don’t grieve for Scott. I have no doubt that he is living the good life where he is now. I grieve for myself, for the future we had planned together. I grieve the loss of my very best friend in the world, for the person I wanted to be beside me all the time. For the man that he was and what that meant in my life.

Many who knew us may have wondered why we rarely did double dates or ever went on girls trips or guys trips separately. We both love other people, lots of them. But we were so content just being together. We were peas in a pod, peanut butter and jelly (or marshmallow cream, since Scott loved Fluffernutter sandwiches). We knew ten years ago what we had found in each other and didn’t want to miss out. When we were separated by Scott’s travel assignments, we talked a minimum of twice a day, usually several hours at night or off and on ALL day on the days he was off. We counted down the days to when I could go be with him for a week. Or when he could come home to see us.

And we did spend quite a bit of time physically away from each other, but that is because Scott had big dreams and plans for our future, for the time when we would be retired together. He didn’t want me to work anymore and he wanted us to be able to enjoy it together when it was time. We always thought there would be time. I grieve the loss of that time. Those plans.

I don’t regret those times now. Of course I wish we had more time, but being a provider and protector, both of which he was wonderful at, made Scott happy. He felt better about himself when he knew I was taken care of, even if that meant trimming the bushes I wanted done in our yard, bathing the dog, or helping with dishes. I told him once that, when he sat in the living room watching TV while I was cooking supper, I’d rather him come sit on a stool in there and talk to me. He never watched TV during my cooking again until he got hurt. He said he felt the same but didn’t want me to feel like he was hovering.

He spoiled me to no end. I tried to spoil him, too, in different ways. We had different love languages and yet figured out how to make the other feel special. I always felt like I didn’t deserve him and he always felt the same about me. We both always wanted to make sure that the other felt loved and appreciated. I think that says something about a relationship. Neither thinks they are higher than the other, both thinking their person makes them a better woman/man. And he definitely made me better.

So, I don’t grieve for him. I do grieve the way he went but he’s not there anymore. I’m just sad that I’m here trying to pick up the pieces and find a way to make just enough of them fit to make it to glory myself.

So, today was sad, but not for Scott. Scott’s somewhere on the outskirts of Heaven, waiting for me to get there. Then we really do get forever.