Friday, April 8, 2016

What I Didn't Expect

When my husband died there were things about mourning his loss that I was prepared for.  Well, as much as one can be prepared.  I expected to be sad, I expected to be anxious, I expected to be emotional and cry a lot, I expected that I would have grief bursts.  But there were a some things that I didn't expect.  Like the extreme physical pain of mourning.  My body hurt.  I would wake up in the morning and every part of my body ached.  I didn't expect the mind-numbing exhaustion.  Even now, fourteen months into this journey, I barely have enough energy to get through the day.  If I do manage to have two or three productive days in a row, they are usually followed by two or three days where I can barely get myself out of bed, dressed and accomplish one or two small things. Not only am I physically exhausted, I find myself mentally exhausted after a day of work. 

I don't know why but I really didn't expect the bone chilling loneliness.  Perhaps because we had always had such a connection that the idea of it not being there didn't even occur to me.  I was in my mid-thirties when we married and had already developed a self-identity.  I didn't feel like I "needed" a man to make me whole.  And I still don't feel that is the case.  But a funny thing happened after we married.  The first Christmas when I was trying to make decisions about Christmas gifts for my family, I felt totally unable to do so without Tom's input.  I mean, it was my family.  I found the whole thing rather amusing. But what I am noticing now is the day to day loneliness.  Having to make decisions about the little things.  Doing errands alone, cooking for one, making sure the bills get paid, having someone to share commentary with on American Idol or Dancing with the Starts.  No one cares about the little things in my day.  There is no one to laugh with me that I finally figured out it was a California Buckeye tree at the bottom of the hill, the one that each spring for 18 years we wondered what species it was.  There is no longer anyone to reminisce with about our shared memories together, like how the first major fight we had when we moved in together was about a mattress pad.  This is the part of me that I lost, the shared memories that belonged to just the two of us.  They only reside in my mind.  This is why my heart feels so cold and so empty, because I have lost a part of my history, a major part of my history, not just Tom's physical presence in my life.

I was watching the scene in Downton Abbey right before Lady Mary's wedding and Lady Edith returns to attend the nuptials.   Lady Mary wonders why Lady Edith would come back after the awful fight they had.  Lady Edith explains that they are sisters and the day will come that only the two of them will remember their mother, father, and sister.  Others will not have known them and they have common shared memories.  I so relate to this.  My mother and father are both gone.  All of my aunts and uncles are gone.  It is only my brother and I and since he is so much older than I, leaving home when I was just four, we have very few shared memories from our youth.  I have cousins, but most are my brother's age and we have little shared history.  Well, perhaps it is the fact that my memory isn't so great, I tend to forget things until other bring them up.  Perhaps this is just a byproduct of becoming older and having no children, no legacy.  Whatever it is, it is deep and hollow and painful and lonely.

I suppose this is one of the reasons that they say the second year is difficult, perhaps worse than the first.  Lucky for you there are only 295 more days in the second year.  Whine, whine, whine.  I know, I'm getting sick of it too.  But each month, each week, each day, I discover something else about this journey that is often enlightening, many times painful, but always necessary in order to move through this period. I know that one day it will be different.  I appreciate those that listen to me, or read and comment on my ramblings.  I am missing the one person in the world that was so totally into me that he thought everything I thought and said was amazing.  It is a big Tom-sized hole.

1 comment:

  1. It is true. The second year is harder than the first. You get hit with all the secondary losses, change in lifestyle, loss of income, loss of emotional support, learning to change your life plans, learning to adjust to a single life again, as people who have surrounded you the first year slowly move away and back into their own lives. It's a long and lonely road that must be traveled to get to the next phase of your life. It helps to know we are not alone in this.

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