What's in a word?

My spousal loss bereavement support group met this week and I hosted it at my house.  I love these people.  They are all so courageous and kind and, well, supportive.  I realize that I do love entertaining and I plan on doing it more often.  On that evening we noted that it had been 52 weeks to the day since we met at our first meeting at Hospice. So we felt we should each share about the last year.  I shared with the group how the home equity line of credit that Tom and I had taken out 15 years ago came due and I was given no notice, just 21 days to pay off the balance.  I then applied for another line with a different bank and had signed the paperwork the day before.  What I found so distressing was twofold.  First, I had to have Tom's name removed from the title.  Our home meant so much to us and it almost felt like I was erasing him.  But more disturbing was seeing myself described as "an unmarried woman".  I wanted to cross it out and write in widow.  The members of the group then discussed the meaning of the word and how each felt about it.

Some stated they did not like the word, feeling that it was dated.  And truly, it does give off some connotations that may be considered less than flattering.  I, however, prefer the label of widow.  In reality I would rather be married, but even the IRS doesn't consider me married any longer--that ended on the last day of the year that Tom died in 2015.  The term single (or even unmarried) implies that one has never married and for a woman, spinsterhood.  Now I really dislike that term.  We married in our 30s, I was already considered a spinster by the legal definition and it felt like a personal failure.  I am not divorced. A divorce is a decision to end a marriage.  We did not decide to end our marriage.  It ended because Tom died.  The term widow tells a lot of my story in one word.  To me, wrapped in that word is the 20 years of a happy marriage and the devastating loss that will forever be a part of me.  Wrapped in that one word is the courage and fortitude to keep living despite the pain, to try to build a new life without my beloved.  To move forward, I must let go a little at a time.  Not the love.  I will never let go of the love, for it transcends death.  If my genes are any prediction of the length of my life, then I have several more decades to live and I intend to live life to its fullest.

But I still struggle.  I still feel a lot of pain.  I am still experiencing the body and mind numbing exhaustion.  I still can't force myself to power through things like I used to and it frustrates me to no end.  I am finding it difficult not to berate myself for my lack of action.  I am not depressed.  I am mourning, those are different things.  I was prepared for the emotional symptoms of grief and some of the mental one.  But the physicality of the process I was not expecting.  It continues to surprise me. 

Now that I am in the second year, I have found that what other widows(ers) have told me is true.  The second year is just as hard, perhaps even harder, but in a different way.  It is all so real now.  I am having a harder time being positive as I realize that I now am living a life that I did not want to have.  And while I know that it is up to me, and only me, to build a new life, I have no idea what that is, or how to do it.  And I have no energy at all to do it.  And I'm tired of whining but I also know that not dealing with it leads to isolation.  And that is not good for me.  I have been doing a good job of isolating the last few months.  Work and rainy weather have made that easy. 

Today is the first day of spring, my favorite season.  It is the season of new beginnings and growth.  I can only hope that is also true for me.

Rain and Tears and Memories

It has been a rainy few weeks and I've been hunkered down inside with no energy except to watch TV.  I've found reruns of NYPD Blue and have been binge watching them.  I find it interesting the ones that have been aired recently.  NYPD Blue is close to my heart for a few reasons.  First, it was one of the programs that was popular during our early years together.  The second is that Dennis Franz (Andy Sipowicz character) is Tom's doppleganger.  They look so much alike that people would yell out of cars when we were walking down the street. 

The first episode that I caught was where Andy is hiding the fact that he has prostate cancer from his wife.  She confronts him and he breaks down, saying that the thought of not being with her and their son was too much to bear.  Right after Tom was diagnosed he said to me that he didn't want to leave me and Zora.  That particular episode touched my heart.  The next episode I caught is when Andy's partner Bobby is in the hospital after a raging infection caused his heart to fail which necessitate a heart transplant.  He then acquires another infection from which he cannot recover.  The feel of being in the hospital room, the look of fear and desperation on his wife's face as each hope is dashed and she has to face the fact that he is dying was like watching myself, trying to be strong and present while crumbling inside, wanting to do the best by him.  The last episode that I watched was when Andy had a bad reaction to the dye necessary for a CT scan and they had to give him some medication.  He then became very goofy.  It reminded me of when Tom had a severe GI bleed and they had to do an endoscopy to find out what was bleeding.  I walked into his room right after he got back to his room and he still had some of the anesthesia in his system and he said to me "I feel like the guy in the Jack-in-the-Box commercial".  It made us both laugh.  He didn't remember saying it later. 

http://ispot.tv/a/7Npt

I don't want to be the widow who is lost in the past, not living in the present, and not looking forward to the future.  But I am at that point where it can seem that happy memories are in the past, the present is very painful and the future is unknown and it is difficult to imagine happiness.  I can believe it to be true and hope for it.  I am right in the middle of a different kind of "hard part", the 18th mile of the marathon, far from the start line but the finish line isn't in sight.  It is a tortuous place to be.  The raw grief of the early days are gone. Some people think that since its been a year I should be all better (actually I used to think that too), but this is still really difficult. My ability to power through things is not what it used to be.  The last few days I've had the thought that if I am still going to be here, then I want to live life, not just exist.  Every day that I can't get out of the chair, do the things that I want and need to do to move forward, is a day in my life that I can't get back.  And yet I feel unable to change that. 

How to Start Over?

The tune and lyrics of the song by the BeeGees--How Do You Mend a Broken Heart--have been running through my head today.  My heart was shattered the day that Tom died.  In actuality, my life was turned upside down on June 30, 2014, the day that Tom was diagnosed.  I have been thinking lately about how to rebuild my life, a life without Tom in it.  He was an integral part of my daily life for about half of my life.  How do I start over?  The last thirteen months I have been processing his loss, I have been dealing with death duties (although there are still many to finish). 

Recently it occurred to me that I have to start over--that a major part of grieving the loss of my husband is also in grieving who I was, what our life was, the future we had planned.  I know this is not news to many, but it seemed like an epiphany.  Dealing with the sadness of Tom's death has been the focus of the last year.  Now I have to figure out where to go from here.  I'm not a wife anymore.  When my parents died, I was still a daughter, but I am no longer a wife.  I loved being a wife, Tom's wife.  I've just started to try out the words "late husband" when talking to people who do not know the story.  I'm not sure I like it much.  Tom was never late, so it seems rather ironic that the "correct" description for him is "late".  I never considered this part of the story.  I wish I didn't have to.