An Open Letter to Those Who Would Judge a Widow

Dear Random Dude on a Dating Site,

You saw my online dating profile and decided to message me. You must have thought I was cute or liked something I wrote in my bio.

Everything started out just fine; your standard introductory small talk. Then you asked how dating has been going for me. I answer and ask the same of you. You ask what I'm looking for. I say that I'm dating and hoping to find someone to have a relationship with.

Then you say, "You must not have loved your husband very much."

What?!?

9 Musings on Grief

1. I fucking hate grief.

2. It adds insult to injury because you're forced to lose someone you love, which rips your heart out and throws it onto the floor.

3. Totally exposed, raw and sensitive.

What I've Been Doing Instead of Writing

I have been uncharacteristically quiet since my husband's death a little over a year ago.

This post just might be a figment of your imagination....

So what have I been doing instead of writing?

Honestly, binge-watching ALL THE SHOWS, and some grief nesting.

"Grief nesting", as I call it, began the very night Mark passed away when I came home from the hospital, took one look at his glucometer and meds, and threw them all in the trash.

One Year Since My Husband Died

The first anniversary of my husband's death has arrived.

You knew there would have to be a post, right?

A year is a funny thing. Funny strange, not funny haha. It doesn't seem like time is flying by every day, but one always does that oh gosh, a whole year already? thing when looking back on it.

As with every other "first" over this last year, I've had no idea what I would feel as each one came up. I've never done this before, the grieving process. Not really. While other people I've known have died, no one I loved as much as Mark has. Not only that, but I'm aware that people have such varying experiences with grief; it's not one-size-fits-all.

10 Months Since My Husband Died

I had a string of things happen last week that jabbed at my heart and my brain (and exhausted me) to the point that I'm certain the Universe was trying to validate something I was mulling over.

You know how women have been particularly pissed off since last November, to the point that there was the biggest protest EVER the day after the inauguration? Then, last Wednesday was International Women's Day, when women were encouraged to participate in "A Day Without a Woman".

This isn't really about that. Per se.

8 Months Since My Husband Died & One Word for 2017

The song "Take it All" by the amazing Adele is one that speaks to me as I journey through the grief process.

Actually, it spoke to me even before Mark passed away. Probably because I knew he was going to (have to) leave me. I've really been grieving for, like two and a half years.

The lyrics are most obviously about a break-up. My husband and I didn't break up, but I've always thought that many love/break-up songs can easily be applied to other circumstances; felt in other ways, for other reasons.

6 Months Since My Husband Died

My husband died six months ago.

And it seems that all I can manage to write since he died are these periodic check-ins.

• How he died
• 6 weeks
• 3 months
• A bunch of grief quotes

(By the way, if you would like to follow more of what's going on with me, I do share updates more often than writing a whole blog post, on Instagram and Facebook.)

It seems that grief over the loss of one's spouse is pretty much all-consuming. While all loss of loved ones is hard and sad and sucky, I've come to believe that the death of the person you married is probably the worst (except for maybe the loss of a child). The hardest to get through or over or how ever you want to say it.

15 Quotes on Grieving

Two years ago this month I shared nine quotes I liked that had to do with grief.

I had felt grief, but it was naive grief, I believe. On the periphery, if you will. Before I had lost one of the most important people I will ever have in my life.

The quotes I shared before are fine. Good, actually. I mean, anything Elizabeth Kubler-Ross has said is excellent.

But there are several more that have touched my heart since my husband died, that truly resonate. That I have found and shared randomly but wanted to compile  and elaborate on.

For me specifically, my children have "mom's sad" radar and get very concerned and want to make it better. It's sweet, but also a little stifling in that it makes me feel like I can't fully openly grieve around them.

Three Months Since My Husband Died

I have wanted to write about things other than my husband's death and my and my kids' grief in the last month and a half....

I really have.

My daughter's Sweet 16 birthday, for example. With a lot of help from my besties, I threw her a luau themed party (on a cloudy Puget Sound day). Throwing parties is not something I do often (or well), but she loved it and had a great time, which was all that mattered to me.

I remember telling Mark when I first started thinking about having a big to-do for her, that it would happen no matter what, like if he was in the hospital or something. He asked why he'd be in the hospital and I replied, "because you just are sometimes, duh!" He asserted that he wouldn't be in the hospital.

I suppose he was right.

Six and a Half Weeks

Hi there.

It's been six and a half weeks since my husband died. That amount of time feels both like a lot and very little at the same time.

I get asked how the kids and I are doing by someone, in some way, probably every day. Honestly, we're doing better than I ever imagined we would.

So far.

We're not simply OKAY. Saying that would be too overly simplified and make it sound like losing Mark wasn't a huge and sad event in our lives.

Because it was. It is.

How My Husband Died

It's been nearly four weeks since my husband passed away.

His death still doesn't feel fully real.

Even though I knew -- we all knew -- he wasn't long for this world, it's hard to believe that he died. That Mark actually DIED and is GONE.

I think death is just very hard for us to understand.

He had survived so much in his 47 years. We thought he was going to die four years ago, but he didn't. He fought back just like he had done so many times before.

But not this time. This time was different.

***

My Husband's Obituary

As many of you may have heard by now, my husband, Mark, passed away.

He suffered cardiac arrest and although medical professionals were able to restart his heart and keep him alive with meds and machines, it was ultimately his time to go.

Mark died quickly and peacefully just before 6:00 PM on May 12, 2016.

There is much more I would like to say, and probably will, but for now, I just want to share the obituary I wrote.

A Spousal Caregiver's Battle Cry

You know how last week I said I don't want to talk about it? 'It' being chronic illness and caregiving.

Looking back, at least three other posts I've written since May have shown my struggle with this, both the actual circumstances and talking about them.

1. I Don't Think I'm Doing it Right
2. I Can't Blog...I Haz the Life
3. An Awful, Negative and Ranty Post

After reading last week's lame attempt at expressing myself, another spousal caregiver felt compelled to write to me on his own blog. In his letter, Paul was able to put into words ALL THE THINGS I have been mostly blocked from spilling myself.

I sat at the kitchen table, phone in my hand, slack-jawed, as I read Paul's letter. Tears sprang to my eyes as each and every sentence echoed and validated my own thoughts and feelings.

I'm Still Lucky

I read some awful news on Facebook yesterday.

A blogger friend's wife passed away. I knew she had been diagnosed with breast cancer some time back, but I had apparently not kept up with how she was doing...

But that's not my point. It floored me, of course because of the loss, but also because fuck yeah, that does happen. People do lose their best friend and significant other. All the time, in fact.

And there is a very real possibility that it will happen to me.

Salvaging the Broken Pieces

A year ago today I wrote about feelings my husband was having about his chronic illnesses, his abilities and/or disabilities and his future. It was less than a week before his dialysis access clotted off, which was the beginning of months and months of complication after complication for him....

Bringing us to where we are now. (I realize I still haven't given you all a clear update on how Mark is doing. Will work on that.)

At the time I shared:

...while he's happy for me to get the opportunity to do a little traveling, he is also jealous because he doesn't think he'll ever get to. He went on to say: "Nothing is going to get any better for me. It's only going to get worse.

It's like he knew what was coming.

No One To Talk To

I might need to go back to my therapist.

The other night Mark and I were having some issues with each other.

OK, we were arguing.

While of course I've never liked fighting with my husband, I really hate it now that he's so much sicker. It feels wrong somehow. Like, why are we fighting with each other when we have so many other things to fight?

It feels counterintuitive.

For my part (because I can't just go speaking for Mark), I am trying to balance being a loving, kind, understanding and caregiving wife to a chronically ill man with the fact that he's also still just my husband. And yeah, sometimes my husband pisses me off. Should I let him get away with saying or doing things I don't like because he's sick?

Am I supposed to just roll over and let him hurt me because he could die?

The Caregiving Learning Curve

In the wake of my husband's most recent hospital stay, the wounds left to (try to) heal and his inability to walk, I had a moment when I thought, "Is this all that's left for us? For me?"

Like, is taking care of my husband, accompanying him to appointments, refilling his meds....all the things he needs these days, what my life is now? Am I much more of a caregiver than anything else?

This thought made me sad. For several reasons....

What about our marriage? Our friendship? Being a couple, in any sense of the word? I'm afraid that will all fall away....

I've never felt unfulfilled by "just" raising kids, so why does the thought of "just" taking care of my husband make me feel differently?

9 Quotes to Help with Grieving

Ever since the tragic event that occurred in my town last Friday,

I haven't been able to give a darn about anything I would normally blog about.

Between that and the grief and sadness I've already been feeling from

all the changes in my husband....plus all of the family losses my BFF has experienced this year....

I thought I'd share some helpful, inspiring, VALIDATING

quotes about grief and loss. To help myself, and maybe you too if you need it.

There Has Been a School Shooting in My Town

On Friday morning, October 24, 2014, at 10:39 AM, freshman Jaylen Fryberg brought a gun to Marysville-Pilchuck High School, invited five of his friends to have lunch with him, walked into the cafeteria and shot all five, two of whom are his cousins. He then shot himself.

source

I was 3.9 miles away, welcoming my husband home from dialysis and doing a little housework.

A few minutes later the local news app I use pushed a breaking news notification to my phone. I very often don't even pay much attention to them. I did tap this one and read a headline about a possible school shooting here in Marysville.

"Oh God, no", I muttered.

And immediately went into GET-ALL-THE-INFORMATION mode.

I was holding out hope that the word "possible" would turn out to mean that that's NOT what happened.

Alas, it was true.

Grieving for the Man He Used to Be

My husband is not the same man he used to be. Every health setback he suffers shoves this fact in my face.

It's been on my mind a lot lately.

After a good friend died seven years ago I participated in a grief counseling group with mutual friends of hers. I learned a lot from it.

One of the biggest things I learned, that I didn't already know, is that loss comes in many forms. Death isn't the only way we experience loss.

Mark is alive, but we are most definitely grieving the loss of the healthier man he used to be.

And all the changes.