Learning how to live again #cancer #widow #lossofaspouse

I am lost. I look around and nothing is familiar. When I wake in the morning a crushing depression surrounds me and doesn't lift until I make myself get out of bed. As those feelings lift, I am assaulted by anxiety, fear, and loneliness.  How, I wonder, ​will I survive? 

A week ago Sunday was my wedding anniversary. The kids took me to Tahoe and we stayed in a beautiful home on the water. It was nice listening to the gkids laugh with each other as they got competitive over a game of pool. The rest of the gkids snuggled into the theater room and lost themselves in every Marvel movie made.  

For the most part, I wandered around. I smiled here and there. Kissed a gkid, and sat staring at the water with my kids. My husband and the loss of their father hit extraordinarily hard during that time away.  Trying to write about it is next to impossible. Yet, other people assure me, writing is a way to recognize those emotions that are so difficult to accept.

I now know why people don't write about the loss of their loved one. It is crushing. As if you are carrying a boulder over your head and as your arms become weaker, the boulder  becomes heavier and you know it will fall, just not when. You cannot make it not fall. You cannot put it down and walk away. You cannot pretend it isn't there, above you, waiting. And so you grieve for the person you are right now and grieve for the person you will become when the boulder falls because you know what awaits when that heavy stone hits. 

There is anger too. I call this Amazon fury. I've bought sofas, new floors, new fireplaces, new kitchen appliances. There is an overwhelming flurry of need to purchase things I don't even want. I have never been a shopper yet most of my time is spent on Amazon. I have interviewed other widows and they painted their homes, redid bathrooms and a common theme is to purchase new floors.  No one really knows why. 

I am unable to comfort my children. There are no words, no cards, no flowers, no hugs nor kisses that can make this go away. I am so grateful we all love each other so much that it makes the grieving that much harder. It is good to know that you have loved well enough to feel the pain when your person is gone.  It also shows how much you risked just in the loving. 

As we are Christians we believe in life after death. Each of us have gifts, special insights, the ability to sometimes touch the future. Yet, even knowing we will see our loved ones again, it is the waiting on the backside of Earth that takes so very long. Sometimes a day can feel like a year. 

It is hard to write. The pain in my belly grinds on while Crohn's bites hard. My cardiologist has given me drugs to help when the palpitations get too rough. I eat and drink a lot of salt to keep my blood pressure in a decent range so I don't faint every time I get to my feet. 

While my angst takes out its attacks on my body, my mind has become ever more difficult to control. The thought of seeing strangers sends me into a panic. I don't know what to say or what to do. People scare me. I have developed a type of agoraphobia that only lifts when I am around people I know well. My neighbor just invited me to a widow's group that meets this Friday. I told her what was going on and she said she would say that we were tentative as of now. I'd like to go, it just terrifies me. You'd think I'd be used to it right now but I'm not. Before it was we, now it is just I. I much prefer the we, but that is no longer an option.