And Still

    I guess I thought that after 2 1/2 years and a completely different life that the grief would be over.  For the most part it is over but there are still moments when it brings me to my knees.  The other day I was reading a pre-sale copy of Tricia Lott Williford's book And Life Comes Back, and the grief was as fresh as the day Tom died.  In the first chapter she recounts the day her young husband died unexpectedly and all those feeling that I try to keep so well tucked inside came raging to the surface as if it were yesterday.  

     I have read her story a number of times as I have followed her blog. Her husband died just 3 months before Tom.  I consider her a friend although we have never met.  I have spoken with her on the phone and Erin and I regularly discuss her blog as if we know her personally.  In a sense we do know her personally as she has shared her brutal journey with the world.  Never the less, it was as if Tom's death had happened yesterday.  I distinctly remember waking up that night and not hearing him breathing and not wanting to turn the light on.  If I left the light off then perhaps I would not have to face this harsh reality.  Denial would be a welcome visitor right then.

    Sometimes this lot seems just too much to bear.  First the brutal death of my husband of 30 years and then my own diagnosis.  I want to be happy, I truly do but happiness does not come easy right now.  I am grateful for God's perfect timing in my life and for bringing Steve at a time when I would desperately need him even though it felt too soon on some levels.  It felt a bit like I was not honoring my husband to even entertain the thought of someone else but as I look back I can see that God knew what I would need very quickly.

    I try to find the joy wherever I can.  A new kitty and his playful antics.  My beautiful grandbabies.  Sunshine, fall, coffee in the morning....  I try, I really do.  My life is so much better than 90% of the world but this fear that dogs me is often overwhelming.  I can deal with the plan if I know what it is.  It;s the not knowing that drives me insane.  At this point in my life I can't make plans for a vacation for a year from now because I may be back in treatment in a year.  I may have 5 years, I may have 30.  It is really not much different than it probably is for you except that I KNOW I have something that could kill me.  It is not a fun place to reside.  There is a part of me that would rather just know than to have this fear.  I know these feelings are not at all uncommon in a cancer journey and it helps to know that others feel the same way but man I wish I had a grace ticket around this journey.  It appears that the grace ticket it THROUGH this journey and not around it.  There are many days when I do not feel the grace.  There are many days when the pain of what I have gone through, what I am going through and what I cannot fix or control is just too much.  I wonder where is God in all this?  I do not feel the overwhelming peace that I felt when I was going through it with Tom yet every day I get out of bed.  Everyday that I feel I will be consumed, I survive.  Isn't the fear so often that we will not survive?   Or perhaps sometimes that we will survive?  In reality, I did survive and I am surviving. Today, I choose to live.  Today I choose not to focus on what I cannot fix.  I choose to let go of the broken relationships that cause me such pain yet I cannot fix it.  I choose to enjoy a kitty who wants to type for me.  To enjoy a man who thinks I hung the moon.  To bask in the glow of a fall day and sweaters and a fireplace and cross stitch.  Today I choose life and hopefully tomorrow I will have the strength to choose it again.

Dynamics

     Wow, can it really be that I have not posted since before my initial surgery?  How could I have gone so long.  As you know my surgery went well, I did my 6 full rounds of chemo and last week got a clean bill of health for this round.  I will get checked again in 3 months.  In the middle of all that I got married again to a wonderful guy who adores me.  I am so thankful he is in my life right now.

     The last 6 months have been perhaps the hardest I have ever been through.  I would not have thought it could get any harder than watching your husband wither away and die but I think this has been harder. Not for the reasons you might think.  I weathered surgery and chemo very well.  After I recovered from surgery I went back to work and with the exception of one round of chemo I never missed a day.  That one round took me out for a good week and I missed 3 days of work.  It nearly broke me emotionally.  But, all in all I have been very lucky.

     The parts that have been so hard are the navigating relationships.  Some have gotten better and some have truly suffered.  Our family dynamics have been turned upside down and inside out these past 3 years and we are all struggling to figure out where we all fit in and what our new roles are.  When Tom was alive we were the center of the wheel and the kids were the spokes going out of that wheel.  When he died I felt lost and did not know where I fit in at all.  When I began dating and married it has caused confusion for us all.  Steve and I will likely never be the center of the wheel.  We have our own wheel off to the side, spinning separately.  Some have completely pulled away and others have circled in close.  It is very odd for me to try and have my own life that is separate from my kids.  They have been my life for so long and I am in a spot where I really need to create my own life - separate from the life I had with them.  I don't know how to do that.  I don't know how to let go of the old picture.  I don't know how to let them experience their own growing pains and find their way.  It is the hardest thing I have ever done.

     You often tell me I am an inspiration and I find that perplexing.  I have failed in so many ways.  I am often un-thankful, depressed, angry and sometimes mean.  I am not who I wish myself to be.  I have regrets and many "I wish I had's".  But I guess we all do.  We all fail.  We all have moments of            un-thankfulness and regret.  The truth of the matter is that none of us escape this world unscathed.  As much as we would like to fix things as a parent, they will not escape without pain.  This life has pain.  We must each make our own way and that will include pain.

     My kids and myself have had an unfair amount of pain and it doesn't make sense to me.  I thought if you lived right and loved God that somehow it was a safety net but I have come to know that it is only a safety net in the respect that we believe He will take this pain and make something good out of it.  Living right and loving God does not give us a guarantee of a life without hardship and pain.  Wish it did, or we would all be signing up.

     No real conclusions here today.  Just my observations and my struggle to find my way.  All in all life is good but I flounder.  I struggle in so many areas and I am so imperfect.  I need that grace ticket right now.

   

Happy Sad

     I have a strange mix of emotions these days.  I am so very happy to have found love again and to have found a man who thinks I hung the moon, loves God, loves my kids and grand kids and respects that I will always still love Tom.  But, there always seems to be a "but"  anymore.  As we rapidly approach Christmas there are many, many reminders of what we have all lost.  Just because I am quite happy right now does not mean the loss is any less staggering at times.

     One of our family traditions is to buy each person an ornament each year that has some significance to their life that year.  Our tree is a family history book for us.  A Cheshire cat for the year Jesse got his braces off.  A slice of pizza for when Jordan worked at Round Table Pizza, Disney ornaments from the year we went to Disney World...  They are all constant reminders of where we have been.  Many of you are hanging a turtle on your tree this year in remembrance of Tommy the Turtle as he so proudly called himself after he broke his foot in 3 places while going through chemo and radiation.  Decorating the tree has been a happy sad experience for me the past 2 years.  This year I wanted to let each of the kids pick one of their dad's ornaments but I am just not ready yet.  Not ready to let that go yet.

     I have a dry erase board in my quilting room that has a note Tom wrote to me on it.  Can't bring myself to erase it so I thought I might give it to one of the kids.  They did not want it.  Ouch, that kind of hurts.  It is precious to me but perhaps not appropriate as I get ready to marry Steve.  By the way, he embraces that history and would not mind if I kept it up.

     So, all of this to say that I have been dealing with a lot of stress and unwelcome thoughts.  I worry a lot.  I worry about broken relationships.  I worry about how my kids are dealing with this major life change for me.  I worry about how well I will deal with the life change once we are finally married and living in the same house.   I worry about.....   Since September the panic attacks have amped up.  I had one very, very bad one while we were all in Sunriver and it seems to have started the snowball rolling downhill.

    I read a widows blog and she often writes my life.  Her husband died unexpectedly 2 days before Christmas 2 years ago from the flu.  He was only 30.  She too has panic attacks.  Here is part of what she posted today and I think it rings true for so many of us.  She wrote this after she ended up in the ER with symptoms of a heart attack which were really just a severe panic attack.

The nurse said, "Tricia, for every single thought you have, your body gives a physiological response.  Every single thought.  Your subconscious mind can process 40,000 bits of information per second, while your conscious mind can process 40 per second, and your body is responding to all of these.  Is there an emotional trauma you're dealing with?"

Um, yes.

"You need to take every thought captive.  If your mind starts repeating like a broken record, scratch the record and start over.  Break the thought patterns, and you can change your physiology. And remember, worry is only a prayer for something you don't want."

Family Vacation

Last Friday we went to the beach for the weekend.  All of us.  The girls and their families, Jordan (Elisa had to work), Jesse and his girlfriend, also an Emily, and Steve and I.  It was our first family retreat without Tom and oh, the missing crept in.  I missed him as I packed.  I missed the chaos that seemed to follow Tom wherever he went.  The chaos that drove us all nuts but this weekend we missed so much.  I could picture him sprawled out on the floor acting as a grand-baby jungle gym.  I missed his infectious laughter.  I was doing pretty well until I caught a glimpse of Jesse in the hot tub and at that moment he was the spittin image of his dad.  It was surreal.  I tried not to cry - never a wise decision for me as it almost always leads to a panic attack, which it did.  When I retired to my room I started shaking uncontrollably - my pre-panic attack warning signal.  Steve knows the signs and wrapped his arms around me and let me pour out my grief.  My fears of not knowing who I am or how I fit into this family of mine.  My grief over the fact that my life has not gone at all as I had planned.  Tom and I were a team.  This was supposed to be our team.  These were supposed to be OUR golden years where we basked in the joy of our grandchildren.  Life is just so unfair sometimes.  He so would have loved those babies.
     As for me I am often left to wonder who I am any more.  Being these kids mom and Tom's wife was who I was.  I never desired more.  I was very content in that role and now everything has changed.  They don't need me in the same way anymore and I am no longer Tom's wife.  I was very thankful Steve came because I think my feeling of being lost in this crowd of mine would have been so much worse had I not brought this man who gives me hope that God is not done writing my story.  Hope that God will give me new dreams in place of the ones that will never come true.  Hope that there is love after loss even when it does not make the loss any less of a loss.  I grieve the life I dreamed of.  I grieve the lack of children in my home.  I grieve getting old as Oma and Opa.  Yet, I look forward to what God has in store with hopeful anticipation.  He is not done writing my story and so far I like the way this story begins.  There are days when I can't wait to turn the next page but still many days when I long for the last chapter to be just a little bit longer.  Days when I long for the ending I thought I was going to have.  Days when it feels like yesterday and when it feels like life is just so not fair.

God is a good God who is one step ahead of us all the time.  He knows the plans He has for us.  He plans to give us a hope and a future, even when it may feel like all your dreams have died.  He is a dreamweaver.  The ultimate imagineer.  Oh, Walt Disney would have loved what God could dream up!