Jane is a Widow

Seems like this week I have been in kind of a funk.  Spring is hard because Troy loved being outside and working in the yard and planting tomatoes.  After the incident with the snake happened, I again realized how alone I really am.   No one to help me, and there are just some things I can’t handle.  Snakes are one of those things.  I find myself almost in tears every time I write here.  My life has changed so much in the last four years, I have changed so much.  Never did I think I would be where I am at this age.  I had my dreams of retirement and me and him with each other every day.  But that was not meant to be.  I still hardly ever go and visit his grave.  It’s just too painful.  Going there is like a big slap in the face to bring me back to the reality that he is gone.  Like I don’t know that already.  Of course he’s gone, I get a reminder of it daily.  When I wake up, when I go to bed, when I wake up in the middle of the night. I know I will always love him.  I just will.  He’s too much a part of me.  I look at friends who spent their lives alone and I am thankful that I spent my life with someone.  I am not saying it was easy but it was worth it.  He made my life so much richer.  I can’t even imagine never meeting him.  Those were some of the last words he said to me, “we had a good life together”.  So true, so very true.

Today would have been our 42nd anniversary. I found myself in tears last night and this morning.  I was so happy on this day 42 years ago.  I thought he would always be in my life.  But he slipped away, out of my life forever.  I just get so lost in the sadness of it all sometimes.  I sometimes feel like I am on a roller coaster, riding the waves of grief.  Some days I feel so optimistic, like I have come so far and other days I feel like I am back at the starting line getting ready to run the race of my life.  There was kind of a relief when he took his last breath, no more watching him struggle daily yet that also meant I could no longer touch or hear him.  I look at other couples and I will admit I’m jealous.  Why is their spouse still alive.  Why did mine have to die.  I needed Troy just as much as they need theirs.  Then there are the couples who bicker constantly yet they continue on.  I always felt like God brought us together, he also took us apart.  He left me on my own to wallow in my grief and sadness.  There is just a sea of us grievers, bobbing up and down on the waves.  Sometimes it’s like I can’t come up for air.  That I am going to suffocate in my grief.  We comfort each other, cause we know the pain.  I’ve found someone to share my feelings with.  He has helped me immensely.  I don’t feel so all alone now, I feel loved.  I am so changed.  I never knew what I had deep inside of me until I had to reach for it.

I have been in a funk the last two days.  I get like this every now and then.  Don’t know what causes it or how to get out of it.  I just have to let things run their course.  I am sure a lot of goes back to my childhood.  When you have a mother who really doesn’t love you or want you, it affects everything about you.  Troy made everything right.  I was able to deal with all of it when he was alive.  It’s coming up on our anniversary, my mother’s birthday and shortly after, the one year anniversary of her death.  Maybe I will feel better after it has all passed.  My life has changed so much since Troy’s death.  In so many ways.  I look at it and don’t even recognize it sometimes.  I’ve been having nightmares lately.  I need to write them down when they wake me up cause I never can remember them when I wake up in the morning.  I just remember being scared.  Last night I was actually hiding underneath the covers I was so scared.  I didn’t dream for years after Troy died, now all of a sudden I am dreaming.  Guess I will see what happens tonight…….

I was weepy over the weekend.  I hate when I get like that.  I just get so overwhelmed by all the sadness that I can only see that.  All the memories wander through my mind constantly.  A song will jar one, or going to a place will bring one to mind.  Lots of things trigger them.  I didn’t realize how many there were, it’s like zillions of them.  All meshed together to make one big one.  I’m so thankful for all of them.  They are me.  They are my life.  I can’t imagine not having them.  How empty my thoughts would be.  For 38 years he helped me make daily memories that would bring me comfort on so many lonely nights.

When I woke up this morning I was in one of those funky moods where I question everything decision I make.  It’s like I never trust myself to make the right decision.  All those years of depending on him to help me make decisions has left me unable to make any on my own or so I think it has.  It’s like I don’t trust myself to make the right decision.  Like I’m not capable of it.  I always thought he would be here, always.  Never did I think I would be waking up every morning without him in my life.  That only happens to other people, not me.  He always knew the right thing to say.  No matter what was going on he knew the answer.  But none of that could save him.  It can’t save me.  He was so smart.  And you never realize how important people in your life are until they are gone.  And you’re left with everything, all the decisions, all the loneliness.  And everyone thinks you are supposed to hurry up and move forward.  They try and compare the loss of a parent to it or getting divorced.  There is no comparison.  I grew up with Troy.  We learned things together.  I learned so much from him.  More than I ever learned before we met.  It’s like you mesh together into one being.  You’re separate yet you aren’t.  So when they are no longer alive, there’s this big empty space inside you.  All of the memories and thoughts are there but it ceases to entail new information.  It comes to a screeching halt.  The days spent with him stopped, his voice stopped, I no longer heard his car coming down the driveway, or him walking down the stairs.  No longer able to answer my questions or help me make decisions.  It was like my heart was crushed, broken.  It has jagged edges now, not all smooth.  Forever changed.

Sometimes my thoughts are as scattered as my clothes…….After Troy died I found myself putting my clothes in small stacks throughout my house.  Just scattered here and there.  That is how my life seems now.  Just scattered here and there.  I don’t really know where I belong.  Where do I fit in?  I hope someday to figure it all out.  And I hope someday for my life and thoughts to not be scattered.

The sky is so dark, sometimes like my thoughts.  When I awaken every morning there is a sadness I am overcome with.  Maybe it’s the loneliness. Jude and Lucy and now Sailor Blue force me to get up and start my day.  Without them I am afraid I would just let the sadness consume me.  They need me just as much as I need them.  We are a team.  It’s the start of spring.  Troy loved this time of year.  He would be thinking about planting his garden.  He loved gardening.  I remember one year he made copies of a video on how to grow tomatoes in Texas for co-workers.  He liked it when he could help someone else.  He was always thinking of others.  I wish he could help me now.  Help me to go on with my life, to get up and enjoy things like he did.  But I just get so lonely and sad without him.  When I look at the other widows who are way younger than me, I think to myself that I should be so thankful for the 42 years we had together.   He helped me raise our children, they had a great Dad.  I was so blessed in that way.  Some do not even have that.  They are left alone to raise their children by themselves.  Our children have all the wonderful memories of a great Dad who loved them so very much.  I must say that I now know how my mother felt when my Dad died.  I had no idea of the emptiness, loneliness and sadness.  I do now.  Until you have walked it in your shoes you have no idea.  Losing a spouse is nothing like losing a parent.  I am now the age Troy was when he died.  I think about that.

Last weekend I read some writings done by another widow.  I was touched by her words and feelings conveyed by those words.  She is just 8 months into this widow journey and here I am almost 4 years into it and I wonder if I will always be this sad.  I guess I really thought over time I would start to feel better and not miss Troy so much but that isn’t true.  I see him everywhere, he is constantly in my thoughts, all the millions of memories we made together.  All the memories interwoven in my mind, I am so thankful for them.  The good times, the not so good times, they are me.  He helped shape me into who I am today.  He will always be a part of me.  I just wish the sadness and loneliness wasn’t there.  When I married him, I sure didn’t think that one day I would have to say goodbye to him and go it alone.  I remember standing in the kitchen hugging him, asking him to please not leave me here all alone.  I saw tears in his eyes.  He didn’t want to leave.  I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes right now.  Just thinking about him and his absence does that to me.  I am so much more emotional now than I ever was.  I feel things so deeply.  Everything touches me to my core now.  He isn’t physically here yet I see him everywhere.  His work shoes still sit by his chair.  He influences every decision I make.  He lives in my heart and mind.  He’s just a thought away.  I wish I could touch him, feel his skin, hear his voice, his laugh.  I look around the garage and I am angry sometimes for all that he left me with.  His things are everywhere.  Not necessarily things he needed, but maybe just things he wanted.  I feel so frustrated sometimes.  What to do with it all, and he’s not here to help me.  To guide me, to tell me what to do with it all.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton