Sleep Talk

Last Wednesday night, I stayed over at Mark’s apartment.  I had a normal evening and I went to sleep fine – no racing thoughts, no disturbing images about the past, nothing upsetting to keep me awake (which sometimes happens).  Turns out, I woke up in the middle of the night in a terrible state.  The following day, Mark told me about what happened – an episode of which I have zero recollection.  According to Mark, this was what happened:  During the night, out of the blue, I started talking.  At first Mark thought I was talking to him, but then he realized I was still asleep.  I was having a deep conversation with Mike, and it was perfectly coherent and clear.  I told Mike how much I miss him, and that I would give anything to have him back.  I told him that I’ve done my best and tried so hard all this time to go on without him and enjoy life again, but it wasn’t working.  I told him I’ve been writing to him, and I asked him if he’s been getting my messages and reading them.  I just kept begging him to come back, and told him I can’t do this alone.  At one point I started crying, and Mark tried to comfort me and rub my head, but I didn’t wake up or acknowledge his presence.  This continued for about 10 minutes until I finally drifted back into sleep.

I have no idea what sparked that incident.  I have kept a journal to Mike, logging different memories and things I don’t want to forget, but that hasn’t caused me any recent anguish.  Poor Mark was a bit rattled.  He said he felt broken-hearted for me more than anything, but I know it hurt his feelings, too.  It took him a couple days to shake off that one.  Since I don’t remember any of this, and I don’t know what caused it, I was at a loss to explain it.  It was all I could do to reassure him that I must have just been having a terrible nightmare.

 I am so thankful for someone who is so supportive and understanding.  God knows I’ve given him plenty to bear. 

Greatness Lost

On February 5, I lost another wonderful man in my life.  My grandpa drifted peacefully into the next world at the rehab facility he was moved to the night before.  At nearly 95, his passing wasn’t a complete shock, and yet we all felt blindsided by the news.  Grandpa was another strong man we never thought we’d lose, and yet here we are left without our family patriarch. 

Grandpa was the man who taught me to chew my food slowly and enjoy it.  He was the man who always reminded me to use both sides of a piece of paper so as not to waste anything.  He was the man who would set me up with a tape recorder so I could blabber into the microphone hour after hour (and probably give him some rest, too).  He loved to see me and my brother act like kids and enjoy silliness, but he didn’t like roughhousing because “Someone’s going to get hurt.”  He let us tinker in the basement, and build things with wood and nails that only God could identify.  He loved to have us visit, and then loved to pretend to push the car down the road when we finally left (at least I hope it was pretend).  As we grew, he wasn’t afraid to challenge us with different ideas while debating an issue.  He taught us manners and goodwill, honesty and fairness.  And he taught those things best by living them himself.

While we grieve the loss of one of the greatest men from the greatest generation, we try to take comfort in the knowledge that we witnessed a life well lived.  Grandpa was a success both professionally and personally, and even as his body grew tired and weak in recent years, his smile and his quips let us know he was still the same man we loved all our lives.  When my heart and soul begin to fill up with grief because of where Grandpa isn’t, I try instead to picture him where he is – in paradise, and in peace, and with my beloved Mike.  That vision will have to sustain me until the day we’re all together again.

                                                                    Me and my grandpa

Yes

On October 18, in New York City's Times Square, hundreds of feet below where the ball drops on New Year's Eve, Mark asked me to marry him.  He asked me if I would join him in life's second-chance offer to each of us.  I happily accepted. 

And so, another chapter in healing begins.

10

We wed 10 years ago today, and instead of letting my mind run wild with what today might have been like if Mike had been healed, I am choosing to remember all the love and togetherness of that wonderful day. And most of all, I choose to remember Mike as the happy, healthy, loving, beautiful man that he was. He was so full of life and hope on that day, and that is what I celebrate and honor.

Remembering the Missing

Mike was brought to Heaven three years ago today, and it's still surreal.  Missing you today and every day, Mikey.

Bad Dream

Last Monday, in its early morning hours, I had a very upsetting dream.  It was the kind of dream that feels so real and vivid that it stays with you all day.  Maybe I had it because of next week's three-year-loss anniversary, or maybe I had it because of other things going on in my life, but regardless, it was a little too real for comfort.
I dreamed I was somewhere in late evening.  I don't know if it was out at a quiet restaurant or something, but it was someplace I'm unfamiliar with.  I must have gotten a text or call on my phone, but something alerted me to Mike, and the fact that he was in the hospital.  In my mind, I knew Mike had passed, so it was all a bit confusing.  I remember rushing to the hospital to go see him.  It was not Mass General Hospital, where he was treated and spent the final weeks of his life.  The place seemed smaller and more "homey," without the clinical feel of a typical hospital.  His nurses were not his regular nurses that we knew, but I recall one of them being a nurse I vaguely knew.  I went to Mike's room and saw him, and he was still sick but seemed to be slightly on the mend, and definitely better than in the final moments of his real life.  He was even showing me how he was able to take care of a few of his medical needs, and that I didn't need to do it.  The overriding feeling of the whole thing was that all this time he was still alive, though still sick in the hospital, and I hadn't been there all this long while.  He had wondered where I was and had been waiting for me.  I remember being out in the hallway or something -- maybe even outside -- and talking to his nurses (maybe three or four of them), and they were saying again how I hadn't been there.  One of them even gestured with her fingers, making a twisting motion, saying that I was "twisting" or "messing with" Mike by not having been around all this time and now suddenly showing up.  I told them that I was around, but that he died.  I angrily told them to go ask any of his regular nurses, that they would tell them that I never, never, never left Mike's side, and that I was always there.  The only other things I remember are knowing I had to go tell Mark that Mike was back.  I didn't want to upset Mark, but I was stunned that Mike was still here.
I just woke up feeling horrible that I had been away from Mike all this time, and it killed me knowing that he'd been asking where I was and that he missed me.  It brought me to tears several times that day.  I hate feeling like I wasn't there for Mike, even though I know in real life I never left his side.  Even when the rational part of our minds know differently, dreams have a horrible way of distorting reality and making us believe the distortion.

Grieving a Loss

Someone on one of my message boards recently shared this video, and I thought I'd pass it along as something worth watching.  It's a little long, but well worth the time.  Nancy Guthrie lost two children, as infants, and she talked about some things we need to move forward (not move on, but forward) in our grief.  There were many things she said that rang true with me.  She talked about the day sadness came into her life, in a way she certainly didn't go to the hospital expecting, and in a way she never could have imagined.  She described how she felt a big ball of ulcerated pain, and how she needed people to give her time and space to be sad.  She said faith does not make loss hurt less.  Furthermore, there is no time limit on tears.  She told one recently widowed woman, who asked when the tears would stop, "Wasn't your husband worthy of great sorrow?"  She said some people said some things that were hurtful, but what was more hurtful was when they didn't say anything at all.  She recalled keeping a mental list of people who didn't acknowledge her loss, and that it caused resentment and required a focused effort to forgive friends and family, and how she was surprised at who was there for her, and who wasn't.  She talked about how much we long to hear our loved one's name spoken out loud (a huge one for me).  She also discussed how your love for the person you lost is not defined by your ongoing misery.  She mentioned how hard it is to lose the routine of people checking in on you, especially when it was a regular part of a long-term illness (another huge one for me).  Nancy talked about the importance of reaching out in our grief (something I don't do well).  She touched on how healing comes through helping others, especially others who are grieving, and how when we enter into someone's sorrow, it lightens our own.  She talked about how only God can fill up the empty place within us, something with which I continually struggle.  The biggest thing for me was hearing her say, "Love is not defined by a feeling.  Love is an action.  And I loved him well."  I sure did, thank God.

Mark

I have lived through a lot of dark days over the past several years.  Many of them have been spent alone, by design, because I couldn’t bear to be around people.  I was exhausted by grief.  Sometimes I didn’t feel like being social.  Sometimes I couldn’t stand the thought about being around happiness and laughter.  Sometimes I couldn’t handle being around couples or children.  Sometimes I didn’t want to have to put on a fake smile.  Sometimes I didn’t want people to see me continuously bawling, or have to explain why I would start to bawl again, seemingly out of nowhere.  In a nutshell, I despised the world, didn’t want to be part of it and it was excruciatingly exhausting to pretend that I cared about anything.

My loss has shaped who I am today.  I am not exactly that positive person who believes life somehow always works out.  I now know that bad things really do happen, and they can happen to me just as easily as they can happen to anyone else.  I am not untouchable.  I now know what grief and sadness really are.  I never knew how deeply tragedy could cut, and how hopeless life could be.  After losing Mike, I was content to live out the rest of my life alone and to just coast along, like running out the clock of a game that’s already been lost.  If I had to be here – and I prayed that I didn’t have to be – I would live my life in protest.  Today, I am not healed in the sense that I am without sadness.  I am forever changed.  But I no longer feel like the rest of my life is a cruel sentence.  The main reason for my new outlook is Mark.

I met Mark almost a year ago, when his father moved into the assisted living community where I work.  I was still a newbie on the job, and he was a friendly, smiling face whose devotion to his dad was heartfelt and sweet.  We would chat whenever he would come for a visit, and he was floored when I told him I was widowed.  When his dad moved out of assisted living less than two months after moving in, we lost touch for a little while, but reconnected in January.  We started to text each other and discuss life, loss (his marriage had recently ended), faith and how to keep going in this crazy, painful world.  We each had pain and sorrow we were both working through, but agreed there were aspects of this world still worth exploring and enjoying.  We started spending time together and realized it was possible to smile again, even while having our moments of sadness and shedding tears.

Mark has been unbelievably supportive of my situation.  He has shared tears with me.  He understands that I will always have scars and that I will have moments when my pain surfaces.  He is cognizant of particularly difficult days on the calendar, and always acknowledges those special times.  He hurts when I hurt and is always trying to make things better, and he realizes that sometimes what I need most is just to be heard and hugged.  He lets me talk about my sadness, and lets me talk about my happy memories, too.  He realizes that although Mike isn’t here, I still need to acknowledge him as part of who I am.  Mark knows the place Mike has in my heart, but also knows that he has a place there, too.  He respects my past, while embracing our future.  I try not to make Mark feel second, as I can imagine he’s in a difficult position.  I never want him to feel like he is competing with Mike.  Mark and I have begun making our own memories, laughing, traveling and exploring the world we once felt exiled from.  He is a gentle, loving soul and we both believe God has given us each a second chance.

I don’t have dread about the future anymore.  My pain isn’t gone, but I am able to face life with a better perspective because I now see a reason to get up every day.  I have found that while my broken heart has been mending, it has also grown, as now I am able to hold more love than I once thought possible.

What Went Around Is Coming Around

And so it begins….again.  Three years ago today, Mike walked into the hospital and never walked out.  Two days from now marks what would have been his 43^rd birthday.  And only 44 days from now will mark the worst day of my life, and the last day of his.  I think that even if I didn’t have a calendar in front of me, I’d know what was happening.  There is just something in the air.  Despite the cliché sound of that statement, I actually believe it’s true.  The hot summer days are being diluted with cooler, crisper air (I’ve only felt it for a few days, but it’s there.).  The coffee shops are rolling out their pumpkin spice lattes.  Kids are back in school, or almost there.  Baseball season is coming down the stretch and the opening of football season is less than a week away.  I recognize this time of year just as everyone else does, but now, all the markings of the end of summer and dawn of fall are intertwined with a slew of very upsetting memories.  They are forever linked and, for me, cannot be separated.

Recent weeks have left me feeling more down than usual, sluggish and lacking energy and motivation.  I can put my finger on several causes, but I know it’s all rooted in grief.  Lately, the goings on in each day feel like such a chore, and, as someone in a similar situation put it, life just feels like one giant to-do list.  I have no spark.  I wonder if anyone can tell.  I wonder if anyone senses what I am feeling.  I wonder if the people in my life think I am back to being myself. 

I haven’t been “myself” in almost three years.