1460 Days of Being a Widow

Time Keeps on Slipping, Slipping, Slipping into the Future

Really? Again? Didn’t I just write a post about being a three-year-old widow? Now it’s already four years? That seems … unreasonable. In fact, if I’m being honest, I’m feeling really kind of bitchy about it. I want to write a post to document the last year, to document my journey of being a widow, to hopefully help anyone in the future who finds this and reads it if it’s still out there on the Interwebs. But also I’m feeling really bitchy about all the loss I’ve endured lately if I could just sit on the couch and watch a couple of good/bad movies and get some knitting done, that’d be great.

Like a Bridge over Troubled Water

This time last year I was getting ready to go to ICFA, when I got a call from my dear friend Lesley. The oncologist had told her there was nothing else that could be done for her, and that she should look into Hospice. I spent the next two weeks (almost immediately joined by our friend Becca) by her side literally almost every minute, advocating for her medical needs in the hospital and trying to get her a bed at our local Hospice, and then staying with her during her last few days there. It was stressful and while yes, there was love and laughter, it was exhausting and painful… but I’d do it all over again. Just like I would do those 100 days with Tim all over again. Loving is my super power, and being there for the ones I love when they most need it – even, especially at the end – is … it’s a gift. I don’t mean a “gift” like perfect pitch or being a good dancer, I mean that it is a gift to me from the universe to be able to assure someone I love, someone who is frightened and in pain, that they’re not alone. That someone is with them, someone will fight to get them what they need be in pain medication or favorite food or a safe place to let go in. The universe allows me to do that and being someone that doesn’t shy from that is such a gift.

But it did knock me off balance this last year, the fourth year, for sure. I’d known Lesley since …. maybe it was 1992? 1993? We were both hired at Barnes & Noble at the same time, here in Gainesville, when they were opening their store in Gainesville (which has since closed, but then a couple of years ago they opened a new store IN THE SAME SHOPPING CENTER and don’t think that Lesley and I didn’t cry laughing at the thought of them calling us to see if we wanted to come back to work). We didn’t always see eye to eye on everything, but we had a deep love for each other that showed up in times of trouble with dark humor and reserves. I still miss her. And I’d still do it all again. As I would for Heath. For Barbara. For Tim.

The World Spins Madly On

I’m missing Tim a lot this week, too. I had a dream a couple of night’s ago of both Heath and Tim……. In my dream they were both there, but I knew in the dream they were both dead. Heath was trying to comfort me and let me know that he’d be there to take care of me after Tim died, and I was so confused and lost because in real life Heath died about eighteen months before Tim died. But in my dream he was so happy that he’d be able to comfort me, my spiritual older brother, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was already dead. Meanwhile, Tim was packing up everything in the house he wanted to take with him when he died… which I also didn’t understand. What is this, Ancient Egypt? I woke up just kind of confused in general.

Was it confusion, though? Or was it vague irritation? Because I kind of feel like “Vague Irritation” could describe my main emotion this last year. That and it would make an awesome band name.

I’ve been irritated at everything and everyone this last year. Irritated at people who steered themselves out of my life. Irritated at Wells Fargo for how long they dragged their feet on letting me pay off my mortgage. Irritated at paying off my mortgage and Tim not being here for it. Irritated at his aunt and uncle for living with us the entire time we lived here so that we never could enjoy this property as being Just Us, and not it’s Just Fucking Me. Irritated at my HVAC people for not telling me I was supposed to get a year’s worth of free filters with my service plan. Irritated by Kroger pulling out of Florida and Hitchcock’s pulling out of Keystone Heights and Winn Dixie dragging their feet on turning the old Hitchcock’s into a grocery store close enough that I don’t have to bring a fucking cooler and ice with me. Irritated at people who promised to do things for me and didn’t. Irritated by people who have asked more of me than I want to give (and if you know how much I willingly give to people, if I don’t WANT to give? There’s a problem and it’s probably not with me.) Irritated by how slow sales have been (but not, NOT irritated by people not spending money – with the tailspin our entire country is in right now, believe me, I grok not wanting to buy anything). Irritated by that tailspin into whatever-the-fuckness is going on with our country. Irritated that my batteries are so low that I feel like if I’m protesting I don’t have the energy to work and if I’m working I don’t have the energy to protest. Irritated about how there seems to be always something wrong with this house or something in it. Irritated by these fucking rats that have infested my yard, irritated by the feral cats not doing their fucking jobs, irritated at myself for being too eco-conscious to use rat poison, and irritated by the owls for not doing their jobs either. Irritated at myself for still not being 100%, health wise, and trying to find a way to live with 75% being the new 100%.

Year Four has been the Year of Irritation, for sure for sure.

But really… has it been? Is it? Is all of that irritation? Or is some of it … deciding what I’m willing to raise hell about, what I’m willing to stand for, what I’m willing to prioritize, and what I’m no longer willing to tolerate? Because some of that, I would more call “finding my voice.” And as you know from previous posts, finding myself in all this wreckage has been a priority lately.

The Sun Again Will Shine

Let me leave you with a little story about yesterday and today.

Ignore all that dust and grime. My car’s maid is on strike.

In January, on the 1st, as I was driving to my aunt and uncle’s for New Year’s Day, my car went haywire. The ABS/4WD/and whatever that light that looks like the car is skidding all over the road came on. The tire pressure light came on, and all three gauges were up and down and all over the place with no relation to whether the car was going or not. My car place kept the car for about five days (holidays and weekends dragged it out) and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I got it back, and things have been uneventful…. until yesterday.

Yesterday while I was driving around Gainesville, three of those lights came on again. Everything else seemed fine, but the car felt… heavy? I’m not sure how to describe it. It felt like I had a good 500lbs of clay in the back… it just had slow pickup and wasn’t too interested in going faster quickly.

Since I was in town, I went ahead and drove to my car repair shop even though it was the middle of the afternoon and I didn’t have an appointment. They had someone there who could hook up the computer and take some readings. While he was doing that, I was talking with the Office Goddess, explaining what had been happening… and I started crying. I apologized, and said that the next day was the four year anniversary of my husband dying, and I was overemotional because of that, and because I felt like I might be crazy when it came to the car if they couldn’t find anything wrong. Why is it doing this? What’s going on with this CARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR????

Anyway, they couldn’t find anything wrong with it, it wasn’t throwing any weird codes, so… sigh. We made some jokes, her and I, about how it was my dead husband poking me the only way he could. Then I drove home. It did stall out at a light at one point, and I got as far as turning the key angrily and yelling “YOU MOTHERFUC–” and it started again, so… I kept going. Jesus Fucking Christ. Cars, amirite?

This morning, she called me soon after they opened. She just wanted to let me know that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me, and she just wanted me to know that I was in her thoughts and that if I needed anything today she was there. And that she hoped I had a peaceful day.

You never know how you’re going to touch people in this world. How much that what might be a small reaching out for you, is huge for someone else. You never know when that small candle you light for someone is going to turn into a lighthouse.

Photographs and Memories

The end of year one; 2023. I gently touched feelings but didn’t get too much into it, which kind of tracks what with that first year being such a kick in the head. Things that helped me that anyone can use (as opposed to my friends, who I’m being selfish about keeping to myself, lol) include Grief Coach (which has been rebranded as Help Texts), books and podcasts by Megan Devine, and books and podcasts by Nora McInerny. If you’re fresh into this grieving thing, check those two women out. What they bring to the world is beautiful and good.

The end of year two; 2024. In retrospect, maybe I was still trying to put on a brave face. I had also shirked a lot of emotions by really throwing myself into planning three trips to the UK for the calendar year 2024, and we all know how that turned out. Septicemia and Covid for the first time really fucked up my bag.

The end of year three; 2025. More honest about feelings. But really mostly trying to survive the Septicemia and Covid and how it tore up my health.

How am I starting into Year Five? This isn’t the life I wanted. This isn’t the life I thought I’d have. But they are the cards which I have been dealt.