Nothing Left but the Crying

“Sometimes, crying is the only way your eyes can speak when your mouth can’t explain how broken your heart is.”

                                                                                                                              Unknown

         I do not remember crying much in the weeks after my husband died. In the last few weeks of his life, it became obvious he would not make it to another birthday.  He had been told after almost 3 years of fighting to live he was dying of liver failure. His doctors told him to get his affairs in order and sent him home with a time frame of 2 to 6 months to live. Once he was given this diagnosis, he died soon after. The irony is the very treatments that kept him alive and his cancer from progressing, eventually, lead to his death. from liver failure.

       Although we were told he had 2 to 6 months to live, there was a part of me that still did not believe it would happen that soon. After all, he had beat the odds when he was first diagnosed. with stage 4 cancer. His doctors did not give us a time frame of how much life he had left or the stage of his cancer. I guess they did not want us to lose hope before he started treatment. It was about 2 years into his treatment when his doctors told us how he had amazed them. His doctors said they had expected him to die within 6 months, but now he was hitting the 2-year mark. In the back of my mind, I truly believed he might again outlive their prediction, but within a month of being given a timeline, he passed.

    So many onlookers speculate if one lives alongside a loved one with a terminal illness, they are prepared for the death of the loved one. They speculate knowing ahead of time their death is coming prepares you but one is never fully prepared for the death of someone you love, even when you are told they are terminally ill. For me, I did not cry a great deal right after my husband’s death, because I had seen my husband become just a shell of who he was as a human being. I knew he never wanted to live like that. My reaction at that time was a normal reaction I later learned. It is a kind of denial of what was happening before my eyes.

      Another reason I did not cry a lot when he first passed, was there was so much to do preparing for his memorial service, I had to figure out where it would be and when to hold it so his close family members could attend. They needed time to plan and travel from where they were living to be at his service.  Although we had discussed some of the things he wanted for this service, there we still many details left up to me. The business of trying to organize a memorial service for him was a distraction from my feelings at times. This too was also the time so many people called and offered their support for me and my daughters so there was usually someone around or just a phone call away to distract me from my reality at least during the day. People did a lot during this initial time to show their love and support for me and the girls. At night when I climbed into bed was a different story. It was often at this time that my deepest sorrows came, but with it also came the exhaustion of trying to keep it together during the day.  I also think the shock and realization of what happened had not really hit. Even though we had known for months this day was coming, we were still in no way prepared for it.

     At the memorial service, Tears did not seem to be the order of the day, since this was a day to honor Rob. Instead, we shared the laughter and love of my late husband through stories. People stood up and told stories of how Rob had affected their lives with his joy for life. It was a beautiful service. I left there feeling so much support from the people who were there. Some people there were unexpected, including my banker and our Librarian whose lives Rob had touched with his humor. Rob was able to make friends easily and our close friends, over the years included our propane delivery man, a sailboat designer who help Rob design a free sailing model sailboat as well as a furniture maker with whom Rob traded an antique Alfa Romeo back and forth with for years.  It truly was a day to remember good times, even though we had all been brought together as a result of the death of my husband. We left with a feeling of love and hopefulness that day,

     It was only after the Memorial service was over and the calls of condolence stopped coming, did tears truly start to fall. After all, there was little to distract me from the gaping hole in my everyday life!  It was only then it became obvious everyone else’s life would go back to normal., but ours would not. This was when the loneliness and the reality he was truly gone came to haunt my days. The feelings of grief would wash over me like a wave. By this time the memorial service felt like it had happened long ago. My daughters and my life could not go back to normal,, Things would never be the same again. Grief would now, always be there somewhere in the background, even though its string would become fainter in time.

Grief will continue to hit you in waves, Sometimes at the most unexpected times. At first, the waves of grief happened when I was alone with time to think. The first 6 months were the most difficult time of my life. Even though I had lost my grandfather as a teenager, my mother in my 20ties, and my brother in my forties, the grief of losing my husband I felt was much deeper than any I had known. I had lost my anchor to my life and my future with it. At first, I cried a lot when I was left alone, including in my car on way home from work. because I was returning to an empty house. Other times my tears would come down randomly when something so simple would bring back a memory of my husband. Even now there will be times, grief will punch me in the gut, but now I have the experience to know this is going to happen and I can process it quicker than in the past. I no longer try to fight it but have learned to feel it and move through it much more rapidly. I no longer expect it to leave for good. I know it is an unwanted visitor I must deal with.

     The realization my normal would never be the same, as well as the feeling of being alone came together with the frustration of feeling as though no one could truly get it. I did not feel others were uncaring, just that they could not get it unless they had lost their spouse. Many people tried to understand and be supportive. My longing for the life I once had was so strong the sadness of it overtook so much of my thoughts in the beginning. I even grieved for the life of going to cancer treatments, doctors’ appointments, and visits to the hospital. They seemed more desirable than living without my husband.                   

     At first, I found it hard to go to bed at night without his warm body near me. Although, unlike so many others who when grieving can not sleep, I did fall asleep.  Although it was difficult waking up and then realizing all I had lost, I did still manage to get out of bed in the morning and get dressed, because my two daughters needed me to be their mom. By the time most days ended I was exhausted from fighting back the tears. This exhaustion often came with forgetting important things which made my days even more difficult to handle. I needed a plan for handling my grief and how much time it would take in my life.   This is when I first began to create a simple plan for getting my life back together. It did not happen all at once, but I created steps I could take at each stage of my grieving process. Although my plans did not always work out as scheduled, they did help me to make some progress every day.

I started by planning a time to grieve everyday. It did not mean I would not cry or grieve unexpectedly at times, However, it gave me a way to take some control over when these emotions were released.  Once this time was over I moved on with the rest of my day. My daughter’s doctor had given us this advice, This piece of advice was one of the best pieces of advice I received at the beginning of the grieving process. It was the first step in the long process of dealing with my grief.

     Initially, this was hard to do, because the loss was still so new and so many things set off the cycle of crying. Often, we may be holding it together for other people or we are afraid of falling apart. Giving myself a scheduled time and safe place allows me to release my feelings. Doing this gave me a way to fall apart, but not let it take over my life. It made it easier to hold it together when crying would not be appropriate behavior as well as a time and place for me to freely release my feelings so that they do not come tumbling out in a torrent at unexpected moments because I had been holding my grief inside. Granted I still had times when that unexpectedly happened, but this reduced the likelihood and gave me back some control over my grief.

In time I no longer need a special place and time to grieve, because began to understand that I can not go back. The grief was still there but it took up less time and space in my life. For me, this happened when I was able to stop labeling things before Rob’ died or after he died. Once I built a history of memories without him is when I no longer needed set times to grieve. Now I often even have to think was Rob alive when this or that happened. Feeling that way now feels right and normal. I realize he would want it that way and he would not want me to continue to be defined by his passing. Now I realize doing this honors him and his will to live. He will never be forgotten and his exuberance for life is the goal of how I try to now live mine. For this, I will forever be grateful to him so in this way, he is always still a presence in my life and will always be!