This Widows Life
So I am a widow. I am 38 years old. I lost the love of my life to cholangiocarcinoma cancer on February 20th 2017 at 7:20pm. Just 3 months and 1 day after a visit with our primary care physician for some stomach pain.
Here I am, left here on earth to raise our boys. Some days I wake up and think....What the FUCK happened!!!! How did this happen! How did we get HERE! It does feel like I am going out of my mind sometimes.
I don't know how to start a blog. He was the one that always helped me set anything up and make sure the inter webs didn't crash around anything we built. Thats what he did everyday. He had a nickname to someone who knew him well as "Superman" because he was always saving things. Sometimes when the boys ask me how to do something I almost say, "Go ask dad" he always knew how to fix things. He always made things right.
So here I am. 4 months later. A lot has happened during this time. Thinking back to those first few days after he died it is ALL a blur. I am thankful that I had family around me to help make decisions and navigate me through. I don't remember a lot of conversations, or even sleeping. All I remember was I had to get out of there. I had to get out of California...it is what killed him! (thats how I felt at the time) I fled....I ran, I didn't care about getting on a plane which normally throws me in full panic attack mode. I had to leave and take the boys somewhere safe. Which was my mom and step dads home back in NC.
Jerry was cremated. This was not a decision I came to lightly even though others would have thought it logical since he is from NY, I would not be staying in CA and I wouldn't bury him there either. This was a decision that I clearly remember thinking through. One thing that Jerry told me through this short battle was that I was in charge...He trusted every decision that I made because he knew it would be thought out, thorough, and for a good reason. So we left CA, on a plane with Jerry in a plain plastic container because we couldn't bring a regular urn through airport security. I clutched him to my chest, sat on that plane for 5 hours and talked to him. It was the first flight in many years that I was able to be calm.
In the months that have followed I have done a lot. Let me just say this right now, so as you continue to read my posts going forward, you understand ME. I am a DOER, I don't sit around and wait for things to happen. The hardest part in my grief is forcing myself to make time to grieve. I think I am only just beginning that now. I immediately went to my parents house with the boys, and contacted the schools here to get them back in school. I was able to get one in his old high school from when we lived here before, and the other in a great school close by. The list of things that need, or have to get done after a spouse dies is unbelievable. I had to coordinate shipping 3 cars, packing up my house, moving, finding storage, finalize things with his job, file death certificate and send it to a million people, I had to prove over and over again that he was dead, I had to hold that in my hands and see it and it made it real. Finalizing his funeral/memorial in NY (I had lots of help with this), booking flights, finding clothes, getting new medical insurance since we lost ours, finding new doctors, finding counseling, remembering to eat, remembering to check on the boys....I could go on and on. All this had to be done, and I am supposed to be grieving too during this time?? On top of this, I had to figure out where to live. I decided to stay in the same town as my mom and about one month ago we moved into our new home. This began a whole other list of things that needed to be done.
I feel like I have been non stop since 11/19/16. This is the day that Jerry went to his primary care dr. for pain in his side. This is when my life started falling apart. This amazing life that we had....was slipping through my fingers. I had to become superwoman, I had to become a nurse, and a advocate for his care, all while getting through the holidays so scared that it would be his last. I had to navigate how to tell the kids that daddy is sick, and how to talk to Jerry about how serious it was. He didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted medicine and to get better. There was no talking about it. I watched him get stuck, and poked, and scanned, and bleeding, throwing up, weak, scared, crying. I sat next to him in the hospital for 10 days straight, I had to sit there as the doctors told us and our children that he was not getting better. I held my 9 year old as he cried for daddy, I had to get off of the floor crying so that I could say goodbye to my 45 year old husband. I watched as his children kissed him, I listened to his last breaths and I heard his heart stop as he died in my arms.
No one should ever have to experience this pain. It is a pain so deep that it physically feels like your heart is broken. I am a widow now. Every widows journey is different, I am learning that as I read books, and blogs, and Facebook group posts. I look at life in a completely different way now that he is gone. I am creating this blog to be completely honest and transparent about what my journey is like and what it will become. I love you Jerry <3
Here I am, left here on earth to raise our boys. Some days I wake up and think....What the FUCK happened!!!! How did this happen! How did we get HERE! It does feel like I am going out of my mind sometimes.
I don't know how to start a blog. He was the one that always helped me set anything up and make sure the inter webs didn't crash around anything we built. Thats what he did everyday. He had a nickname to someone who knew him well as "Superman" because he was always saving things. Sometimes when the boys ask me how to do something I almost say, "Go ask dad" he always knew how to fix things. He always made things right.
So here I am. 4 months later. A lot has happened during this time. Thinking back to those first few days after he died it is ALL a blur. I am thankful that I had family around me to help make decisions and navigate me through. I don't remember a lot of conversations, or even sleeping. All I remember was I had to get out of there. I had to get out of California...it is what killed him! (thats how I felt at the time) I fled....I ran, I didn't care about getting on a plane which normally throws me in full panic attack mode. I had to leave and take the boys somewhere safe. Which was my mom and step dads home back in NC.
Jerry was cremated. This was not a decision I came to lightly even though others would have thought it logical since he is from NY, I would not be staying in CA and I wouldn't bury him there either. This was a decision that I clearly remember thinking through. One thing that Jerry told me through this short battle was that I was in charge...He trusted every decision that I made because he knew it would be thought out, thorough, and for a good reason. So we left CA, on a plane with Jerry in a plain plastic container because we couldn't bring a regular urn through airport security. I clutched him to my chest, sat on that plane for 5 hours and talked to him. It was the first flight in many years that I was able to be calm.
In the months that have followed I have done a lot. Let me just say this right now, so as you continue to read my posts going forward, you understand ME. I am a DOER, I don't sit around and wait for things to happen. The hardest part in my grief is forcing myself to make time to grieve. I think I am only just beginning that now. I immediately went to my parents house with the boys, and contacted the schools here to get them back in school. I was able to get one in his old high school from when we lived here before, and the other in a great school close by. The list of things that need, or have to get done after a spouse dies is unbelievable. I had to coordinate shipping 3 cars, packing up my house, moving, finding storage, finalize things with his job, file death certificate and send it to a million people, I had to prove over and over again that he was dead, I had to hold that in my hands and see it and it made it real. Finalizing his funeral/memorial in NY (I had lots of help with this), booking flights, finding clothes, getting new medical insurance since we lost ours, finding new doctors, finding counseling, remembering to eat, remembering to check on the boys....I could go on and on. All this had to be done, and I am supposed to be grieving too during this time?? On top of this, I had to figure out where to live. I decided to stay in the same town as my mom and about one month ago we moved into our new home. This began a whole other list of things that needed to be done.
I feel like I have been non stop since 11/19/16. This is the day that Jerry went to his primary care dr. for pain in his side. This is when my life started falling apart. This amazing life that we had....was slipping through my fingers. I had to become superwoman, I had to become a nurse, and a advocate for his care, all while getting through the holidays so scared that it would be his last. I had to navigate how to tell the kids that daddy is sick, and how to talk to Jerry about how serious it was. He didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted medicine and to get better. There was no talking about it. I watched him get stuck, and poked, and scanned, and bleeding, throwing up, weak, scared, crying. I sat next to him in the hospital for 10 days straight, I had to sit there as the doctors told us and our children that he was not getting better. I held my 9 year old as he cried for daddy, I had to get off of the floor crying so that I could say goodbye to my 45 year old husband. I watched as his children kissed him, I listened to his last breaths and I heard his heart stop as he died in my arms.
No one should ever have to experience this pain. It is a pain so deep that it physically feels like your heart is broken. I am a widow now. Every widows journey is different, I am learning that as I read books, and blogs, and Facebook group posts. I look at life in a completely different way now that he is gone. I am creating this blog to be completely honest and transparent about what my journey is like and what it will become. I love you Jerry <3
Comments
Post a Comment