Thiswidowlife

March 27, 2008 - 2:10am 6lbs 8oz ❤️ I wished for you for a long time. My heart was bursting as you made your way into this world. We thought we were so ready for you. We had all the clothes, gadgets, baby contraptions and tools that we needed to make sure you had all that you wanted. But you didn’t need any of that, you just needed us. Our family of 3 was now the four of us. An 8 year old brother who was so proud to have that role, a dad who melted at the sight of you and a mom who loved you before you were even conceived. You completed me. You are my baby Jay. You always have been and always will be. You bring so much Joy to my life. You are smart, whitty, persistent, inquisitive, brave and strong. Those last two are traits that you have had to lean on these past few years. I have gotten a lot of my strength from you, in ways you wouldn’t even know. Your smile, and sarcasm are my favorite parts of you. Or when you show me something you have done and you get this proud look on yo...

I needed to write this as if I am writing a letter to my Jerry. I needed to get these words out of my head. Sometimes I feel like in doing this, that I am speaking to him, or that he can hear me. Jerry, It was December 22 nd 2016. We were on the couch in our living room. You were laying down and feeling pretty bad. I had been checking your oxygen, and giving you the antibiotics that were prescribed because you had fluid in your lungs. We were watching TV and talking in between about the kids and Christmas. We talked about the things that I had bought for them and I was filling you in…..Let me back track a minute. I remember in the days before I was driving to Rite Aid, talking to my mom and my sister about how there were stories of people with tumors on their liver, and it was not cancer. I vividly recall standing in the parking lot of that store, with so much hope in my heart. Yearning for my mom or sister to be there to hold my hand, and hold me up. ...

In "This Widow Life" of mine, I have met many other widows. We are all going through the same loss, but how our loss happened is not the same. Some lost their husband from a car accident, suicide, heart attack, cancer. I think that there are different traumas associated with the different losses. I am not saying that any of them are worse than the other. They are all horrible, and losing your spouse is trauma enough, no matter how it happens. We deal with our grief, and the waves of it. The ups and downs, the emotion, the tears. There is no book that says "This is what to do when you lose your husband" or "This is how to live after he is gone" We navigate This Widow Life as best we can. Jerry had liver and bile duct cancer. Stage 4....So his battle was swift and he died 8 weeks after diagnosis. Things happened so quickly in those few months especially the last 11 days. When he was admitted to the hospital on 2/9/17 I had no idea he would be gone by...

I want to talk about my boys. I want to try to express what they mean to me. Not just as a proud mom, but as a widow. My boys are 18 and 10. Jay (The youngest), was one month shy of turning 9 when Jerry died, and Tyler had just turned 17 the month before. I have never been able to put myself in their shoes during this time to understand their grief. I have tried, I have worried, I have cried and held them. I have looked upon their tear streamed faces as they watched people talk about who their Dad was to them, and what he meant to them. Inside, I have no idea how they were grasping that fact that he was gone...forever. Lets talk about Tyler. My first born, my rock, my blue eyed boy (I mean young man). He is quiet, and does not outwardly show his feelings. He is not emotional, well at least to most of the world. In the last few days of Jerrys life, he stepped up. He was there, he insisted on being in the ICU with Jerry and held his hand. He held his brother the moments a...

What you are missing.... He’s 18 now and just as amazing as you would expect him to be. We raised an unbelievable kid who is now a man. He is respectful, kind, gentle, motivated, smart, and ready for his future. He doesn’t talk about it but I know everything he does is from an inspiration from you. He knows as much as I do how hard you worked and that hard work pays off. He watched you all those years and respected your work ethic. He knew you did what you love and he is chasing that dream. He’s a looks after his mom, just as I am sure you would have told him to. He misses you...bad. He doesn’t have to say it but I see that he does. You instilled unbelievable things in his young man and I know you would be so proud. And now the 10 year old...your legacy, your namesake. The last time you saw him he was still 8. He is still my baby, still cuddling every chance he gets and telling me how much he loves me many times a day. Of course he is smart but he’s a secret g...

It is Valentines Day.  I think of Jerry and how much we loved each other. I also smile and even laugh thinking about some of the Valentines days that he would forget to get me card, or to make a reservation. I could never get mad because he would make a joke and make me smile, and he ALWAYS made up for it. Him forgetting, had nothing to do with how he felt about me. He worked so hard all the time, and he would just lose track of it. He knew, and I knew, that chocolates and flowers did not represent our love. Our life did. Yes he would buy me flowers, and we would have a romantic evening together, but our love was our life . Our children, and our smiles reflected that.  Last year on this day he was in the hospital and was and out of sleep most of the day. I had gone home to see the boys for an hour or so, and shower. When I came back to the hospital, I showed him the card that Tyler and Jay bought me. He said "oh babe, I didn't know it was Valentines Day I didn't get ...

This past year has taught me a lot. I talk about it all the time. I am different, changed, not the same person I was before. Grief does that. It rips at your inner core, the bottom of your soul, and pulls all of who you are out of you, thrown into a blender and tossed in the air. Then you have to kind of stand there with a bucket and catch what is left of you hope that some things have stayed in tact.  When Jerry died, I felt so lost. when you lose your husband and you have kids, it deepens the sadness, and heartache, because not only are you grieving for yourself, you are grieving for them too. I look back and I know that some things I have done or said in the last year with my boys has not been the ideal way to do things when someone dies. But who said I have to do it a certain way? Everyone is different in how they feel, grieve, and grow. It is hard for me to talk to my boys about their grief. It literally feels like my insides are being ripped out when I have a conversati...

What can I say to 2017.... You brought me pain, sorrow, tears, loss,heartbreak, devastation, confusion, grief, anger, made me a widow. But also I had strength, resilience, hope, smiles, purpose, and fight.  This was the worst year of my life, but it has changed me. I can’t change losing Jerry. I can’t bring him back, and I miss him EVERY day. My heart aches for him. But I am not the same woman I was for the last 39 years. 2017 changed me. I am looking to the future, living and loving each day the the fullest. Becoming stronger and more independent than I ever thought I could be. My children have been through hell and back with me and we are going to have a year of positive things. Tyler turns 18, graduates HS and will start College, Jay will turn 10, I will turn 40. I will start a new career and find new self by not moving on, but moving forward. I never imagined being here at this point in my life. I never thought I would have to walk through this fire, but I am starti...

Christmas is a week away. I have pretty much gotten all of the shopping done, my home is decorated beautifully, and I even hosted a party last weekend. I am going through this month on auto pilot. Trying not to think about last year, how hard this month was for us. The dates are looming ahead of me, reminding me of the scariest days of my life. Yet, I somehow have been able to pull off finishing my pre licensing course for real estate, shopped for christmas, and spend time with my friends and the boys...all by myself. But I have been doing this for a long time, I have not been giving myself credit for taking charge of my life. Jerry and I always said we were a team and we truly were. We always made decisions together. Making sure we checked with the other one before making a final decision on a lot of things. Obviously I am the only one left to do this now, he is not here for me to ask what he thinks about it. I made a lot of decisions in the first few months after Jerry died, mostly b...

Few people close to me know this. So I guess here it is for you all to hear.  When people die the ones they love tend to look for signs, when they think their loved one is there with them, or moments when they say they feel them. They say cardinals, butterflies, etc are signs that they are near. I have struggled with this after Jerry died. You see, I always believed that if someone that close to me died, that they would be able to send me signals or make sure I felt them there. But after he died...he was just gone. He was the urn that I clutched in my arms in a 6 hour plane right to NC. He was the smell of his clothes and cologne. He was in Jays eyes. But I didn’t “feel” him.  I have had lengthy conversations with my mother about how I don’t feel him. In a nutshell she has told me that if I want to feel him I will, or if I truly say it and look for him, he will be there. I told her that I am too skeptical and really felt like he is just gone and cannot give me sig...

Go ahead and cry These are the hardest times for me.  There have only been a few. You cry out for him, and I cry with you.  What am I supposed to say, When your squeezing the bear made from his shirt. I wipe your tears, wishing I could take away the hurt.  Your scared and you are lonely. Emotions that you shouldn’t have to feel.  Your only Nine years old and all of this is so real.  I wish I could turn back time, and change the past. I wish I could make it so this pain wouldn’t last. I will hold you baby, because I can’t tell you why, I love you my son, just go ahead and cry. 

Jerry, There are days when the feeling of missing you is so overwhelming. It hurts in my chest, in my gut, in my soul. I feel lost, empty and sad. There are no words to explain how I feel. My heart, my life, shattered in pieces on the floor.  Your touch, your smile, your laughter. Wanting to touch your face, and feel your heart beating in your chest. You telling me that you would be alright....and now you have been gone for 8 months.  I call out to you sometimes, I touch your face in a picture frame, I look for you in the sky. You left me here alone to raise our boys and sometimes I am so lost in the dark that I cannot see the light.  I have dark days, moments, seconds. Still so haunted by the last few months of your life. Guilt, unanswered questions, anger. Why.....Why. I had a moment yesterday when I realized how much I am still so haunted by this. How I have not found peace in so many things left unsaid or undone. I am searching for that peace. I am trying t...

I woke up this morning after a particularly weird dream about getting into a car accident. The dream was so vivid that I remember feeling what it was like in the car as it flipped over and over, then waking up in the hospital. I was ok, but hurt. Waking up from that dream started my day in a slump. I had already planned to go and pick up the trampoline that I ordered for the boys from the sporting goods store. They were so excited when they heard that I was going to pick it up. On the way to the store I was listening to my Spotify on shuffle, and of course some of my sad songs that remind me of Jerry always end up playing when I do that. I was singing and the tears started to flow...and then they would not stop. I parked the car and cried....and cried. I ended up crying for 30 minutes, and I did not know why today was making me feel this way, but it was. I was so sad, and then mad and then sad. My emotions where out of control. These ups and downs are so hard. Today I was feeling p...

This is my favorite time of year. I love when the mornings are crisp and chilly, and the leaves start turning beautiful colors before they fall from their branches. I have always enjoyed and embraced the Fall. Sweaters, boots, warm meals made in my crockpot. Something about this weather gives me a sense of warmth and peace....but its hard to feel that way now. I feel like I am pulled in two directions. My natural instinct is to smile and enjoy this change of seasons. It gives me nostalgia because the last two Fall seasons we lived in California and it has been a few years since I have been in NC for Fall. It brings me back to the years that we lived here and were so happy. Our family of four...living our life, enjoying the season. We would go to pumpkin farms, and the state fair. We would decorate, and cook, and start shopping for Christmas presents for the boys. These are all things that I am inclined to do this year, but the weight of doing it without Jerry is almost unbearable. Ja...

Is this what is left of you? Your things just packed in boxes, as if they will be unpacked and put away in a closet to be worn, or used? I am supposed to open up these boxes and do something with your things...but I wont do anything with them. Instead, I will neatly fold each and every one of your shirts, taking care to button each button, and smooth the collar as I go. One particular shirt still has the sleeves rolled, just like you wore it last. Your things have been in boxes for almost 7 months, but yet I can still smell you. I can smell a faint scent of that cologne you would wear that I so loved to smell when I kissed your neck. I pulled out the zip up jacket that you wore for most of your Dr. appointments and Chemo infusions. You were so thin, and it fit you and didn't make you look as frail as you were underneath. Neat folded piles....that is what is left. Decisions on what to do with them someday. Will your dad want your suits? Will the boys want some of your shirts? Neatly...

You said you would always be there for me You said we had forever together We were supposed to grow old together You said we had so much time  Now I have to learn to be without you.  I have to find my way without you Live another day without you.  How do I love without you?  We said we would love, for better or worse. But you never said the worse would be me without you  You said you would be ok but your eyes told me that you didn't have much time.  N ow I have to learn to be without you.  I have to find my way without you Live another day without you.  How do I love without you?  I've gotta figure it all out without you  Carry it all without you  Get through the dark without you Keep my heart beating without you  How do I do this....without you?