For Him ~ For Me

Most anything that you want, girl, is all right by me.

Girl, ‘cause I just wanna make you happy
That’s all I’m tryin’ to do

Yes, I just wanna make you happy

And spend my lifetime with you

Our love for each other was genuine and intense – from the moment we met, ‘til the day his spirit left Earth. Bob’s eyes literally smoldered when they lit on me. I felt cherished. I knew I was loved. Passionately. Intensely. The air surrounding us sparked with the intensity: our love towards each other was tangible. People noticed it.

I always felt blessed and highly favored to have had Bob in my life, and to be loved by him. Exclusively.

My life with Bob seemed extraordinary – Bob made it his mission to please me. In every way. He told me in 1974 that if I married him, I’d never regret it … and I never did. He loved me with a pure and true love. He pampered me. He spoiled me for anyone else. My King bee treated me like his Queen.

Our love for each other humbled me.

Because Bob loved me so unconditionally; so wholly, and with such a purity because he was a good man with a good soul … I became a better person. I wanted to BE a better person.

For him. For me.

Though I had loved Bob from the moment I saw his face, when he pursued me and caught me, I felt undeserving of his attentions. Of his love. His fussing over me confused me – until Bob came into my life and showered me with attention and love, I had never experienced real caring or love that wasn’t shallow. I was happy. I was thrilled. I was scared. I had trust issues Bob had to wade through.

Bob’s love towards me was a whole new experience. I wondered about it. I gloried in it: I loved the passion. I loved him with an intensity that kinda frightened me – but I was not sure how to deal with the intensity of his love: I felt unworthy; I came to Bob with baggage.

He knew I loved him. Deeply. Passionately. But I had serious trust issues that had nothing to do with “us”; and those issues did, on occasion, affect us. Bob was patient. He always told me I was worth the wait. Bob loved me – a difficult woman under any circumstances – effortlessly, purely, and beautifully. Bob was love personified.

I miss the way Bob loved me.

Bob lavished love on me the way women dream of being loved by a man who adores her. Being loved by Bob taught me that love CAN be trusted.

Now, I am finding myself distrusting anyone concerning anything, again. That may be an unfair assessment – but, I am ‘right back there’ again.

Admittedly, I am standing on shaky ground.

My new life began across the Columbia River, in another State, on December 14^th, 2018 at precisely 8:05 a.m. at OHSU in Portland, OR.

My new life started seriously taking shape 45 minutes from home, August 30^th, 2019 at precisely noon; when I laid his cremains in the family cemetery in Eden Valley, WA.

The significance of the moment … though I have been dealing with the seriousness of the situation for months … has set me back some. Where I was making headway, I now find that I have regressed: I am back to stuttering (that started with the onslaught of widowhood). And some days I am paralyzed with unrelenting sneaker waves of raw grief that keeps me off balance. Since August 30^th, it has been a continual ‘1 step forward & 3 steps back’. Simple things are difficult endeavors again. Whole days can pass and I wonder at the end of the day what the heck I did with the day.

I am living with grief.

I don’t like it.

I don’t like that I no longer have control over my life – I have always had control of my life; I did give way on some ground with Bob because I loved Bob and I trusted Bob with the small pieces of my life I allowed him into, but in general I always had a firm grip on my life’s situations & circumstances.

Now, every day seems like I am engaged in a morose game of a pick-up sticks-scenario life. My current life lays scattered in a precarious jumble of shattered pieces I am delicately trying to pick up and form into a workable solo life.

I miss my old life.

The life I had with my husband.

I am living with grief.

I don’t like it.

I feel like I am living a provisional existence that will never be set right again.

And that scares me.

I want to honor my husband’s memory by living with joy those memories gave me.

Fully. With hope that there is light at the end of the grief tunnel.

With some degree of happiness; a half-cup level would be welcome.

But I.D.O.N.T.K.N.O.W.H.O.W.T.O.D.O.T.H.A.T.

My kids want me to come spend time with them during the upcoming holidays season, and I would love to do that. But I also know that my emotions right now are in a vacillating ‘bummer’ mode. I can’t promise a jovial attitude. I am not feeling celebratory – and in truth, I may never feel festal again given the entire Fall & Winter months of 2018 were filled with death watch vigils. I watched my life wither and die from August 30th to December 14^th. Festivity is not on any future dockets that I can foresee in my new life.

I do “get out of my head”. I do get out of the house. I do engage in busy work. I have been to Grief Share meets. I have joined Widow Groups. I have talked with local widows & widowers. And it is disheartening to hear that some of these people have been caught in the life-sucking grip of grief FOR DECADES.

God help me!

I do not want to be tip-toeing trough my life for decades.

I love Bob.

I do not want to replace Bob with another man or with a deliberate erase.

I will always love my husband.

Bob is my forever man.

But I don’t want to be snared and hamstrung by grief for the rest of my life – I do not, for 1 second believe that Bob would want me paralyzed with grief, or crying every day until I am laid beside him in our familial cemetery plot block.

‘Most anything that you want girl’, at this point in time, would just be a reprieve from these unrelenting waves of grief.

So, Babe, if you can hear me … and you can see what I am struggling with in my new life … I would really appreciate some slack in the grieving process.

I can’t rebuild a happy new solo life if I am crippled by the extraordinarily happy life we shared together.

I Love you, Babe.

Always.

But I need some real relief with the grief thing.

OX