I’d like to blame this afternoon’s
burning eyes and punk feeling on widowhood – but that wouldn’t be a truth. The
truth is that I have always been an insomniac and counting midnight sheep never
helped the sandman find his way to me. Could be the poker hand I drew in the
game of life, or it could be the fallout of living in a highly dysfunctional family
unit from birth to the day I got married. Doesn’t really matter.
What does matter is that I have not
slept a lick for the past 2 days.
The current bout with insomnia is
tinged with the broken edges of widowhood though, and this is the crappiest
bout of insomnia I have ever had to stagger through. Insomnia and
widowhood are both difficult walks of life regardless of your personal and particular
reasons to be experiencing either.
To be totally truthful, I do have to admit that I slept for 13 hours STRAIGHT Wednesday
evening: went to bed early – 5:30 p.m. – with a ferocious headache and didn’t
wake up again until 6:30 a.m … not even a quick potty trip down the hall ;-) I
had been feeling punk all week, and I guess the punkiness peaked Wednesday
evening. So yesterday I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; and didn’t sleep a
lick all night long :-( This is fairly typical of my DNA, and my husband came
to understand that I was, by DNA, a bona fide night-owl who would consistently
soar during the twilight and midnight hours for days on end, and then crash
heavily for the better part of a day before catching the updraft and making it
fairly normally through the rest of the month’s days. It had always been like
this for me. And it became our norm throughout our 44 years together. The electric
bills could be staggering!
Gotta find a way to curb that natural bent now,
and drastically curb the electric usage. One way I have done that recently
since he left this earth, and the Social Security Administration cut his
benefits by 25%, is to locate the correct box and unpack (Yes! There are still boxes we had not yet gotten around to unpacking
since we moved into this place) the little battery operated headlamp he
bought for me 12 years ago for nighttime chicken coop checks while letting my
wolf out for her nightly romps and duty calls when we were living on our
country acreage on Westside Highway; I loved my man for his loving thoughtfulness
– he was always thinking of me and ways to make things easier for me. I miss
that now. And I use the headlamp for insomnia book readings in bed now. It not
only eliminates the need for electricity while reading, but in a way I cannot
put into words, the presence of the headlamp is like having a small piece of
him in bed with me still; when I turn on that headlamp, I see clearly his
twinkling eyes and slow sexy smile. I miss him alongside me in our huge california
king-sized bed.
Help me, Yeshua.
Whereas insomnia is not a new thing to me,
widowhood is. And I am trying to come to terms with it, as I did with insomnia:
but unlike insomnia, widowhood has never been part of my DNA – it was suddenly
thrust upon me and I am not sure yet how to deal with it.
Widowhood is worse that dry sandy eyes, worse
than a ferocious headache, worse than a sour stomach; it is beyond painful. No
words can ever adequately describe the feeling. No workbook or support group actions
can explain the meaning behind the word that now describes my life. I have been
changed as a person and can’t put a decisive finger on exactly how I have been
changed – all I know for sure is that I will never be the same person I was
before December 14th, 2018.
I am still a wife … and yet; not. I still deeply
and passionately love a man who no longer walks this earth – but I see him as
clearly as the day I married him, as clearly as the days he held our daughter,
granddaughter, and grandson so tenderly in his big, gentle hands. I see him as
clearly as I did in the months he struggled to stay alive for my sake – and as clearly
as the last breath he ever took this side of Heaven: and I was thanking Elohim
for my insomnia every one of those endlessly sleepless nights, even though they
were hard nights to get through. Sleep did not rob me of those precious moments
fleeting too quickly – and yet painfully moving forward so slowly. When those
endless nights ended I had been bumped from wife
to widow in a heartbeat. It happened
so suddenly that I was momentarily startled that I had been bumped: my identity
and place in this life forever changed.
There are the obvious pitfalls of grieving … sorrow,
rapid mood swings, exhaustion, loss of identity, feelings of uselessness; and
so much more that words cannot be put to because they are indescribable. These
are the things people talk about most often. These are the things written about
in self-help workbooks for the Grief~Share Meets, factors in fallout behavior,
the social norm, and the expected. But there is another part of widowhood that
the grieving would never expect – we, who are grieving, now live in a glass
house of grief.
We are judged for how we grieve.
Regardless of your kind of loss people are going
to tell you that you are doing it wrong, you should be doing it differently,
and they know the way to properly grieve better than you do. They will fill you
with platitudes, useless comments and countless books you are told that you
should read to help you find your path forward.
We should not be judged as to how we process our
pain – but we will be. People can’t help themselves in their rush to
pontificate.
Let me tell you a little of how I deal with my
new life status.
When my husband stepped off this planet we were
Seniors, though we didn’t think of ourselves as ‘old’ - I was 61 years old & he was 69 years old, and we couldn’t
understand why every doctor was treating him and talking to him as if he were
an old man; he didn’t even act old or really look old even on his deathbed.
When he took his last breath and I came back to the home we had shared, I turned
all of my energy to taking care of business on the home-front; the tying up of
loose ends to give me hope, and to help me make it through just one more day.
I probably worked harder at it than I should have
but it was the only time of the day I felt normal.
It was the only time of the day I was not
overwhelmed with the reality of my new reality.
It was my saving grace; and exactly what I needed
at that heartbreaking point of my life.
For this behavior, I was judged. By those who
claim to love me.
Here’s the kicker: most of the things
people commonly judge on I wasn’t doing:
I didn’t stumble through my days on a drunken
haze
I didn’t turn to drugs – not even pharmaceutical
drugs
I didn’t go out and party hardy – I didn’t go out
of the house at all for weeks
I didn’t stop eating – I was well fed with at
least 1 healthy meal a day
I kept myself clean – I practiced healthy personal
hygiene
I didn’t become an emotionless zombie – I read books
and sang songs
I didn’t become careless - my home was safe
I didn’t alter my daily routine – I kept my daily
routine as regular as it could be, given all I had experienced at hospitals and
the downtown Social Security Office, where the shocks were fairly equal in the
emotional shocks given and withstood.
However … here is where I freely
admit that I failed in the eyes of others:
I pretty much stopped communication
with everyone unless forced to talk with them. I just did not have the energy
it took to have contact with family members, loving friends, and business
talking heads – at times it was more than I could bare just to get the
necessities out of the way.
As much as I could, I removed myself from social
situations that I found painful. Candy, I could not and cannot avoid. But I do
look for ways to get around contact with her.
I have always had a very small threshold for
anyone’s bullshit, and the threshold is shrinking even smaller now. I am a
survivor. That survival mode honed early on in my life – even before my life
was joined to my husband’s life – led to my own level of thriving. My thriving
often looked different than our society would classify as thriving, but for me,
I was rocking my life, even if only in survival mode.
For the first time in my entire life, I was faced
with being truly alone, and I began to take scary tentative steps to live a
solo life, not sure of my footing and a bit scared of making wrong choices that
would govern the rest of my earthly life: where we used to make joint decisions
on which direction to take, now I am walking our path alone and I have no clear
direction as of yet. But one thing I do
know … my husband loved living life, and by continuing forward as he would
have if he were still among the living here in earth, I honor him; and honoring
him honors us. We both trusted Elohei to guide our footsteps, and so I am
seeking that same guidance now. I need it
more than ever before.
Widows never get over a great loss; we absorb it,
and it shapes who we are, and who we become.
I learned early on to do what is right for me on
this personal wilderness experience.
I love to talk about my husband - and I find
peace in saying his name. That’s my choice inside my glass house; it makes me happy
not to feel the need to purge him like he never existed. Rather I’ve decided to
keep his memory alive and allow it to shape my beautiful future. A future he
will still be very much a part of, though it has been forever altered by his
physical absence.
Regardless of how we conduct ourselves … or how
we do not conduct ourselves, widows will be judged.
We now live in a glass house. And every passerby feels
free to stare and take a long look through our walls, and make piously suggestive
comments.
Every move a widow makes will be questioned, examined,
and well-aimed nuggets of earnest wisdom will be thoughtlessly thrown at you
for your own good. People won’t expect you to be okay – though they will keep asking
if you are okay – and they will look for ... and find ... any crack in your composure to say you are
not. If you live in survival mode, they say you are in shock and out of touch
with reality. If you have a particularly bad day and crumble under the exhaustion
of trying to maintain composure while trying to stay upright on shaky ground,
they will say you are weak and losing ground.
Is this a fair assessment – NO
Is this the reality of an insensitive society –
YES
Widows can expect this behavior from nearly anyone
who has never walked our path. Those who have never had their hearts cut in two
cannot imagine your unspeakable, traumatic pain; and they don’t understand how
you can function in the midst of the constant undulating and searing pain of it.
Any action or comment on your part will be scrutinized
and judged. If your bullshit meter reaches its bullshit limit, you will be perceived
as an insensitive bitch. If you decide to avoid the bullshit sandpits and
sidestep them on safer ground, you will be perceived as an insensitive bitch.
Bullshitter’s and those who stand in solidarity with bullshitter’s will always
view you as a menace no matter what you do.
However.
While there is nothing you can do about that
reality … remember that other people’s perception of you – and about you is not your reality. You don’t have to
accept their judgment, and it does not have to make you as inimical as they are.
Give those who judge you grace and forgive them for what they can’t possibly,
or are unwilling, to understand.
That does not mean you have to accept their
behavior – perhaps it would be better for everyone concerned to place a comfortable
distance contact to allow you the
time you need as you figure out your steps
forward. No one else gets to dictate your steps. You get that right. It is, after all, your life.
Judgment is part of human nature and when you
accept that often peoples’ own insecurities play a large role in the judgment
of others – you make your walls impermeable to their nuggets, even if you can’t
stop their stares.
You define you.
You must walk this road alone and in a way and
length of time that takes you forward.
There is no rulebook to fit all scenarios. All
books are authored by people putting their own agendas forward … write your own
chapters that will guide your own life.
There is no right or wrong direction for those
who grieve.
There is no correct time frame.
Own your
glass house.
Reinforce your walls for the nuggets that will inescapably
come your way. Don’t let the opinionated shards shape who you are or who you
become.
And, if like me, you too deal with consistent
and constant insomnia that is now tinged with the sharp broken edges of
widowhood, remember that though you are alone, you are never really alone.
