Evalina's first birthday is drawing near, and the 4th month since we lost her Daddy. You can gauge a bit how I'm doing by the frequency of postings. I'm living day by day, and some days hour by hour. Overall I'm hanging in there.
I'm still dancing every week. I'm making some new friends there and starting to get out on the floor a bit more, which is what I wanted. I'm running with more consistency, and my run stretches are getting longer. Which is, of course, what I want. My career, well, that's stagnated. Eventually I'll get back to my education so I can move it forward.
How's my emotional state? I've been doing a lot of reading. On the train to NYC Eva actually took a decent nap for me so I could read a bit. On the train home, not so much. I've stopped trying to pump for her (sorry TMI, it's just baby food). That was my time to read, at the office. During that time when I was still desperately trying to hang on and make it work I could read, and read I did. I've talked before about my most important takeaway: Healing on MY timeline and nobody else's. The second most important takeaway: You NEVER fully heal from the death of your spouse, you only learn to live differently. It's always there, and I'm learning at least today to wear it as a badge of honor.
Let me explain. It's Memorial Day in the US, and a fellow widow posted about her husband and not feeling like she has to hide her broken. It dawned on me: Jesse was always so proud to be a steward for other cancer patients. When a friend of a friend received the same diagnosis as him, he was on the phone that night to say "I'm here and I understand. Let's talk." When he saw a lady at church wearing a bandana he was the first to introduce himself and say "You can do this". He was introduced to another lady at our church who had a benign tumor removed, but felt still that he needed to build fellowship with her and her family. We are regular donors still to St. Jude's Hospital.
But while he was out in the world seeking out others to relate to, I was hiding from it. I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to hide my head in the sand and pretend it didn't exist. I didn't want to be reminded of how it felt when he was diagnosed. I didn't want to be reminded of his treatments, his MRI's, the "scanxiety". It wasn't until he relapsed that I was wanting to research, and reach out to others who'd been there, and talk about it. I felt like a coward. I'm so amazingly proud of his strength, not only in his battle, but in being there for others facing the same.
I feel like, I need to do something with that. I'm not sure yet what, but maybe just pick up where he left off and be a steward for caregivers. Becoming a researcher for glioblastoma may be a bit beyond my reach, as well as a hospice counselor, but volunteering as someone to be there for people like me, that I can do. Sometimes even someone with a certification, a job title, is not helpful. Sometimes all I wanted was to talk to someone who'd been there to say, "How do you cope?" I still don't have a great answer for that one, other than continuing to put one foot in front of the other.
I still don't understand why we were chosen for this battle when we still had so much life to live. When someone dies, you don't just grieve the loss of that person, but the loss of what should have been. We wanted more children. We wanted to travel. At least for me, I wanted the mundane. The day to day, go to work, come home, have dinner, and have a daily routine TOGETHER that did NOT involve endless amounts of chemo pills and anti-seizure medications. We wanted of course the anniversaries, to look back and say "Look at that life we lived together!" We wanted to colonize Mars. Okay, maybe that one's a little silly, but you get the idea. I can still do some of these things alone, but that's not the point. We were supposed to do them together, and with Evalina, as a family. So now, I have to find my new purpose.
I still have a lot of rage, sometimes even towards God, that this is the path I've been put on. Why me? Why him? Why our innocent daughter, and why his family who already lost his sister before him? But today I started to question, how can I use this for a greater purpose? I'll never understand why us, but maybe I can learn to be able to say to someone else, you are not alone.
I'm still dancing every week. I'm making some new friends there and starting to get out on the floor a bit more, which is what I wanted. I'm running with more consistency, and my run stretches are getting longer. Which is, of course, what I want. My career, well, that's stagnated. Eventually I'll get back to my education so I can move it forward.
How's my emotional state? I've been doing a lot of reading. On the train to NYC Eva actually took a decent nap for me so I could read a bit. On the train home, not so much. I've stopped trying to pump for her (sorry TMI, it's just baby food). That was my time to read, at the office. During that time when I was still desperately trying to hang on and make it work I could read, and read I did. I've talked before about my most important takeaway: Healing on MY timeline and nobody else's. The second most important takeaway: You NEVER fully heal from the death of your spouse, you only learn to live differently. It's always there, and I'm learning at least today to wear it as a badge of honor.
Let me explain. It's Memorial Day in the US, and a fellow widow posted about her husband and not feeling like she has to hide her broken. It dawned on me: Jesse was always so proud to be a steward for other cancer patients. When a friend of a friend received the same diagnosis as him, he was on the phone that night to say "I'm here and I understand. Let's talk." When he saw a lady at church wearing a bandana he was the first to introduce himself and say "You can do this". He was introduced to another lady at our church who had a benign tumor removed, but felt still that he needed to build fellowship with her and her family. We are regular donors still to St. Jude's Hospital.
But while he was out in the world seeking out others to relate to, I was hiding from it. I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to hide my head in the sand and pretend it didn't exist. I didn't want to be reminded of how it felt when he was diagnosed. I didn't want to be reminded of his treatments, his MRI's, the "scanxiety". It wasn't until he relapsed that I was wanting to research, and reach out to others who'd been there, and talk about it. I felt like a coward. I'm so amazingly proud of his strength, not only in his battle, but in being there for others facing the same.
I feel like, I need to do something with that. I'm not sure yet what, but maybe just pick up where he left off and be a steward for caregivers. Becoming a researcher for glioblastoma may be a bit beyond my reach, as well as a hospice counselor, but volunteering as someone to be there for people like me, that I can do. Sometimes even someone with a certification, a job title, is not helpful. Sometimes all I wanted was to talk to someone who'd been there to say, "How do you cope?" I still don't have a great answer for that one, other than continuing to put one foot in front of the other.
I still don't understand why we were chosen for this battle when we still had so much life to live. When someone dies, you don't just grieve the loss of that person, but the loss of what should have been. We wanted more children. We wanted to travel. At least for me, I wanted the mundane. The day to day, go to work, come home, have dinner, and have a daily routine TOGETHER that did NOT involve endless amounts of chemo pills and anti-seizure medications. We wanted of course the anniversaries, to look back and say "Look at that life we lived together!" We wanted to colonize Mars. Okay, maybe that one's a little silly, but you get the idea. I can still do some of these things alone, but that's not the point. We were supposed to do them together, and with Evalina, as a family. So now, I have to find my new purpose.
I still have a lot of rage, sometimes even towards God, that this is the path I've been put on. Why me? Why him? Why our innocent daughter, and why his family who already lost his sister before him? But today I started to question, how can I use this for a greater purpose? I'll never understand why us, but maybe I can learn to be able to say to someone else, you are not alone.
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