On March 24, 2010, my husband died. It will have been 5 years in a short time and I have desperately tried to come to grips with what being a widow means in terms of how to go on with my life alone. It is like trying to put back together the pieces of a shattered mirror, one that reflects what used to be. Those pieces will cut you and make you bleed if you aren't very careful, but you have to try to make the pieces fit, so that you can see yourself again.

My life has changed. I live in new city, one where there were no nightmare memories. I have a good job, doing something that I love. I have old friends, new friends, good friends. And of course, I have my family, that I love more that I can say.

My life has changed, but I have changed, too. I am not, nor will I ever be, the person I was before March 24th, 2010. I wish that those people I hold so dear could understand what this life is like but unless you have lived it, that is impossible. Others can think that they understand but no one can, really, because it is so very different for all of us. What I write about what I feel hoping that someday even I will understand.

Big Melancholy Sigh...


By the way, Peeps, this is already starting out to be much harder than I anticipated.  I guess I should have made a better, more concrete plan.  I am a week into this grand new plan and I have spent the last two days in a whirl of confusion. Of course, I have a perfectly good excuse for one of those days and I won't apologize to myself for that one.

So, consequently, I fully admit it, I nearly fell off this very teeter-tottery wagon already.  Yesterday turned into "one of those days".  When I woke up, I was feeling great. Lots of energy, positive attitude, the whole shebang.  But by noon, I was a weepy mess. Like I always say, this widow thing is not for the fainthearted.  You can tell yourself all day long how you are ready to move forward, to get on with your life, but the fact of the matter is that for every step you take forward some days, you take two back.  And yesterday was a take three steps back day. Gotta just pick myself up, wipe things off and try again.  Can't beat myself up over it.

I had one thing of Dave's left that I had not dared open for a number of reasons.  Maybe I just wanted one thing that he left behind undisturbed. The "thing" was his backpack, the one he used to take when he went kitesurfing.  I remember when he packed it the last time, I had to put the things in the pack for him because he couldn't negotiate his walker around our bedroom. We had moved all the furniture out and moved in both double beds, so we could sleep in the same room. At that point, he was in so much pain, unable to sleep and so up and down all night, he kept me awake. I wouldn't have minded but I was pretty much doing all the farm chores at that point and the morning ritual started early.

This particular trip, he was just going along for the ride to the coast that day because he was far past participating in his sport any longer. He just wanted to see the waves and smell the ocean...he didn't say it but the look on his face silently added "one last time".  He ended up being too sick to make the trip and so we put his backpack in the closet, standing ready for a day when he did feel like going. He never made it back to the ocean he loved so much.  It has been packed like that for nearly 4 years.

So, yesterday, I chose to be The Day, the one when that I finally emptied the pack.  I am getting ready to travel and I am in the process of paring down what I have with me and it just didn't make sense to keep carrying this pack around with me, holding things he will never use again.  Amazing how meaningful a tube of sunscreen, a pair of sunglasses and an old smelly, frazzled bathrobe can be. (He used to wear the bathroom on the beach when he changed out of his wetsuit or damp board shorts and into dry clothes.  I gave it to him years ago so he wouldn't be arrested for being naked on the beach while changing into his clothes. My sweet, free spirit had no problem with being bare on the beach.).  All those memories sent me down into such a spiral of sadness, it took me most of the day to get over it.  It is still quite amazing to me that what appears on the surface to be the simplest things turn out to be the most meaningful, the ones that send you over the falls.

Big melancholy sigh...