PR's new saga...

[Hopalong]

Oh, Amber. My heart goes out to you.
I am so sorry for this enormous loss.

Please know you're being held in so many hearts.

And that you will not drown in your grief...even though it may feel that way.
You will survive this. You are going to be okay.

(And meanwhile, "not okay" is totally okay...)

Love to you and loving thoughts for your beloved Hubs.

(((((((((((((((Amber)))))))))))))))

Hops

[teartracks]

Your angel took himself lightly and flew away!

Inspired by G.K. Chesterton quote.

[Meh]

Oh my God Amber, that was so fast. I wasn't expecting to read this.     What a shitty Thanksgiving.

Death is always shocking to me. Even if it's normal it's a total change. Sorry hun. I'm thinking about you. I'm actually crying over here after reading this. I think I'm now sensitized to death in a way that I wasn't before my brother died. I'm so sorry it just sucks no matter what.

Cancer is rough. Today a customer called me and told me he had pancreatic cancer. I couldn't quite recall the survival rate for certain but I was hearing the back of my memory say "the survival rate for pancreatic cancer is pretty bad/low".  So basically the customer was telling me he was probably dying but without saying it and I was trying to process this. I asked him when he was finished with his treatment and he said December so I maybe too cheerfully said "Oh that's good" because it wasn't too far off. He seemed to be okay with the conversation, he was happy and thanked me. It's awkward. I think I probably should have talked to him longer about his cancer treatment but I'm not sure. One wishes there was a way to somehow make things better or say something to make it better and yet there are probably few words that could help. I think the situation can probably make most people feel powerless, friends, family, extended acquaintances. It really takes a while to adjust and figure out how cope with it. I am not really sure why I am writing this. It's just that it immediately made me think about you and your husband, all the people surrounding you and all the recent changes that you are going through.

[mudpuppy]

Autumn wants to see her Dad one last time and I'm trying to give that to myself as well.

When they took my girl out on the gurney, before it left our room, I stopped them and kissed her one last time.
I'm glad I did.

You have my sympathy, Amber.

mud

[mudpuppy]

I couldn't quite recall the survival rate for certain but I was hearing the back of my memory say "the survival rate for pancreatic cancer is pretty bad/low".

Depends on the stage. Stage 4 is about zero. Even stage 1 is only 10 or 15%.

I think I probably should have talked to him longer about his cancer treatment but I'm not sure.

It probably doesn't matter. He's dealing with his mortality not whether people know what to say. Every person who has cancer has been on the other side of the conversation not knowing what to say to someone else who had it and they know how hard and awkward it is.

mud

[BonesMS]

I am so sorry.

[sKePTiKal]

Thank you all.

Our friends from the yacht club know, thanks to Susan & Fred - our neighbors who dropped off a big picnic basket of Thanksgiving fixin's Wed. night. Our banker, who is also a friend came by for our "ritual" -- decompressing from stress and emotional storms -- in the pool house, Irish wake style. Holly & Autumn cooked yesterday and covered the table with all the old standbys. Matt went fishing twice yesterday.

Honestly, the first responders were still here when the first call came in from Mike's aunt. I'd called his brother and asked him to let his sister & Aunt (I call her the switchboard... LOL) know. She's married to the last surviving sibling of his mom's family, so we've been closer to them than others. I've been reassured that I'll continue to be invited to family gatherings. Mike's brother is flying overseas today, so I haven't seen him yet. He was the one that was here a couple of times for several days and spent time with us. The sibs will have an open house for all his friends in the home town, at the house they all grew up in. In March, when there is a season opening event for a long weekend at the beach, and when we would have a housefull of people to celebrate his birthday - we'll do that again.

A couple of years ago, a friend of his - from "before me" - died unexpectedly. It really hit him hard. He tried to organize a high school reunion, and reconnected to a lot of his old friends after I encouraged him to get on Facebook. And I think that's when he started to realize he wasn't well. He had started to go really quiet and pull back from me; even to the point of sleeping on the couch instead of in bed and not sharing a bathroom with me. Someone pointed out that he was trying to protect me from the reality of things, but I think that was a defensive move because I would've hauled him kicking & screaming to the doctor sooner if I hadn't had so much pushback and denial from him. He never talked about his feelings and yet, there was something terribly fragile emotionally about him. If we hadn't been able to convince him to go in, when we did - we would've been at this point before Halloween.

The kids will be here through the weekend. Both my brother & mother have called, and actually been kind of decent to me -- even if mom did talk for 40 mins about herself again. My mom has always been a recluse; she's the one who said I have to get out & see people. But weird or not, all I want is to be alone... to process the stillness... and start the process of packing up all the stuff he's "collected" and taking the plan that I am sure I'll pursue, that developed over the last year or two... and start checking things off that list. And I need to boot his laptop that he had in the hospital and here at home and see if he left me a note. At the beginning of the month, he was still able to write and signed a birthday card for me. Not being strong enough to form the sounds for words was a tough thing for both of us.

Guess I'll never know why he thought he needed 6 cowboy hats; he always wore a ball cap. Maybe they were on sale. LOL.

[mudpuppy]

But weird or not, all I want is to be alone... to process the stillness... and start the process of packing up all the stuff he's "collected" and taking the plan that I am sure I'll pursue, that developed over the last year or two... and start checking things off that list.

That's exactly how I felt and what I did.
I was like a beaver for a month or two cleaning out this and rearranging that and putting up a little shelf or fixing this, that and the other thing. Maybe more like a squirrel rearranging its nest. I have no idea why I did any of that; I didn't get rid of any pictures or clothes that she actually wore. I just kind of stored the stuff she didn't use and organized what I cared about of hers. It did help though, why ever it happened.
And I also just wanted to be alone; I still do at times.
I hope not too many people try to tell you how to grieve. Some people seem to think there is a one size fits all way or that there is some orderly five step process with neat and tidy phases that can be labeled. Everyone does it in their own way and in their own time.
Don't hesitate to seek help to deal with it. There are a lot of grief groups and your local hospice has a lot of resources to point you to if you want some and they often have their own counselors for one on one stuff if you don't want the group thing. I didn't.

Guess I'll never know why he thought he needed 6 cowboy hats; he always wore a ball cap. Maybe they were on sale.

LOL. Or the shoes...I never realized how many she had because she only wore a small fraction of them.



mud

[ann3]

I'm so sorry to hear this, PR.  My condolences to you.

[Twoapenny]

So, so sorry, Phoenix, thinking of you, much love to you and your family and friends xxx

[sKePTiKal]

I have started to wonder if the reason we fall in love with our opposites, is to round off our corners & edges a little more, mud.; if that's not what part of the attraction is?

Cleaning out Mike's closet wasn't emotional at all. He kept buying clothes & shoes, long after he stopped wearing all but a select few items. I'd been going through it and paring things down twice a year, anyway. I think going through the various little stashes of what he's pulled out of his pockets and saved will likely be worse. Found our concert tickets yesterday - including the 8th row at the Moody Blues w/ the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra. Our first "official" date.

The birthday card from this year is what I'll be saving in my treasure box, though. That was the beginning of the month and he could still write, though he was having difficulty. The girls & I had stayed up late the night before - blowing off steam. And since Mike was up all night, albeit in the hospital bed, the 3 of them decorated to surprise me. He was throwing crepe paper streamers up trying to get them across the blades of the ceiling fan. And smiling and laughing... thinking I'd be mad in the morning.

It has also occurred to me, that I really started losing him a couple of years ago. Just little things; the kinds of things all couples make space for each other to have in a relationship - his naps; excuses for not sleeping in bed or sharing a bathroom - things like that. I have FELT more alone in the last couple years, right up to these last two months of caring for him BECAUSE he couldn't do it himself. And it doesn't bother me now to be alone. There's no sudden change.

[mudpuppy]

My girl wasn't my opposite. We were two peas in a pod.

I didn't get emotional about any of her clothes either except for the ones she wore often or that had particular memories of times or places attached to them.
But, yes the cards and the letters and the photos that reminded me of events or times together were more sentimental.
I don't know how old your girls are but I hope they are doing as well as they can and that the three of you can lean on one another.

I don't know if this will be similar for you, but about the first ten days, I felt a sense of relief that the two years of chemo were over and so was her suffering and I was so busy with preparing for her service that I actually felt better those first few days than I did before she died. It was only after her service that the aloneness changed and became more final and harder to take and the sorrow really hit.

mud

[lighter]

sKep:

I'm relieved M doesn't have to endure more medical procedures too.

 It was just too hard on him..... would have created more pain, not less. 

Less was better, IME.

I'm so sorry, (((Amber.)))

Lighter



 

[sKePTiKal]

Thank you all. I'm doing just fine, which is a bit of a surprise to me. I guess that's another one of things that I was told about myself that was wrong, at least in this particular case. My mom keeps calling to try to transfer her experience to me and get me to mirror it back to her.    I wasn't born yesterday. I let it go to voice-mail.

I went out to the store yesterday, took some trash out in the rain, picked up the mail - which amounted to another foot high stack of catalogs & magazines like the 5 bags worth I'd just trashed. Thanks Mike. Lots of mindless stuff "to-do"... LOL. Picked out a big fat book for myself to read on British history - The Plantagenets - and it's better than any Rx and will last the required time needed to reset myself into a new schedule and routine.

I find myself "bouncing" a lot - go here; oh! I have to do this... would you LOOK at that? I better do this right now. Kind of all over the space in the house that we actually lived in. The rest of the house is just storage or to be room for other people to come stay. It's because so much of my time and attention previously had been 100% at his beck & call; even before he was seriously sick, I found it conflicting to leave him alone for long periods of time because he was attached to me; my physical presence - like a tick. Sounds derogatory and maybe it is a dig, but most of the time I didn't stop or prevent that... although I did spend a very large amount of time trying to teach him where that line was.

So, I find I have to tell myself: it doesn't matter what time you go out to the store or run errands. If you want to write checks for bills first - do it. If you want to clean those two stacks of catalogs/magazines off the table and get them ready to take out later - do it. You can go to the store when ever YOU want to - not on someone's else's timetable. If you want to go to bed at 8:30... there isn't a single person here to raise an eyebrow about it... and if you want to sleep 10 hrs, that's fine too. It's a time of mental boundary freedom - tearing down the imaginary fences - and it's not scary at all. Little by little, I'll venture out to do some more things. My friend won't be able to be here until tomorrow but I have something important to do today anyway.

So, being around groups of people isn't a problem - even if they do wear me out with their energy and desire to "help". Good lord, my D is like I used to be at that age. Energizer bunny. But rattling around in this big old house isn't a problem either. I'm not "lonely" - I've always been good company for myself - and I'm not running around "doing" all the time to avoid thinking/feeling. I am removing the layers of stuff, that have hidden the bits of my life that I've carried around for years and years... saving them for myself for when I didn't have this person who needed me so entirely around. I actually bought myself a super-duper watercolor taboret before we moved here. I have 5 or 6 different sets of brushes for different kinds of things. My old buddies. Been thinking about buying myself a press.

So: at 2:30 am the night before... I woke and couldn't go back to sleep. Twiggy and I still commune for about 1/2 an hr to an hr every morning, I talk to God too, just in case he's tuned into my frequency... and well, it's like from outside of "me", I received the knowledge that Mike is OK; from Mike himself -- and he was giving me my life back. That our contract had been successfully completed. In my sorting and re-arranging, I found the receipt for my engagement ring. He'd kept it all these years. One of many millions of pieces of paper, or marbles or shells, each and every thing making up his "memory minder". I still have it; for now. The whole day went so much better than the day before. Just that sense of "comfort that surpasses all understanding" - it's a real thing. I know I "did good"... and I'm now free to explore the next chapter in the saga. No regrets; no mysteries to puzzle out and try to understand (except the password to our accounting software)... and I get to go bring what's left of Mike home today, so he can get ready for his party in the spring.

I am indulging a bit in the magical thinking side of things. Not in important ways - I'm moving faster on the business side than anyone else is ready for. It's a task I'd just like to get it over with; despise paperwork and bureaucracy. I'm just enjoying that lingering glow of love and life shared while I do all this sorting out, removing layers, and finding that other "me" again and redefining her "next mission".

[lighter]

You're so strong, Amber.

You're Izzy strong.

Lighter