Five Months

This is what I wrote on the caring bridge site that first day:

“It is with a heavy and grieving heart that I tell you my best friend and partner of almost 30 years, John Douglas Jackson (Doug), passed this morning at 2:51.  His heart stopped beating at the end of the MRI.  They were able to revive him but his heart could not hold a blood pressure, even with the highest amount of drugs available.  Additionally, the MRI showed that he had had several strokes, possibly due to the last surgery, we don’t know.

Lorie and I were with him until the end.

Your thoughts and prayers have sustained me over these past three weeks and I ask to be remembered as I begin to make my life without the person who has been my biggest supporter these past 30 years.  He was a wonderful partner and friend, a caring, loving man and he will be greatly missed. ”

I didn’t write anything on the first month anniversary.  We were getting ready for Doug’s memorial, which was March 1.  I was still numb.

The second month anniversary I wrote:

“Today is the two month anniversary of Doug’s death.

It seems like 20 years and it seems like yesterday.

I’m coping.  I have to.  But it’s really, really hard and especially hard today.

There continues to be tender mercies among all the difficulties.  The reconnecting with an old friend who also lost her husband recently.  The tears, laughter, and wine over a dinner.  Coffee at my breakfast table with a  neighbor.  A trip to the botanical gardens with the dogs and close friends on a beautiful, spring day.  My students who have been so, so sweet.  I treasure these so much.

The loneliness takes my breath away sometimes and the next 20 years looms large and daunting.

I remember a trip I took with my father shortly after Doug and I became a couple.  I missed Doug so much I could barely stand it. We were staying at my aunt’s house in Oregon and I would sneak downstairs in the middle of the night for long phone calls.   Little did I know then how insignificant that missing was compared to now. ”

The three month anniversary came right after what would have been our thirty year celebration of being together.  We were going to renew our vows.  I renewed them in my heart.

The four month anniversary was bleak.  After being numb for several months, the feeling returned and it was fairly brutal.  I wrote:  “It seems like yesterday and it seems like an eternity.  I can’t believe I’m still managing to stumble along.” ….”I’m very lonely but learning to live with that loneliness.  I knew I would be as friends have had to return to their own lives.  I’m learning to make my own connections and that feels good.  No one can replace Doug, anyway.

There continues, though, to be wonderful acts of kindness and I’m committed to paying those kindnesses forward.  ”

So, where am I five months later?  Well, I’m managing albeit imperfectly.  I guess I’m settling in.  I spent the day with my god daughter, purging clothes.  We moved seventeen large trash bags out of the house.  I’m finding it therapeutic to remove stuff.  It also makes my life easier as I adapt to doing all the household things that were done by Doug.

I went to a grief support group.  I didn’t think I would like it but it had been recommended to me by someone I trust so I wanted to at least give it a chance.  It turned out to be a good thing.  There were about thirty women and we just shared our experiences.  So many of the women had lost their husbands in January.  I’d like to know what that’s about.  There were women there who had been coming to the group for over a year, too.  We cried together and even laughed.  I found out that my experiences are shared.  I was surprised to find that at least two thirds of the women no longer cook dinner and most of them have had things break and go wrong in the house.  Like me, they miss having their husbands to talk to.  One woman said something so poetic that I made a point to remember it.  She said “we were all successful in our marriages.  I am confidant that we will  be successful as we learn to be alone.”  I’ve found myself going back time and again and thinking of those words.  Hanging on to them, really.