Legos

I had another post ready to go and screwed it up so I am writing a more brief one. 

It will be four months on Sunday since Tim died.  That has been on my mind a lot these past few days.  I have had a few moments of crying that came out of nowhere.  I have had to stop, and force a few memories aside in order to get through the moment, let alone the day.  I think part of this, aside from the anniversary, is the progress on his condo.  Enough progress has been made that you can now hear an echo.  I honestly never thought that would come to pass.  i was, just a month a go unsure how i would get everything out, feeling totally overwhelmed.  her it is a month later and it is now looking rather stark n some spots.   Some furniture has been removed and those ho;es are hard to look at some times.

The big hole, not just physically, but emotionally will be the removal of his Legos castle.  I had emailed the Madison Children's Museum, too see if they might have a need for it.  they emailed me back this week saying they would definitely like it, so next week they will be coming to take it.  I am not sure how easily we will be able to move it as it is big and heavy, but we will do what we can.

That castle has always been a apart of his condo and our relationship.  The first year and a half of our dating , the castle was in the living room near the TV.  This was fine for him as when he sat on the couch, other resting in front of, for he was tall enough to see over it.  I on the other hand being shorter only saw the top third of the movies we watched.  I know he wasn't totally sold on the ideas of moving it, but bless his heart he did.  He had worked very hard on that, having the right small accessories to go with it, and you can tell that he truly put his heart into it. 

I know he will be very happy to know that children could earn form his creation and get some enjoyment out of it as well.  His other Legos have been dispersed all over town, to schools, community centers and to children directly.  I am very glad that i was able to share a part of him with so many others, whether they realize it or not.  I will be closing with pictures form our mall of America trip from 2009. they had giant Legos outside and Legoland inside. talk abut a kid in a candy store, it was the highlight of the trip for him. 




Mall of America 2009

 


Legoland- Mall of America 2009



Pictures

The other day, I finally picked up some pictures form or last trip together and pictures of the funeral flowers.  We had gone to Dubuque and Galena in October of last year in part as a small honeymoon and for my birthday.  We had seen the giant M outside of Platteville (climbing all 340 steps), went to the Mystique casino, spent the day in Galena, shopping and antiquing (10 antique stores over the whole weekend), went on a haunted Galena tour and also stopped at a pumpkin farm. The flowers, well I wanted a memory of those as well, as they were very nice and thoughtful. 

I currently have college picture frames of all of our trips, camping at outside of McGregor IA over July 4th weekend 2008, Mall of America and St. Paul 2010,  St. Francies Xavier Basicalla in Dyserville summer 2009, and our Dubuque trip last October.  I truly enjoyed those trips and wish there had been more and that I had taken more pictures.  I actually wish I had taken more pictures of us and Tim.  I have some, but I was often without my camera, so I missed a lot.

I have a few pictures of the two of us around the place, most notably our wedding picture (black and white) which our friend Julie took.  It is in the middle of the collage picture frames i described before.  I have a copy of it at work, but since my return to work, it has been in a drawer.  I can look at them here, as they are almost background, but the one at work always caught my eye, well which prior to his death, was by design.  I am sure someday I will be able to bring it back out again.

Our friends Dean and Tara and their sons, gave us a very nice photo album from Snapfish.  These were pictures that Tar took at the wedding.  My personal favorite of these is the bubble picture.  When Tim and I came downstairs at the church after the ceremony, we were greeted by bubbles.  the picture captures us both smiling and truly happy.  It is one of my most favorite pictures of not only Tim but of the both of us.  the wedding picture and the bubble picture will be the best reminders of that special day.

I have always enjoyed displaying pictures and have quite a few photo albums to prove this.  I may not have always enjoyed my picture being taken, and still don't but I did enjoy taking them  I finally broke down and bought a new digital camera this week.  Not that i didn't like my old one, but it was very slow and went through batteries like crazy.  I will be taking more pictures now, not wanting to miss important, or fun moments.  The more memories I can reflect on the better.  I will include the wedding picture here, and will have to work on getting the bubble picture.

I haven't looked at the wedding album as of late, as it has just been too hard.  I am sure as the wedding anniversary nears I will look at them again, and remember the beauty of that day and probably shed a few happy tears and a few sad tiers.  I will be grateful for the memories.

Stuff

In accepting the responsibility of being the Personal Representative of Tim's estate, I know that there would be a lot to do.  Cancelling credit cards, closing checking accounts, opening an estate account, paying bills, notify insurance companies, etc, were just a few things that had to be done.  In comparison to closing his condo, those were easy and relatively painless tasks.  The closing of the condo or basically the disposition of all his possessions has proven to be a huge undertaking.  It has been fraught with emotion, and is at times all consuming.  Let me better explain why and how.

Tim loved filling his home with items that struck his fancy.  He loved antiques, especially family antiques.  He had various types of collections, keys that adorned the walls of the kitchen; eggs, of all shapes and sizes and materials; toys and a collection of Legos that would have given any Legos store a run for its money.  He also. kept everything, and I mean everything.  I think I said this in an earlier blog, but he was a neat hoarder.  He had a place for everything and everything had a place,

The walls of every room were adorned with candle holders and pictures, small pictures, religious icons, family photos.  The walls were neatly filled, with hardly any free  or open space.  I appreciate his love of antiques and anything that caught his eye.  He for the most part had very good taste, and loved each and I have and continue to have help, as I know better than to go it alone.  I tried a few times to do it alone and i was just unable emotionally to do so.  If I plan on having a productive weekend at his place, I make sure to enlist help.

Packing his clothes was hard, even with the help of his brother and sister-in-law.  I didn't wash the laundry form before he went to the hospital until a few weeks ago.  I just couldn't bear to do it at the time.  I washed this laundry and the rest of his bedding and when done, immediately went to Good Will and donated it. It was so wired giving away his clothes, it did and still does fell like an ending.  I know it is, but to give those things away that he wore and touched every day was just, just.. well hard to do and hard to describe.

I know this has been mentioned in a  previous blog, but all of these items have at times upset me. Upset and left me angry at tom.  Its not that I wanted to be upset or angry with him, but I just felt so overwhelmed.  I was mad that he was gone and left me with so very much to do.  I had a hard time dealing with this anger, but I realized that it was ok to be mad or upset, as these were my true emotions.  I would get angry and tel him this, (I talk with Tim most nights and for now, review the day and how things are going, etc).and after I got it off my chest I felt better and could continue.

It amazes me how much stuff a person has at any given time in their life.  I have periodically purged my possessions as I don't want a tom of stuff, but even still I have a lot of things.  We all have stuff upon stuff that we have accumulated, some we know we have, some we forget we have.  I like simplicity or spareness, I don't like having what i would call clutter. This is not a judgment on others, it is just what works for me.

I have been able to make progress, and things are slowly being moved out.   There are now signs of progress, where a few weeks a go it still looked like nothing much had been done.  I know the day looms when all of his stuff will be disposed of and I lock the door one last time.  This day will be hard and hard fought to get to.  The stuff I had so much angst, real or imagined disposing of, will no longer need to be dealt with.  I am not sure how I will deal with that new reality. 

Baby steps

Baby steps, that's how I have been getting through the days and weeks since Tim's death.  In the first weeks the baby step was just getting out of bed and going to work.  Work was a distraction and a necessary one those first few weeks.  I am not sure how I would have fared had I not had something to do for at least 8 hours a day.  I wasn't able to totally tune my thoughts of Tim out and focus on work. I may have been able to get through the work day, but coming home is when I would let the suppressed emotions of the day come through.  This worked for quite a while, until I was able to baby step to a grief group.

The next baby step was LGBT Grief Support group offered through Hospice care and Outreach.  Being able to get out one night a week and share my experiences was very helpful.  It gave me something to anticipate.  i used to anticipate the weekends when i would go over to Tim's.  Once that was no longer a reality, i needed something to latch on too, a safe harbor in the hurricane of grief. This group got me out of the house and back to interacting with people, people outside of work.  This baby step allowed me to take the next baby step, counseling.

I was able to find a very good counselor, who has helped me immensely, He has helped me to deal with my grief and loneliness and along the way come to some self realizations.  I was able to 'name' my grief and learn to pay it the proper attention.  I also came to realize that Tim's death has given me serious pause.  I have taken this pause to examine my life and where I in it.  I am not going to run off and join an ashram or anything like that, but I am taking stock my my life and what things are important to me.  This baby step has set me on a patch of many steps, a true journey of self discovery.

One of these new steps is to take a vacation by myself.  I will be going to Iowa City in late June and staying at a Bed and Breakfast.  I in part picked Iowa City as I could visit my family at the start of the vacation.  There is plenty to do and i have the time so I am just going to play it by ear and do what ever I want.  I would go to a movie or out to eat by myself but never a vacation by myself.  This is a way to spend time with myself and get comfortable with being by myself for a while.  If I can't stand my own company then I have much deeper issues.

This vacation also corresponds with our 1st wedding anniversary.  I haven't yet decided how to spend the day yet.  If his ashes are buried by then, will go to the cemetery in Brighton.  If his ashes are not buried yet, I think I will either have a picnic at Picnic Point (he and I did that a few times  last year) or possibly stay in and watch Casablanca, the movie we saw on our first date.   I think that having something that may or may not bring out my emotions is good, it will at least give me a time to wholly face my feelings and emotions of that day.  I am not dreading this day, I am just trying to be aware of what it will mean and how I might react to it.

Another baby step will be to volunteer at Outreach, possibly as a Peer Counselor or initially at least, helping stuff envelopes or committee work.  I am also working with a friend on starting a social group for those that have lost a spouse/partner.  This group it is hoped will get people out in the community  again and give them a chance to interact with those in a similar situations.  We hope to have our first such get together in June.  I am really looking forward to this, and am hopeful it will be successful. 

I know eventually I will be able to move on from  baby steps and walk again.  I believe the expression is, "(A) journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  I am ready for this journey.

Something fun today

Today has been cold, windy, rainy with snow showers, overall a blah day.  Even though the weather wasn't great I still had a good day.  Today I did a few fun things and a few things I normally don't do.  Today  I went to the Isthmus Green Day - The People's Earth-Friendly Expo at Monona Terrace.  Now I am in now way super green or 100%  treat Mother Earth right ( I do what I can), so going to this, for those that know would would seem a bit out of character.  Well, once they hear the reason why I went, then they will understand. 

Today, the stars of Planet Green TV's series "The Fabulous Beekman Boys" were on hand to share their story about buying a farm, making goat cheese, and becoming farmers.  (Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge, a couple). Josh is an author, of three great, funny books and Dr. Ridge is the in-house health expert on the "The Martha Stewart Show'.  I went to get an autograph and too meet them (ok it helps that they are not only handsome, but very , very nice),

They gave a nice presentation and a good Q & A. The highlight was when they had the book signing after the presentation.  I was forth in line, with Josh's latest book in hand, The Bucolic Plague. I only wish I had thought to bring my camera!!  I was getting very, very nervous, as meeting new people, let alone famous new people, is something I don't usually do very well.  I am rather shy or uncomfortable in these situations.  They were very kind, and very polite.  The whole process only took a few minutes, but they made you feel like it was just the three of you for those few minutes.  josh recognized the book jacket from Insighout and they both asked how i was and I thanked them for sharing their lives on TV and in print. 

I was in no way the only Mo there, I was in very good company.  I walked around for a while, looked at few of the vendors and at a few of those in attendance,  and got some free stuff as well.  I was so glad I went, and was able to get my book signed and to meet Josh and Brent.  It was something, fun, something outside my comfort zone and something just for me.

I also had walked around the Capitol Square before the book signing.  I wanted to go to the first Farmer's market of the season, and beat the crowds that were planned for the Tea Party rally (with Sarah Palin- yippee) and the counter protest.  I truly do hope this is not going to be the norm this summer, with dueling protests during the Farmer's Market (FM) Its great to speak your mind, and while this does sound selfish, I don't want it messing my trips to the FM.  The crowds at the FM are big enough without a huge influx of protesters.

I also went to my favorite coffee house/restaurant, La Brioche on Univeristy Avenue. I had the same waitress as last Saturday and she recognized me.  I have been trying to go most every Saturday now, for some tea and a bit to eat and some sort of treat.  This is usually my one "cheat" or indulgence during the week.  I generally tow the healthy eating line most of the time otherwise.  This week, my indulgence was an oatmeal and raisin cookie, black bean and ham soup with bread and peppermint tea. I even wrote a bit in my journal while I enjoyed my leisurely meal. 

Today was a fun day for me, and i am really going to make an effort to have more of these days.  Tim's passing has made me aware of how fleeting life can be. and that one needs to take time the time to stop and smell the roses.  I have been looking at my life and have been wondering if I am doing what i really want to.  I am not going to quit work and fly off somewhere, but I will be taking vacations by myself now, volunteer more and find other hobbies pr ways to better enjoy the hobbies I already have. 

I have always enjoyed this quote form Mame (the Lucille Ball version, NOT the Rosalind Russel version- for those in the know you will get what i mean).  "Life is a banquet and most poor sons-a-bitches are starving to death".  Ok I may have not quoted it exactly but you get what I mean.  Don't be a gluten, but at least belly up to the buffet every so often.  Don't be afraid to have the chocolate, the salad, the good stuff and the bad stuff, as life is fleeting.  You only get one go around on the buffet of life, so make the most of it or get your monies worth.

Thank you

Day to day

Sometimes just getting through the day seems an impossible task.  From the minute you wake up to the time you go to bed, it is a struggle to keep focused on the daily tasks and requirements of work, of life.  You know or at least the norm is , that one needs to be at work, one needs to do the mundane things of life, the small tasks, the everyday things that before the loss, were almost, done on auto pilot.  There is no auto pilot now, each mundane task taking incredible effort.  You find yourself befuddled, your mind in the fog of grief, everything feels as if its in slow motion. 

I know that most days I am trying to push back my memories, my pain and grief.  I tell myself that I will think of these things later, I can't right now.  There are a million things I need to get done, I can't take the time to experience my feelings, I can't cry right now.  There are moments throughout the day when you need to do this, when you need to push back these feelings.  But there are also times when you will need to deal with these feelings. Suppressing them is not the best way to deal with them not the best way to control them,

I worked really hard at suppressing these emotions at work and it worked for those moments when I needed  to be focused.  This suppression only made the times when I could or did let myself experience these emotions,  more intense, more painful.  The tears never seemed to end, the pain washing over me in wave upon wave.  I have learned to try and let myself experience these emotions, these memories more frequently.  Control of these emotions meant acknowledging them  and paying them the appropriate attention.  Control did not mean ignoring them or suppressing them for this only ended badly, making the hurt worse and more pronounced. 

I, through therapy, have learned to pay proper attention to my emotions, specifically my feeling of loneliness.  I was able to acknowledge it, describe it, work with it.  It was described as an unhappy child.  Ignoring it or telling it no only resulted in a tantrum, in pleas of, "pay attention to me, me ,me ..."  By ignoring it, I wasn't controlling it, as it ended up controlling me, by overpowering me.  There is an understanding now, and we both get what we need. I pay it attention when needed and I get through the day.

Alone

Most nights, usually around 9:00, or right before bed, I talk withTim.  I stand in front of our wedding picture on the wall and have a conversation.  Most nights these conversations are about my day and what i have been doing. These conversations are helpful and I usually feel okay about them. Some of these conversations are very overpowering, tonight being one of those overpowering conversations.

Tonight's conversation ended up being about alone and lonely.  I am used to being alone or having alone time, we didn't usually see each other usually during the week, the weekend was  our time together.  I can deal with alone, just not alone and lonely.  These two together are very, very hard to deal with.  Alone is ok, lonely in not.  I am not saying that alone is always a good thing either, but it is better than lonely.  Being lonely, you have alone time but you don't have someone there to take away the alone times.  It is just yourself, and while fiends and family help, they do not fill the void that is lonely.

I am not sure how to best put it in words, but lonley is so raw, and harsh and emotional.  Not having that someone who you can turn too, that someone that made you so comfortable, that someone who was there when you needed them, hurts beyond teh capacity of words to express.  Lonelieness is on a slow simmer most days, but ocassionaly it boils over and burns as it washes over you.  Knowing that i no longer have him to go too, that part of my foundation is crumbled and gone, is very painful.    One can try very hard to minimize how lonelness affects them, but in the end, ast least for now , it always wins out.

Crying because you can no longer hear his voice, no longer hold his hand..these two are what gets me the most.  I loved holding his hand, while in the car, at home or at the movies. I felt connected and completed when we held hands.  Not being able to hear his voice on a a daily basis is also hard.  That fist day back at work, I insticntively reached for my phone to call him, something I always  did.  That whole evening was hard to get tthrough.  I have a few of his mesage from November on the phone, so I am not totally without his voice, but it is still not the same.

I will stop here for now, as it is late and this is still very hard to write about. 

What has helped

During the past three months since Tim's death, I have been trying to find resources to help me with my grief.  Friends and family have been my rock and I can't sponsored by Outreach and Hospice Care. This group met every Thursday for two hours for a seven weeks.  The support provided here truly helped me to see first hand the varying degrees and nature of grief that people experience.  Grief truly is personal and is felt in so many different ways and on so many different levels.  The people that made up this group, were very kind and shared not only their stories of loss, but the steps and struggles experienced they experienced on their journey through grief.  I am very thankful for their support, kindness and insights.

I  have also been seeing a therapist, who has also been very instrumental in my processing of my grief and all its implications.  These conversations are helping me come to terms with my guilts, anger and my hurts.  I have been finding that grief is not only about the pain of loss, but all the other emotions are deeply affected as well. 

Guilt, in all its forms, is a big part of my grief.  Survivor guilt, guilt about having a good day, guilt about moving on, guilt for not having him in my thoughts at any given moment.   Being able to allow myself to be ok is hard to do when you feel so guilty.  It may sound a bit irrational but there is a constant and pervasive degree of guilt associated with my grief.  I know that in time these different guilts will fade and I will get to the point where it is ok to be ok.

Ok to be ok is when I can get through the day with more happy memories than sad memories.  Ok to be ok is when I can put myself out there again and find love.  Ok to be ok is when I no longer feel guilty if I don't think of him necessarily every day.  Ok to be ok is when I have found a place for Tim in my heart that allows me to live my life with his memory and where my life is not his memory.  Not sure if that makes sense to others but it is what works for me.

I know that all of this will take time and is an ever changing process.  There is no truly good or truly bad way to grieve.   I know that for me, bad grieving would be sitting on the couch every day, in the dark watching our wedding video over and over again.  I also know that good grieving is living every day as it comes  and making the best of that day.  I know that with the continued support of  friends and family and other resources I will be ok to be ok,

April 2, 2011

After becoming frustrated with the lack of similar blogs and other outlets, I created this blog.  This is a new experience for me, so hopefully this goes well.  I hope this may help someone else in a similar situation.  Widowhood is a scary prospect and even scarier when you find yourself in its midst.  Due to Tim's ongoing medical issue, we knew this day would come earlier rather than later, but of course this still never prepares you for when it does happen.  Never did I imagine that a trip to the ER would end with a phone call on New Years eve telling me to come to the hospital as my husband had just died. 



I am so very thankful for our dear friends and families, who helped during his hospitalization and helped with the funeral arrangements.  They were the the shoulders I leaned on heavily in the days following his death.  I can't even being to imagine how I would have made it through without them being there.  Their strength, hand holding, tears and company made this as bearable as possible.

On December 2, 2010 I called an ambulance to take Tim to the ER at the University Hospital due to shortness of breath and a chronic migraine.  He frequently had rather debilitating migraines, but this one was going on four days.  I was unable to get him out of bed, as he was so weak and was just too much for me to get up and out to my car.  He is 6 inches taller than myself and in that state was just too much for one person to help. 

At the hospital ER,  they performed all the necessary labs but were unable to find out much out until the next morning.  They admitted him overnight, so at this point there was real cause for alarm.  The next day they determined that he had a blood infection and urinary tract infection.  They didn't know which one came first or if one lead to the other.  They started with medications to help with the migraine, which never really went away the whole time he was hospitalized. They also started him on what would later be 6 different antibiotics. 

Due to his medical history he was a slow to heal from infections or surgery.  The concern would later become his heart.  He had a stroke and a valve replacement 6 years prior, so the concern was that the infection would gravitate to the heart/valve area. The infection gravitated to this area and once there proved extremely difficult to remove.  The infection could mean that the heart valve would have to be replaced, a surgery he had stated numerous times he never wanted again.  The first surgery took him over two years to recover from.

The valve replacement surgery issue would be an ongoing concern through his hospitalization.  The infection at this time would occasionally break off an go to the brain.  To lessen this possibility they had him on blood thinners, which he was already taking daily.  On December 14, a piece of the infection that had found its way to the brain sometime before, caused a massive aneurysm and stroke to the right side of his brain.  A blood vessel on the right side of the brain "exploded" and had to be replaced.

That was the, what I thought, the worst day.  The surgeon pretty much said that he might not survive after the surgery.  Of course the world fell out from under me upon hearing this.  I honestly thought I would loose him at this point.  he was a fighter and made it through and was slowly recovering.  It always felt that for every step forward he made, he ended up taking two back.  The stroke left his left side mostly immobilized, specifically his left arm and leg. 

 He was making progress, some days he was very lucid and was very talkative.  The week before Christmas he stopped talking all together, yet another step backwards.  It may sound clique, but it was, for lack of a better description, a Christmas miracle, as the day after Christmas he started talking again.  This was a very promising step forward, and all of use were very happy.  I was a bit cautious in my optimism, as I waiting for the other shoe to drop.  That would happen on December 31st.

During his hospital stay, I was going to the hospital before work, calling in for updates during the day and the coming back to the hospital after work,  Somewhere in between I was keeping family and friends updated, taking care of my home and his as well.   The last few weeks of December, I had to go to unpaid leave, with an altered work schedule, as I had no vacation time left.  This allowed me to be there during rounds so I could get updates first hand.

December 31st, I had this nagging feeling all day that something wasn't right.  I went to the hospital around 2 pm, and he was sleeping so let him sleep and left. I came back around 6:00 pm to find he had visitors.  We talked for a while, as he was very agitated that day and was having trouble sleeping and his migraine was really bothering him.  I left around 8:00 going home to do a few chores around my place try to catch up on some much needed sleep.  I was doing laundry and missed the phone call from the hospital at 10:37 pm.  I saw that the hospital had called and immediately panicked. 

A Dr. had called stating that I needed to call her back right away.  My heart was in my throat as I called her back, much like it as I write this now.  She explained that he had stopped breathing and after 10 minutes of attempts at resuscitation, after consulting his Medical PA (power of attorney- his brother) they honored his wishes and instructions and stopped resuscitation efforts.  He was pronounced dead at 10:37 pm.

I am still not sure how I was able to get dressed, call my friends to have them come to the hospital, and drive to the hospital.  It was the most surreal 20 minutes of my life, for I had to be on autopilot, there is no other explanation.  I fell apart from the minute I entered his room until my friends arrived an hour and a half later.  I was able to say goodbye in that time, and I am very thankful for that.  I was able to hold his hand and talk to him and was able to cry,  all things I needed.    I can't really say more about that time, as it was just too mind numbing.

I have been taking every day one at a time, having good and bad days and good and bad moments.  I know there is no right or wrong way to grieve and every day is different from the next.  I explained it like this to people: It is like a radio playing in the background.  Some days it is so loud you can't help but hear it is is deafening.  Other days you can hear it, and know its there, but can sort of tune it out.  Other days you barley hear it at all, it's almost white noise.

I will try to post daily but then again I am not sure what will happen.  I hope others feel comfortable posting and replying.  Hopefully we can all help each other on our respective journeys through grief.

Thank you