Karl was my Rock - -the person who was always there for me. When he died the world got a lot scarier. I had money issues, I was hurting, I was lonely. And my Rock wasn't there to help. In short, I was terrified.
I found that many of the issues that I had thought I dealt with earlier in my life came up. I had been attacked in the office when I was in my 20s. I hadn't really thought about it in years, suddenly, I couldn't work in an office if people could approach me from behind where I couldn't see them. Thank God I had a workplace that was willing to let me have a cubicle that backed up to the outside wall. And they didn't make me move when the new team I got assigned to was in another space with no walls. I can't even begin to express how much it has helped that I have an understanding workplace.
I am slowly feeling more confident. I'm not totally there yet, but I'm not as afraid as I was two years ago when Karl died. I can see that someday my sense of safety will return.
Writing this blog is helping with that - being able to express the way I feel has helped reduce the fear. Another thing that has helped is starting a 12 week Artist's Way group. Week one is about safety and part of that is talking about the fears and negative things that have caused us to be creatively blocked. People need a feeling of safety to be able to take the risk of being creative. Writing about what has caused a lack of confidence helps you see that other people's opinions aren't always the truth about you. Thinking about the source of some issues and seeing the positives as well as the negatives makes it easier to feel a sense of safety.
My safety has to reside inside me; I know that now. There will be backtracking and bad days, I'm sure but I can do this. The worst has happened and I'm still here, still coping.
As my sense of safety is starting to increase, I want to reach out to help others. There is a dog that I am considering adopting who has been abused and needs a good solid home and a person who will be patient and help him get confidence in people. I have to take my current dog to meet him, but I'm pretty sure he is the one I will try to help. But even if he and Rusty don't click, there will be another little dog who needs my help soon. It's important to me to help an abused animal. My mom said on the phone, you can't help all of them and that's true, but I can help one of them. I suspect it will help me as much as it helps him.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
A Reason to Keep on Living
Before Karl died I thought that “broken heart” was just a phrase. I had no idea that it would one day describe exactly how I felt. It really did physically feel as if my heart had cracked into two and wouldn't keep beating. But it did and I didn't really know what to do about that. You read about how couples who have been together a long time often don't survive each other by very long and now I understand that as well. Karl was central to my life and at first I didn't feel as if there was a reason to go on living with him no longer in the world. I mean, what was the point anyway? The ones who die soon after those they love are often those who never find an answer to “What's the point?” At least it seems that way to me.
Two things kept me going, my dog Rusty and my job. Rusty bless his greedy little heart kept wanting to be fed and wanting to go out and wanting to be with me as I cried. I wanted to stay in bed and never get up again, but he insisted. At length, some days. He was a rescue dog and I couldn't just die and leave him homeless again. I had given him a forever home, damn it, and I was going to keep my part of the bargain as he had kept his. He had more than kept his part of the bargain (which was to keep us company and make us laugh). Rusty was (and still is) a genuine hero dog in my eyes. One night when I was asleep, Karl fell and couldn't get back up. With emphysema, he didn't have the breathe to yell loud enough that I could hear him, so Rusty came upstairs and banged on the bedroom door until I woke up and then he led me to Karl. I couldn't send a dog like that back to the SPCA if his owners were gone, so I had to keep going.
And work needed me. We were shorthanded in the group I worked in and my bereavement leave had put us further behind. So I had to get up everyday and go in and try to work (I worked much more slowly than usual and I cried every day at work, but I went in). I'm not sure what would have happened if I had lost my job those first two years, might have been the last straw that pushed me over the edge. But I didn't and so I avoided the edge until I had healed enough to start thinking about building a new life.
And now I'm rebuilding. Still not sure what direction to go in, still not sure what my new life will contain but now I'm sure I will rebuild. That's progress of sort.
Two things kept me going, my dog Rusty and my job. Rusty bless his greedy little heart kept wanting to be fed and wanting to go out and wanting to be with me as I cried. I wanted to stay in bed and never get up again, but he insisted. At length, some days. He was a rescue dog and I couldn't just die and leave him homeless again. I had given him a forever home, damn it, and I was going to keep my part of the bargain as he had kept his. He had more than kept his part of the bargain (which was to keep us company and make us laugh). Rusty was (and still is) a genuine hero dog in my eyes. One night when I was asleep, Karl fell and couldn't get back up. With emphysema, he didn't have the breathe to yell loud enough that I could hear him, so Rusty came upstairs and banged on the bedroom door until I woke up and then he led me to Karl. I couldn't send a dog like that back to the SPCA if his owners were gone, so I had to keep going.
And work needed me. We were shorthanded in the group I worked in and my bereavement leave had put us further behind. So I had to get up everyday and go in and try to work (I worked much more slowly than usual and I cried every day at work, but I went in). I'm not sure what would have happened if I had lost my job those first two years, might have been the last straw that pushed me over the edge. But I didn't and so I avoided the edge until I had healed enough to start thinking about building a new life.
And now I'm rebuilding. Still not sure what direction to go in, still not sure what my new life will contain but now I'm sure I will rebuild. That's progress of sort.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Death At A Funeral
You go through the full gamut of emotions when someone close to you dies. I knew Karl was dying, so I expected the sadness and the pain and the anger. What I didn't expect was the funny side of it all. Sometimes when things are so bad they can't get any worse, all that's left to do is to laugh.
Funerals bring out the dysfunctional in families. Whatever things annoy you the most about your family or his family will be quadruply annoying during the lead up to the funeral.
I still laugh about how I had to get my sister (who had sensibly gotten a hotel room with my mom) to spend the night with me as the guard sister to keep Karl's daughter (who grieved by getting wasted drunk and crying all over people as well as slobbering on them) out of my bedroom at 2 am. It worked too!
Then there was Karl's ex-wife (the one he divorced in 1969) who was appalled, simply appalled, that he didn't leave the house to her. Hello, divorced for almost 40 years, living with me for 26 (far longer than they were married) and living in another state. In what reality would he have left her the house? He didn't even like her.
Then there was Karl's older brother. Wink was in the hospital when Karl died. In fact Karl had gone out to Arizona to see him and died in his house. Wink's wife didn't tell him Karl died. OK she was afraid he wasn't going to live through the news while he was in the hospital. But she didn't tell him even after he got home. In fact no one in the family thinks he has been told yet (they are all kind of afraid to ask). Certainly I've not heard a word of condolence from him. On the other hand he has to wonder why he hasn't heard from Karl in two years.
I told the younger brother about Karl's death. He was playing golf when I called on his cell. He finished the round before going home.
Then there was Karl's friend from FL who came up for the funeral and told this horribly inappropriate story about him and Karl being drunk and hitting on the girls at Hooters. And Karl's son talking about how Karl made him into the man he was today and how much he loved him. Yeah right, Karl couldn't even get him to return his phone calls most of the time.
Then there was the former co-worker who emailed me after hearing the news to proposition me. Really, trust me, when the love of your life has died less than a week ago, you do not want someone to ask you out. Just another dating tip for the socially inept.
About a month after the funeral, my friend Lory invited me to dinner and to watch a movie after. She said, “It sounds weird, but you have to see Death at Funeral.” She knows me well. It was indeed the perfect funny movie for my mood. Ah yes, funerals can sure put the fun in dysfunctional.
Funerals bring out the dysfunctional in families. Whatever things annoy you the most about your family or his family will be quadruply annoying during the lead up to the funeral.
I still laugh about how I had to get my sister (who had sensibly gotten a hotel room with my mom) to spend the night with me as the guard sister to keep Karl's daughter (who grieved by getting wasted drunk and crying all over people as well as slobbering on them) out of my bedroom at 2 am. It worked too!
Then there was Karl's ex-wife (the one he divorced in 1969) who was appalled, simply appalled, that he didn't leave the house to her. Hello, divorced for almost 40 years, living with me for 26 (far longer than they were married) and living in another state. In what reality would he have left her the house? He didn't even like her.
Then there was Karl's older brother. Wink was in the hospital when Karl died. In fact Karl had gone out to Arizona to see him and died in his house. Wink's wife didn't tell him Karl died. OK she was afraid he wasn't going to live through the news while he was in the hospital. But she didn't tell him even after he got home. In fact no one in the family thinks he has been told yet (they are all kind of afraid to ask). Certainly I've not heard a word of condolence from him. On the other hand he has to wonder why he hasn't heard from Karl in two years.
I told the younger brother about Karl's death. He was playing golf when I called on his cell. He finished the round before going home.
Then there was Karl's friend from FL who came up for the funeral and told this horribly inappropriate story about him and Karl being drunk and hitting on the girls at Hooters. And Karl's son talking about how Karl made him into the man he was today and how much he loved him. Yeah right, Karl couldn't even get him to return his phone calls most of the time.
Then there was the former co-worker who emailed me after hearing the news to proposition me. Really, trust me, when the love of your life has died less than a week ago, you do not want someone to ask you out. Just another dating tip for the socially inept.
About a month after the funeral, my friend Lory invited me to dinner and to watch a movie after. She said, “It sounds weird, but you have to see Death at Funeral.” She knows me well. It was indeed the perfect funny movie for my mood. Ah yes, funerals can sure put the fun in dysfunctional.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Writing as therapy
One thing I have found most helpful about writing this blog is that I can say all those things I've kept inside because people don't want to really discuss grief in detail.
As a result, I now feel better than I've felt in years. Some of the weight of all this stress is gone because I've been able to express it. Oh it's not perfect and I still feel the grief, but I can see progress and can start to visualize rebuilding my life.
If you are reading this and seem stuck in your grief (not immediately after the grief, we need to take the time to actually feel the feelings), I recommend you take the time to write down what you are going through and have gone through as a way to clarify your feelings and release them. You don't have to share publicly as I am with the blog; you don't have to show anyone at all. But try writing it out and see if it helps. And let me know if it did.
As a result, I now feel better than I've felt in years. Some of the weight of all this stress is gone because I've been able to express it. Oh it's not perfect and I still feel the grief, but I can see progress and can start to visualize rebuilding my life.
If you are reading this and seem stuck in your grief (not immediately after the grief, we need to take the time to actually feel the feelings), I recommend you take the time to write down what you are going through and have gone through as a way to clarify your feelings and release them. You don't have to share publicly as I am with the blog; you don't have to show anyone at all. But try writing it out and see if it helps. And let me know if it did.
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