A Smiling Young Widow

One year without my Tom. I survived the first anniversaries and all the regular ol days of the past year too. It is still surreal. Likely some of it I survived by just being in shock, so it actually scares me a bit to think about what is still to come.

I listened to a podcast (really enjoying DEAD Talks lately) where David Kessler was interviewed. He shared how turning towards the pain of grief is like how buffalo run directly into a storm, actually minimizing the time spent in it. David talked about how when someone tries to avoid grief, ignore it and hope it will go away, it actually ends up maximizing the time spent in pain. This reminded me of a guided meditation I used to do that talked about a snowstorm and the wisdom of the buffalo. In the mediation you were supposed to visual yourself walking into whatever terrible storm you had to weather, with the strength to face the challenge head on.

Tom loved buffalo (or the more proper term of bison, or I think of the Blackfoot word iinnii). Maybe it comes with growing up in the NWT. I always like to see these majestic creatures too. I have several pictures on my phone of Tom posing by a stuffed buffalo or a buffalo statue, pictures of bison next to the road from our drives. Hearing this grief analogy made me smile and think of those memories with Tom. I reflected on my grief journey too and was like yeah, I AM a buffalo.

I was talking with my psychologist about how lucky I am that each and every day I am forced to confront my loss. How lucky I am that my life is/was so intertwined with Tom that now my entire world has been turned upside down and I can’t possibly avoid that. Half sarcasm, but the other half is actually coming from a real appreciation of the amazing life that was built with my best bud.
(Tom story to throw in here – I once spilled a glass of wine and was trying to ask for help cleaning it up – I was all flustered and like gah I’ve spilled half on myself, half on Frank and half on the couch – Tom was just laughing away at my terrible math, like full on silent giggles that he could not recover from. That didn’t happen too often with gruff Tom!)

Our lives are/were so interwoven together. I think it really would be difficult for me to put my head in the sand and avoid any of this. Sure, I’ll give myself a bit of credit here. I could have numbed myself in all the different ways, avoided the emotions coming up, not done any of the work to process this. There’s some inner strength that needs to be present to be a buffalo.

There was a moment in the early days after Tom died when I had no idea what to do with myself. The funeral was done. I didn’t know how I was even supposed to fill a day, to get through it. All I knew is I felt horrible. I felt such raw pain in those early days, a pain I knew I could not continue to feel. I found some sort of determination within. I had to find a way to feel at least a little bit better, and I knew that is what Tom would want for me too. My grief journey was beginning.

I unfortunately have not been miraculously healed of my grief at the one-year mark. That is written with 100% sarcasm – our society teaches us to expect nice and neat timelines, though the reality of grief is messy and long term. Though, again, how lucky I am to have constant reminders of Tom and that our love can’t be washed away as something I just move on from.

My amazing support system has come through again this past month. I am so grateful for the people who have shown up for me throughout the year. I had many people reaching out and checking-in. Kind messages saying how people are thinking of me, though they’re not really sure what to do or say for the anniversary of losing a husband. Same!

I wasn’t even sure which day was supposed to be my worst anniversary date to get through, never mind what I was supposed to be doing for it. On the anniversary of the date Tom was pronounced dead – well, I sat on hold with the CRA for an hour to try to figure out some estate tax stuff and then I mopped my floors. There was the date I got the news Tom was being admitted to the ICU. There was the date I left Tom’s body for the last time before the organ recovery surgery. There was the Easter weekend – that one was probably the toughest actually, holding so many reminders of the final few days we got to spend together last year.

There’s a weird combo of grief and trauma on board for anniversaries. The grief can feel warm and fuzzy sometimes (I welcome this change). The trauma not so much.

Like the day I got “the news” is definitely a trauma experience that is held deeply in my body. My head was actually in a pretty good space on that date. I was thinking back on memories and thinking about what Tom would have to say to me about how I’d carried myself this past year. I was mindful to turn off my phone and took some peaceful time for me. A bit of a just keep moving strategy – went to a yoga class, the pottery studio, and out for a hike with Frank. I was taking care of me as best I could. I hadn’t been sleeping well again (to be expected) but I was able to fall asleep for a nap that day. I woke up and felt my heart racing as I lay there. My watch said my heart rate was 165. How is it even possible I was sleeping like that?! The body remembers at such a deep level. (PS don’t be reading this blog for medical advice friends! That was not good. My heart rate settled down after I went outside for a walk, but that’s certainly not a safe resting heart rate.)

I know I have a lot of supportive people in my life, people that worry about me and want me to be ok. I am doing ok. Or maybe it would be more appropriate to say I’m ok compared to where I’ve been. Or I’m doing ok all things considered. Or I have hope I’ll truly be ok one day.

For now, I’m ok but… 

• It doesn’t feel like a year has passed. There are still days when I wake up and roll over feeling for Tom to be there next to me. One year is no time at all. It’s still so fresh. And I hate that the world doesn’t think that is the case anymore. I am going through the absolute worst time of my life, without my number one support. I’ve been reminding myself how brutal that is. That actually I’m the person who needs my love the most. It’s easier for me to care about other people grieving for Tom.

• I still painfully miss doing life with my best buddy every single day. If I’m doing something fun, something sad, something mundane. All the things. I have a shadow that follows me everywhere and I’m quite sure will for the rest of my life. I worry that I’ll forget little memories about Tom or stories that he would tell. I look back through photos often, hoping I can find a live photo that happened to catch just a bit of Tom’s voice or chuckle. I wish I had taken videos of everything we ever did. I still take pictures that I want to send to Tom and I think about what I would be texting him during the day. Sometimes now I can do that with a smile and fill in what he would say back, that’s a win. All I want to do still is call Tom, to talk things through with Tom.

• There are days where I am thankful I have a coffee addiction and Frank. That is what gets me out of bed when I’m hit with how terrible this all feels. I still have times I completely fall apart, usually in my own space now. Sometimes I still can’t feed myself. Cereal for supper or snacking on double stuffed Oreos, sometimes that’s the comfort I need. Some days I do better than others. I often can’t put into words what I would need from others to help me, as I don’t know myself. The only real solution would be to have Tom back.

• There’s a lot of angry, cynical, bitter, impatient parts of this grief that show up in me. I hate that, but at the same time I’m trying to give all the emotions their moment. I know I’ll never be the same again, the person I was when April 2023 began is long gone. There is no normal to retreat to for reprieve. My entire world has been turned upside down. If that sounds too dramatic to you, please take a moment to be grateful that you have never had to endure a devastating loss like this. Despite finding a determined inner strength, I still absolutely hate that this is the path my life had to take. I would give anything to have my favourite guy back, but I’m left here to somehow keep living as a way to honour Tom and to honour me.

I’m ok, but I’m still in it. The tagline that has been in my head over the past couple weeks – I’m a mother f*cking buffalo. And I’ll carry on like that. I know Tom would be proud of me, and sometimes I can be too.