A Smiling Young Widow

We don’t talk much about secondary losses — all the other losses that come as a result of a primary loss (e.g. death). When I laid next to Tom in his hospital bed knowing that was the end of his life, I definitely was not thinking how it was also the end of my life as I knew it. That’s something that comes later in the grief journey. 

I think regardless of who dies or what that relationship was, we’re always going to feel at least some secondary losses. Tom dying affected a lot of people — other people will feel missing text messages or a gap at events too, it changed some other peoples’ views of the world, or made people want to spend some more quality time with their people.

Then there’s the secondary losses a widow faces. They are huge.

It’s hard to put into words all the ways Tom’s death has affected my life. This is a post I’ve half written many times trying to decide what stories to share or how to paint a picture of what has changed for me. It feels weird to focus on me. This turned into a looong post, so thank you to those of you who do read it!

Sense of Safety

I think it was the day after Tom’s funeral that I decided I should try meditating. We go back to our old coping mechanisms when something terrible happens, I was lucky mine included some “healthy ones”. I searched for grief meditations, put in my headphones, and off I went. The recording started off telling me to picture myself in a safe place. I lost it. My safe place was gone. All I desperately wanted was to be wrapped in Tom’s arms. To feel the squeeze of his hand or look into those telling eyes. For everything to go back to how it was.

My phone just last week popped up with the suggestion, “Start a check-in with Tom? Let them know when you arrive at your destination.” Oh Siri, how I wish that was still my life. To always know where Tom was. To have Tom looking out for me. It’s still weird to not let Tom know when I arrive somewhere. Or discuss what route I’d be taking. Obviously I’m capable of checking the road reports myself, but what would actually happen if I was driving somewhere in the winter is Tom would check the reports and the highway cameras to relay back to me a recommended best route for the day.

There was one night last month the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night for no reason. I certainly did not need that extra panic (I’ve since replaced the battery). Before going to bed now I double check that all the doors are locked. Some nights I wake up heart racing from a nightmare about someone breaking-in. This never happened before. We live in a very safe neighbourhood. I’ve lived alone before. The entire time I lived with Tom he was working on the road, so I definitely spent nights alone in this house and was just fine. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense when the alarm bells go off. It’s inconsistent. But that’s a state my body can still get stuck in pretty easily. I have had to do some serious work to try to convince my brain that we are safe. I still do. 

I’ll share a funny story of just how solid and safely I used to sleep — before we built our current house we were renting an old 500 square foot miners house. There were lots of quirks (everyone’s favourite was the drawbridge across the back stairs to access the closet). And it certainly wasn’t level (Franklin’s tennis balls would collect at the back door). The front door took a bit to get it to latch (I’d eventually get the hang of that). One morning when it was just Frank and I at home, I stepped out of the bedroom (right into the kitchen) to make coffee and was thinking it was a little cold. Look over to my left and ah-ha the front door is wide open! The wind had swung it open while we slept. When I told Tom he was laughing and was like, lucky you didn’t have a bear joining you for coffee!

I’d done a bunch of learning about trauma-informed meditation before with the intention to try and help others. Now I try to implement it for myself— trying to have my body feel that I am in the present and we are in fact safe in this moment. You are not getting chased by a lion, so let’s try to mellow that fight or flight response a bit. You are not back in the hospital. You are not getting a call with horrible news. You do not need to think into the future. Little things to try to feel that message of safety. It’s bare feet on the grass or wiggling toes to feel shoes. It’s holding an object and rubbing it between fingers. Right now, is safe and that’s the only place we need to be.

A Kind of Homesickness

“Navigating the world without their presence may cause you to feel as if you’re in a perpetual state of homesickness, a longing to return to a real or imagined sense of home.” 

— Lisa Keefauver, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch

I’ve had to meet with a psychiatrist a couple of times. I wouldn’t say she’s the most warm fuzzy provider I’ve encountered. At this last visit I was trying to put into words how off it can feel to navigate time at home and time away. It can be hard to be in our house trying to somewhat still live the mountain life we’d dreamed of. I’m not ready to give that up. Not sure if I want to or not. Of course I mostly planned my mountain adventures around Tom. We wanted to do all the things together. It has left a huge gap in what I fill my time with, not having him here. With the nice weather and all the talk that circulates around summer plans that is hitting hard.

“Ok so you have no social life”, she stated back to me as she scribbled in her notes.
I nearly laughed out loud. Harsh.
But definitely some truth there too.
(Perhaps, I added extra fuel to her judgement by describing how nature and time outside help when she’d asked about whether I was able to find joy in life. I don’t think she is quite as into the outdoors!)

I do not want a big city social life. I was really quite enjoying the life that Tom and I had crafted full of outdoor activities, quiet time together, and hosting family and friends. We had a really great work life balance going. What I miss most about my social life is sitting on the back deck with Tom watching Franklin in the yard. 

Tom and I did our own things throughout our relationship. We totally could spend time apart and happily fill our time with our own hobbies. But, you would know what the other person was doing. We still had the other person’s yearly vacation allotment in mind, we planned out trips together and what was happening which weekend, you’d think about how much the other person would enjoy something and plan to do it together. It was fun to be doing things with Tom. I am grateful to have a really excellent extended support system, but the big gaping hole is still always there.

This leads into all the little things day-to-day where losing Tom still hits. Heather Quisel calls these the million micro griefs of widowhood (though we have to acknowledge that some of these are not really not micro at all, and when put together they really add up.) 

Here’s an example — I have always loved peanut butter and have it almost everyday.  Pre-Tom I would buy the Kirkland natural peanut butter. He hated it. I don’t think it took long in our relationship for him to complain about how hard it was to stir and get out, to question if it really was that bad to just buy the Kraft peanut butter. The switch happened, I don’t know when exactly and it did start out with having both options, but then I would only buy the large tubs of Kraft peanut butter. I mean it is delicious and it is way easier to get out, no matter all the natural peanut butter tricks. At work clients would ask if it was ok if they just got the regular peanut butter and I would laugh, telling them how we bought that one too at my husband’s insistence. But now, what do I do? Should I go back to natural peanut butter?  Or am I sticking with Tom’s peanut butter choice?  That silly little decision in the grocery store. So yeah, even peanut butter, is an identity crisis right now. 

I still struggle to cook regularly for just myself, sometimes it is too much to have to see extra leftovers that I should be packing up for Tom to take to work. Signing cards still sucks – it was so automatic to sign Tom, Les and Frank. I cannot make the rational choice that I should cancel Netflix (with their greedy rules and forcing upgrades!) I’m not ready to not see Thomas and Les pop up as the user options. Just like I’m not ready to not see a second toothbrush next to mine, Or how I’m not ready to not see Tom’s name on some of our bills (just for the record, one of those bills from the town always came to my email and out of my account but has always been made out to Tom, hello patriarchy!)

I could go on. I cannot even begin to list the ways that Tom dying has changed my day-to-day life. All the extra griefs that need to be confronted with time. 

I’ll Never Be the Same 

Sometimes a quick run helps to clear the overwhelm that comes with feeling all the change. I have a pump-up playlist made up of 2000s-2010s clubbing music. When If We Ever Meet Again by Timbaland and Katy Perry comes on the lyrics hit so differently now. The chorus: “I’ll never be the same, if we ever meet again. Won’t let you get away, say, if we ever meet again.”

Transformation is part of a huge loss that cannot be avoided. And I think a big ol spiritual journey is too – there’s huge questions of what this is all about, what happens after death, looking for purpose and meaning, deciding how to spend your time. 

I’ll tell another funny story. The year before Tom died I was trying to get back into lifting weights more regularly. Tom created a really good home gym set-up — his goal had been to get his dream squat rack for the basement when our new house was built. I’m sure he had that picked out before we’d even finalized the house plans. It got delivered on my birthday, as did the couch we’d ordered when we moved in. See the picture for some classic Tom humour (note, not actually a present, we didn’t do gifts, it just happened to be scheduled for delivery that day).

Anyways, I said I really had to get in better shape if I had this impressive gym in my basement. So Tom put together a work-out plan for me and I put together a playlist. One day we were on a long road trip somewhere without service. If you have ever driven with Tom, you know his preferred driving style is no music and just a pen to spin absentmindedly. Don’t worry, some conversation was allowed. He would always tell me, “I’m fine without music, but you can put on whatever you want”. I was looking for downloaded music to play that day- ahh my work-out playlist. The music did not last particularly long (in my defence I’m pretty sure it just wasn’t all downloaded). Tom roasted me, “Oh wow those must be some kinda workouts you’re doing” as he chuckled away. I always think of that jab when I go to press play now. And I have added some more songs.

There’s a whole future of Tom, of us, of me that I am starting to understand will pop-up demanding to be grieved for the rest of my life. Birthdays are weird. There’s all these hopes and dreams that aren’t going to happen.  And yeahhhhh I get that I can still do amazing things on my own. But here’s the thing, I don’t want that. Yet. I have no idea what a great life would look like to me. I’m not ready for that to not include Tom. It’s like the toothbrush. I guess with time. Hence why I try to stick to the present moment – it is overwhelming to try and look into the future.

Losing Tom seriously rocked my entire worldview. I haven’t been writing as much for myself or the blog this last little bit. I’ve been struggling with who I am and where I’m going. I’ve been stuck in over-analyzing mode. I want to be over this. I want to be through the worst of it. I’ve got to get back to writing, even just for me to try and get some things out. I am trying to go back to my mantra that, for now, I only need to be in the present and that my purpose, for now, is healing.

In my last post I wrote about realizing how much other people have an opinion on my life now. Honestly, I’m still rattled. I’ve caught myself wondering what others think of what I post, what I write, how I carry myself, how fast I’m moving in grief. I wish that wasn’t the case. Even writing this post, I was second guessing myself and whether I should share. There’s an extra vulnerability in writing about me.

Where the heck is my steady confidence? I miss that. But that was old Leslie.  Sure I used to over-analyze things, question my career, put others’ feelings first. But I had Tom to support me no matter what, to ground me and calm my storm. I had learnt to lean into that.

I will never be the same person I was before, and that is hard. I did not want this change. I quite liked the part of me that was wrapped up in being Tom’s wife. I’ve lost that whole part of my identity. It’s like a midlife crisis but no thinking about it first, everything gets pulled at once. No going back. This is existential level stuff. 

I’ve decided I’ll come back to share more around how Tom died, but for now I will say that added a whole other layer to this. Shattered everything for me. Old Leslie believed in science, a level of predictability or control, that we as humans had the power to help. There was such a naivety, and sometimes I do miss that. Recently I was listening to someone share about her job, “Yeah we’re both working lots now so we don’t have to when we’re older and can just enjoy life”. Oof. To not think death can lurk around the corner at any point. To think making long-term plans is a given when you’re young.  

Reflecting on and writing about secondary losses actually helps to validate for myself again how hard this is. It’s not an option to compartmentalize this grief. I’ve said it before, there is no normal life for me to return to. That’s the magnitude of this loss.

I will not pretend that I am unchanged.
(Have I convinced you yet how poignant Sara Rian‘s poetry is?)