A Smiling Young Widow

I went to turn on the air purifier in our room, expecting to hear the humming of the machine as I turned the dial. But I didn’t. Oh it was unplugged. That brief space between expecting something and it not being there? I was thinking this is totally life after a huge loss. It’s part of the grief journey when you lose someone who was and is so intertwined with your day-to-day life. You can’t rationalize it away. There are so many moments where it takes the brain even just a second to catch-up with reality. 

The Grieving Brain book describes grief like if you were walking around your house in the dark, and you know there’s a table to have to walk around so you’re reaching out for it, wanting to identify where it is. You keep reaching around, but you still can’t find it. The world you knew has changed. 

It’s a helpful analogy, but I think it’s a bit soft. What I’ve pictured in my head instead is this time when Tom once destroyed his little toe getting up in the middle of the night at a hotel. Forgetting where he was in that half asleep stupor, he thought he knew the route to walk to the bathroom at home and then bam his foot connected solidly into a bench at the end of the bed. Really, that’s what this kind of grief is like. The wandering around in the dark, thinking you know what is where. Maybe even getting the hang of things a bit. But everything has changed, and sometimes you’re reminded of that with horrible shooting pain as you slam into something. 

The Finality of Loss

I was visiting with someone who lost three significant people in her life over the past few years. She told me, you know, I think the hardest loss was the one I didn’t see coming. The sudden death. Like of course I knew at some point they would die as they were getting older, but the other two deaths had a bit of warning to them. She shared how she struggled to wrap her head around the finality of it all, that her person was really gone. I absolutely agreed. The finality is truly unfathomable – your person was here living life normally and then boom gone.

In talking with other people, this impossible finality seems to hit with any death. It might have been expected and everyone had the chance to say goodbye, it might have been someone who’d been a part of your life since it began or played a role more recently. No matter what, there are going to be moments where it hits that this person can’t really be gone. These feelings last well beyond what our society seems to suggest is ok. You made it a year or maybe you’re gracefully given two, so now all good right? Back to normal?  But when someone who was such a huge presence in your life is no longer there, I’d argue it’s actually more normal to still want to make that phone call or drive a certain route. Of course you still want to make a plan for their birthday. You will miss them being with you when you take that trip you’d talked about doing together, or hitting a milestone you’d dreamed would be accomplished with them there will trigger such a longing. There is a permanent impact someone leaves behind. The love that led to such significant grief doesn’t vanish. I’ll reference the Grieving Brain book’s wisdom again – it takes a long time to predict absence. 

Even Just One Last Conversation

Life continues on and my reality crashes into the normality others can still experience. I have so desperately wished that I could at least call or text Tom many times over this journey. 

The last words I ever said to Tom in-person were a half-asleep “Love you buddy, drive safe”. We texted more during the day about funny little things and house errands, but to have our last words we actually spoke to each other be love you’s and a kiss goodbye? I guess that is pretty lucky. I want more of course. I have often imagined what our last conversation would have been if we had actually known it was our last. 

I think it was a couple weeks after Tom died that I decided to still text his phone. I was journaling as if I was writing to him too, needing to have some sort of outlet for all the words that still needed to be said. There’s no guidebook to this, you wonder if this will make you more crazy? Is this going to make it more painful? I remember actually asking a therapist that, wanting to avoid anything that would make this pain linger. Note – if anyone tells you not to talk to your person who died, cut them out of your grief journey and read up on the continuing bond theory.

It’s not the same as an actual conversation of course. I plead, with who I don’t know, for just one last conversation with my Tom. One last hug. Even a dream – could we just meet in a dream to talk like normal times for a few minutes? No matter how spiritual a person you are or what you believe, this new connection will never be the same as having your human person next to you. It’s a different relationship you are thrown into, with no choice in the matter. 

There’s little things that come up in day-to-day where I just need Tom quick. It’s like this monologue in my brain of ok fine we aren’t together together anymore, like it’s some weird breakup I can’t fix, but practical life stuff continues on and I need a quick word. There was one day early on that I needed to get something that was in the truck’s toolbox, but I could not remember where Tom kept the little key to open it. I’d seen him open it up so many times. I dug through the truck trying to rack my memories, trying to envision Tom reaching for the key. Ugh if I could just have a two minute phone call to get this sorted – though of course if I got one last phone call with Tom it certainly wouldn’t be spent talking about the truck. 

I still catch myself wanting to debrief on this whole thing with Tom. I remember that hitting after the funeral, or maybe even during, when I was talking to someone and thinking oh I’ll have to tell Tom that I met so-and-so. It still pops up now like hey I made it two years, that’s enough, let’s sit down and talk about it all. The whole we are teammates in life bit doesn’t just vanish. 

Impermanence 

The finality of loss teaches hard lessons in impermanence. Nothing can last. There is a weirdness in grief though where the impermanence of pain is supposed to provide comfort; however, the fact that nothing is permanent is the very thing causing this pain.

I was reading a blog about the idea of impermanence where the author started to talk about how in realizing her cat would not live forever she found peace with this idea. She shared how then when her cat died from old age, she knew it was the natural way of this world… I was very tempted to put the eye roll emoji in the comments. The person writing the article claimed to be a therapist, she should know better. Grievers so often run into the over-simplification and dismissal of the very human, normal array of emotions and pain that accompany a huge loss. These stick around for a while, and that is very normal too. Relationships are complex. Our people become deeply intertwined into our own lives. Out of order deaths and the ones that rearrange your whole world – that’s not something you can simply prepare for or checkbox with an ok now I’m clear on impermanence. 

Everything is fleeting. This saying is used to offer comfort – when you’re in a really hard space emotionally it is solid advice to remember the ebb and flow of emotions, like adding a “right now” onto your sentences to remind your whole system that this won’t be forever. It also can apply to the good things in life though — after a huge loss you understand how fleeting that all is too, not trusting that anything will last. This unlocks a profound sense of the preciousness of life.

Regret Insurance

A while ago I listened to a podcast (sorry I can’t at all remember which one). A guest was talking about his work in end of life care and he asked the question of listeners, what do you need to do to ensure you have regret insurance when laying on your death bed?

It’s a question that gets at finding meaning in our days, truly living a life that we are proud of, and prioritizing what is important. The fragility of life is typically something we think about more as we age, though when someone so close to you dies young all of a sudden these types of questions move way up. That’s the reality of this hitting in a way that can’t be ignored. 

Together Tom and I had intentionally made our normal lives actually quite wonderful in the last couple years of his life. We had a pretty great work life balance and had made a move to follow “live where you play” advice. There were adventurous trips and vacations, and also adventure at home. We connected with family and friends. We truly did spend quality time together doing what we enjoyed. That’s still what I want – my regrets are more so that this was cut short versus focusing on anything specific I wished we did with our time. (I’ve been able to convince myself firmly that Tom would feel the same. Of course regrets sneak in in so many ways, like even that last conversation I talked about – I still regret not waking up more that morning, though of course that’s ridiculous. Tom left really early and I was always in a half asleep stupor saying goodbye on Mondays. That made him chuckle. But everything hits differently when your person is gone and you want so desperately for little do-over moments.)

Living in the Now 

Living in the moment is the goal with impermanence, and I notice I am doing that more than ever before. It’s in the little moments that I journal for myself to remember, what I prioritize showing up for, how little I can relate to the hustle culture that still dictates so many other people’s lives. 

“This is not a detour from your life, this is your life” – a quote that has stuck with me throughout this journey. It especially rings true as tomorrow brings my third birthday without Tom. Time doesn’t pause – even if sometimes it feels that way – so much is moving and changing. 

I was writing to Tom again in my journal a couple weeks ago after I’d had a really great day. I’d missed him being there so much – like micro bursts of longing that pop up throughout the day, invisible to the outside eye, where joy and grief coexist almost seamlessly inside of me. My writing finished off with, it’s just absolutely wild how much the missing you sticks around buddy 💛