Ok so I've been away for a bit.....

I apologize to my one follower (lol) that I have been away for a bit. I have been going through--and am still going through--a severe depression following my husband's death. At first I felt numb. Then I felt somewhat vaguely anxious, followed by crying jags which no one in my family approved of or understood (all males).

Also I just noticed, as I tried to post confused looking guys URL 's here for photos, that suddenly none of the URL's are "valid" and all are 8,000 miles long, so one more thing has fallen to to pieces. So I apologize profusely for no entertaining photos in this post. I'll get my son to look at it when he gets back from camp.

Anyhow, I note that (some) guys just don't have a ton of patience and tolerance when it comes to female catastrophizing--even when it is a genuine catastrophe, and believe you me it doesn't get more genuine than having your sweet husband die in your arms.  I am getting through my days as best I can.  I get up, get Daniel (13 year old with high functioning Asperger's) off to whatever he has going on that day, and get to morning mass, which calms me and centers my day. We have just lost our associate pastor Father Wade, my spiritual director for the past two years and the man who got me through my husband's funeral and my breakdown at his coffin graveside. Our replacement associate priest, though extremely sweet and gentle, is difficult to understand having come directly from India and is unfamiliar with certain words still (widow being one of them), so we are all feeling a little lost and off balance  However, we've still got Father Isidore!

(I hate that shirt--it makes me look huge)

So, after Mass I do a variety of things to try and occupy myself--working in library at church, coffee with friends, adoration, grief group on wednesday days and on monday evenings, visits with both my son's therapist and psychiatrist and my own, all of whom are a good 45 min drive away, visits with my Stephen Minister, and so on. It all helps a bit, but inevitably those moments of panic and distress return and my family (by which I mean my 3 boys, my dear sister in California, my far flung nieces and sometimes my ex husband (long story--we rent our house from him and he comes by on the weekends to help out and micro manage until my brain spills out my ears--he IS helpful but makes me feel like a nincompoop--ex: "Your tags are expired on your license plate Kerry!!!! Are you an IDIOT?", etc when I have never ever had to do that stuff before and  am doing well to remember to feed everyone and buy groceries and do laundry.

Then comes the dreaded evenings. I struggle with my youngest son often, as he and I go round and round on the "I bet I can say something to make her cry" merry go round, and my nerves are such a jangled mess by that time of day that it doesn't take much to dissolve me into a puddle, which just worsens the situation.

At a funeral I recently attended, I sat next to a sister who was with the sisters of St Eudice of the 11th hour--an order for women ages 45-65. They wear a full habit and have a wonderful apostolate that really appeals to me. If, when Daniel is raised, I still feel the same pull towards full time service to God as a religious, it's nice to know it's possible for someone my age.

I am still struggling to know my place in life, now. I don't like being a widow, but I can't imagine anyone as wonderful and ideal for me as my dear one in Heaven.  I don't know how many years I may have left but I feel unproductive, unloved and afraid right now. I cannot go through the remainder of my life this way. I have gone to widows forums and they are so sad to visit--it helps to know I am not alone, but oh, the pain there, and the anguish, and it goes on and on, for years.     Right now that is just too frightening to comprehend. So I am trying the one day at a time thing.

Please keep me in your prayers.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

7 Quick Takes Friday

1)  I knew it I knew it. No sooner does your beloved die and leave you alone with a terrifying pile of bills and a terrifying lack of income than the flood of broken stuff behind to roll in. I used to tell him all the time, "You cannot die and leave us because we cannot fix the computer, or the TV, or anything else remotely electronic, nor can we get the cell phones to work again, or fix my blow-dryer when I get water in the plug somehow, or any number of other things that only he could do.  Now I have trouble with my widgets on my main screen--I can't see them and I don't know if anyone else can either.  Anyone know how to fix this? Anyone have an electronics tech I can borrow? Oh Dear Lord Jesus, I miss him so--please take good care of him.

2)  Which sort of brings me to my next rant. Which I warn you won't make any sense.  But here goes.  Why is it that there are "no marriages in Heaven"?  I think the Mormon religion picks up a lot of converts just by promising them they will be "sealed forever" to their spouse and family in Heaven. That thought is very attractive to most of us earth-bound humans who have a hard time imagining that they won't desperately want to see and be with their dear ones when they get to Heaven. Yet the image I keep getting is one of well, you might catch a glimpse of a familiar face now and again and wave across the streets of gold, --MAYBE--but you really won't care because all the focus is on God. Now, I realize that this is one of those mysteries we won't fully understand til we hit the Pearly Gates, but....but.....I want to think I will see him again, hug him again, that we will know and recognize each other as special to one another in the earthly plane, and that we will continue to have some sort of friendship/relationship in Heaven. It makes me sad to think we will just pass as ships in the night. I mean, do we retain our personalities, and whatever things made us special to others in life on earth? Or what?

3)God, what are you calling me to do?  I don't understand. I don't have the foggiest idea how to be a great mom to a teen with Aspergers and ADHD . I'm too old to be a nun, too young to be so alone, to poor to start up a business or begin a new career. I don't know what God wants from me.

4)  Family is tired of listening to me talk about my dead husband, my grief, my financial concerns, etc. Kids (ages 29 and 21) tell me it is boring, that I can't "lay" my sadness on them by ever speaking of it or crying in front of them, that I need to pretend to be happy so I'm more entertaining to talk to, or they just will stop talking to me altogether.  I should leave all that for a paid counselor, they tell me, not for family.  I thought that was what your family was for--to help you bear the burdens during the rough times, and share your happiness in the good times.  I can't pretend a happiness I don't feel two months after losing the love of my life so I will be more "fun" to hang around. And if they don't want to be around me they will have to take a number and get in line.    
When I read blogs or hear about other families who cling together during crises, who express love and caring, I feel a pretty big (if I am honest) twinge of jealousy.

Wallowing in self pity again

 5) How much self pity do we get per day? Someone told me 15 minutes--set the clock, cry about your lost loved one for 15 minutes, then resume your normal life. All well and good but my normal life is no longer here.  He took it with him when he went. Now all I have is horrible surprises behind every phone call , ruined credit from medical bills I can never hope to pay ($75,000 for one day in ICU, and he was there 3 weeks), kids who don't want to talk to me because I'm not "fun", a closet full of clothes he will never wear again and trying to deal with the Social Security nightmare.

Better set my watch.

6) I wish they didn't only sell Delaware Punch in Louisiana and South Texas. That was one remarkable canned beverage, by golly, and it  was always around my house when I was a kid. Whenever I got sick, I got Delaware Punch, Welch's grape juice and Flintstones orange Push-Ups.  

7)  Took our dog Max to the vet today. He has a nasty yeast infection in one ear. Poor guy. It's a dog's life.

                                                                                                                     

7 Quick Takes Friday

1) I love the new Pope--such a humble man, how can you not love him? I can't wait to hear ore about what he will be doing in office. I love that he says a public mass each day! I wonder who gets to come?

2)  May is the month of the Blessed Virgin.  I think often of how much she endured--losing her husband, then her son. Then going on to help build the new Church--without the physical presence of either Joseph or Jesus. Such a brave, wonderful woman.

3) How on earth do people manage when a spouse dies? Even the support groups I go to and the blogs I read hold out little hope for improvement in the icepick  like pain, no matter how long goes by.  I can't imagine ever being with anyone else. He was my soulmate.  My friend.  I could always trust him.  He never lied to me. He always loved me. He never looked at anyone else. And he had the longest, most beautiful eyelashes on earth. How do people do it?  My mom died 20 years ago and as much as I loved her and as bad as it hurt, this is no comparison.

4) Went for a delivery with Mobile Loaves and Fishes last night, to take food and clothing to the homeless. It was unseasonably cold last night and people were begging for warm clothes.  We drove by the Salvation Army, and saw some through the windows upstairs making their beds, and the unlucky ones downstairs outside freezing and huddled around the building, racing up to get the food.   So much misery in the world, in so many ways.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes truck

5) I hate weekends. For some reason they are so hard to get through. I don't know why exactly--they just are.

6)  I am grateful for the support group I have been attending at The Christi Center.  It's a couple of hours out of the week I don't have to feel weird about bawling my eyes out til I break out in hives (as happened last week in the shower), or not being "over it" yet.  Everyone there knows what it's like--they know the awful, indescribable pain of losing your partner, your other half--and way too soon.

7)  Oh my Robert---please come back.  Please come back. Please come back.

The Sadness

I am a widow, I am not a wife anymore. I no longer have the right to check "married" in the "marital status" blocks on various forms.  I have no partner.  No one to listen to me read them interesting tidbits off the internet or read to the in the car while they drive. No one to say "that's my girl" when I give him a hug.  No one to love our son, who can be a real handful, like I do.

I am not exactly "alone". I live with my two younger sons, 21 and 13, and two dogs, but the house feels empty. My days feel empty. Seeing his clothes makes me cry.  Seeing his handwriting makes me cry.  I cried so hard a few days ago, wailing in the shower so no one would hear me, that I actually broke out in hives.  My doctor told me this was a normal response to deep grief.

I have people in my life who think I should be over it by now.  I have others who totally understand.  I went to a grief support group last night for adults who have lost spouses.  Several were very fresh losses like mine.   So much pain in one small room.  Yet it was somehow comforting too, and crying was ok.


But still......

I am a widow.  I have no husband. No one who would move heaven and earth for me if I needed him.  No one human anyhow.  I know, I need to lean harder on God.  I know this.

I miss my husband.

I pray he is safe and happy somewhere and that wherever he is, he loves me still.

7 Quick Takes Friday

Ok, I promise not to be excessively depressing and morbid today though it's hard, really it is.  But I don't want to drive everyone away when I just started blogging. Still it was hard to take my husband's picture down and list myself as a "widow".

(not me--but close enough)

1) I am thrilled to hear that both Jen and Hallie's little boys are here (from Conversion Diary and Moxie Wife), but concerned about and praying for Jen's little one who is having breathing issues and is in the NICU. Please pray for little Joseph Thomas, that all will be well, that Jen herself will be protected from blod clots, and that the family will soon be reunited.

2) Pope Francis--I missed the whole thing while I was in Houston with my darling during his last days, so I am only just now getting to know anything about him.  I thought he was Italian until just a couple days ago, lol! But he seems like a very decent sort of guy--very much a "man of the people" who does not put on airs--and I like that. He has a friendly smile, too.  And I love the name he chose! I can't believe no one chose it before!

Pope Francis, smilin' away!

3)  I have a TON of wonderful books to read, as I have gotten quite behind on my reading, as you might well imagine. My sweet husband got me a subscription to National Geographic just before he passed, so I get to read about all my fantasy destinations--the Congo, Denmark, Greenland, the Northern Lights, Yellowstone at Christmas, etc.  I will probably never get to any of them, as I am not the type of person who has that sort of income, but it's nice to dream, and I hope my Robert is up there in Heaven seeing every inch of God's creation and marveling over it.

Christmas at Yellowstone

4)  I really want to start celebrating the liturgical  year with my son Daniel, who is 13. But how do I do this when I don't know much about it in the first place, as a relatively new Catholic, and when his interest is minimal to moderate at best, and when we are both grieving over our loss, and when I am a lousy creative person? He's too old for most of the "kid" stuff but bored by the adult stuff, and has ADHD as well as Aspergers. Any suggestions?

Liturgical Year

5)  haven't been doing much cooking or cleaning beyond the basics--laundry and dishes--since coming home from Houston.   I want to create a peaceful space for myself, at least in my bedroom.  Our house is older--1980--and small--what they call a "starter home"---and hasn't been repainted, recarpeted or had the linoleum changed since 1987. It's hideous. I have never painted, laid carpet or linoleum, etc in my life.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around paying the bills.  But it would be nice to have at least one clean, comforting room to go into.

Not my house but you get the general idea

6)All the meaning of life is contained in the original version of Disney's Fantasia.

7) Hard core grief sucks.

Please Pray

Dear friends, both old and new--I need your prayers please.  My dear husband has been on a liver transplant list for some time now--he has cirrhosis from hepatitis that he got from a blood transfusion back in the 80's.  They do annual MRI scans to make sure nothing is developing as far as cancer, etc and this time, they found a mass in his liver that they strongly suspect is cancer, as well as something in one lung that they are not sure what it is--they said it did not light up with the contrast dye like cancer usually does and may just be a nodule or something else (cyst, etc). They also said his blood work showed a normal alphafetoprotein level which is usually elevated in cancer of the liver, etc. However, the liver mass did light up with the contrast dye, indicating probable cancer. 

They said it IS treatable and that there are several ways to treat it, all outpatient, and right now he will be having a CT scan of the lungs next week to see what is going on there and then on the 22nd the transplant team will be meeting with a specialized radiologist to decide what is what and what treatment plan to choose. 

Please pray for this dear sweet man, and for my own sanity as well--I don't know how on earth I will bear it if I lose him. I love him so very very much. And we have a 13 year old son who adores him as well.  I ask your prayers please, tonight. 

God bless you.