Our body memory

Your body knows. Your mind knows. Even when you don’t realize it, your body has the ability to retain the memories and feelings of time and space. At least that is something that seems to hit me in the face over and over again. Why am I feeling this way? I might ask myself at a particular time, only to realize, at this time a year ago I was in a very difficult place or experiencing something making its imprint on my body memory.

Towards the end of August, I kept thinking “the end of summer that’s why I’m down”. Until it hit me, that the last week of August we used to always take off and go on a family vacation of some kind. Sometimes it was something local like Grand Bend. Other times we went to Disney or New York City in the last week before the kids went back to school. A triumphant last dance with summer. And now that week is punctuated with another date at the end of the summer long sentence. The second anniversary of Dave’s death looming, waiting to make the last week even more final. Summer’s over. School is back. Dave is gone.

I used to love back to school and so did the girls. For them it has to be ruthless to drag themselves into routine at the same time as feeling this body memory. It is for me.

I also loved September as a new beginning. And while the anniversary has now come and gone and that is the date my family and friends might remember, the body memories keep flooding my subconscious.

On the 23rd of September 2015, Dave thought he was finally going to get to the bottom of the brutal headaches he had been experiencing for about a month. Glasses! He thought he finally needed glasses at age 46. So off he went to the optometrist to get his eyes checked. Once there she looked in his beautiful hazel eyes and saw something sinister, although she did not let him know. She sent him off to the ER, right away, to get an MRI.

Look at his beautiful hazel eyes. In them, the optometrist saw swelling of his optic nerve – a sign that his brain was swelling. A sign that he had a tumour. Those eyes.

On September 24th, 2015, we found out that the terrible headaches in fact were the worst kind of sinister. Cancer – capital C. In our old relationship before capital C, Dave was the calm reassuring presence, always. I was the hyper-emotional, worrier, who panicked about most things. On that day, I laid my head on his chest and told him not to worry. I would somehow learn to be the calm one, the steady one. The last thing he needed was for me to fall apart.

On September 26th, 2015 Dave had a craniotomy and de-bulking surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible. My family and I sat in the waiting room of the surgical unit just before midnight waiting for the outcome. I barely said a word. I closed my eyes for much of the duration of the surgery and prayed hard. One word, over and over. PLEASE. Dave woke up from his surgery making jokes with the nurses. He was good. I was good.

The 27th of September is my birthday. I always loved my birthday because I have a family who makes them very special. The outcome of the surgery was a great gift, but the package it came in was just not wanted. That year, my sister helped Dave get me a beautiful purse that I had been admiring. It’s my favourite purse. I don’t care if it is now ripped inside or the handles are frayed. When it is your birthday everyone wants to see you being happy and celebrating. I must admit, I’m not into it like I used to be. If I could crawl into a hole and stay there from September 3rd (the day he died) right through to October 12th (our anniversary), I would. But I try my best.

Once the tumour was sent off for analysis, we were told it would be a couple of weeks before we got a definitive answer on the type of cancer, although the surgeon was fairly certain it was bad, like the worst kind of bad. We did not google anything or really investigate anything in those two weeks. Dave was trying to heal, I was trying to just exist. And our daughter was just so excited to be turning 12. The follow up with the surgeon for the pathology report was scheduled on her birthday.

October 7, 2015 – our oldest daughter’s 12th birthday. Our appointment. The news that indeed this is the worst capital C. Glioblastoma Multiforme, a death sentence. Fourteen months we were told bluntly, he has 14 months to live. Do all the things you have always wanted to do, live your bucket list. We cried in the parking lot and just held each other. I don’t remember much else from that day, except that I had promised our daughter that she could get a second ear piercing. So we went to the mall and we tried to make it a happy birthday for her while we tried to fathom the news that Dave would be gone in a matter of months.

This was taken that night. Out for dinner to celebrate our daughter’s 12th birthday. We were so scared. I can see it in our faces. But I also see all the LOVE.

October 12th, 2015 – Our 13th wedding anniversary. How do you celebrate when you know this could be your last one? We went out for steak and wine. That was after we had to go into the hospital and Dave had to have a couple staples replaced in the 6-inch scar in his skull. I remember the nurse smiling with us over the fact that it was our anniversary. It was a sad, knowing smile.

When I look back now on those dark days, tension creeps up my spine without being able to control it. I get a headache immediately. I feel the same incredible sense of panic, fear, complete discomfort. My throat tightens, my temples pulse. My body remembers. And while nobody else might connect all those dates, and even sometimes I don’t think about it consciously, my body and mind make the connection. My body begins to give me the signs at the end of August. I cry more, I get more headaches, backaches, neck tension, fatigue, confusion, brain fog, apathy…and it continues right through mid October. Not constant, but frequent and unwanted.

Maybe next year I can try to reclaim this time and see it as an opportunity to celebrate that I do get to be here for one more birthday. I do get to celebrate, even though Dave doesn’t get to anymore. I am here and he is not. I am sad and I can still celebrate. Both are possible and my body knows.

Year two

This year has been very different for my grief and my emotional journey. I have fallen in love again. I am working full time. I have two girls who are growing up so fast without their dad. Life is moving forward at such a clip I can barely catch my breath. The days just speed by, the weeks, the months. I am very caught up in all of the day-to-day functions of being a single parent and getting everything “done”. I often think about the early days of being at home alone with my grief and the ability to rest, think, pray, heal. The process still needs my attention, my time and my capacity, but not in the same quantity it did two years ago.

A little something for the girls for today.

And yet, every day, I still grieve deeply. I identify as a widow. I think about my loss, Dave’s loss, our children’s loss. I long for him to be here and for all of this to have been a mistake. At the same time, I am enjoying my life now. I have good things in my life and I like who I have become, it pains me to say. I am stronger than I ever knew. I am more compassionate than I ever knew. I am resourceful, thoughtful, protective, deeply appreciative, loving…all in a way that was deepened by losing Dave. Somehow I have grown enough to know that my days here on earth without him need to be lived fully. I do not take things for granted. I do not take people, opportunities, experiences or even the mundane for granted. I try to make good choices, I try to give and receive love freely. I try to be present as a parent, available as a friend, and I keep working on all parts of who I am emotionally and physically. I do all of this because I have walked beside my best friend in this world, as his strength left him and the thing, that made him, him, left him. I watched helplessly as his diseased brain waged war on his body and won, taking him to the other side, and leaving me here to figure it all out. He had no choice in the matter. He simply had to take it. So while I have a choice, I choose to live as fully as I can. I choose to eat delicious food, and go away on vacation. I choose to be nice to people in every way that I can. I choose to see people’s pain and offer my love and help if it is accepted. I choose to keep learning and laughing. None of this is easy for me. It is so very hard, especially without Dave by my side. His absence is a constant reminder that being human has a 100% mortality rate. None of us know when our time here is going to be up, so the time for the proverbial “bucket list” is now.

Our last road/family trip together to NYC. Dave always wanted the kids and I to see where he grew up and we got to do that on this trip. Thank you for taking us there Dave.

How I wish Dave still had the chance to enjoy the ordinary, like a good series on Netflix or a great cup of coffee. I miss being able to talk over our day, I even miss bickering with him about the butter that he always left uncovered, although one of our daughters has taken on that role. I miss his piles of crumpled papers from his pockets that he left on the dresser at night when he emptied his pockets. I miss his laugh, his voice. We all miss his cooking. I miss the way he took care of me and the way I took care of him. In re-reading my early writing after his death, I was reminded of a moment at a coffee shop that reduced me to tears. I saw a couple who were picking up their coffees and the husband was busy fixing the wife’s coffee for her while she waited for their food. The intimacy of that act, struck me so profoundly. He knew her. He loved her. He was showing her that in the simple task of fixing her coffee. It’s not about the big showy things, or the far off ideas of “when we have this much time or money we will…” it is all about the everyday moments between you and those you love.

It breaks my heart when I see friends or people I know ignoring their opportunities to express themselves fully, or not allowing the love in or wasting their time caught up in emotions that prevent them from appreciating their lives. For most people though, lessons are hard learned. You have to go through something to understand it, but if you can benefit from my lesson, please don’t let the little things go unappreciated. Please be present for the love that is available to you. Please take pleasure in someone bringing you a coffee made just the way you like it.

One of the memorial tattoos I got after Dave died, is a fern, with phlox flowers around it. In that early writing, I found some of the research I had done about these plants. To the Maori people, ferns represent peace, tranquility and spirituality along with new growth or new beginnings. Known as the Koru, ferns are also associated with nurturing and when it contains more than one frond, it represents the strength and healing of a loving relationship within family or community. In West African Adinkran culture, ferns are a symbol of endurance and resourcefulness and are worn by those who have endured adversity and outlasted difficulty. In contemporary culture, the fern symbolizes the magic of love, the unfolding of a new life and that everything is reborn and continues. It represents transformation, renewal and hope for the future. Phlox flowers symbolize good partnership, harmony, and represent sweet dreams. When I found these meanings I stopped searching for what was going to make up the tattoo I wanted to commemorate our love and our life together.

So here I am two years into the unfolding of my new life. Harmony is returning, a lot of renewal has taken place. I have learned to heal through the strength I draw from what Dave taught me in our relationship and how he loved me. Life continues to bloom for our daughters and bring them and me transformation. He is a part of everything we are. Sometimes that is still very painful but it is always good, it is always beautiful. I am enduring and so are they. We miss you Dave. Two years without you here is two too many.

Holidays and birthdays

For us, Dave’s birthday and Father’s Day almost always coincide or line up one shortly after the other. Being only two years into this widow thing, it’s not my favourite time of year. It’s not very fun to spend a fatherless Father’s day with your kids. I lost my dad too, many years ago, and this particular celebration lost its luster for me, way back then. I was happy to make it a joyful occasion again for my kids and Dave, but that ache never went away for me.

Last year, these occasions were harder for me than the anniversary. My Dave wasn’t so into his birthday but I always tried to make it special. For his 40th, I threw him a surprise party. I am fairly certain he was not surprised and although we all had fun – I am honestly not a great hostess! I never felt like it was what he truly deserved.

Not very surprised at his “Surprise 40th”

10 short years ago and also a long decade ago

His 50th was spent in a very different way. Grieving his absence. Almost two years after his death, here was this day that would have been a momentous occasion if he were here. In many ways it feels like the anticipation of these anniversaries are worse than the days themselves. After Dave died, his cousin asked if she could come visit me at his birthday every year and we could celebrate him together, along with his best friend. This to me was a perfect request. It provided me with the knowledge that she wanted to remain close to me and that she wanted to keep Dave’s memory alive. It also spoke to my heart with the knowledge that there are others who are grieving him deeply and would always remember and want to celebrate him. So our tradition of meeting up and spending that day together was born. We decided to do things he would have loved. Go the movies and eat good food! Dave worked for an incredible company, IMAX. He loved his work and he loved movies. So we go to the IMAX theatre, we sit in the best seats from his ‘audio-nerd’ perspective and we see something he would have loved. In fact it would have been something he would have worked on. Oh my Dave, you would have loved Toy Story 4. It was hilarious. It was so well written and the sound was incredible. Happy 50th birthday and Happy Father’s Day. I wish you were here.

Time and grief

Two steps forward, one step back

It seems like our progress in this grief work is so very slow. The constant swirling thoughts in our heads are so overwhelming. If you have never been in the hot seat, so to speak, when it comes to grief, it is all consuming until it is not. There are no timelines, or hard and fast rules about how long the intense part of grieving will last. There is just time. And that part might be now and then again in a couple hours and then not hit you for months. One day you might be relatively ok and even enjoying yourself and then a song will come on and you will dissolve into a puddle. Another day (possibly in the same week), you feel like you can’t get out of bed, your longing, your anxiety and your pain are so intense. These scenarios can happen the first week after losing someone close to you or 17 years later. I think that’s why there is so much backlash against the Stages of Grief, by Elilzabeth Kubler-Ross. As explained in the linked article, Kubler-Ross never intended the stages to be linear or to even truly apply to grief, they were originally conceptualized for those who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

2001 – Back when we thought we had an eternity to spend together. First day home for our pup Chachi. We were in love, living together and playing house with our puppy.

And yet we are drawn over and over again to try to fit things in a neat and orderly straight line. My timeline sorting goes something like this: “On this date I was completely unknowing of the tragedy about to befall us, on this date I knew and was coping, on this date we were dealing with challenges, on this date it was just before he went into the hospital the last time…”My life before made a lot of sense in sequence. My life after losing Dave doesn’t play so nicely with time.

Right now I am mid-step. I am taking steps forward but keep fumbling and going backward also. It’s not bad or wrong but it’s hard to grasp. The constant duality of emotion is exhausting. I am beginning to like my new life but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss my old one. If I like my life now, am I being disloyal to my old life? Exactly the opposite of linear, feeling and living both/and/also is challenging and messy (AND TIRING).

July 2017 – just days before Dave went into the hospital for the last time. He went in on August 9 and never came home. He died on September 3, 2017.

When I look back at the raw emotions I felt days after losing Dave, my writing is different and yet I can recall that pain in an instant. I refer to this as a raw wound that is slow to heal. I’ve written about this before – it was something I had read somewhere. At first it is all you can think about and any touch is excruciating. After some time it begins to heal but you are still guarded about anyone coming close to that sensitive area and it is still very much at the forefront of your awareness. At some point the horrible wound turns into a scar, and it is not quite as noticeable to everyone around you that you were hurt so badly, but if they get close or probe, your recollection of how you received that traumatic injury comes back to you instantaneously.

In thinking about writing this, I was looking through some photos of our life together and looking for those timelines. A couple steps back…so much love and anticipation in our faces. A couple steps forward, fear and exhaustion. A couple steps back – who knew what lay ahead? A couple steps forward…trying to live in that mid-step. Not forward or backward. In the and.

What’s in a name?

A year and a half worth of thinking

WhatName_0

Well this took me long enough. I mean it actually took me 18 months to commit to a name for this blog. You might think that is ridiculous, unless you have ever tried to write a blog and then abandoned it because the name no longer fit the purpose. (check!) I could have just named it something with my name, but I felt like that was too boring and it would give those searching no glimpse into what this blog will actually be about. Like I have people searching!?

Well I have had a few people tell me to write a book and I do have this need to share my story. So here is the very quick version: I am a mom and a widow. My husband of 15 years, Dave, died on September 3, 2017. Dave was and is the man of my dreams. I was actually floored when he fell in love with me. It felt like winning the lottery. We got married, had our ups and downs, had two kids, a house a dog and 10+ good years. Life was good and ordinary and beautiful. Then Dave started having headaches, he was rarely sick, so of course it had to be a brain tumour. Unfortunately I am not kidding. Like the worst most aggressive kind – Glioblastoma Multiforme Stage 4.(I encourage you not to click that link and just take my word for it – it’s bad. Like the worst kind of bad.) If you are Canadian or a Tragically Hip fan you will recognize this cancer as the same kind that Gord Downie had. So we had two years of hell AND two years of awesome living. Strangely, they were the same two years. He actually fared really well with his first surgery, chemo, radiation and all that effed up cancer stuff and would sometimes wake up and say…”I forgot I had cancer for 3 days!” In that good year we went on a couple of great family trips (Dominican Republic and a NYC road trip), one couple trip (Chicago), I was home with him for a great summer and then things started going wrong again. Because with this particular type of hellish cancer (they are all hellish), you can never really get rid of all the cancerous cells, you can just try to keep them “stable”. When things changed, they became very unstable. He couldn’t walk, he slept for 18 hours a day, he was on several medications to keep the brain swelling down and then he had to have another surgery. I will go into more detail in future posts, but this is the cheat sheet. When the end came, it was ugly. It was terrifying and brutal. Realizing that the only way out of the hell you are in is to lose the love of your life is not a good place to be. And then he was gone and I was without my person and my girls were without the best daddy. So the last 18 or so months have been about rebuilding, relearning, redesigning my plans, our lives, our futures. And just when I started to get a bit of a handle on things I also, rather inconveniently, fell in love again. Terrifying and wonderful. Amazing and weird.

So I needed a space for my writing. I need to write, because when I don’t my head gets too full of all my thoughts and I can’t keep them organized. I have a whole lot of thoughts all the time, on grief, on life, on love, on parenting, on dating, on falling in love, on pain and suffering, on joy and happiness, on all kinds of stuff. That’s what this blog will be about, but that’s way too long for a catchy blog title. The most pervasive feeling that has been with me over the recent months is how to be okay with the duality that lives within me. At any given moment, I am feeling intense grief and intense gratitude. I love my old life and I am learning to love the new. I am sometimes excited and also devastated. The old me would have said that these feelings are at odds with one another but there is no rule about that so I am trying my best to live with both, with and, with also.

Other criteria for choosing a blog name:

Not a million other blogs with the same name
Not only about grief or being a widow.

So here we are. BothAndAlso. See you soon (not really), talk to you soon, (nope not that either), write to you soon 🙂