When my wife passed away in November of 2010, I was heartbroken. I knew she really was in that “better place,” but I hated that she was gone from me. Despite all the prayers I desperately prayed for her healing, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. She hung on for a long time because I didn’t want to let her go. When I realized how selfish I was, I felt so badly for her lying in her hospital bed at home under my care, unresponsive because of her brain tumors and a probable stroke. The night before she passed away, I cried and prayed to God to end her suffering and take her home to Him, that I would bear all her pain for her, and then I told her I was sorry for keeping her with me and it was okay to go home to God.
She was still with me the following morning. I got up, made myself a cup of coffee, opened the blinds to her room, and described the day to her as I began to clean her up. It was my father’s birthday…he’d have been ninety-three…and there were four inches of fresh snow on the ground, glistening in the sunshine of a beautiful morning. I had just finished giving her a sponge bath and putting her favorite nightie on her when, with just a quiet exhale, she left me. It was about 11:00 a.m. In a panic, I checked for a heartbeat, I checked to see if she was still breathing. Nothing. She was gone. I sat down beside her and wept, I stroked her face and her head and wept. I told her I would love her forever and I wept. Even when we expect that moment may be near, we are never ready when it happens. My final prayer had been answered. God had taken her home to Him, and I was bearing all her pain…as well as my own. We had been married just over twenty-eight years.
There was so much to do following her death, and I managed to wade through it numbly. There were the legal matters, insurance matters, her cremation as her final wish, and preparing for her memorial service. I wrote a eulogy and her obituary, the boys…our sons…helped with the service, and the church and our pastor were simply amazing. So many people stepped up to help make it a real celebration of her life, as it should have been. I will be forever grateful to…and for…our sons and my church family. Thank you again, and again!
And then it was over. The memorial service provided closure for everyone…except me, and to a slightly lesser extent, for our sons. Fortunately, for Craig and Blake, they had families to return home to, and I know that home life helped them go on as it did me when my own mother passed away so many years ago. But now, only a silent house awaited my return. It was then that the numbness began to wear off and the ache of loneliness and loss arrived with a rush. It was crushing. There were times I could barely breathe, I hurt so badly. Every night when I fell into bed, physically and emotionally exhausted, I prayed that I would not awaken in the morning. It was the only way the pain would end. Yet morning after morning following about four hours of sleep, I was so disappointed to open my eyes and see the same, familiar ceiling. Another day would begin, just like the day before and the day before that. It was only at this time did I realize the depth of the pain and loneliness my mother felt when my father passed away suddenly some thirty-three years before Lou. I wept for my mother. I had no idea my ignorance could cause such regret.
A Lifesaver. . .The Beginning of The Healing
I endured my “Groundhog Day” (like the movie starring Bill Murray) for just over two-and-a-half months before I began attending my bereavement group sessions the following February 1. I do believe that making the call to attend those sessions was one of the better things I’ve done for myself. I needed to learn how to cope with Lou’s death. I was a fighter, not a griever, and I was at a total loss as to how to deal with my grief. I thought I was weak for wanting to go, for having to go. I’d rather have wrestled with God and lost, I’d rather have taken a bullet for her, I’d rather have taken her cancer for her and died in her place, but it was not to be. I had to stay and live with the emptiness, with the pain, and with the horrible loneliness without her. I thought I was alone in the way I felt, but found I was not. The group showed me that. I was among others who were experiencing the same emotions, the same guilt, the same anger, the same regrets, and the same thoughts as I, and I began to feel safe among those kindred spirits. I also began to learn that there is really strength in numbers and we formed some friendships that have survived to this day. And we learned how to cope, albeit slowly.
One incident occurred as we were approaching our third session and I still prayed that I wouldn’t awaken in the mornings. One night, I awoke because of a hypoglycemic event. I’m a diabetic and I awoke sweating profusely and shaking, and I remember thinking that this was my ticket out. If I laid there long enough, my blood-sugar levels would drop until I became comatose, and I would simply, finally die. I laid there, sweating and shaking, my heart pounding in my chest as the adrenalin worked to try to get my blood-sugar levels to rise. I tried closing my eyes, but I couldn’t. And finally, for whatever reason, I threw off the covers and stumbled to the vanity where I tested my blood-sugar. It was down to 43. Normal is between 70 and 120. I made it to the kitchen where I ate some ice cream, a bowl of cereal, a candy bar, some peanut butter, drank about three glasses of water, put on my robe, and then went to sit in my dark living room to let my blood-glucose level normalize.
After about ten minutes, I could feel the fogginess lifting and my heartbeat was beginning to slow. I had stopped sweating. I was going to live. It was that singular moment that I realized that I had wanted to live just a bit more than I wanted to die, and I wanted to live for…me! I realized that there were still things that I wanted to do, places I wanted to go, sights that I wanted to see, and songs that I wanted sing. I began to remember some of the things that Lou had told me while she still could, before the brain tumors stole her memories and motor skills. One of the first things she told me was that she had wanted to die before I did because she knew she couldn’t go on without me. She got her wish, but she didn’t know that I was a mess because of it. She also told me that, should she die, she wanted me to find someone else and fall in love again because I had too much love left in me to go to waste. In the dark of my living room, I wept. This time, it was different. It was cleansing, it was hopeful, and it was sad because it was the beginning of my really saying good-bye to her. I knew she would always be with me, but she was gone from me. I went back to bed about an hour later, and finally slept for six straight hours. When I awoke, I opened my eyes and felt different. For the first time since Lou died, I knew I wanted to live. I never again prayed that I would die in my sleep.
It still wasn’t easy, and it certainly didn’t get better right away. Grief has a certain inertia about it that seems to be overcome only in small bits and pieces, and Time is one of the more important factors and forces that help nudge healing along. The interesting and sometimes maddening thing about Time is that there is no set amount of it that will help healing along. Time is a personal thing. It stands still, especially when one is grieving a loss. In grief, passing time can be more painful than passing a kidney stone because the pain of grief cuts through one’s heart and soul and there’s only one thing a person can take to ease that pain, though it’s something that the deceased would never want the survivor to take…one’s own life. I can say that, amid my pain and grieving, I began to understand why some surviving spouses, especially men, take their own lives. They couldn’t stand the pain and the loneliness and didn’t know how to cope with it. I am not ‘wired’ that way, though I prayed to God that he would take me in my sleep. I also began to understand why some survivors passed away within months of losing their spouses, whether men or women. One can die from loneliness and a broken heart. I wondered why I didn’t.
In my grief, in my loneliness, and even in my anger, I finally turned to God for respite when I hurt so badly I could barely breathe and the weight of my loss would drop me to the floor. Every time I asked Him, He granted it to me, if only for a short time. At first, I had to beg Him for relief several times a day, and He always granted it to me. I was amazed, and my faith was strengthened.
That first year without Lou, my Year of Firsts, was painful. After twenty-eight years of marriage, it was the first time I celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve without Lou. It was torture, though my sons took good care of me and made sure I was with family. I celebrated Valentine’s Day, her birthday, Easter, my birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Memorial Day without her. Of that stretch, her birthday was the most difficult day for me. I was so glad to see midnight come and go that day because it meant that I had survived her birthday.
A Change in Time
On my birthday in April, almost five months after Lou died and about a month after her birthday, I awoke and felt different. I laid there in wonder, because for the first time since she died, I felt good. I purposely thought about her, and I purposely formed the words, “She died, and she’s no longer with me,” and then I waited for the grief to flood through me. It didn’t. Only sadness did. I threw off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. No crushing grief, no heartache, no pain. Only sadness. I got dressed, made the bed and went to the kitchen to make my coffee. I sat in the living room with my cup of coffee and wondered how, after almost five months, I could go to bed with a heartful of grief and awake feeling as though someone flipped a switch and turned it off. The first thing that popped into my head after that thought was, Happy Birthday to me. The pain was still a fresh memory. I still had the same thoughts, the same sadness, the same memories, but no more pain. I thanked God and Lou for this incredible gift. I felt I was on the verge of a new and different life now, and I began to feel hopeful for this new beginning.
There were still some stumbling blocks during that Year of Firsts, but almost day-by-day, I could feel myself healing, becoming happier, becoming a whole person once again, in my own right. I began to see everyday things differently, with more appreciation. A month later, I wrote a short biography and posted it on a couple of dating sites because I began to want some female contact. I just wanted to be able to have a cup of coffee and talk with a woman. All it took was a few cups of coffee and a few emails to realize that it didn’t make any difference if I wanted to go slow, many of the ladies I met most definitely had time lines and agendas, and I was not ready! I began to back away from those websites. I decided I needed to get away and put some physical distance between all of us, so I 
decided to take the vacation that Lou and I planned before she was diagnosed with brain tumors. We had abandoned that vacation in favor of beginning radiation and chemotherapy treatments to stop the tumors. Sadly, none of it worked. I took my first road trip in twenty-eight years by myself in honor of her. I drove to places I’d never been to see things I’d never seen. The first day was the most difficult, but things only got better after that. I didn’t feel conspicuously alone. I began to enjoy my own company and be confident in it. I looked directly at strangers and smiled, and they smiled back! I drove almost 2,000 miles and took 1,400 photos. I was gone for two weeks. I love digital cameras!
I took my second road trip two weeks after I returned home. This time I went to her family’s reunion. I wasn’t going to go, but both of her sisters called me and asked me to consider going because I was the family’s last link to Lou because I was her husband. I decided to go. I had never felt so welcomed! I was told that I would always be a member of the family, and should I ever find someone else and marry her, she would be a member of the family, too, because that’s the way families go on. Her family is now my family! I love them all! That road trip lasted almost two weeks, too. I drove 1,600 miles this time and still took about 1,400 photos. I was whole again.
The Rebuilding Process
It was just three days after what would have been Lou’s and my twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, and about nine months after she died that I met Debbie, and my life changed once again. She and I fell in love. Upon returning to my home one day after visiting Debbie, I looked around the house and was stunned. I walked through every room and looked at it closely. I realized nothing had changed since Lou had passed away. I had been existing in a museum. I sat down and wondered where I was going to begin. I needed to make some changes in my new life. The following morning, I began in the master bedroom. I went through the large dresser and sorted Lou’s clothing into two bags…one for give-away, the other for throw-away. I kept nothing. Then I went through my clothing and sorted it into three piles…give-away, throw-away, and keep. The stuff I kept I put back in the drawers. I did the same thing with the other two dressers before I started on the closet. From there, I went to the guest bedroom that she used as her dressing room and went through the armoire, the closet and a small desk. I filled my truck five times with Lou’s clothing and took it to the Federal Way Multi Service Center, so they could give it all away to battered women who had nothing and needed to start over again. I thought it was the highest and best use for the clothing she loved. I took my unused clothing there, too, because they also gave it away to men’s shelters.
A few months later, I remodeled the master bedroom by tearing out the old carpet and wood trim and replacing it with laminate flooring and new trim, repainting it, and had the bath redone by removing the old tub and replacing it with a shower and additional storage. I had the vanity and medicine cabinet replaced, I designed and had built another storage unit, and replaced the lighting. I’ve repainted the dining room and kitchen and replaced the lighting. I’ve taken down a lot of the artwork on the walls and have replaced it with canvas prints of photos I’ve taken.
As time passed (yes, Time!), I have healed. Debbie moved in with me. She is helping me go through the rest of the house, doing much the same thing I began. We are boxing things to be donated, deciding what to keep, deciding what things go to which family members, and deciding what we are going to sell at our ‘driveway sale’ when the weather gets better. Our goal is to get the house cleaned out so I can sell it and we can buy our home together, have the house and shop that we want, and just the possessions that we want in our life together…our stuff!
I am rebuilding my life with Debbie now, and it feels good and right. Does that mean I have forgotten Lou? No. I never will. How could I? We spent more than twenty-eight years together and I learned so much from her and our marriage. That chapter in my life ended on November 23, 2010. A new chapter began the next day, and it began badly. Though it lingered in grief for a while, it has only gotten better by the day since then. Before Lou died, and before her brain tumors took her motor skills and memories from her, she gave me the most selfless gift ever. I didn’t remember it until months after she had passed away. She felt that she needed to give me permission to move on, should she die. She told me that she wanted me to find someone new and love them because I had too much love left in me to go to waste. Can you imagine that? How can I ever forget her?
I have been truly blessed in my life. I have found someone and I love her so much. She’s my Debbie!
Then there are a very special group of people who feel relief because they managed to survive the ‘holiday stretch.’ They began the stretch with trepidation. They went through each holiday remembering it the way it used to be: Halloween with their children, and grandchildren, passing out candy together and marveling at the Trick-or-Treaters in their costumes, preparing for and celebrating Thanksgiving together and with family, and preparing for, decorating for and celebrating Christmas together and with family, and finally, bringing in the New Year together. They remember the things that were so “special” to them…the sounds, the scents, the songs, the ‘new’ traditions they began as newlyweds, the moments of quiet spent together…that they no longer share. So, who are these people? They are widows and widowers who are going it alone. They are people who have lost their life partners, people who have lost the
loves of their lives, to death. Yes, most have loving families with whom they spend the holidays, but it’s not the same without that lifetime partner, that spouse, that special one that they chose to love, and who chose to love them back. That is a most special and cherished bond, a special love because each chose the other. Unless one has lost a spouse or mate to death, I believe it’s almost impossible for anyone else to fully understand that feeling of loss. Only then can a child, no matter the age, understand the loss a surviving parent feels when his or her spouse passes away.
the time. I know she had a difficult time trying to care for both, because I heard it every day when I took the time to call her. All I can remember her asking is when I was going to come home. I know that she had no idea how I felt trying to take care of my mom and grieve for my dad, my mentor. I don’t believe she ever understood how I felt until her own father passed away years later, and I finally understood what my mother felt when I lost my wife to cancer in 2010.
For those who have friends who have lost a spouse or life partner but have not personally experienced that loss, I would ask of you to not try to push your friends back into “life,” or try to make them feel better. This will happen only when your friends are ready. You can’t fully understand what they’re going through or the emotions they’re feeling. The only thing you can do is to try to include them, “be there” for them, be patient, and let them talk if they feel like it. Above all, if they are friends, treat them that way. They are trying to figure out who they are all over again, they are trying to understand and get used to their new life as one, and these things are only going to happen on their time, not yours.
To A New Year! May it become better as the days pass. Some people make resolutions for the New Year…and they are mostly forgotten by the end of January. I think a good resolution to make would be to begin to appreciate the “little things,” like the smell of a rose, the taste of a great cup of coffee or tea, how beautiful a sunset can be, a moon-rise over the water, the smile of a child, the sound of a bird singing, or the look on a friend’s face when you tell them they are appreciated and loved. Life really is all about these “little things.”
I kept waking up every morning and remember feeling so disappointed because I would have to face another day of heartache, longing, anger, and the pain of my wife’s death. It was like the movie, Groundhog Day, waking up to the same stuff every day, with no end in sight. I needed help, and that’s what drove me to my bereavement group. At first, I thought I was weak for having to be in that group, but soon found safety there because I was with others who felt as I did. I finally felt comfortable in a place outside the walls of my home with other people. It helped that the group facilitator had lost her husband five years earlier than our losses. She brought us out of our protective shells and we began to talk, to pour out our hurt, our anger, our loneliness. She was the one who told us that grief takes as long as it takes, that there is no time limit on how long to grieve. She told us that it helped to talk about it, write about it in a journal, cry, and then do it all over again. She told us there was no “right way” or “wrong way” to grieve, and those who told us otherwise, as well as those who thought we spent too much time or not enough time grieving hadn’t grieved like we were. Grief was a personal and individual thing. She told us we would have bad days and better days, and that certain things…songs, something on TV, something we overheard someone say, a smell, a taste, a sound…would trigger memories and more grief. And whatever it was, it was normal. It was a new normal, because it was a different life now. It was now a life without a spouse, and it would never be the same as it once was. I learned much from her that I hope I’m paying forward.
As the last of our eight weekly sessions ended, our group decided we were going to continue meeting, albeit independently, on the same day at the same time, every week because we weren’t ready for our sessions to end. We still needed the support and understanding from the others. The first two weeks, we met in a conference room in the basement of the St. Francis Hospital and brought snacks and coffee. The next two weeks, we met in a conference room at the library, but weren’t allowed to eat or drink there. We finally decided to pick a friendly local restaurant, one that hosted a weekly men’s bible study group, to meet and have brunch. By this time, we were down to eight, three of us men, and five ladies. Ten months later, we were down to seven because one of the ladies lost her daughter in a SCUBA diving accident a day short of one year after she lost her husband, and she joined another bereavement group. Almost two years later, the youngest woman left because she moved closer to her job. The oldest man, the one who had been married for fifty-eight years, had to stop coming to our brunches after four-and-a-half years because of
health issues. I got to visit him twice before he passed away. The oldest lady stopped coming almost five years after we began our brunches to spend more time with her fifty-year-old daughter who had a stroke. After so many years together, we had become like family to each other. Four of the original eleven still meet every Tuesday at 11:00am for brunch at the same restaurant. We have supported each other, watched each other grow and, for the most part, heal from our losses. I can see this is beginning to happen with the Matthew 5:4 group.
Though the Matthew 5:4 group doesn’t have workbooks, they do have Yvonne and me. We serve as their workbooks. We try to guide them out of their protective shells to talk about their grief, how they feel, what they remember, what others have said to them, how others have treated them, what triggers their worse moments or their better moments, and what to expect. We rely on our personal journeys through grief to draw them out, to tell them what is normal now that wasn’t normal before. We try to pass on to the group, to pay forward, what we have learned through our separate bereavement groups’ guidance, and through our own personal experiences.
I also want them all to know there is Life after Death. In the sense that all those in the group are Christians, they know this and they know their spouses are now whole once again. But I want them to know that a new and different life is available to them after the death of their spouses. They are already living the sad and most difficult part of that different life, but that can change with time into a different and happier life for them than they are currently experiencing, and it can be with or without a significant other. It happened to Yvonne, and most certainly it has happened to me! I now thank God daily for my new and different life, for my new friends, and for the last great love in my life, Debbie. I pray the same will happen to them. I’ve only met them long distance via Skype, but after seeing them, talking with them, and getting to know them for over a year, they are now family and I love them. One day, I hope to meet them all face-to-face and hug them all!
I was married for only twenty-eight years before I lost my wife to brain tumors. Those of you who have read my blogs know that she told me, while she still could, that if she died, she wanted me to go on living, to find someone else to love because I had too much love left in me to go to waste, and to be happy again. At the time she told me this, I didn’t want to hear it. As I was her primary care-giver at home, I put that out of my mind and settled in to care for her the best I could. I’d have cared for her for the rest of my life, but it was not to be. She was placed in hospice care with me at the end of September, 2010 and she finally passed away at home, with me at her side on my dad’s birthday, just before Thanksgiving that year. In the far corners of my mind, I knew it was to be expected though I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Yet, nothing can prepare a person for that final moment, that final breath. I was devastated. I didn’t remember that conversation we had until after the New Year, and I was in the midst of my grief.
I finally joined a bereavement group to be among others who understood what I was going through because they were going through it, too. We opened up to each other because we felt safe in that group, in that room together simply because of that one commonality. We talked about all aspects of our grief, our loneliness, our anger at God. We cried together. We bonded. We became friends. Some of us kept a journal. Another step.
I have healed. My heart has healed and I’m happy again. I love life and I have found love again! How many people have ever had TWO Great Loves in their lives? I have! I have been, and am now, blessed beyond measure.
Happy New Year to all! 2016 holds such promise, something that I couldn’t have dreamed of five years ago when 2011 rolled around. As most of you who have read my blogs know, my wife of twenty-eight years passed away in November, 2010 from the effects of brain cancer that had metastasized from a bout of triple negative breast cancer she had in 2008. She had a lumpectomy, radiation and chemo, and was declared cancer-free before the end of the year. We retired in 2009 and had one good year together before she was diagnosed. She passed away eight months later. I was never so glad to see a year end as I was 2010. I had hoped that 2011 would bring me peace and a life without so much pain. I called 2011 my Year of Firsts.
All who have lost a loved one go through that painful, lonely, slowly-healing Year of Firsts. To begin, you know that people who haven’t experienced that kind of loss cannot understand how you feel, so you truly do feel alone. The grief can be so crushing that you feel as though you are in a fog and living with constant heartache and longing. You isolate yourself from almost everyone, especially from well-meaning friends who feel they have to say inane things to placate you because they feel more intimidated by the silence than you. You venture out only to go grocery shopping or to the pharmacy because you have to and you hate it because it hurts doing it alone. It hurts, too, because you see couples who won’t know what they have until one of them has died, and you envy them. John Donne once said, “No man is an island,” but you realize that you have become one. You hate feeling the way you do, but you can’t find a way out of it. You want relief but don’t know where to turn. You can’t believe how much you cry over the smallest things. You want to die in your sleep to end the pain. The list goes on.
My Year of Firsts was a challenge because almost everything I did was out of my comfort zone. To begin, in January I made a monumental decision and committed to a bereavement group because I needed to be with others who had experienced the loss of a spouse, and I needed to learn how to deal with my grief and get through it to the “other side.” It meant that I had to admit to myself that I couldn’t/didn’t want to do it alone. As a man, did I think that made me weak? Yes, I did. I could only hope that other men would be present, too. Thankfully, when the group meetings began in February, there were two other men and nine women in that group. Of the twelve, one had lost a mother, one had lost a father, and the rest had lost spouses. It was one of the best decisions I could have made.
In April, on my birthday, I finally awoke without the constant heartache I had felt since I lost Lou, and felt I had been given a gift. I felt my life was changing for the better once again. It was the first time in a long time that I felt good when I awoke. I felt as though I finally wanted to begin living again. Yet, there was the first Good Friday where I had to sing all five verses of “Were You There” a Capella at the end of the service in a darkened church, and my voice cracked three times and I broke down and wept when I was finished. I made it through the first Easter Sunday without her.
stood by me through it all and had seen the changes I’d gone through. I have four terrific sons of whom I am so proud and who I love so dearly, wonderful and beloved daughters-in-law, and ten incredible grandchildren. And I have Debbie…who I fell in love with then and am falling in love with her more every day, if that is possible. She is so good me, so kind, so loving, so caring, and I look forward to every day in this new chapter of my life with her. I have a good life, and it’s getting better by the day!
Now we are just into 2016, a brand new year. Each New Year holds such potential, such hope, such anticipation for better things. I have begun this New Year with my Debbie, and that in itself is cause for celebration. This is also the year my house will finally go on the market. It has been a good house and home for me since 1984. This will be the closing sentence in that chapter of my life. It is past time for a new beginning with my Debbie.
The First Snow 