My Need To Over-Inform

It is no surprise to me or probably anyone else that I am experiencing a bit of an identity crisis.  Actually, I think crisis is not the right word...I'm not in immediate distress or panicking about it.  Maybe an identity inventory? An identity evaluation? Identity adjustment? I have a pretty good handle on who I am, but I am working on how exactly I fit into the world now.  Right after Dan died, I knew my title: Widow.  It sounded very strange at first and I was sure I was too young to be a widow.  However, it was one word that explained so much.  It almost wasn't even necessary to use that word because I was surrounded by familiar, close friends and family who knew exactly what had just happened and to them I was just me.  I have met new people since Dan died like my counselor or the other parents at The Warm Place (an awesome grief support center for kids) or people in Griefshare, but there's not a lot of explanation required there either.  New people are coming into my life now who never even knew Dan or what has happened and I am realizing my deep seated need to give them a clear picture of who I am.  Not just who I am NOW (single mom of four), but who I have been for the last 20 years (mom of 4, happily married to father of aforementioned children until his untimely death just months ago).  Let me describe for you what might possibly be the most awkward introduction I have ever made of myself.  We have new neighbors across the street who just moved here from North Carolina.  I noticed some activity going on over there after the house had been vacant for a couple of months, and it became obvious we were getting new neighbors.  I could see out my window some little kids and a young mom and dad walking in and out of the house, weaving through boxes and starting to get settled in.  When it seemed like a good time, I walked out to check the mail and waved to say hello.  The dad was the only one outside at the time and I approached their house to introduce myself.  We stopped in the middle of the street and I shook his hand, told him my name, got his name, asked about his kids and then (here it is) proceeded to tell him it was just me and my kids in our household because my husband had died 6 months before.  Poor new neighbor guy.  What was he supposed to do with that? Then his wife came out, got the same smile, handshake and uncomfortable info I had just given her husband.  These poor, poor people.  Some welcoming committee I am.  Fortunately, they are very sweet people and both said 'I'm sorry' and have since become my friends in a very short time.  I've even apologized to the wife for laying that on them in the middle of the road while meeting for the first time, but she assures me they did not consider re-packing the moving truck in search of a neighborhood with less open neighbors. We all went to the high school football game a couple of weeks ago and one of their daughters, a five year old, asked me why my daddy wasn't at the game.  I figured out that she meant my husband and I just told her that he had already gone to heaven.  She was a little confused, so I told her he was really sick and God took him home to heaven, but brought new friends into our lives, like her family, to help us.  This answer satisfied her, so she hasn't asked about it anymore.  I also started a new part-time job recently working with kids.  One of the first questions I was asked on the first day was "Are you married?" I answered without thinking with an immediate "Yes".  Then it hit me and I began to try to explain, "Well, I am, but my...um...my husband died...and so, I, uh, well...". I also corrected someone who called me MISS Smith instead of MRS. Smith and then realized I wasn't even sure what it was supposed to be....is it MS. Smith? How about The Speech Therapist Formerly Known as Mrs. Smith? Like I said, I have a need to be known and I guess I am not in a place yet where I don't care if people know how I got to where I am.  The thought of my new neighbors 'filling in the blanks' on my life without painfully accurate information would have driven me crazy. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I'm going with it for now.  I apologize in advance to the unsuspecting strangers who will be victims of my need to over-inform and I want to thank, in advance, those who stick around to see how it all turns out.

God And The Elephant

Although I've made reference to God in some of my previous posts, I thought it might be time to be really honest about where I am with Him right now.  I can't imagine that any death occurs without questions about and for God from those left behind.  I think we like to ignore our mortality to some extent, but death is the elephant in the room that tramples us into the awareness that we don't live forever.  I also think it's nice to feel like we have God all figured out and it's unsettling to realize we don't necessarily know Him as completely as we thought we did - even more unsettling (especially for us Type A types) when we realize we can never understand Him fully in this life.  It has a way of exposing the deepest recesses of our souls to bare what we truly believe and sheds light on inconsistencies in what we say we believe vs. what we believe when our world seems to be falling apart.  Sorry...I'm not trying to get all philosophical on you...I'll let you have your own questions (or not have any) and I'll just stick to where I am.  I have to start by saying that I don't believe that God has changed or moved away from me or punished me in any way in all of this.  I believe that God is good, all the time.  I still believe God is in control.  I still believe He loves me and my kids and has a plan for us.  I believe that because I am human and fallible that I can't be good enough on my own to have a relationship with God, but that Christ made that possible when He died on the cross in my place and for my sin - that's God's grace.  I believe that God can and will use this for our good.  I believe God sees, feels and understands my heartache in losing Dan and that He holds every tear I have cried and continues to hold me.  I believe that God's ways and thoughts are higher (way, WAY higher) than mine and that although I don't understand why He allowed Dan to die when and how He did, He can be trusted.  God illustrated this for me recently with a memory of one of my children from several years ago.  One of my twin boys was pretty sickly at birth.  They came about 6 weeks early and this little guy only weighed 2 lbs., 8 oz.  Feeding was a major challenge for him and he could not seem to gain weight despite Herculean efforts.  This struggle continued his first two years of life (which seemed like an eternity!) to the point where he was considered malnourished and needed some pretty drastic intervention.  It was then decided that he would have surgery to place a device called a g-button in his belly so that we could tube feed him and not depend on his ability or willingness to eat for his growth and health.  Although this basically saved his life, it was a painful ordeal for him and a challenge for all of us.  I won't go into detail here, but suffice it to say that kid went through so much - he's a fighter.  He had that feeding tube in for  t-w-o  l-o-n-g  y-e-a-r-s.  God brought the memory of all of this to my mind recently to illustrate, for my limited brain, the inability I have to fully understand all of the WHYs.  My child experienced a lot of pain which, ultimately, made him healthier - probably saved his life - it was for his good.  During all of it, his perspective was not what mine was.  I could have tried to make him grasp the big picture until I was blue in the face, but he was only two years old and although he trusted us to take care of him, he would not, with his limited perspective, have chosen that path for himself.  I might as well be a two year old when it comes to understanding why God let Dan die.  It hurts and I don't like it or understand it.  But I believe that His love for me is immense and that He can see the big picture.  Let me be very clear that I struggle often, even though I trust Him.  For weeks and even months after Dan died I felt so hurt by God and confused by what He was doing.  I didn't even pray.  Not because I was mad at God, but I had no idea what to say to Him. I felt like what was done was done and what could I say at that point? I was in spiritual shock.  I never stopped believing in God or that He was sovereign, but I felt so hurt.  I still struggle with prayer sometimes - understanding what God wants from me in prayer and what He does when I pray.  One thing I know is that I am supposed to pray.  Period.  So I do pray and I will keep on praying and searching for answers and for as much of God as I can comprehend while He has me here.  I want to have it all figured out because I am a prideful, imperfect perfectionist, but that's not how it works.  I will resign myself to being a child, striving to be childlike in my faith and obedience...childish and immature at times, but still a child. His child.

When I'm 64

In a few days, it will be 6 months since we saw Dan for the last time on this side of Heaven.  I started writing this when it had been 5 months, but summer consumed all of us around here with enough activities to suspend reality temporarily.  6 months is not a very long time in the grand scheme of things, but it can feel like an eternity.  I always think of it terms of if he were alive - before all of this, if Dan had said he would be gone for 6 months and we could have absolutely no contact with him....it would be excruciating...and, at times, it is.  Late spring and summer were full of those dreaded 'firsts' without him...Mother's Day, my daughter's 15th birthday, Father's Day, Dan's birthday, our youngest son's 9th birthday...all within the span of about 6 weeks.  We also took a trip to Colorado that Dan would've loved.   As one of our excursions, we somehow managed to get 12 people (that's counting friends and family who were part of our group) up and down what seemed like Mt. Everest.  It was actually only a small portion of a beautiful mountain in Colorado, but the round trip was over 6 miles (mountain miles!)  Let me tell you that it was not an easy hike, especially with my 4 kids.  They were troopers, though, and I know Dan would have been so proud to see them accomplish such a feat.  Here's my secret about the trip....I had brought Dan's ashes to Colorado with the intent to spread them on our hike at a place called Blue Lake.  It was the endpoint of our hike up the mountain and my friends who are familiar with the area and have visited several times said it was like a postcard. After seeing it, I'd have to agree.  I had been trying to decide what to do with his ashes and thought that taking them to a beautiful place that he would've loved would be a fitting tribute.  The day before the hike, my sister and I were riding in the car, listening to a mix CD that Dan had made.  The song 'When I'm 64' by the Beatles came on and I lost it.  It made me miss Dan so much and it reminded me that we will not grow older together.  He will always be 40.  My sister wisely suggested that maybe it just wasn't time yet to say goodbye in that way.  I was not ready even though I thought I was.  The longer he's gone, the tighter I want to hold on.  It might be hard for some to understand, but I think when the one you love is suffering and dies, among all of the initial emotions is a tiny bit of relief that their pain is over.  For me, that feeling is being incrementally replaced with wishing he was still here, realizing more and more what he will not be here for.  However, even as I write that, I'm reminded that none of us knows what we will be here for.  I think my task is to be right here, right now, right where God has me.  I'll figure out,in time, what to do with these ashes and these memories and these feelings.  God knows what I'll be doing when I'm 64....

In Their Heads

Would you like to know how my kids are doing? Most people would.  It's usually the question that follows 'How are you?'  The truth is that I would like to know how they're doing, too.  I wish I could spend a day or two in each one of their heads and really see what they're thinking....how they feel.  Sure, we talk and spend lots of time together, but I want to see all of this from their perspective.  They seem alright, but are they? Really?  When my youngest seems more angry than I've ever seen him over something that does not seem to warrant that kind of anger, is he thinking about why he's so angry? Can he even connect those dots between the out of control feelings he's having and the loss of his Daddy?  When one of the twins comes unglued because our schedule has changed and no one told him, does he think about how everything in his life changed just a few months ago and he has no control over that either?  When I attended all of those end of the school year award ceremonies, recitals and concerts, did my daughter think about last year's events when her Daddy was around to cheer her on?  When they have to endure the parenting moments I am not proud of, when I am not parenting with 'Love and Logic' but with fear and desperation, do they long for the balance their daddy brought to our parenting....do they wish I was more like him....or that I was him?  I don't know.  I do know this: we all love each other and there are still happy times.  Not exactly those 'all is right with the world' kinds of times, but pretty good.  One of my children (whose name will be withheld to protect the not so innocent) has told me some lies lately.  Mostly lies to get out of doing stuff he doesn't want to do (like shower or brush his teeth....boys), but lies are lies and I have a zero tolerance policy for lying.  I explained to him that when he lies I don't trust him and if I don't trust him, I need to keep my eye on him all the time, so he spent his entire day shadowing me.  Not in his plans to follow me around - cleaning bathrooms, folding laundry, loading the dishwasher, organizing my closet (I was way more productive than usual with my little shadow).  This was an interesting day for both of us - I thought it might be punishment for me, but in between the short lived pity parties he would throw for himself, I think we both sort of enjoyed being together all day.  Now don't get me wrong, he was very clear that he had other plans which were being ruined, but when he intermittently forgot about those big plans, he did things like offer to help me with whatever I was doing or chatted about things he would think of - we even found some old pictures in my closet of a vacation we took to Florida and sat in the floor of my closet looking at each one...by the end of them, we had the other 2 brothers in my closet, too.  Before you start thinking 'He's enjoying this 'discipline' a little too much', let me tell you that the clincher was when his aunt called to take the kids out for ice cream and (gasp) I said I needed him to stay with me because that was the consequence of his choice to lie to me...my mantra was 'lying leads to lack of trust which leads to lack of freedom'.  This was, of course, devastating and 'unfair' in his eyes.  Watching the others leave to have ice cream resulted in a flood of tears, anger, another long talk about lying, remorse and finally an unsolicited and sincere apology for lying accompanied by a better attitude (for the most part).  He was still anxious for his freedom and was surprised when the others returned that his sentence was not over - I had told him it was for the full day and I was sticking to it.  At bedtime, I needed to sever my new appendage, so I asked where he wanted to sleep (meaning on the couch with his brothers to watch a movie or in his own bed).  He hesitated answering and just shrugged his shoulders.  Although he never sleeps in my room, something made me ask if he wanted to sleep there (very unlikely I thought since I was offering him his first taste of freedom in 12 hours).  A huge smile spread across his face and he nodded enthusiastically.  So here he is, right by my side, reading his own book while I write about him.  I guess at the end of the day the most important thing I have to remember is that we all love each other and we miss Dan but we are still a family.  No matter how hard things get, we want to be together - that makes me feel pretty content.  

Roller Coaster

If you are reading this (and, clearly, you are) you have been invited to read my 'super secret' blog.  Don't you love oxymorons?  There may be more 'super secret' blogs that I don't know about because...well...they're 'super secret'.  However, my experience is that people write blogs because they have something they want to say and they want someone to know they're saying it.  In a previous post I said that I was blogging to allow people 'in' - difficult to do if I am too afraid to tell anyone this blog exists.  Imagine me holding my hand open, arm extended in front of me signaling you to STOP while at the same time my other hand is slightly behind the first hand, signaling you to proceed, to 'come on in'.  There are moments when I REALLY want to open up and let people in - to call someone and cry or rant about how much I miss Dan...how unfair it seems...how inadequate I feel...how exhausted I am...how lonely I am...how overwhelmed I am...BUT, in the next moment I wish I could go far away...by myself...with no one looking at me or asking me how I'm doing...never to speak of the unspeakable difficult topics again.  At times I feel like I will surely survive this...other times I think that someone with my name will survive this, but it won't be me anymore.  There are moments of hope when I am ready to fight, ready to rise above the pain...and lots of other moments when I'd be content to curl up in a ball and sleep for the duration.  I see a picture of Dan and it seems either that he has never left, that he will walk in any minute and I will be able to talk to him and see those eyes and hear his voice...or that he was never here...just a really great dream I had.  This roller coaster is exhausting.  I will be so glad you read this...then I will wish you hadn't...

Charlie Brown Trees

Last summer Dan and I planted what we were told would be Hydrangeas in our backyard.  We had ordered them from the Arbor Day Foundation and when they came I was glad that the spot we had prepared for them was in the backyard...to avoid neighborhood humiliation.  Talk about some Charlie Brown trees.  They spent all summer looking like a couple of well watered sticks in the ground.  I had serious doubts about what would become of them.  Just when I had decided that a stick garden was all I was getting in return for my devotion to our pathetic little friends, Spring arrived.  With it came the beginnings of some beautiful Hydrangeas - no flowers yet, but nice green leaves all over with more showing up all the time.  I love looking out my kitchen window and seeing what we had hoped for becoming a reality.  I try to think positively and tell myself how much Dan would enjoy seeing them grow.  Tears are unpredictable and common for me right now and I will admit that I have cried more than once looking at them and wishing that he could see how they've grown.  As time marches on, there are much more significant changes taking place around our house that I desperately wish Dan were here to witness.  Today is Sam and Isaac's 13th birthday.  Does it get more important than that?  Our twin boys who, between the two of them, arrived 6 weeks early, did time in the NICU, had major feeding problems resulting in a feeding tube for 2 years, had 8 surgeries to repair "plumbing" problems, were diagnosed with ADHD and then with autism, dealt with seizures, had physical, occupational and speech therapy at one time or another, experienced public, home, online home and now private school until something finally seemed like a fit....our guys are growing and if I had to guess, I would say they will do just fine.  We put so much work and love into them and I want to be able to look at Dan, the person who was here for every moment, excrutiating or exhilarating, and just know between the two of us that it's paying off.  To remind each other that we did a good job getting this far and that we wouldn't trade our little Charlie Brown trees for anything.  Here's to you, Dan - thank you for pouring yourself into Sam and Isaac's lives with me...what we had hoped for is becoming a reality.

Pop Quiz!

You know the dream (nightmare, really) where you are a student and somewhere in the middle of the semester you realize you have somehow forgotten to attend one of your classes? I may be the only one with this dream, but the panic that sets in and the anxiety that follows is almost unbearable.  I try to stay calm and play it cool like I meant to do that but it never works out and my twisted brain always throws a pop quiz into the dream on the day I decide to show up for class (after I spend hours trying to find the classroom because I am directionally challenged whether conscious or unconscious).  I feel sometimes like this in my waking hours lately.  Dan did so much for me and for our family.  I depended on him for stuff that I didn't want to know how to do....like buy a printer, program a sprinkler system, find someone reputable and reasonably priced to replace my fence, tell the guy at the oil change place whether I want the standard or the deluxe oil change (I actually said I wanted the Deluxe as if I knew the difference and as we walked away my 14 yr. old daughter called my bluff and said 'So Mom, what IS the difference between the standard and the deluxe?' with a smartypants grin on her face).....the list goes on and on and I no longer have the luxury of being ignorant about all of the things Dan did for us.  As I learn to do all of these things (yes, I have accomplished all of those things I mentioned earlier) the feeling is most definitely bittersweet.  The more I learn to do, the more real it seems that Dan is never coming back.  I cried when my printer printed the first page because I was so happy I had actually purchased and set up a printer by myself and because....well, you know, 'by myself'...I was talking to a sweet friend recently about all of this and she said Dan would be proud of me.  It's true, he would.  I may pass this Pop Quiz after all.

T Minus 1 Day

I was looking through my journal today and found this entry. I wrote this the day before Dan died. Although he was sick and on hospice, his death still seemed sudden because he was very much himself, even while confined to his bed. The month he spent here on hospice felt like limbo because he seemed to stabilize once he got home and I think all of us closest to him had convinced ourselves that he might be around longer than we thought we could hope for. We were immensely blessed to have that time with him, but reading this made me remember how confusung that time was because I didn't know what to expect. "So, I find myself feeling disoriented.  Dan knows how I feel.  Dan has brain tumors that are trying to kill him and with all the meds he's on, he has begun to have a hard time distinguishing dreams or hallucinations from reality.  I've watched him wake up and be so confused and upset because he's not sure what is real, what is a dream, if it's night or day...a scary and frustrating feeling. When I stop long enough to try and figure out where I am these days, I find myself emotionally, spiritually and relationally disoriented.  Is my old life over? What will the new one look like? Am I a wife, a caretaker, a widow? Am I sad, hopeful, in despair, numb? Is God quietly observing, is He sad, is He pulling me to himself, is He nudging me forward, am I doing this right?" Still not sure if I'm doing this right and some days I'm convinced I am most certainly NOT doing this right. But I know what the answer is, 'Everyone grieves differently and there is no 'right' way'. Well, that's a frustrating answer for a perfectionist who is very hard on herself. One thing I am trying to do better is let people in on my grief...let people help me. That's why I'm blogging, to let people in. So...come on in. Be warned, it's messy in here...

More Fog, Please

How long can one hover over a keyboard before actually typing something? Getting this started feels like so many other things in my life right now. I can see the value or necessity in them but it takes laser focus to just put one foot in front of the other and get anything done. I am emerging from the fog of losing Dan and find myself craving the fog. Without it, I can see more clearly what Life #2 will look like and the view is leaving a little to be desired. I was reminded the other day that God will never let go of me. It was during the course of a phone conversation. My friend said it and then repeated it again later. I was caught off guard with her reminder, not because I haven't heard it before, but because I was not in acute emotional distress and it seemed out of the blue. I can compare it to someone saying "Oh, by the way, I spoke with God this morning and He's been having a hard time reaching you so he wanted me to tell you that He will never let go of you". It wasn't, of course, out of the blue. It was out of the heart of God. I am thankful that God is still holding on to me and reaching me right where I am...even if I don't know where that is.