LIFE WITHOUT DAVID, Chapter 3

I have been giving some serious thought about the ongoing changes in my life, the obvious external ones and, more intensely, the internal movements.  I have been giving more attention to my appearance when I go anywhere...using makeup again...wearing my pretty rings and earrings...buying and wearing different styles, things that make me look more feminine, more put together.  I haven't cared about that for two or three years.  But then, I am feeling physically better than I have for that long period of time (long, when you don't feel good), so that is probably the basis for those changes.  I just wish I would have felt this way while David was here---he loved for me to put on my makeup, my jewelry, wear something besides t-shirts---he would be very pleased about this, although he never complained.  In fact, he would tell me I was beautiful even when I looked disgustingly Not.  Actually, I think I am just fed up with seeing that sickly looking face in the mirror.  
     I have always been grateful for the everyday blessings in my life.  Now, doubly so.  The oncologist and the Rituxan.  The peacefulness in this house.  The security and low-stress quality of my days.  My painting.  My dog and cat.  But most of all, the love and support from God, from family, from friends.  And this is the reason for a large part of the changes within me.  I have always had lots of love in my life, and I feel so privileged to have known that much love.  It is so much easier to love myself when I know others love me.   But the awareness of the unexpected extent and depth of the love I am experiencing is causing me to open up, to drop those walls I have kept built up all these years.  Always the I-can-do-this-without-asking-for-help, the Don't-let-anyone-so-close-that-they'll-see-how-vulnerable-you-are, the Give-but-don't-take person.  (Except with David...he wouldn't allow me to keep those walls between us.)  But now, my family and friends have so been there for me, have given so much of themselves and their valuable time, have become so close, have blanketed me with their love, that I am being re-created.   I feel so much more worthy.  It still causes some discomfort  to ask for and accept help.  And I am always afraid that I may be taking too much...I feel like I must remain the strong one, the one that does for others.  So I am unsettled, but very, very thankful.  I am reluctantly accepting that I cannot, or at least don't want to make it on my own, a kind of a John Donne, no man is an island, realization.
      I am also realizing, in retrospect, how great it was to have David love me the way he did.  We all just take so much for granted until life slaps us in the face.  Even though I thought, as David and I grew older, that I knew how numbered our days were and knew that the day would come when one of us would have to go on without the other, I truly did not know the fragility of hope until that happened.  I always hoped that David would get healthier, hoped that we had many more years together, hoped for this and that, lots of hopes, hopes that shattered like thin glass when he died.  When we lived with each other day-to-day, we had routines, good moments and bad moments, worries and joys, but we still had each other, although sometimes, in bad moments, reluctantly.   But now I know how precious it was to have David and his love, and I feel like I am so much better for it.  And, wondrously, I am learning how much those who knew David loved him.   Another of John Donne's thoughts was that when one man dies, a chapter is not torn but translates into a new language.   And so it does, albeit not the language any of us had wished to learn. 
     Not only am I learning the new language, but I'm learning the new me.  My forever friend Joann reminded me that when David and I married, I changed and learned to be the other half of us, and now that David is gone, I am starting all over, learning to be a different me.  Now I know, though, that I have helpers in this journey...friends and family that love me and support me as I am going through these changes.
     They would like to help me with the hurtful parts, too, but that's something I have to handle alone.  I know that the tear-my-insides-out pain that hits me frequently is part of the grieving process but how I hate it.  Crying is supposed to make a person feel better, to release emotion and hurt, but it doesn't feel that way.  It seems like crying begets more crying, hurt incites more hurt.  I will be so glad when the pain ends, or at least eases.  Self-patience has never been one of my virtues.
     And my heart hurts for the others grieving for David, missing him.  My empathic side feels their pain and wants so bad to be able to absorb it, to take it away.   But it has to find its own outlet.   I tell our daughter to call me and talk her pain through with me until it eases.   I write in this blog.  Our sons, though, and David's good friends, his "bro's"....they call to check on me but never to release their pain.  I worry about them all.  I wish I could just hug them and hold them until it all went away. 
     I've been told that anger is part of the grieving process, too.  I haven't felt any anger yet and just can't see that happening.  Who would I be angry at?  David didn't want to die that morning.  The paramedics that came were wonderful.   David's doctors always did what good doctors do.   Certainly not God...I never understood why anybody would do that.   Who's left---me?   That would be ludicrous.  I wanted David to be with me forever.  There is no blame...anger would be pointless...just a highly unwanted negative emotion.
     Besides, I am trying very hard to not dwell or even linger on the memories of that morning.  I want so much to remember every good part of our life together, even a few of the not so goods.  It's very frustrating to have 40 years of being us in my head and not be able to remember all the details.  I love it when someone says, "remember when..."  because it's another little piece of him returning to me.  I want the warmth those memories bring, not the destructive heat of anger or coldness of regrets.
     Here it is the wee hours of the morning, and I'm still missing that phone call from upstairs telling me to come to bed and wondering if that is one memory that will be there at 1:30 every morning for the rest of my life.  Another piece of David that I can keep.

LIFE WITHOUT DAVID, Chapter 2

     It's now been two months since David died.  "Two months" does not feel like a real measure of time.  It could be two days, or two years...almost like I'm moving in a kind of time warp.  It's just a very odd,  indescribable feeling.  Some days I feel my usual joy of life, as if everything is normal; other days, just sort of lost somewhere.  I find that I do a lot of staring into space, but I'm not sure why I'm doing that.
     Actually, there are a lot of changes going on inside of me that I'm not sure about.  Of course, I have changed in many ways through my life; I am no longer the same person as I was in my 20's, my 30's, my 40's, or my 50's.   I can look back and think of those Carols in the third person, as entirely different people than my 60's self.  I feel like I have changed that much over the years.  But this is not quite the same.  I have to think about this some more before I can put it into words.  My sister, Paula, sent me a wonderful book called "The Dance" which says that writing is a way of searching, of opening to possible wisdom.  So I need to think about these changes for a while, then later write about them, so that maybe I will find some understanding.
     It's very hard to stop thinking "our" and just think "me."
     I realized the other day that this is the first time in my whole life that I am single.  That I now make all of my decisions about my life by myself.  That I am entirely responsible for me.  That the only discussion about exactly what to do tomorrow, or next week, or next month is in my head.  It's a bit unsettling.  Major decisions give me no problem--it's those everyday things that bother me.  Which is odd because I made those daily decisions on my own throughout my whole marriage with David.  For most of my life I have been strong, self-reliant, independent.   My forever friend JoAnn told me the other day that she was so proud of me for the way I handled trading in two of our cars for a new one. I didn't quite know how to respond because I never doubted that I could take care of that, never second-guessed anything about that procedure. Yet it broke my heart to lose those two vehicles.  David loved his Yukon and the little Jeep.  I cried and cried the next day because a few more pieces of him were gone.
       I think I just miss talking to him about things.  I could talk to him about anything.  I could share my ideas, my worries, my personal thoughts, and he listened.  He usually went along with whatever I wanted to do, but it was a sharing, nevertheless.   When he did have an objection, it quite often turned into an argument with no resolution. We were both too stubborn to give in, so we both just gave up because we hated the conflict.  (I don't believe I miss that.)  Since he died, I have tried talking to him out loud but it just makes me feel ridiculous; talking to him in my head is almost as bad.  The first few weeks, I felt like he was still here, but that feeling has dwindled away.  I know that he is not here anymore.
     I trusted David with my thoughts.  He always respected what I had to say, even though I know he had selective hearing.  But we had a telepathic connection that always amazed us.  I would be having a random thought, and a minute later, he would start talking about that very same thing.  I often wondered if I was a strong sender or if he was a strong receiver.  It very rarely worked in the other direction. 
     Every night when I go to bed, I make myself shut my eyes and picture kissing him and telling him goodnight, telling him that I love him, feeling his sweet kisses, hearing him tell me goodnight, that he loves me.  I am SO afraid that I will forget his kisses, his voice, his face, his touch, that it will all fade away with time, like it has with all those others I loved dearly...my mother, grandpa, grandma.  I can handle anything but that.
     I am doing better every day.  Developing routines.  Taking better care of myself.  Eating.  Sleeping.  Keeping busy.  But that hole in my heart just stays raw and open and keeps the tears just under my eyes, ready to come out at every moment. 
     Spring has been very slow this year, but the signs of new growth are happening.  I think it got tired of waiting for me; my winter is not quite over yet.