No Regrets

Last night as I got ready for bed I had a complete meltdown for seemingly no reason and it actually didn’t stop for quite some time.  Finally at around 1a.m. I got it under control.  These sudden and lengthy breakdowns seem to be happening more and more these past few weeks.  It’s like reality has hit all over again and my reality is very painful.

I no longer enjoy being in crowds of people, I’m very uncomfortable, I’m not sure what people are thinking.  If I laugh too much do they think I don’t miss my husband, if I cry too much will they wonder if I’ll ever get over his death?  So, I have to try to pretend that I’m the same as I’ve always been but I’m not.  I often paste on a smile, make jokes and pretend everything is ok.   I should get an Oscar.

Recently I had my first conversation with a grief counselor and she recommended that I read a book by Doug Manning called Don’t Take My Grief Away and I will say it’s a really good book for those grieving and for those who are daring enough to walk alongside.  He states that grief is as unique to each person as a fingerprint and that is very true.  There are no timelines and you need to give yourself freedom to grieve without worrying about what other people think.  Wes and I were inseparable in this lifetime and now we are separated until the next and that makes my heart ache and that will not disappear overnight.  My passion and drive for life has completely shifted.  The security of the  life I had known for 33 years has nearly vanished and now where do I go from here?  I have been struggling internally to understand who I am now and where I belong.  I don’t feel I belong anywhere really.  I’m uncomfortable in my own skin.  The only time that I am really and truly content is when I am here on the farm or when I am with my children and my grandchildren.  They never make me feel guilty for crying and they are ok when I talk about Wes and I do, a lot. 

This past month I’ve questioned why I can’t seem to pick myself up and keep moving forward.  I’ve been very tough on myself, pushing hard to be stronger than I am while inside my soul feels as though it’s crumbling to nothing.  I thought by now I should be better, moving forward.  Yet right now I would love nothing more than to hide away from the world if I could, but, it’s not quite that simple.

A number of weeks ago after a very busy Sunday morning service I came home to rest up before I went to see my dad at Salem.  An hour or so later my intent was to go back home but for some reason I felt like I needed to go to the cemetery.  I drove in, parked and walked over to Wes’ grave.  Emotions rolled over me like a tidal wave and I felt so lost.  There’s a part of me that still lives in denial that Wes is really gone.  I tried to get my thoughts and my heart under control so I went for a walk through the graveyard reading headstones to still my mind and calm my heart.  I slowly circled back and sat down beside him.  My mind tried to absorb that his body was really there underneath the ground and I put my head on my knees and wept.  And then I started talking.  I told him all about the things he was missing, all the good things and even all the awful things that were happening, the things that I didn’t understand and the things I was afraid to face alone.  I told him funny stories and I confessed that I wasn’t always handling life without him that well.  I told him I missed hearing him tell me he loved me, his strong assurances that everything would be ok and I told him I didn’t know if I could keep doing this without him.  I knew he couldn’t hear me, but, it felt good to share my heart because I knew that God was listening.  After I left I felt better but I still came home to an empty house.  That evening I felt a peace that I know can only come from God and then a few days later I hit a bit of a bump in the road and everything kind of seem to be in limbo again, the grief intensified.  How long would it take to pull out of it this time?  Why do I feel like I’m stuck?

That night around 3 a.m. I woke up and realized that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep.  I was so restless.  I looked for something to do just to get my mind off of what I was feeling so I went outside and started cleaning out the camper.  I needed to get it ready to sell.  Yeah, probably not my best idea.  Every square foot of that camper had memories attached to it.  Images of Wes lifting up the grandkids so they could giggle while they touched the ceiling, moments of him sitting and talking with his sons about their work or his, times where he was cheering Tina on when she would skip Mark AGAIN in SkipBo and the echo of our laughter when we would watch Wes killing flies and mosquitoes with his hat because there was no way he was going to bed until every last critter was dead.  Then I walked into the bedroom and realized that there were still some of his clothes in the closet and I held his t-shirt in my hand and cried.  There were memories of him and I going camping alone.  We’d have long talks late into the night, sitting and watching a movie, holding hands as we went for long walks in the campground.  We never stopped dreaming and we never stopped laughing together like kids.  Like a film reel, vivid pictures of our life played out before my eyes.  I walked out of the bedroom and carefully packed another box of items lugging it into the house and made another trip outside when I realized that I couldn’t finish, it was too hard.  I locked up the camper to finish another time and went back inside; after all, there was no rush.  But, now what?  I had a coffee and started doing some laundry and other housework.  By mid-afternoon I was having a hard time staying awake and since it was a rainy dreary day it seemed the perfect time for a nap.  I fell asleep pretty quickly and woke up just as quickly. Hmmm. One hour, really?  So, back to puttering around the house with a heavy heart.  In the evening I watched a cheesy Lifetime movie and finally went back to bed all the while praying for rest.  I was looking for peace and a release from the sorrow that had wrapped itself around my heart. There was a deep ache inside that longed so desperately for my husband.

I fell asleep some time after midnight and woke up at 6 a.m.  I lay there for a while wondering if maybe I could fall back to sleep, but nope that wasn’t happening.  The heaviness was still there, sadness like a dark cloud hovered over me.  God I need your help!  How do I snap out of this?  I sat up in bed and thought, well, there are always bills to pay so I decided to go and take care of that.  I finished pretty quickly and sat back in my office chair and then glanced over at the wall beside me and smiled.  It was full of sticky notes.  Wes always used sticky notes for little reminders of how to do certain things on the computer, there were important and not so important phone numbers, reminders of codes to use in Simply and a few business cards, some from people that I was pretty sure weren’t even in business anymore.  I carefully began pulling them off the wall.  He didn’t need them anymore.  Of course there was one he had stuck on with a big glob of Funtac, that man loved Funtac!  Yikes, that was really stuck on there!  I worked at scraping it off the wall and as I scratched away at it I looked over at the computer monitor and something caught my eye.  I leaned back to look behind it and noticed a long piece of paper tucked away in the corner.  Why did that boy think he needed to have  more notes hidden back there?  I reached around the monitor and pulled it out and my heart skipped a beat.  It was another note that I had written to him.  I thought I had found them all, but I guess not. 

Years ago he and I had taken the love language test and for Wes his love language was words of affirmation.  And I was pumped when I found that out because, well let’s face it I loved to talk so telling him how much he meant to me was easy and since I love writing I could surprise him over and over by leaving him little notes in his lunch box, in his truck or on his chair. To me, writing those notes took all of a minute or so and I thought he would read them and then throw them away, but I’m realizing as I find more and more of these hidden treasures throughout our home that they meant the world to him and now they also mean the world to me. 

It has been 8 months and you would think the pain would ease, but not so.  I continue to feel quite lost and am completely unsure of how I’m going to live the rest of my life without him.  It’s a daunting thought.  And still, through the veil of sadness these little notes have become a small beacon of light that remind me that though the sorrow, like a heavy fog, still floats in and out of my life I can continue living with a semblance of peace because I have no regrets.  I didn’t waste a moment telling him how I felt about him through the words that I spoke or the words that I wrote in the love language that he understood best.

God has been teaching me that I will have to learn to live with the pain and sorrow, but it’s not going to be easy and there is no quick fix.  I have to work hard every day just to put one foot in front of the other and most days I’m not very good at it.  It takes a lot of time and prayer and it also takes a very understanding family and some great friends to help me live that life, but I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if I had to live with regret on top of my pain.  So, the best advice I can give you?  Don’t waste a moment.  Our time is limited, fleeting, and precious so don’t throw away any opportunity you have to tell someone you love them, learn their love language and speak it loud and clear. You will never regret it.

“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”  James 4:14