Tag: Journaling through grief

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Advent, a Season of Waiting 

A silver lining about trying to run & hide from grief leading up to Christmas is that I purposely did not over commit myself to the busyness of the season. I only minimally decorated; the girls kept their gift lists short, because of a small kitchen project, no baking took place, & I most definitely did not send out cards. While I don’t intend to always be such a grinch, it was really all I could muster this year. Next year I think / hope it’ll be, not easier, but maybe more joyous. Our oldest will be “home” from college, & that ‘change’ will make it more festive, & maybe motivate me to do more, though to be honest, I kind of like this less. 

In some ways, maybe a lot of ways, I’m realizing that much of what I used to do, not just at Christmas time, but a million big & small things daily, all year, every year, I did because I was trying to make things a certain way for my life with Jamey. Not that Jamey mandated things be this way or that way, but because I think I was always trying to embody this family / couple ideal that we shared. I did the things, but so did he. I guess that’s kind of part of the deal of sharing your life with someone. The two of you motivate each other & hopefully bring out the best in each other. And with Jamey gone, one, my best maybe long gone, & two, with we three now living as Family 2.0, I don’t think my former vision is at all attainable, & I need a new ideal / dream / model to shoot for, or then again, maybe I don’t. Maybe that’s the real change that’s stemming from this cosmic shift in our lives. Maybe I need to stop squeezing the reigns so tightly, & let life & God lead me organically to the next … (fill in the blank) & just trust His timing & His nudging, & wait. 

But oh, how in the words of one of my favs, Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part, & I’m soooo not a good waiter. I like having a goal in my mind to work towards, but in this stage of life, I feel like God is reshaping me for something ahead that I can’t see. It’s like I too am in a period of Advent, waiting for a different notable person to arrive. I am waiting for the new version of me to materialize.   I feel like He is actively sanding off some rough spots here & there, adding a bit more wet clay there & totally morphing me, preparing me, for the next. And while I don’t know what the next looks like, I am trying to lean on God & have faith. For though I’m tripping & stumbling every day, I do believe He has surrounded me with some of the kindest, sweetest friends to help me stay, maybe not in a lane, because maybe I’m supposed to be changing lanes, but to at least stay strong & to stay in the race.  Truly, friends are a blessing from heaven & make life so much easier to not only bear, but enjoy. 

     Numbers 11:17, “And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.” 

But back to that whole waiting part. Waiting stinks. I’m a doer; I’m Martha vs Mary, & I’m so bad at waiting. But in this season of Advent, waiting on the celebration of Christmas and Jesus’ birth, I can’t help but think I too am waiting on the new me.  I am reminded that I need not dread the waiting, but rather I should be waiting in excited anticipation. I need to wait while savoring the present. Wait in peace & to trust His plan, His ideal, His dream, His vision & know that He has already carried me this far, He’s not about to just drop me now. So, wherever you are physically, emotionally, or spiritually this holiday season, I encourage us all to savor the waiting & trust that “When the time is right, I the Lord, will make it happen.” Isaiah 60:22

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Celebrities with CRC and Taking Out the Trash

You know how when you are focused on one thing, one thing that for whatever reason God has said you can’t have, or that you at least can’t have right now, all you can see everywhere you look is other people who have that thing? Like when your maternal clock ⏰ starts ticking (do men even have paternal clocks???) and you want a baby so badly that your teeth hurt, but for whatever reason another month goes by and you aren’t pregnant again, but THE ONLY people you EVER see are all the beautiful pregnant ladies of the world?? Or how, in my case, I seem to be surrounded by the cutest older couples around every bend walking & holding hands, literally, absolutely anyplace I ever go when I venture out of my house.  It’s like our minds just like to focus on whatever will torture our psyches the most. 

My dreams, my plans, of growing old with Jamey, puttering around & helping each other fill in the blanks to a shared story, or being this eccentric old couple rocking out at some concert we are much too old to attend, all went up in smoke with cancer. It seems so very unfair. But all the why’s & what ifs that keep me up at night are all asked in vain. But now I’m wondering, is it just me? Is it because I’m hyper focused on colon & colorectal cancer that I hear about it ALL the time?? Does it seem more common to anyone else but me?? I mean Kirstie Alley? Really? Rebecca from Cheers was a victim too? It’s insane! This is a preventable disease! But it’s also kind of a taboo one. No one likes to talk about the symptoms, everyone wants to, excuse the pun, poo poo, any oddities dealing with their bathroom habits, but you know what is even less fun to talk about? Dying! Dying is way less fun to talk about. It’s also way less fun talking about how your daughters no longer have their daddy to cheer them on & off the soccer ⚽️ field, or to watch them graduate high school, or to talk to them about boys, or to have their daddy talk to boys about treating them right, or way off into the future, how they won’t have their daddy to walk them down the aisle at their wedding.

I’ve heard there are 5 stages to grief, (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, & acceptance) but that you don’t really move through them in a linear line, you bounce around in and out of them like a person with attention deficit disorder. Well, I’ll share, up until recently, I don’t think I’ve really spent any time in the anger stage. Maybe I’ve been able to avoid it because my friends have loved me so well. But spoiler alert, I think I’m starting to dip my toes in that miserable pool of emotion. I’m angry. I’m angry that my husband, who always teased me about being a closet hypochondriac, didn’t do every single thing in his power to make sure he didn’t leave us alone. I’m angry that he didn’t even tell me anything was wrong for at least 6 months, because I know without a shadow of doubt, I would have Googled that mess & nagged until he literally got his toosh to the doctor. I’m angry that I’m alone. I’m angry that when I look at the trash can & think someone needs to take that outside, that it takes me a second to realize that someone is me. It’s all me. Everything falls on my shoulders all alone from now  until forever. I’m mad. I’m angry, & I’m sad. 

But the only thing I seem to be able to do with that anger is swing the fire 🔥 out of some kettle bells, yell at cars in traffic, & use it to fuel ⛽️ my message about getting screened. Yes, the prep stinks (actually quite literally 😂) but it is sooooo much better than the alternative. If you love someone, anyone, a person or a pet, or someone, anyone, again person or pet, loves you, GET SCREENED. Supposedly all signs are suggesting that by 2030 colorectal cancer will be the leading cause of cancer deaths for people under 50. Now by 2030 I’ll be fortunate if I’m still here, but by 2030 both of my two beautiful daughters, because now they have a family history, should have been screened a few times. But they wouldn’t be, nobody would be, if we didn’t talk about it & make it as common place as getting your annual physical or your twice a year dental 🦷 cleaning. I totally get that Heaven is going to be Agh-mazing, but those people & pets left behind sure would miss you here on earth. So if nothing else, don’t do it for you, do it for the love of someone else.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take out the trash.

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12/4 – The anniversary of another one of the worst days of my life… 

So, I guess I’m figuring out, because I’m smart like that, some days are harder & more poignant than others. Obviously, Thanksgiving was particularly hard. I cried more that week than I had in maybe a month, & that made me feel guilty on top of sad. Guilty, because for the month prior, I had felt pretty O.K., even happy at times. But here we are at another significant day, but maybe only to me & me alone, December 4. 

It was a year ago today that I think I really started to realize my husband, my best friend, ‘my person’ who I bounced EVERY idea off (bless him for always listening), confessed every sin or social faux pas to, was freaking dying. I mean I “knew” the odds were against us before, but I had led such a Horatio Alger like life before, I truly believed we’d get the miracle I’d been praying for. I mean of course we would, right? Spoiler alert: We didn’t. I even tried to point out to God what was in it for Him, if He saved Jamey.

In prayer, I proposed that I, one who is rarely ever short for words, would go on a marketing campaign for God that would go kind of like me espousing His amazing & perfect gift of healing, so you too (person listening to my proposed marketing plan) must just keep the faith & keep believing, because God can save you too! Ha! As if God needed me to spread His miracle message!! The audacity of my dumb self-astounds even me, but still, it’s true. I thought that. But my ridiculous & small-minded project plans for ‘saving Jamey & spreading God’s miracle of healing message,’ were clearly NOT God’s plans, & it was on December 4, I started to come to terms with that. 

After a series of events that I don’t fully recall right now, but I could probably look back over our Caring Bridge posts to find (but I think rereading those right now would feel like a punch in the gut) I took Jamey to the ER for the first time during our cancer journey. (Believe me, it was NOT the 1st time I took Jamey to the ER in our marriage, as there were numerous ⚽️ injuries in our early years, Supper Club zip line escapades, & a bag of broken bones over the years that had him riding shot gun on the way to whatever the closest ER wa at the time. And the fact that he was in the passenger seat also spoke volumes to his health, as he always preferred to drive versus ride. Not sure if that speaks more to my driving skills or his need to be in control, but that’s the way it was. 😂) 

I remember calling one of my besties that morning to ask her where I should take him & if she concurred, we were ER worthy. Even calling her that morning broke my heart, because she answered all perky & happy thinking, I was going to ask her to go for a walk that day, not for an ER strategy, & then I hit her from left field & started sobbing into the phone. I remember Jamey putting up NO resistance to the idea of going to the ER, which was also particularly worrisome, because he was THE most stoic man I had ever met, & I expected him to balk at the idea. But what I remember even more, is Jamey not even being able to get out of the car to walk in under the portico, but instead he had to crawl to a bush to vomit 🤮from the intensity of the pain. I remember having to park in a kind of sketch spot & Jamey of course, having bigger more painful things on his mind, not noticing that I had to walk to & from said sketch location alone, & how that too was a dawning realization for me that I was losing my protector, my body guard. I remember realizing now, all I had got protection was God & His angels, and I wasn’t just thinking about that hospital visit, but for life. I was starting to realize that I was entering a new ‘alone’ phase that I really wasn’t all that familiar with.  But on December 4, 2021, when I had to walk back & forth to get things, (blanket, water bottle, pillow, etc.) from my car in the dark, on my own, I did so while quoting scripture in my head, my version of holy pepper spray. 

Next, I remember, that once he was discharged, he settled in to watch Alabama play (& beat GA 24 – 41,) while I tried to decorate our first ever artificial Christmas tree, because though I was fighting like hell to maintain some sort of normalcy for our girls, I did not have it in me to haul in & set up a real tree all by myself. And believe it or not, I remember pouring a strong drink that night & finishing it before one of Jamey’s oldest friends called me to check in. His innocent ‘how you doing?’ broke the damn of everything I’d been holding in for the last few month, & I let my tears & wails go. Later I learned that though I had holed myself up behind closed doors to talk to him, the whole family heard me sobbing & hollering in anguish, that ‘my husband was dying.’ Not my finest care partner moment, but alas, it happened. 

The next day I awoke with not only a pounding headache, but a phone call from the same bestie checking in on me, because Jamey had called her the night before to tell her I was cracking under the pressure, which led to an epic Rage Room girl’s night out. But oh what a freaking fateful & awful night December 4 was last year, & how even remembering it now, a year later, it still stings. 

But believe it or not, on this December 4, though we three Hollingsworth girls miss Jamey like mad, I am at least comforted knowing he is fully healed in heaven.  He was in sooo much pain, and so much discomfort, and things only got worse from 12/4.  I’ve said this before, but I still wish it: if only the dying process could be more like turning in your keys when your lease was up, & not all the pain &💩 suffering. Dying is so undignified, & it’s gut wrenching to watch a cherished loved one go through it. But again, as I’ve also said before, as awful and heart breaking as it was to walk alongside Jamey as he moved to the light, there was absolutely no other place I would have rather been than by his side. In a weird and twisted way, standing by him during that horrific journey, was truly one of the greatest privileges and honors of my life, no matter how much it hurt us both. 

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Decisions without Jamey

Several people have asked me recently, if it is hard for me to make decisions without Jamey. For sure, it is, but I do think one weird positive about cancer, is that Jamey kind of trained me a bit. His 10-month fight was kind of like the saddest apprenticeship ever. But now that he has left me to carry on, I’m starting to tweak things big & small & make them my own. Home improvements we talked about but put off? I’m doing. Meanwhile while his laser focused mad dishwasher management skills are sorely missed, I’ve revamped our loading protocols. (Jamey, if you’re able to read my journal entries, go ahead & skip this next sentence. I may or may not run the dishwasher from time to time when every cubic inch of space has not been maximized. 😱) 

But just like I think if you are quiet enough, and still enough, and listen hard enough, you can feel the nudging of the holy spirt in your heart, so too I think I can hear the answer to “What Would Jamey Do?”  And while no person completely knows the workings of another’s mind, after being in relationship and marriage for 21 years +, I do think I can likely guess, with at least 90% accuracy, what Jamey would do in most situations.  But just like when he was alive, that doesn’t mean I always agree with ‘What Jamey Would Do.”  I mean do any 2 people ever always agree 100%??? I know there are currently a few decisions on the table where he & I would disagree, but here I am, living this life without him, and so I carry on, listening to his voice in my head, considering his opinion, and moving forward, albeit a bit sideways & wonky from time to time. But now that I am the only one left standing, like we used to say to our girls, they, but in this case, Jamey, has input but not say.  The final ‘say’ in decisions at this point in time, are mine and mine alone, but so too then are the consequences & repercussions. All I can really do is to keep praying through decisions & to keep leaning on my trusted & wise friends for counsel. But am I getting them all right? I doubt it. Have I made a few mistakes already? 💯! But I’m trying. And I’d like to think someone would at least give me an A- for effort. (Have I shared already how I love high marks & gold🌟 stars?) 

Would I rather be making decisions & weighing the pros & cons with my partner in crime? Absolutely! But that is not the path God has set before me to walk. And while I don’t necessarily love this whole ‘going it alone’ business, I am thankful for the village who is quite literally picking me up & carrying me down the road when I do I stumble, or feel lost, or confused or overwhelmed, because I am literally all the emotions these days. 

And as for what I have done so far, so far, I haven’t made any major decisions that Jamey & I hadn’t at least already discuss. Granted, I may have pulled the trigger and set a few of those decisions into motion faster than I know he would have, (the grass doesn’t really grow under my feet much,) they are not decisions or choices that we hadn’t already talked about.  Towards the end, we even discussed some hypothetical big decision things he thought I should do in the event…so in a way, he left me with an outline, not a sentence outline, and not a paper, but an outline.  I wish it were more of an instruction manual, but it’s not, which is fine by me, as I tend not to follow instructions very well anyway.  (Jamey used to say that I treated recipes more like suggestions or inspirational guides, as opposed to mandatory steps. Can you tell that I am NOT a baker?  LOL!) However, I do wish that I could see through the veil and converse with Jamey like the character in Sixth Sense, but if I said that I did that in this blog, you’d likely be more than reading this post, you’d be calling the authorities.  LOL!  

But for those of you helping me hold up my little family of 3 up these days, thank you. And please, keep it up, because I’m still peddling fast and furiously with training wheels. 

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Thankful for much, even the suck..

So, here we are, facing the 1st of the Hallmark holidays without Jamey, Thanksgiving. 

Thanksgiving used to be kind of a big deal for us, because it was the 1st big family gathering Jamey & I, several years ago, finally felt equipped & ready to host on our own. Early marriage we always trekked it back down to Florida to be with my parents & grandparents, but once we lost my grans & moved into a house with a little more elbow room, we were ready to host. Now that’s not to say we did do so seamlessly, as it took us a few years to get the hang of it, but we did it & loved it. 

However, we most certainly learned a few things along the way. We learned that if Jamey was intent on smoking the bird 🦃 in the Big Green Egg, Thanksgiving lunch @ 12:00 PM was not a good idea, because it meant he (we) had to stay up most of the night monitoring the temperature, & you can’t stay up all night without imbibing 🥃🍺🍷 at least a wee bit, so subsequent feasts were all dinners versus lunches. I learned that it’s really over kill to deep fry the onions on your back porch in your new Fry Daddy for the green bean casserole, & store bought, fried & dried, onions are really delicious when comparing the ROI. Yes, lots of tweaks were made over the years. We even moved the festivities out to Smyer Lake one year, where the kitchen appliances may not have been as nice, but the ambiance was top drawer. But then Covid 🦠😷 side swiped our newly acquired hosting hats, & we had to settle for a low-key family of 4. Oh, how innocent & naive I was to think that Thanksgiving with just the 4 of us during a pandemic was rather somber & sad. I mean what I wouldn’t give to go back in time & relish it more, appreciate it more, cherish it more, & imprint every minute of it into my wretched memory more. Just writing that makes me sob big hard tears that I’ve been managing to keep at bay for longer & longer periods of time as of late, but I guess it just goes to show you that grief lives in a deep dark well that never runs dry. 😥 But despite the tears, I’m truly thankful for the many, many happy memories. I just sometimes still can’t believe that they really are just memories, and that realization sucks, but life goes on for the rest of us.

Our “feast” this year will be small & mostly ordered from a local delicatessen, but we will get by & try to focus on the many, many good things & countless blessings in our lives. For example, our oldest has been receiving college acceptances & both girls just might be able to squeak out an all A report card. And friends! Oh my goodness our friends! Friends continue to show up & support us in the most unexpected & beautiful ways, whether it be by coming to the the 18th Annual Finish The Fight Iron Bowl Kickoff Casino Party last week, or by stomping out my boa that may or may not have caught fire 🔥 recently, or by leaving THE. MOST. DELICIOUS. loaf of “Rosemary Remembrance” bread on our front porch. (It was sooo good; I’ve even asked for the recipe & I don’t bake, & I’ve never made 🍞 bread in my life!) The kindnesses & support are nothing short of phenomenal, & I’m so thankful! But the suck is never too far off. In the last 2 weeks, 2 dear & longtime friends have shared with me that loved ones in their inner circles have been diagnosed with CRC. It feels like it’s everywhere, but my daughter says it’s just because I’m hyper focused on CRC. Maybe so, but I’d be negligent if I didn’t put in a plug here for everyone reading this now, if you haven’t yet, schedule your colonoscopy sooner versus later. I don’t want anyone else to feel compelled to write a grief blog, maybe some sort of happy blog, but let’s prevent anymore pathetic grief blogs.

I’ll close out this post on Thanksgiving Eve, with a PSA that’s not about colonoscopies: Love on your honeys. Squeeze ‘em tight. Don’t sigh or fight if someone overcooks, undercooks, or forgets to cook anything. Just squeeze their hands & give thanks to God, & try with all your might to remember & appreciate it all. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S.  Apologies for not posting last week.  I was running around with my hair on fire (It was apparently out of control!) and pealing in everywhere I went on two wheels. Then throw in one of your besties visiting from out of town, a fundraiser to “Finish the Fight” with a dozen or so friends all gathered in one place, and journaling / blogging was just not happening. 😊

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My Grief Tiger

In some ways I think Jamey would love that I am comparing grief to a tiger since he was such an avid Auburn fan (though for his college football loving 🏈 ❤️ heart’s sake, I’m kind of thankful he’s in heaven and not able to watch Auburn play 🏈 these days. 😂) 

But I think Aubie is a much more lovable tiger than what I have come to know as the ‘Grief Tiger.’  I first started thinking about grief as a tiger 🐅 after listening to a podcast about grief by Anderson Copper, All There Is, and it resonated with me.  In the podcast, Stephen Colbert says that those who mourn are forever after accompanied by a tiger 🐯 who sits next to them for the rest of their lives taking up space.  (I also appreciate that he didn’t use an elephant as a metaphor, because we were a complete house divided when it came to college football, & I’d like to keep my mascot, Big Al, in a happy, positive light. 😂🐘 🏈 RTR!)

But I totally get the ever-present tiger metaphor, because with time, I am discovering that I can have moments of real happiness and laughter, but then a split second later, I can feel deep sadness and heartache, like a homesickness that cuts straight to the core of my soul. 

Sometimes that sadness leaks out onto my face, or appears in my eyes, or can be heard in my voice, or felt by the sudden extreme heaviness of my feet. And sadness is such a vagabond, for it just shows up, unannounced, & at the darndest times. Like when on a Microsoft Teams meeting with my manager last week, our landline, (yes, we still have one of those ☎️ 😂 mainly reserved for telemarketers) it decided to join our call. I was on camera chatting it up, & then that d**** tiger got up and growled right in my face & slashed my heart with a razor-sharp claw, right as Jamey’s voice started explaining, loud & clear, that ‘we’ can’t come to the phone… It undid me. And right there on my video call, with my manager (who is actually also a dear friend – treasures in the darkness right there), I had to bury my hands in my face & sob 😭 for a moment. Other times I can just feel the warm, foul breath of the “Grief Tiger” on my neck, or the swish of its tail as he circles me staring me down & daring me to make a sound & carry on. 

But fortunately for me, as I have come to know him, the “Grief Tiger” is not just your regular old tiger.  The grief tiger, while ever present, does sleep a lot, praise God, allowing the mourner, me, to function. I attribute much of my tiger’s sleepiness to the fact that I wore him out with my “anticipatory grief” the whole 10 months of Jamey’s fight against cancer. I literally cried every day & most nights, frequently & hard, but the thing about a sleeping tiger is that you (I) never know what memory, what sound, what smell, what phrase, or what place will wake him up. But when he is awake, he often pounces, and his claws are sharp, and his fangs cut deep. 

I can only hope that eventually, with time, those claws and fangs will dull, and while I am guessing his attacks will still hurt, I hope I’m building up some thick ole scar tissue that will protect my heart & prevent the attacks from ripping through me as completely, or hurting quite as much in the future as they still do today. But whether sleeping or awake, I am coming to realize that he will always be with me, my “plus one” for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll luck out, maybe tigers don’t really like turkey, because otherwise, oh what fun Thanksgiving will be. 

🐯+ 🦃 = 💔❤️‍🩹

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A Work in Progress & Progressively Working

Friends, 

Through all the grief 😢 support systems & tools I’ve been leaning into since Jamey’s passing, one of the things I keep reading / hearing about is that it can be helpful to channel your hurt, anger, & bewilderment into something positive. Well, in the truest form of love, I think Jamey, knowing that already, put things into motion, before he left me, that would not only help others, but help me too. By standing up the Hollingsworth CRC Awareness Fund (HCRCA) he not only actively modeled the second greatest commandment in Matthew 22: 39 “…You shall love your neighbor as yourself” but by asking me & the girls & his dear, dear friends to champion his vision & see it through, he is, from heaven, not only actively saving others from his fate, but saving me from an abyss of negativity & loss. Words really can’t express (though I do tend to speak & write a lot them 😂) how therapeutic it’s truly been to feel like I/we, with God’s blessing, have the power to turn our nightmare into good for someone else.

     (Genesis 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”)

 Tuesday night the HCRCA board met, & it filled my heart to see all the good work we are all working on together. We have so many events & message campaigns in the works, it’s truly flabbergasting, & I know Jamey would be proud. (He might also have a few opinions & tweaks he’d make, but …) I won’t hit you with a long list of things to come, but I will leave you with two things.

  1. If you are in the Birmingham area, or within proximity & would like to enjoy a fun night out for a good cause, Uber over & join me & the other HCRCA board members on 11/17 for the Iron Bowl Kickoff Casino Cruise. This year I’m the Honorary Women’s Committee Chair, & while my date is in heaven this year, I’d love to have as many friends who are able, to come & keep me company. 
  2. Please watch & share this < 3-minute video with everyone you know between the ages of 40 – 55. 

Until next week, I remain a work in progress & progressively working. 

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Public Journaling: To Share or Not Share?

Someone recently asked me why I feel the need to publicly write about my grief?  At first, I will admit, that question kind of ruffled my feathers a bit, but it’s a valid question.  She wasn’t asking me after all, why I felt the need to write at all.  I think the therapeutic nature of writing has well been established and accepted.  Is it therapeutic for everyone?  Of course not! For some, writing is about as much fun as manipulating spreadsheets is for me.  Zilch! But after pondering her question, I think my answer is a mish mash of a lot of different things. 

1. American culture doesn’t really have a tradition of acknowledging someone in mourning.  It was once commonplace for a widow to wear black for a full year. I think there was something beautiful in that.  Mourning garments were easily recognizable, and I am sure it thereby offered the mourner grace. It’s been a little over 3 months for me, and while grief in general sucks, I am fully aware that I have been exceptionally blessed. I was able to take 10-weeks to try and get my life and my head together before going back to work, which is a luxury of the highest order denied many.  I also have an amazingly strong network of friends and a stellar faith family who have & continue to support me in countless ways! But do I feel 100% myself again after 14 weeks?  Heck no!  Do I still choke up at the darndest times?  Yes.  Did I have a full out boo-hoo session into the scruff of my very squooshy dog’s neck JUST the other night?  Yes! But I know Cosbo 🐶will never talk smack about me or make me feel weak for again being knocked sideways & onto my knees by grief. Grief is a sneaky B****! But still, I think wearing something that identified me as ‘in mourning’ would be helpful.  I think it would explain my state of mind now, and cut me some slack here and there for those who don’t know me well, but then again, we live in a broken world, and perhaps mourning garb today would just make widows targets for scamming. I mean I already question if I’m getting taken advantage of every now and again. Like did I really need 4 new tires this week???

2.  By sharing my journey, I am finding comfort and common ground with others who are grieving or have grieved the loss of someone they love.  There is a kinship between mourners.  Like Harry Potter who was able to see the thestral horses because he had experienced the loss of his parents, mourners are now all a part of the same sad club, and we will forever see things differently than our friends and family who have been fortunate enough to have not gone through this hell yet.  There is also comfort and camaraderie knowing you aren’t the only one who is hurting and that there are others out there who just sort of “get it.” Plus, grief is not often talked about in our society today, so none of us really know how to comfort and support those who are grieving.  And so, I guess I am also trying to share my journey to serve as one relatable experience for others to help them understand and empathize with people in their lives, should they or someone they know experience deep loss.  

3.  And finally, I think I am enjoying sharing my journey, because I loved Jamey so much.  I love talking about him.  I love talking with other people who loved Jamey.  I think that the sadness one feels is in direct proportion to the love that was lost, and just like when you are giddy with new love and want the world to know, I want the world to know that I lost a great love, a great man, a great friend, & a fantastic father to our girls. It still boggles my mind that he is not coming home ever again. It boggles my mind that the world keeps spinning and that time keeps moving on, and look out, ⚠️ the holidays are right around the corner, but Jamey isn’t. 

And to further support my weekly practice of public journaling, I will share an excerpt I read in one of my daily meditations about grief called, ‘Healing After a Loss.’

“To read the works of others who have gone through grief is another way of keeping the process going, and of finding another understanding friend. When a writer describes for me how I’m feeling, she or he becomes, my friend; I am not alone. Somehow if that person has achieved some peace with the pain, enough to write it down. Maybe I too, will find my way through this.” – Martha Whitmore Hickman.

My hope is to not only write the pain out of my heart, but be a friend in grief to others and maybe encourage other believers in their own struggles when they read how I believe He (with a capitol H) is walking with me & continues to strengthen me.

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Rings & Middle Fingers 💍 🖕🏼 Oh My!

So, I’ll start by copying a phrase I’ve heard a friend use. I believe I’m somewhat of an “emotional anorexic.” Don’t worry; it’s not anything clinical or worrisome, but when I get sad, like really, really sad, I also tend to lose my appetite, & thereby pounds. But again, don’t worry.  I am consciously eating everyday, & since I’ve gone back to work, I’ve been eating more. (Why is that? I guess working makes me hungry? 🤷🏼‍♀️)

Anyway, I remember there was a time after a relationship break-up when I also lost quite a few pounds in a six-month period just a few years after college. It worked to my advantage then though, because that was right when I met Jamey. I was at a Christmas cocktail party, wearing a nearly backless dress when a friend pointed me out to Jamey, and he supposedly said “Dude! That girl is wayyyy out of my league!” Clearly, I wasn’t. I was 💯 in Jamey’s league, but still we talked about that night for years afterwards, & he always claimed to have said that. In fact, he even referenced that night, that dress, & his reaction to me, all teeny tiny in it, in the last voicemail message he left me from his hospice bed in July.  (FYI, I will never ever delete that voicemail.)  And of-course being the emotional & sentimental keeper of things that I am, I still have that dress too, though I would never again wear it at my age. (Not only is it practically backless, it’s also scandalously short! 😳) 

All that to say, I have dropped several pounds during our cancer journey and Jamey’s passing. So much so, that my wedding band was starting to slip off my finger when I exercised. 

So, I started researching what to do. What’s acceptable? What did other widows do about wearing their wedding bands? I talked to widows. I paid attention @ grief groups to what other people had or didn’t have on their fingers. And basically, I realized it’s a free-for-all out there. Some take them off and put them in a drawer forever more.  Some move them to their right hand. Others wear them on their ring finger forever. Some have them made into a more fashionable piece of jewelry.  None of those options seemed right to me. But as my ring 💍 got more & more slippery, it weighed on me. Finally, one night while talking to a friend on the ☎️ phone, they clarified it for me by saying, “Dany, you have to do whatever feels right to you, & you alone.” I don’t know why hearing that was so freeing, but it was, and it helped me turn down the interference in my head about what other people did & didn’t do or what Uncle Google thought I should or shouldn’t do. And so, I was able to make a decision that feels right for me & me alone.

As such, this week I had my ring sized, and I moved it over one finger. I envision wearing it forever, but not on my ring finger of my left hand. So, I moved it to my middle finger of my left hand where it can still nestle up against the finger where it’s been for almost 22 years. The few days that it was at the jewelers, and I couldn’t wear it at all, my hand felt naked, and I felt off kilter, which confirmed for me that NOT wearing it was not an option for me.

So, as with everything else these days, here I go alone on my own forging my own new path. (Coincidentally, I can’t find any Google articles, or any widows who seem to have chosen to wear their wedding bands on the middle finger of their left hand like me, but again, I seem to march to the beat of a different drummer, so that doesn’t surprise me.)  But when I picked it up from the jeweler, the same young clerk who helped me mount Jamey’s wedding band on a necklace was there. This is the same clerk who had a tattoo of the same inscription we had put in Jamey’s wedding band, P2. To me, I felt like this was another God wink. I felt like God was condoning my decision and giving me a nod and a wink that I was doing the right thing, & that He blessed my decision too. I know I’m probably reading too much into things, but it gives me comfort, nonetheless. 

So, there it is. My ring has moved. I’ve read that wearing rings, rings of any kind, on your middle finger, of either hand, is symbolic of power. I don’t know about all that, but I definitely feel stronger when I look 👀 down & see my wedding bands. I feel like I’m carrying a piece of Jamey and that he is still with me, still cheering me on, still encouraging me from above. He’s just changed seats in the cheering section, but he’s with me still, in my (bruised) heart & on my hand. ❤️‍🩹💍

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2 Steps Forward 1 Step Back

I literally just woke up crying. It sucks so much trying & mostly holding it together all day, only to have my subconscious wake me up crying in my sleep, & that’s only after it finally allowed me to sleep in the 1st place. 

I feel like I’ve been doing so👌🏻 “ok” lately. I’ve even had spells of happiness, & I thought 💭 I can do this. We, the girls & I, can do this. 

But I guess, two steps forward & one step back, is still at least one step forward, right? 🦶

After wrestling with insomnia for three + hours, I finally gave up & turned on the light (a sad perk of sleeping alone) to do my Bible study. In a better place, & with a new sense of peace & calm, I was able to go back to sleep only to have a Jamey dream. 

Several friends have shared their Jamey dreams with me. Theirs are always happy & contain messages from Jamey about how he feels grrrrrreat, & how heaven is awesome! Now I’ve had a few Jamey dreams myself, but they are very infrequent, & they have yet to be happy. They have moments of happy, like in one he hugged me, in another we held hands which was so marvelous. It’s amazing how much I miss hugs & hand holding, but no messages of peace or love 💕 or instructions from above are ever shared with me. 

In this last one, he & I were sitting at a table together going through the mail. (Can you say mundane??) I opened & read a sympathy card while he watched me. I can still see his face in my head watching me react to the card. I started holding back tears & clinching my fists. (I’m not sure I even clinch my fists ✊🏻 in real life, but again, cue the warped subconscious.) He asked me “What is it?” I told him about the card & started explaining that it just hurt so, so much. Then he asked me if I still loved him. 😳 As if I could EVER not! And all I could do in my dream was close my eyes 👀 & nod yes over & over while tears 😭poured out of my eyes. I woke up like that, all wet faced & sad. 

So, yay! Here I am, all rested & refreshed & ready to face another day, but with a bit of guilt woven in. I tell you, this whole widow’s walk is complicated for sure. Sometimes I feel strong & capable for holding it together and making plans for the future, mostly plans Jamey & I had already discussed as possible options I should consider, but still plans. Other times, I feel guilty for feeling hopeful about those plans, for living without him. I’ve been told how blessed I am. I know that to be true. But it’s not like I wouldn’t trade my blessings for a chance to rewind my path & change directions if I could, but I can’t, and the last time God & I talked, earlier this morning, He wasn’t asking me for advice or any navigational tips. 

I know I most certainly didn’t choose to walk this path, & I’m just shuffling along as best as I can figure out how. Some days, heck some moments, are better than others. Some days, again truly some moments, I’m stronger than others, but it apparently is not yet my turn to pass through the veil, so I’m just keeping on, putting one foot in front of the other & seeing where I end up, but walking forward doesn’t mean I don’t ache or that I don’t still love. It means life keeps going, & so too must I, regardless of what my subconscious self is throwing at me. 

But I do think I’ll pause for a bit soon & tend to a bit of personal business. It’s time to prep that wicked & backstabbing subconscious of mine for upcoming sale. I envision my marketplace post sounding something like, ‘For Sale: One Twisted, but in “Good” Condition (you have to sugar coat things in sales, right?) Subconscious. All offers will be considered, because this one is no longer serving me or my heart ❤️‍🩹 well. 

😢