Widow

I am a widow.  It is something I have practiced telling myself over and over the past few days.  This may seem as some form of torture and to a certain extent it has been, that constant reminder that he's gone...DEAD.  It has also been therapeutic in that it reminds me that all of my almost Bi-polar highs and lows have a cause, a reason, a purpose.  I'm at the beginning of healing.  (Healing kind of blows.) 

Reminding myself that I am a widow also gives me insights into how I've viewed other people acting during their grief.  I get it.  I get the need to purge, purge, purge...my bedroom, my house, my life.  The purging isn't to get rid of any traces of the person you love.  It serves two purposes.  One, being the need to cleanse after the messiness of death.  Death is messy, whether it is peaceful or not.  Avi's death itself was not physically messy it was quiet and peaceful.  He simply stopped.  What was left after that is urinals, bed pans, medications, sheets you never want to look at, and the memories you can't erase from your mind.  I find memories of Avi's death the most messy.  Everything has a memory and some are not ones you want to recall.  Everything I look at, seems to pull me back to a place that I'd rather not associate with my husband and the time we spent together.  This brings me to the second reason to purge...EVERYTHING is a reminder that person is gone and when you are constantly searching for mindful peace, that slap of reality becomes very unwelcome.

Being a widow kind of feels like going through withdrawl from some kind of drug.  You have this love, this all encompassing love...and then it is gone.  Maybe it is different for some people.  Avi and I had a very unique friendship/relationship not only because of enduring the cancer the past few years but because, as my BIL said, we were kindred spirits.  We got it about the other person, we balanced each other.  As amazing as the people are in my life (and let's face it I have one of the strongest, most diverse, loving, powerful support systems anyone could possibly be blessed with) it just isn't the same as if he were here guiding me through this time.  The hugs aren't the same, the listening isn't the same, and the advice will never be his.  I get why some people seek another relationship so quickly after the death of a partner or a spouse.  They want that feeling again.  That one person that gets it, the intoxication of love.  I get wanting that feeling in your life again...still.  I want it, but I'm not ready for it and I won't be seeking it, but I get it.  I also get there will never be another Avi.

Did I mention healing BLOWS?  It has been three weeks today that Avi passed and I feel like crap.  I don't know what I expected to feel like, but as much as I prepared for this, it feels just as hard as the day he died.  A wise woman told me, last night, that I need to change my routine.  Even if it is only a little.  Trying to keep the same routine that I had when Avi was alive isn't going to help me in his death.  Things are not the same.  Life is not the same...I am not the same.  I think she is right...OK, I know she's right.  So, I'm going to work on changing my routine and not being so much of a hermit.  Go out and seeing people, instead of trying to stay at home.  Reclaiming the life that cancer robbed me of, the life I know Avi would want for me.


 Avi,

Oh honey, I want Spring. I want to see the flowers you picked out bloom.  I want to garden and to be outside with the dogs.  I want to feel warm instead of constantly cold.  I want to sleep with the windows open.


Damn I miss you.


Shawna