young widow

Raising Raging Kids

Posted on by Racheal

Here’s a fun fact about widowhood:

If you have young children when your spouse dies, about a year after his/her death those children will probably go into full on rage mode.

I’d heard of this from a widow friend who was farther down the road, and now I am at that signpost.

One of my kids has slammed into “anger” with full force.  He’s always been a bit quick to fly off the handle.  We’ve always had to learn to manage his fits and his expectations.  Lately, however, his anger has become exhausting, impossible, draining, defeating.  He is quick to trigger and his rage fits will last over an hour sometimes.  We will then have a few minutes of peace before he triggers again. He screams.  He kicks walls.  He screams.  He slams doors.  He screams.  And screams.  And screams.

Through it he hurls insults.  I am a terrible mom.  I obviously hate him because I don’t want him to be happy.  He hates me because I don’t want him to be happy.  He’s going to run away.  He’s going to grow up to be a criminal due to my poor raising of him.  He hates me, he hates me, he hates me.

This isn’t supposed to happen until they are teenagers, right?

I am not without recourse.  We all see counselors, and we are working very hard with him to determine how to help him.  We are enlisting grief and anger specialists.  We are not letting this situation escalate without taking any action.  I am getting him the care he needs, but grief is a process.  We are getting through this, but in some ways it might just come down to being a storm that we will weather together.

I feel terrible for him.  It must be so miserable to be entirely contained within a fog of anger.  He can’t enjoy his life.  We are working on it.  I know we will get him through this.

Meanwhile, am I permitted to also feel terrible for me?  I am doing what the counselors suggested.  I remain calm.  I. REMAIN. CALM.  I REMAIN CALM, DAMMIT!  Seriously, I try my best to keep a calm tone of voice.  He can scream as much as he wants, but not in my face.  And not if it is making everyone else miserable.  He is allowed to have and express his feelings, but he is not allowed to make others feel bad.  He can scream in his room.  When he gets insulting, he gets a count.  Three count = time out.

One epic incident lasted over two hours.  I cannot remember what it was about.  I wouldn’t let him have juice, or it was time to turn of the TV.  Something like that.  He screamed and bellowed and slobbered and flung insults at me.  I calmly counted whenever he crossed the line, and wound up sending him to his room three or four times.  It was a nightmare, and I didn’t think I would be able to continue.

After that night, it has been better.  It was almost an instant cure.  For a couple of days he had no fits at all.  It’s building up again though.  I can feel it.  That kid has some sort of tectonic pressure inside of him and he is going to have another collapse.

The other night, he finally said it.  He said what I knew was coming, and was dreading to hear.

“Mom, I wish Dad were still here and that it was you that died.”

Holy shit, y’all.  Ouch.  Ouch.

I know it’s normal and okay.  I gave him a count for saying something hurtful.  I reminded him that if he wants to talk about his feelings, about my rules, anything that we can do that in a calm way but that he is not to say hurtful things when he is upset.

He was really close to his dad.  I am sure there are lots of times that he would rather have his dad around instead of me.  I know it doesn’t mean he would trade me, or that he wants me to die.  He doesn’t want either of us dead.  I know, however, that he sometimes feels his life would be better or more fair if he was with his dad instead of with me.  I am told this is natural.  A child will idolize their non-present parent and will believe their life would be better with the other person.

I also know that to a certain extent he was trying to engage me in an argument, by escalating his words to get a reaction from me.

It’s okay.  I understand.

It’s okay.

Except that Jesus Christ it is so not okay.  I’m not okay.

And now I am mad at my husband for leaving me to deal with the grief of our children.

First After Miserable First

Posted on by Racheal

We survived our first holiday season without Trey.

As Halloween approached, we elected to not make the costumes we had all been talking about as a family.  Then we elected to not make costumes at all, but to buy.  Mr.K finally decided to just wear last year’s costume, which was the moment I realized that he was not as excited about the holiday as he wanted to be.  We had several parties plus trick-or-treating.  Each Halloween event began jovially, but ended with K feeling sad, removing his costume, and secluding himself.  He says he may not dress up next year.

Mr.H made a Thanksgiving project at school – a poster on which we all were to write what makes us feel thankful.  We all wrote something about family, but I felt dishonest because our family is missing a piece.

Tension built in the days leading up to Christmas, as Mr.K grew more and more insistent that Santa could bring his dad back.  He would not be disabused of it.  The whole thing terrorized me that he would wake on Christmas morning and fall to pieces because his wish had not come true.  Thankfully, on Christmas morning he accepted what I am sure he already knew — that this was not possible.  We had a lovely day, but partway through it Mr.H got really upset about a gift he though his dad would have gotten him.  I hurt for him so much.  After a snowball fight in the yard, Mr.K laid this one on me:  “It’s sad that dad couldn’t be here for this.  That’s what’s so bad about when people die.  They miss out on all these things.  I mean, Dad is never going to have another Christmas.  I don’t even have to get very old — just 41 — and I will have more Christmases than he did.”

Ouch, kiddo.

New Year’s Eve arrived, with nobody to kiss.

Close on the heels of New Year’s was Trey’s 42nd birthday.  It also would have been our 19th wedding anniversary.  Even though I was certain gravity had doubled due to the heaviness of my entire body, I managed to bulldoze us through that final day of the Wilson Family Holiday Season.  We enjoyed breakfast at the pancake place he used to take us.  We honored his memory by once again visiting the root beer store.  Mr.H and I cooked a birthday cake for Trey.  Mr.K, who originally suggested the cake, found himself unable to move forward with it.  We didn’t sing “Happy Birthday.”  We baked the cake, iced it and ate it.  K joined us for the eating part, and we didn’t talk about why we had cake.

Everybody is extremely sympathetic toward me right now.  I appreciate this. I am fortunate to have so many people in my life who care about me and who are thoughtful enough to realize how difficult the holidays are.

The first holidays, in particular.

For every first holiday, however, there are countless smaller firsts.  Innumerable times my heart protests that the last time we did this, he was with us.  At the beginning of widowhood, these firsts are a daily assault:

The first time I put the kids to bed and came downstairs to nobody.
The first time I made dinner for just the three of us, knowing he would not return.
The first time I went grocery shopping without buying his favorite staples.
I watched a TV show we always watched together.
I picked up listening to the rest of the audoibook we were sharing.
I went to bed.
I woke up.
I rented movies.
I cleaned the kitchen.
I hung up clothes in the closet.

Everything in my life was something I was doing for the first time since he died.

After a while, the basics of living had run through a couple of cycles.  No longer was each day a constant chorus of “this is the first time . . . ”  The firsts continued to batter me, however.

The first time I took them to a movie just the three of us, I couldn’t figure out what to do when I had to use the bathroom — make them both come with me, or leave them in the theater while I went?

The first time I took them to get the Slushies Trey always got them, I managed to get Slushie all over the place.  I could not get the hang of filling the cups the right amount before causing major overflows.  In some cases, the stuff keeps expanding after you stop pouring, turning your cup into a volcano science experiment smelling of blue raspberry.  I’d had no clue it was that complicated.

The first time we went to one of their school parties without Trey was the Neon Glow Party.  It was just a week after he died, but we’d been talking about it for weeks.  The neon party is always eighties themed, and I’d said we needed to all dress up like the eighties.  Trey had responded, “So you’ll just be wearing your regular clothes, then?”  He had a point.  Looking back, I can’t believe we made it to the party.  I was still in such a fog, and didn’t want to disappoint the kids who still wanted to go.  They were dancing their butts off, and I was glad to have brought them.  I just kept thinking it would be okay as long as we avoided the photo booth.  Of course then K really wanted to do the photo booth.  So we did it.  And we got the pictures.  The same pictures we get every year, but with Trey conspicuously missing.  K deflated and wanted to go home.  We went home.

The first time we played our favorite four-player video game with just the three of us, we realized one of us would have to log in as Trey in order to keep our game progress.  As uncomfortable as it was, I logged in as him.  It’s commonplace for me to do that now.

The first time the three of us went on a road trip together, I wondered if it was safe.  How can a woman and kids drive over the state border and get a hotel room and be safe?  I’d never traveled without a man.

We went to our first soccer game, and to our first hockey game.  Without their dad.

These small activities that we find ourselves in, that remind us that Trey was here last time, they are growing more and more infrequent.  Maybe there will come a point when there are no more.

The final kind of first I will address is the worst, as the frequency of it will keep growing at least for a few years.  Instead of protesting that we did this last time, my heart screams that Trey never had a chance to do this with us, to witness this event.  These milestones and first experiences will always be accompanied by my ghost of him, seeing his reactions inside my mind.

I joined the kids on their first airplane ride.  They had never heard the safety speech before, and K paid careful, solemn attention to the flight attendant.  They delightedly opened the tray tables, exclaiming, “Hey, look at this!  A little table!”  Trey never got to experience this with him.  I could almost feel his laughter.

Harry hit his first baseball.  Then stood at the plate, not knowing what came next.  At the urging of his coaches he ran toward first base.  Still carrying his bat.  The coaches yelled at him to drop the bat, so he ran back to home plate to put the bat down, and then back to third.  Trey would have told me that only my kid would be doing this sort of classic move.

Korben played goalie for the first time.  Trey never got a chance to see his son so enthusiastically cheering on his team mates even when they were not near his goal.  He never got to see Korben save a goal.

He won’t be there for their first girlfriends, their first school dances, their first day of every grade, their first kids, first auditions/tryouts for various activities, first play or first academic bowl or first recital or whatever we have in the future — these firsts will keep coming.

Riding the Depression Wave

Posted on by Racheal

It’s all happening again.

Not to the extent it happened before, when the pain was new and I lived in a fog.

It is, however, all happening.

I can’t.  I can’t DO.  I sit on the sofa and realized an hour has gone by.  An hour with no TV, no phone, no music – is just gone.  Gone to blank staring, to emptiness and nothing.  I’m not remembering.  I’m not lamenting.  I’m not thinking of the holidays.  I’m just physically too sad to move.

My whole body is sad.  My shoulders droop.  My knees ache. My back twinges.  My legs refuse to carry me out of the chair, much less up the stairs or out the door.  I am heavy.  Gravity has made me its bitch.  It pushes me and I don’t even resist.

I try to work, and stare at the screen.  I try to wash dishes and stare out the window.  I try to sleep, and stare at the ceiling.

I have turned off.

Except when I’m on.

Two days ago, I reorganized/rearranged one of my pantries.  A couple of days before that I sorted through the medications in our guest bathroom.  I ordered new pictures for the walls.  I hung a broom organizer.  Over the past couple of weeks I have filled three large trash bags and two boxes for the goodwill.

I am experiencing bursts of organizing and productivity in between lulls of depression and sadness.

I went through this in the early months.  I want to claim my life and my space, so nesting kicks in and I go, go, go.  A day turns, and I am almost unable to shower.

It is most likely the holidays that have brought this on.  This is not happening the way I expected.  I thought I would be sad when I looked back at all of our holidays together, or forward to the holidays without him.  The truth is, I’m not thinking about or dwelling on those things.  Not much.  Not VERY much.  This is a free floating sadness invading my bones during the most mundane times.  Still, I think we can assume it is a combination of the holidays, along with the feeling that I’m careening toward his death anniversary, and the winter doldrums.

I’ve gone to the doctor and have gotten a prescription for Zoloft.

I had been resisting this.  I don’t like the way I feel on SSRIs.  I feel less me.  It’s not a dramatic change, but it’s enough of one that I feel uncomfortable with it.  Also, I want to feel my feelings.  How am I supposed to heal from the pain if it is always shrouded?  Sometimes you have to run a fever to break the flu.  (I don’t know if that’s actually true.  Don’t come to me for medical advice, I’m clueless.)

I can’t keep going like this, though.  I need to keep a relatively clean house.  RELATIVELY clean.  I need to work.  I need to make lunches and walk the dog and sew patches on boy scout uniforms.  I would love to succumb to the sadness and stare into space until the kids come home from school, but I do have work to do and it won’t wait.

Now, I’m not trying to be alarming.  When I leave the house, I do put on shoes — flip flops at least.  I am getting us all fed and to school and back.  I’m even getting some work done — somewhat inefficiently.  I do wear PJ’s and a robe a lot of days — a perk of working at home.  The PJs are clean — unless I spilled coffee or egg on them that morning — and in fact I kind of have ‘daytime jammies’ and ‘nighttime jammies.’  I’m showering.  I’m taking out the trash.  You won’t come to my house to fight through a mountain of pizza boxes and cat litter to find me in dreadlocks with green teeth.

But it’s hard. So Z is for Zoloft.

I have been on it two days.  I had forgotten that while the effects take a couple of weeks to be noticeable, the side effects are immediate.  I’m not sleeping well and my stomach is in knots.  This will peter out, but is unpleasant currently.  But if it gets me through the holidays and a bit beyond it will be worth it.

I’m also grief-shopping again.  The kids were thrilled with the “epic fort” they were able to make from all the Amazon boxes.

I just want to curl up in my bed and stare at nothing.

But, this weekend I plan to take the kids to a potter class.  Next Tuesday I’m going to see the Justice League with my widow sponsor.  Next Thursday will be Thanksgiving at my mom’s house, and I’m looking forward to it so much.  After Thanksgiving, the Christmas boxes will come out of the garage and we will start decorating.  We will also get those cards in the mail.

We’re doing it.  We’re doing this life.  We’re riding the waves and we’re crashing sometimes but we’re getting back up.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

The Things Not Done at My House

Posted on by Racheal

The light in my bathroom keeps blinking off and on.  I’ve changed the light bulb but don’t know what else to do.

The thermostat keeps giving me an error message.  I need to call a repairman.

The handle fell off of my bathroom door.  I could fix it if I had the screw, but it seems to have vanished.  So every time I forget and close the bathroom door all the way, I have to get the handle off of its now dedicated spot next to the sink and jam it into the spot where it goes to open the door.

I took the cover off my bedroom light to replace the bulb, then lost the knob that holds the cover on.  I have since found the knob, but still have not replaced the cover because I’ve already folded up the ladder.

There is a mountain of boxes in the garage that need to be broken down and put out to recycle.

All of our bike tires are flat.

My kids don’t know how to ride their bikes.

They also don’t know how to tie their shoes.

There are two large pictures that need hanging.

The door is about to fall off that corner cupboard in the kitchen again.  I’m always leaning on it, but I always pretended like I didn’t know how it always broke.  He pretended to believe me.

The grill is filthy and needs a good cleaning.

Of course, there are also a lot of things around here that need to be done as a result of Trey’s death.  There is sorting and getting rid of things, rearranging things, not to mention the whole nesting instinct that kicks in.  So my house is half painted.  The above list, however, is a list of things that Trey normally handled and now he is not here.  His dad used to buy dilapitated houses and the would enlist Trey’s help fixing them up for rent or sale.  This was years – decades – before “house flipping” would be a thing.  The point is that Trey could rewire things, install thermostats, repair plumbing — he was a super handy “guy-guy.”  And now he’s gone.  And it’s not like I’m a girly princess who can’t fix things.  I hang my own shelves and I installed our video game systems and I can do a lot of these things. The things I can’t do, my dad can do or I can hire someone.

But he used to do them.  He took care of things like broken door handles and flickering lights.  He knew what to do about furnaces, and didn’t mind getting out the ladder.

I hate these daily reminders that he’s not here to take care of things.

Meanwhile, there is a jar of strawberry jelly in the fridge that I absolutely cannot open.

The Unbearable Sameness of Being

Posted on by Racheal

When my boys were babies, there was a mom in my Mommy group who said, “It feels sometimes like I’m living the same week over and over again.”

That perfectly captured what it is like to be a stay at home mom with young children.  Your life exists only as routine — bathing, feeding, dressing, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.

It once again feels like that, now that I am widowed.  There isn’t any reason for it to feel this way.  The kids and I go places and do different things every week.  There are holidays and seasons, birthday parties and movies, classes and scouts.  If anything, there is less routine in my life now.  I am most likely overcompensating by filling our lives with activities.

Still, it feels like there is no reprieve from daily life.  I get the kids ready for school, drop them off and then either work or run errands.  I pick them up at my parents’ house.  We do homework and have dinner and either watch some TV or do baths unless it is a night where we have activity planned.  Then it’s bedtime for them and TV/Chores/Staying up until I pass out time for me.

Every day.

Nobody is here to say, “I’ll do the cooking tonight.”  Nobody is here to tell the kids, “It’s after bedtime,which means Mom is off duty.  Come to me if you need anything.”  Nobody is here to embark on some project like painting the fence that will consume us all.

To be fair, I have had my share of projects.  My downstairs is currently half painted.

So I am not sure why it feels so monotonous, but it does.

Maybe it is the simple lack of someone to talk to.  Perhaps the presence of another adult, someone to tell about my day, someone to make comments to while watching TV, maybe that is what I am missing.  Maybe the simple act of turning to the person next to you and saying, “Whaaaat?  I did not see that coming.  Did you see that coming?” is what transforms an evening in front of the TV from being sad and monotonous to being fun and engaging.  Maybe being able to complain to someone about the mountain of dishes elevates washing them from being lonely to being, I don’t know, not lonely.

That is what I feel now.  Bored and lonely, and like every day is the same.  Every week is on repeat.  The morning routine, the night time routine.  Over and over.  I know it isn’t true.  I know last weekend we went to a Halloween party and the weekend before that we went to a scouting event and this week the kids were out of school on Friday but we all had fevers so we didn’t do anything.

I know my days are not on repeat, but they still feel repetitive.

And now I am being repetitive in this blog.  Sorry about that.

I don’t know what to do.

I just feel so sad.

 

 

A New Widow’s Christmas Card

Posted on by Racheal

The holiday cards I ordered arrived.  Maybe this year I’ll get them sent out.

For the past three years or so, I’ve gotten around to ordering them but never mailed them.  I wasn’t able to get my shit together.  I ordered them mid-December, paid extra for super rush shipping, and then was too caught up in last minute holiday preparations to send them out.

This year I’ll make it.

I like the cards — I think.

When I sent them to the printer’s, I was certain they were exactly what I wanted.  When I started to think about them, however, I wondered if they are wrong somehow.

There are no pictures of Trey.

All of the pictures are of the boys and me.  Mostly the boys.  A couple with me.  But none of Trey.

Will people think that is disrespectful?  Will his family want to have a card with his photo on it?  Maybe I should have included a picture of us at the Oregon Stonehenge, or our wedding photo, or that picture of him with the kids on Bring Your Own Cup day at 7-11.  Maybe there should be some sort of visual remembrance of him.

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For the words, however, I worry that I talk about him too much.  People don’t want to think of death when reading their holiday cards, right?  This is what I wrote:

I started with some general holiday pleasantries . . . hope this card finds you well, etc.

“This was a hard year for us, but we have family, friends and each other to see us through it.  As we make our way through the fog, we learn to love deeply, to hold on fiercely, and to be each other’s strength even while we feel weak.  We learn the strength of family, that it can be badly damaged and yet remain.  We learn that sadness may be with us, but joy is as well.  There is no end to the joy that can be experienced if you leave yourself open to it.  While we will always feel his absence, Trey’s love will be part of our hearts and of our lives forever.  We carry him with us as we continue our journey of love and life and joy.  We bid a loud “good riddance” to 2017 as we look forward, hand in hand, to the new year.”

After that is the usual accounting of our lives — what grades and activities the kids are in, what I am doing for work, blah blah blah.

Is that too much?  Is it too sappy?  Did it make our card too much about death?  I tried to make it about looking forward and continuing on life’s adventure, but maybe it is too depressing.

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Here I am, then, in a typical widow’s conundrum.  Did I say too much?  Did I say too little?  Will people think I’m dwelling too much on the loss?  Will people think I am not grieving enough?

Should I have included photos of Trey?  Should I have not mentioned him at all?  Should I have sent out plain store bought cards, and avoided this altogether?

I am happy with the cards, save some awkward wordings.  I look at it and I’d like to revise, but I had a hard time putting that together so I did not have a chance to edit it.  I feel like it would be a disservice to what we are going through to not mention it at all, but I didn’t want this to be a memorial to him.

I suppose some people will think it should have been a memorial, and they will be unhappy.  Others will think that my words are overly emotional and improper and they will be unhappy.

I am happy.  I am happy to be getting cards out this year.  Hopefully I will start receiving cards again.  (It’s a two way street.  You have to send them to get them.)  I am happy to have such lovely photos of us — if they are a bit overly touched up for my taste.  And I am happy with the message in these cards.

I suppose people who have a problem with it can kiss my jolly ass.

Happy Holidays!

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The Husbandless Holidays, Halloween Edition 

Posted on by Racheal

So it begins . . . Our first holiday season as a threesome.

I cannot even tell you how not okay this is.

I bought three pumpkins.  Well, six. I bought three big pumpkins for carving, and three pie pumpkins for painting.  Not for pie.  Gross.  I’m not someone who gets all jazzed about pumpkin spice.  I don’t even understand why people thing this is delicious or smells good or anything.

But I digress.  I was about to tell you how I almost wept in the arms of a sweet elderly lady at the grocery store.  Perhaps I shouldn’t use the word ‘elderly.’  I’m no spring chicken, and I do not know how old she is.  She’s older than me, though.  She commented on my cart full of pumpkins, and reminisced about carving pumpkins with her kids when they were young, and again with her grandkids.  I talked about how my boys won’t go near the pumpkin guts so I have to clean the pumpkins out before they will even consider having anything to do with the whole thing.

It was on the tip of my tongue, what had been on my mind all day:

“This will be our first Halloween since my husband died.”

I didn’t say it.  I almost said it.  I wanted to say it.  I didn’t.

Why didn’t I?  Part of it was that voice inside my head telling me that she doesn’t want to hear about it.  She’s having a lovely memory and doesn’t need my sadness invading her space.  It’s what keeps me from mentioning it wherever I go, even though I feel like it’s branded on my forehead.

“This will be our first Halloween without my husband.”

I kept it in.  The other reason?  I knew that if I said the words out loud, I would cry.  I would cry, and I would not stop.  I would slobber big snotty drooly tears all over this poor unsuspecting stranger.  In the middle of Safeway.  On a Monday afternoon.

Instead, I continued the pleasantries, swapping stories of trick or treat and candy bellyaches.  I loaded up the six pumkins

six, not eight

and sat in my car and sobbed.

I thought of the missing pumpkins, about family costumes in years past, of the couple’s costume we had planned for the next time we had a grown up party to go to.  I remembered his idea to dress up the twins as Daft Punk this year and how he was going to help them build their helmets.  I tried to maintain that concept, but none of us had our hearts in it and it fizzled.  I remembered how much work he put into helping H with his costume last year.  I thought about how Halloween is not so far from February, and how last Halloween we absolutely had no idea the end was coming.  How we were still getting settled into our neighborhood and how we were using this as a reason to meet the neighbors.  How he insisted on getting full sized candy bars.

I looked to the future Halloweens, all of them with pumpkins in multiples of three.  The kids and I may do a family costume, but there are no couple’s costumes in my future.

I sobbed and sobbed until my eyes felt like they were bleeding.  I must have sat in that parking lot for 45 minutes trying to get a hold of myself enough to drive home.

I wish I had told that stranger.  Maybe if I had told her, I’d have wished I hadn’t.  But I think it would have felt better to say it to someone.  The holidays.  Wow.  It is going to be harder than I anticipated.  I knew they would be difficult; I’m not an idiot.  But Trey was a real grinch about the holidays.  I mean, once the boys were born he upgraded from Full-On-Grinch to Grudging-Good-Sport.  He recognized the importance of holidays for the kids.

It was always me, however, making the holidays happen, bulldozing them into our lives whether anybody else wanted them or not.  Trey liked Halloween, but even then his enthusiasm was limited to selecting a costume.  I put out the decorations, and shopped for more.  I made costumes.  I carved pumpkins.  I put together Halloween crafts for the kids.  I played Halloween music and watched scary movies.  He treated the holidays like they were any other day, as much as he could in the midst of my obsessions.  I therefore thought that his presence would not be missed much more than it is any other day.

That’s a nopefish.

This is horrifying — going through the holidays without him.

We went to the school carnival, where my mom accompanied us and watched the kids while I volunteered at a booth.  We went to the Boy Scouts Halloween party with my parents, but we didn’t know anyone else so we collectively posted up at a table.  We went trick or treating with my mom.  There was nobody at our house to hand out candy.  Finally, yesterday I went to a grown ups Halloween party where I only knew the host.

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That’s me in the middle.

It was fun, but also lonely.

What is the rest of the holiday going to look like?

Thanksgiving is coming.  Thank goodness, my parents host T-day.  All I will have to do is get the kids dressed and show up for dinner.  Trey didn’t like turkey, or stuffing, or cranberries.  He didn’t care for going somewhere to eat.  He’d rather stay home.  He was always friendly about it, however, coming with me and eating too much and falling asleep in a chair like the other men.  He was also there to do the driving so I could have slightly too much wine.  It will be so odd not having him there.

Then, Christmas.  Holy shit.  Christmas we host at our house.

Once again, he was a grinch.  He didn’t participate in the decorating or the planning, or in much of the cooking.  But he indulged me.  He was there to help put the decorations near the top of the tree.  He was there to help lug boxes in and out of the garage, and to help me find extension cords, because they are never where you think you left them.  When he really shone was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

He would spend the entire month of December specifically pretending it wasn’t Christmas.  I did the decorating and the shopping and the gift selecting and wrapping.  I would handle the cards and the lights and the menu and the guest list.  I would watch Christmas movies, above the loud protests of my family.  On Christmas Eve, however, he would bake cookies for Santa.  He would sit on the floor with me all night, as we assembled whatever nonsense I decided to get for the kids that was made of a million small pieces with a single sheet of instructions.  We’d each take one item and race to see who could get it assembled first.  He would help hang the stockings and we would share some scotch to congratulate ourselves on successfully preparing for Christmas, before falling into bed at three a.m.

On Christmas Day, he was glorious.  Excited to see the kids get excited, he would wake at about five — or perhaps he never slept — and would WAKE THE KIDS.  Who does that?  Then as guest after guest (mostly my family, but sometimes some of his) entered our home, he was the perfect host.  Hosting is not my strong suit.  Planning is.  Once people are in my home I come dangerously close to falling apart.  He always stepped up, offering drinks and cooking some sort of appetizer he had decided at the last minute that he needed to cook.

What will this year be like, without him?

Halloween was fun.  But it was also sad.  I have not cried as much this month as I did the first month after he died, but I have cried at least half that much, and that is a LOT.

 

I don’t know how the rest of the holidays are going to go.  I’ve ordered Christmas cards and will be sending those out.  They have lovely photos of, you know, the three of us.  I could write a whole post about that.  Maybe I will.

But not today.

Birthday Party – I laughed, I cried. In front of the other moms.

Posted on by Racheal

My boys turned eight years old a couple of weeks ago.  This month has been a bit of a roller coaster, as I suppose you would expect.  Their first day of school also happened this month, and I haven’t yet had the stones to write about it.

Here it comes.  This post will most likely be too long to read, and will encompass the start of school as well as our Month Long Birthday EXTRAVAGANZA!  Are you in it with me?  Here we go.

At the end of school last year, I was so excited for summer to begin.  I thought that once I was freed from the daily grind of mornings and lunches and rides to and from school, I would be able to take control of my life and of my schedule.  I would be able to get more work done, take care of the house better, and of course spend more time with my kids.

I don’t have to tell you it does NOT work that way.  I must have been suffering from some sort of temporary insanity caused by wishful thinking.

It was a wonderful summer, full of late mornings watching Teen Titans Go in bed together, late nights playing XBox and two family trips.  It was much needed, but it was not particularly productive.  So as school approached, I was glad.  I was not glad in the traditional wine-drinking mom “yippee the kids will be out of my hair and occupied for part of the day” kind of way.  I was glad because once again, possibly delusional again, I believe this is when I will be able to take charge of our household schedule.

In the days leading up to the first day of school, I went on a special one-on-one outing with each of the kids.  I bought back to school clothes and shoes (I pre-ordered the supplies from the PTA last year.)  I bought Starbucks cards for the kids’ teachers, and wrote each one an introductory email explaining that my boys have therapy once a week and if the time does not work for their class schedule to let me know, and also to let me know if they notice any behavior in class that I should have the therapists address.  The teachers, of course, know that my husband died last February.  I set up schedules for homework and nighttime and morning routines.  I set up a new chore chart and star chart.  I stocked the fridge with school lunch items, bought new backpacks and lunches, and ordered new coats and jackets.  I did this all on my own.

Honestly, it’s not that different.  Trey  was not much of a ‘planner’ or ‘preparer’ (except for his disaster prepping – eyeroll.)  I would have taken care of most of this on my own even if he were still alive.  I felt good.  I felt optimistic for the school year and confident of my ability to make this work.  I took the kids to school the first day, using our schedule and star chart.  We did not have to rush or scramble, and we were not up against the tardy bell.  After school I picked them up.  They hung up their backpacks and helped unload the dishwasher to earn tablet time.  I started cooking dinner.

Then I was punched in the stomach.

This routine we are setting up — it doesn’t include Trey.  He’s not just gone now or for this first day of school.  He is going to be gone for all of the days of school.  There is no bargaining for who will be making dinner.  There is no talking each other into or out of ordering a pizza.  This is it.  This is my routine every night.  Helping the kids with homework, making dinner, washing dishes.  Alone.  This is it.

So then I’m crying by the sink again, which for a short while was no longer my favorite hobby.

Three days after the first day of school came the boys’ birthday.  For the first year ever, I managed to talk them into having their party a couple of weeks later.  I couldn’t figure how to get invitations out in time to have a party right after the start of school, and I didn’t think anyone would be up for attending a party at that time.  But I did want to mark their actual birthday.  At first we were going to meet the grandparents for some free Denny’s birthday goodness.  But naturally I am overcompensating for their dad being gone so instead we went on a Pirate Cruise.

Because what says, “I’m sorry we are having your birthday without your father being in the world” like a pirate cruise?

We went with my parents.  It was a lot of fun and I only cried a bit later that night.

The next weekend, we went to visit my uncle who lives about three hours away.  His town has a fair and rodeo, and we go every year to see him and attend the fair.  This year was weird without Trey.  It was weird largely because it was kind of nice.  Bless his heart, he really tried to be a good sport about it, and he never said this out loud, but I have been going to fairs with him for years and the truth is: he hates fairs.  Hated fairs, I mean.  In past years, the kids would go up with my folks, and then Trey and I would join the next day, close to the end of the day so we could spend an hour at the fair.  He hated the walking and the smells and how much everything costed.  I love the ridiculous food, the pig races, the world’s largest whatever.  So going to the fair without him was kind of nice in a way.  I went when my folks did, and spent the entire day with the kids getting their faces painted and spending too much money on bounce houses and unwinnable games.

And then K decided he wanted to go on a ride called the Storm Trooper.  I thought he would be too scared, and didn’t want to let him do it.  Something I always tell myself, however, is to not let fear keep you from doing things.  So I let him go.  I’m too fat to ride those rides so my mom rode with him.  He loved it.  I could see him scared at first, and then laughing and loving it the whole time.  I was so glad I let him go, and I was so horribly sad that Trey wasn’t there to see it.

I didn’t cry.

This weekend was their birthday party.  We did bubble soccer, something we did a couple of years ago and it was a big hit.  The kids wanted Minecraft themed cakes and decorations, and then had extremely specific requests for their cakes.

Now, I bake exactly once a year — on the birthday.  I still remember cakes that my mom made for me, so it is important to me that I make the cakes for my kids’ birthday.  I reserved the bubble soccer place a month ahead of time.  I started baking a week ahead of time.  I burned up the Pinterest boards making cakes and cupcakes and decorations.  This was going to be the best birthday ever.

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Today we arrived, and it went well at first.  But, see, K has been sick for a couple of days now.  He hasn’t had a fever, but he hasn’t felt well.  He’s had a runny nose and he fell asleep yesterday afternoon.  I thought about postponing, but for a multitude of reasons decided not to do that.  (I did warn the other parents, in case they wanted to stay away from the germs.)

So when he fell down early on and twisted his ankle, he was already feeling kind of cranky and this just ended it for him.  He tried to stay in the fun, but he was pretty much a little ball of screaming crying anger.  Normally when he gets like this, he just needs some time alone but I could not figure out how to give that to him in this case.  I took him to the room where the cakes were set up.  That’s when he unleashed on me:

“This is the worst birthday ever!”

“We’ve had seven birthdays and this is the only one that is terrible!”

“This is a waste of a whole birthday! I won’t have another for an entire year!”

I know he’s a kid and kids lash out, but I was already fragile and I just crumpled.  I kept my cool, told him I was going outside for a bit and asked if he needed me to get anything before I left.  He said he wanted to lay down in the car for a while, and I thought, well duh that’s a great idea.  I can’t believe that didn’t occur to me.

This is when my dad stepped in.  Seeing my barely controlled anguish, he offered to take K to his car to lay down and have some cooldown time.  I gratefully accepted his offer, and found a quiet corner of the building in which to have a complete breakdown.

I went outside and sobbed.  I wanted so much for this birthday to be amazing and wonderful and special, and somehow I had managed to ruin it for him.  He would always remember this first birthday as being terrible and I couldn’t do anything to fix it.  He was hurting and it made me hurt and I couldn’t handle it.  So I let myself cry for just a couple of minutes, then pulled myself together (I thought) and went back in.

One of the other moms — one who knows I’m recently widowed — was in the lobby on the phone.  She saw my face.

I guess I wasn’t as stealth as I thought I was.

She immediatly hung up, stood up, and hugged me.  “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”  I started crying again.  I couldn’t think of anything to say.  I just cried.

I pulled myself together again – or so I thought.

We went back inside, where my other boy was having a grand time.  One of the other moms there is also a widow — she’s just over two years out.  She saw me and immediately asked if I was okay.

I started to say yes, I’m fine.

We all do that.  We all say we are fine.

WE ARE NOT FINE.  WE ARE NOT OKAY.  NOTHING IS FINE.  “Fine” just means “I managed to generally function like a human being today, despite this pervasive wrongness that I carry.”

I didn’t say I was fine.  I looked at her, she had asked if I was okay, and I said, “No.”

She said, “Of course you’re not.”

More hugging.

More crying.

So now I’m just openly widow-crying in front of everyone.  All this work to make it seem like we are moving forward okay and that we are doing “as well as can be expected” is gone.  I’m a blubbering widow-y mess.

I did manage to pull myself together in time to call the kids to the party room for pizza and cake.  K came in, refreshed from his time alone, and was able to laugh and play and have fun for the rest of the party.  Everyone said it was a huge success, and I’m glad everyone had a good time.  I’m especially glad that K was able to reign it in and have fun for the second half.  I’m super proud of him.  That’s not easy to do.

I had fun, too.  I talked with the other moms about chore charts and allowances.  It was good.

Now I’m sitting at my computer bawling.  I had Amazon Now deliver a small bottle of bourbon and I’m quickly getting blotto and am about to watch Donnie Darko.

Thank you for listening.