tiggerprr’s scratching post

When life hands you lemons…make lemonade.

Exactly one year ago, this very minute, I was learning of Ken’s death and that my family’s world was irrevocably changed. I often wondered how I would make it through a day, much less a year. They say that the first year after such a loss is the hardest. It sure wasn’t easy. I’ve written about some of the events that have transpired during the last 365 days, some good, some bad, some REALLY bad. I can honestly say that at the end of it all, I am a happier person, not BECAUSE it happened, but DESPITE it happening. It didn’t destroy me, when it could have. I’ve done things that I didn’t think I’d be able to do on my own…and I’ve done some things I couldn’t have on my own without the aid and love of friends and family and through God’s grace.

Probably the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that time is precious and unpredictable. If you are feeling something, you should let it be known. We always say “Life’s too short…” but how many of us actually stop and practice life (because let’s face it that’s all we’re doing, practicing…none of us have it down pat) with that philosophy? I’ve been hard at work, once I got moved and settled, to embrace that philosophy. To tell the people who mean something to me, that they do. To live, to laugh and to love, fully with wreckless abandon. My life is fuller now than before, because of it. There have been huge losses and prices to pay for that and I think about those all the time, but sometimes truly, things have to get far, far worse before they get better. And sometimes, the thing that’s best for you, seems like the worst thing ever. The things we’re most afraid of, we should face head on. Situations that aren’t healthy for us, we need to find the strength to let go of. People who we love, we need to express it to…and we should be thankful for that which we have, not remorseful of the things that we do not.

I’ve had to say goodbye to more people than Ken. Some by my choice, some against it…and I think about those people all the time even still, hoping for the best but accepting that change isn‘t always by our choice.

We are never guaranteed tomorrow…but now, I look forward to waking up every day to see what life has in store for me…to see the people who make my heart smile, and oh how it’s smiling.

Embrace your life…the good, the bad, the ugly. You only get one, live it well and fully. Drink your lemonade.

For some reason, probably many reasons actually…I feel like I’m dying. I’m spent. It’s not easy, pretending that everything’s okay when you are truthfully about as far away from okay as you can be. But, I’ve become a pro at it.

There are times when I wish that I could just feel everything all at once, all the pain, all the anger, all the sadness just to get it the hell over with. There are times, when I feel like I AM feeling everything all at once. This is one of those times. It’s maddening and makes me feel like I’m going crazy. I’m so tired of my heart feeling like a brick.

A light bulb going out in my closet nearly sent me over the edge. Little things like that are reminders of exactly how much things have changed in my life. I’ve always been the kind of girl that felt like it was important to be independant, that I could do anything, and didn’t need anyone to help me. I CAN do anything for myself…but that’s not the point. I don’t WANT to do everything. I miss having someone here to change that lightbulb, to ask me what’s for dinner, to smile with me on the good days and hold me on the bad. It makes me so angry that he’s not here, so angry at myself for wasting time that we could have spent doing things together and not doing them. I’m angry that I’m the one that’s still here, feeling everything. I’m angry that I’m the one that had to watch our home and our family we worked so hard to give a life to, get dismantled piece by piece. But I can’t even wish it was me that was gone, because that would bring this pain to other people who mean everything to me and I wouldn’t want that either.

I know that all these feelings are “normal”. But being normal, doesn’t make them hurt any less nor does it make pretending that everything’s ok any easier. I just want it to end. Now. I’m so tired of pretending…

I’m afraid. One of those afraids you see in horror movies when you know that the killer is just around the bend about to pounce, and you freeze. But, since I am an adult and live in the real world, I know I have to move or just stand by and watch it happen. That can’t happen. So I have to be afraid, but do what I NEED to do despite my fears, instead of what I would like to do.

Sometimes life hands you options, sometimes it hands you ONE option. This is one of those one option situation. I cannot continue to pay over $1k a month to keep us all insured, the job market in Myrtle Beach doesn’t make it at all possible to stay here. So even though I WANT to stay here until the kids are out of school, I needed to find an opportunity where I could provide for us without having to live every moment of my life filled with dread that my house of cards would fall with any passing breeze. To that end I’ve found a position that is going to require us to move. Move before me or the kids want to, before I’m ready to do all the things that come with dealing with your spouse’s belongings after they pass, before I’m ready to leave the good memories behind me, before I WANT to go. This means I have to do all those things while it is breaking my heart to do so in so many ways it is nearly paralyzed with fear and adding more sadness to one that already feels like it’s killing me. This has left me unconsolable. I so much wish Ken were here to hold me and reassure me that everything’s going to be ok. Of course, if he WERE here, I wouldn’t have to make the decisions I’ve made, or make miracles happen in 5 weeks time…but if we did have to do that, I would find comfort in doing it together…we could make things happen when we needed to.

I know I need to suck it up and get things done…I just don’t WANT to. Therein lies the difference between being the adult and being a kid. Kids are so often motivated by what they want opposed to their needs. As a parent, you want to give your kids everything they want that isn’t harmful to them. But sometimes you just can’t, no matter how much it tears you apart. Staying here, in our situation, would be harmful to my ability to provide for us. My only solace is in knowing that someday when they have kids and are faced with life’s hard decisions to do things you need, instead of satiating wants, they’ll understand why decisions have to be made that aren’t always palatable. So I’m scared, I’m alone before I should be, I pray for the strength to do all that needs done, to get it done timely, for speed bumps to be surmountable and for my heart not die in the process.

And now for the warning… my husband died after a car accident…after we’d had an arguement of epic proportions…but, there weren’t any traumatic injuries resulting from the accident and toxicology tests had to be done. His heart had been racing for a few days so he’d gone to the doctor that day and gotten a prescription for Xanax when they couldn’t find any issues with his heart. When the reports came back this week…it showed that he had only the meds he was supposed to have, at the levels they were supposed to be at, in his system. The coroner and pathologist determined that Ken had End Stage Liver Disease. When you are in End Stage Liver Disease, your liver can’t filter out the toxins that your body naturally needs to expel, meds will affect you and poisons resulting from them stay in your system, your body eventually starts to poison your other organs including your brain which can cause you to have mood swings and display erratic behavior… Of course, they asked me if he drank heavily, he didn’t. He just finished a bottle of Crown Royal I gave him for Christmas over 5 years ago. Then came the next question…”Did he take a lot of acetominiphen or ibuprofen?” That’s when the light went on, Ken had a bottle of Extra Strength Excedrin in his computer bag, his office, his truck, the kitchen, our bathroom and on our headboard. He took them whenever he felt the slightest headache or felt any kind of ache. The warning is right there on the labels that it can cause liver disease. I never gave any thought to how much he took, but looking back, all I can visualize and hear in my mind is the rattle of the bottle, seeing me handing them to him, remembering how often I did see him take it, knowing that he took a lot of it that I didn’t see. Ken never went to the Dr. for anything. He’d only gone on Monday because the heart racing wouldn’t stop. I can count on one hand the number of times he went to the Dr. in the last 10 years because he wasn’t feeling well…so all through the last six months or so of his life his body has been tearing itself apart before our eyes, disguised…sadly I’m now seeing things and understanding some whys that I was oblivious to before. My warning is this…if you are, like me, one of those people that take 4 Advils when you have a headache, don’t. If you find yourself taking Tylenol or Excedrin all the time, don’t. It CAN kill you. My other warning is, don’t ever let yourself be so mad at people you love that you part with them angry, saying things you know in your heart you don’t really mean…and if someone you love starts to behave oddly, and it doesn’t resolve itself quickly, don’t assume that it’s because they are just changing…it’s far better to get them to go the Dr. and get checked out, than to lose them.

When we’re confronted with the turns that life’s road makes that lead us down a dark and dusty path, it’s really easy to allow it to consume you. It’d be simple to allow your soul to slip into a world of sadness and despair, anger and bitterness, loneliness and isolation…and who could blame you really? I’m not just speaking of death, though that’s my dark path for now…it could be something as simple as your job not being what you need it to be, your relationships not being what they could be (romantic ones, co-workers, even with your children) or even your relationship with your health as that’s often an unrelenting struggle for some of us. What gets lost sometimes, are the blessings that come from those hard times and situations.

Yes, there ARE blessings to be found in even the most dire moments of our lives. For me, those blessings come in the form of my children, in whom I see an unbelieveable strength and kindness as they help me, help us, try to move forward with life, as we MUST do. Simple gifts, like coming home to them, giving the house a good cleaning up without being asked to do so, or giving me a hug when I look like I need one, to expressing love more often and compassion. My other blessing of light in this darkness is the huge number of friends, both friends I know in real life and whom I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting, yet. I have been overwhelmed by the support and kindness of so many people who have no motive to help me as a friend, just BEING my friends and lending an ear, or words of encouragement or giving me something to do so that I don’t feel so dreadfully alone as I do at times. These things and people, give me hope that it’s ok to live, it’s ok to laugh, it’s ok to look towards the future, albeit a different future than the one I had planned.

These blessings are a gift…they comfort and assure me that though I am navigating a dark and scary path…that my kids and I are not walking it alone. For that, I thank you.

And so the next chapter of our lives begin… the one where we find the paths to happiness again.

I have learned the difference lately, between being alive…and living. Right now, I feel like I’m the former rather than the latter. It, and conversations with some friends lately that have brought me to some conclusions that I’ve always known but never put down in black and white anywhere…

It is more important to actually…
BE a good person, than to appear to be a good person.
BE a good parent, than to appear to be a good parent.
BE a good friend, than to appear to be a good friend.

You can no doubt see where this is going. Appearances are decieving…and all too often, we may worry too much about appearing to be the right thing, rather than putting the focus on BEING the right thing. I know my focus needs to be on starting to LIVE again, but right now, I’m just alive. Barely breathing. I know also, that eventually I’ll get there, because my life can’t be over at 41.

I would venture to say, we should all worry much less about appearances…and worry more about making sure we are BEING and and that it means something.

“How are you?” … a seemingly innocuous question. That question, guts me now. Because do you lie and say, “I’m fine, thanks!” When you’re not… or do you give them the biggest buzzkill of their day by telling them, someone that close to you is gone? Which of course, brings the inevitable “How” question… and then the “If there’s anything I can do…” which people mean very sincerely…don’t think I’m getting all cynical here, I’m not… I’m grateful for the love and support that my REAL friends have shown. Not so grateful, for the BS I’ve gotten from some jerks… Just a side note… people who’ve just lost their husband…aren’t so interested in hearing how hot they are. Yes, that’s happened. Yes, my mouth was hung open, like yours is likely to be right now reading that. But there ISN’T anything, ANYONE can do…except listen to you cry, or make you eat when that’s the last thing you want to do, or go with you to the places you “used to go” and help hold you together when it’s just too much to take. I’m not bitter, even though I am sure I sound that way right now…I’m just unbelievably heartbroken. Well, maybe I am a little bit bitter…but not with the world in general or it’s populace…just with the situation.

Because the worldwide memo didn’t get circulated immediately upon Ken’s death, I still find myself in the position of greeting people I haven’t seen who don’t know… like today… I just went for my 2 month checkup with the surgeon that did my spinal fusion in February. Of course, they didn’t know… I had planned on just not mentioning it…and made it through the nurse with the “I’m fine. The kids are fine. Yes it’s really hot” routine. Then the doctor comes in…and apparently his bedside manner is too good, and as soon as the “How are you?” left his mouth and he looked at me… he knew, the LAST thing I am is fine. So he tells me, rather than asking, “You’re not fine, what’s the matter?” I, thinking my “I’m fine” act is well honed by now, ask him, is it on my face? To which he replied that I’m normally bubbly and energetic and it’s clear, I’m not. So I tell him…and manage to make it through the rest of the appointment without bursting into tears, thank God. Not so much on the way back to the office.

I know it’s going to take time…but I don’t see how I am ever going to be not lying when I say “I’m fine.” These are the cards I’m dealt, and I have to play them. It’s just hard to do that, when all I feel like doing is saying “I fold.” I hate being so depressed, and so depressing… I’m sorry.