Moment of Silence

I saved my "ExtraBucks" from CVS lately, and bought myself a scented candle last night when I picked up my 4 new scripts. That brings my total for the month of May at 9 scripts. I always *love* (sarcasm) spending time deciding if I need to buy electricity or medicine each month.


But. I splurged and bought a $3 candle.
And my room smells nice. Relaxing.
Reminds me of the candles Wash would buy for me/us. Reminds me of the small signs he cared.

As I was walking home from the pharmacy last night, I realized with some quick math that Wash and I had walked that same stretch at least 600 times together. Probably closer to 800.
I could see the changes, like small photographs being flipped together. Winter, summer, seasons changing. Building being torn down and built up. The first few hundred walks, and then a Ghost Rider bicycle on the corner appears on 10 May 2010.
There are flashing lights, sirens. We are escorted to the other side of the street, and decide to walk home instead of further down the street.

It is now cooler, almost "cold" for Arizona. We are walking, hand in hand as always, Wash to my right side. He is wearing his "GEEK" black knit hat. He is laughing at something. His beard is thick, and I can see all the colours in it. Reds, blondes, browns.

It is a spring night. I am holding his hand with my right, and a bag in my left carrying Ginger Beer for us. He is walking slower now, but still laughs. There is a slight breeze, carrying the spiced scents of the Thai restaurants towards us. He is excited about his upcoming Stand-Up show.

It is summer now, and hot. Blinding. No more shade. Even the birds are standing in a single file row in the 4" of shade cast from a light pole. Wash is at home, no longer able to walk with me.

The photos blur faster. Rewind. I am out of breath pushing him in his wheelchair. We are trying to get early to "Wicked", our last anniversary present. Wash is angry and yelling, I am stressed and tired. Everything feels uphill at that moment.

Backwards. It is late fall. I am tired from work and moving. Wash is tired from moving, work, and school. He stops me from my load of laundry and pulls me outside. It is November 2008. We are on our first walk through our new neighbourhood together. His hand holds my right one. He is pointing out the styles of the apartments, townhomes, brownstones around us. He is wearing his work/welding boot and walking with large steps. I have to remind him to slow down, I cannot walk as fast.

Time ceases to be linear in my mind. It is past and present at the same time. Blank spots for the future. Images imagined of what could-have-been, what should-have-been.

He throws his head back, his neck long and scruffy with red tinged hair. He laughs. He smiles.
He leans closer and kisses me. I am flush with warmth.



I am home. The street is dark. The trees and front flowerbed across the street are gone, along with the kind older woman who tended to them daily, and spoke often to me about plants and gardens. The lights in front of my complex are different, installed a few years ago. The tree in our front yard is missing the large branch that a storm blew into my neighbours' bedroom window three winters ago.
Everything is different, and the same.

But I am now walking alone. The feeling of Wash holding my hand fades.


I walk inside my home. No longer "ours". He is gone. His welding boots are still on the shoe bench by the front door.

I light the candle. The scent takes me back in time again. I eat, I take my pills. I try to sleep.
I snuff the candle, but the smell hangs in the air, light, and comforting.


I am awake now. It is dark, still nighttime. I am hearing shadows of voices. Male? Female? Faint, but untraceable. My house is empty save for the cats and me.
I go back to my dark bedroom and hug Hoban tight. It is faint, but he still smells of Wash. The stuffed bear hold many hugs, and a small stuffed heart kissed by my Love when we had the bear made.


For the first time in weeks, I sleep.
I sleep, and I am thankful I do not dream.


The room is silent now, save for the typing and fans. My candle is lit again.
Tears are falling while I write.

There is a sense of emptiness. The last exhalation before a gasp and holding.
There is Silence.

I am Alone.

There is only physical self. Gaius-Wash is silent today.

May Day

May is National Brain Tumor Awareness Month.

Time again to post the first story of how we came to find Wash's brain cancer.
Please Read.

To learn more about Wash's brain cancer, GBM, visit SaveWash 


I'll have a proper update later on.



Share the warning signs. Be aware. Reach for help if you need it, or know someone who does.


I don't want anyone else to die because they were sick and could not afford a licensed Doctor.

Doves Cry

I am angry.

I don't know if this is a passing thing, a "phase" as it were, or if this is my new state of being.

I have a small cold. I'm not certain how my low grade fever is effecting me.



I am angry.
I am angry there is no space for me.
I am angry there is no safe place for me to talk, to someone.
I am angry that Hospice has to be considered part of the "safety net".

I am angry at my friends, the people I love. I am angry and love them at the same time. It's a painful contradictory feeling.
I am angry at life. I am angry at the inherent unfairness. Of it all.

I am angry that every week I see more friends have birthdays that place them at or right next to my age.
I am angry that every week now someone new is engaged, married, or pregnant. In about 6 months I suppose I'll be angry at all the births around his death date.

I am angry at myself and society. I am angry that I will never be pregnant again. That I will never carry life, that my husband will never live on. That I have no more family with his death. He was my family unit, and now it is singular, and I'm angry that I had so little time with him.
I am angry at the milestones I have and will miss.

I am so angry at society for telling me I am worthless if I do not reproduce.

I am angry at society for telling me I am worthless for being poor. I am angry when people say it is my own fault, my own choices. I am angry when someone implies Wash wanted or asked for terminal brain cancer. 

I am angry at myself because I cannot be fully happy for my friends.
I am angry at comments about couples trying to get pregnant for under 6 months, and how upset/sad/frustrated they are. I am angry when those same people then immediately get pregnant.

I am angry that I have no one to talk to.

I am angry at my best friend for dying, for leaving me. I am angry at myself for that very thought. For not being happy he is not in pain, like he wished.


I am angry when I stare at his TARDIS urn every day and night and wonder if anyone else remembers him?

I am angry that he died before so many wonderful things.
I am angry he will never see the Doctor Who 50th Anni. special. Or be part of it in some way, which he would have; if he had not had the cancer and was still alive.

I am angry at being told I have to change so many things.
I am angry that so many things will change and have regardless.

I am angry that I can remember the last hug I had from him, that I remember it was the last.

I am angry that I have to live a future without him. I am angry that I wake up every morning, and he does not, will not.

I am angry and it feels like a hot weighted stone upon my heart.

I am angry that I feel so utterly useless.
I am angry how disposable I feel. I am angry at the daily implication that my existence is worthless- or worse, costing of others.

I am angry, and so sad.

Entering Widowhood: The In-Betweens

This post originally written and posted at Persephonemagazine

It’s been a couple months since my last post here on my new status as a “widow.” The horrid “W” word that no one in love or marriage actually wants to think about.

In that time I’ve made a few personal steps forward, a few back, one even sideways I would say. I have had friends and mentors die in the last few weeks, friends get married, friends getting pregnant, friends having their children, and friends getting ready to graduate from college and “move on” to the next phase of their own lives.

Through it all, my constant is still defined by my husband’s death. I can see how easy it is when one is steps away from the actual death, is not closely bereaved. Life continues for most. They still have school, or a job. They have children who need them, and a living reason to get up in the morning, to eat, to take care of their own selves. That becomes harder for me.

I am a person of habit. I have lost them all. The schedule I had before my husband became sick is something I will never get back to. The schedule I had with him, is also something I am trying to accept that I will never have back.

I’ve had a good bereavement counselor from Hospice see me, and that, to a degree, has been helping my mental state. It is always nice to hear that the feeling I have, the thoughts, most of the emotions are all in the “normal” range for grief. What we’ve spoken about more of is the really arbitrary number system that American society has on “moving on.” It seems to be around six months if you are a younger widow(er) and/ r have no children and around 12 months for those who were married, say, more than five years and/or had children. While some mourners certainly can fit those numbers, I feel rather constrained to have a faceless nobody tell me to “get over it, already.” (“It” being the death of my husband.)

As a note, for me personally, and I have heard from other widow(ers) that hearing the phrase “moving on” can be disgusting and heart-wrenching for the bereaved. “Moving On” has a lot of implications, and though, for the most part, the people who say that come from a place of good or kind intentions, what is most often heard is “Well, we’ve been able to not think about/speak about [dead person] we have decided it is time for you to stop as well.”

Being a young widow, I often hear that phrase. I have tried nicely to have my family and friends stop using it, but after a few weeks of being nice, I just tell them that I can’t talk to them if they must use that phrase. Being a young widow what I’m hearing more of as time passes on is something akin to, “Well, you’re young. Well, you still have time. Well, there are still options. Well, being young, you still have your whole life ahead of you!”

These phrases are also terribly not helpful.

Being “young” is not a hard and fast rule. By pure age or cycles around the sun, yes, I am in my mid-twenties.

By life experience, I am willing to wager I am far more mature than most people in their early- to mid-twenties.

I have “time.” Time for what, exactly? My husband thought he had time, too. His brain cancer began to grow when he was 24. He was dead one month after his 28th birthday.

Time is not something I take as a given anymore. Time is not my friend, nor my enemy. Time is not to be taken for granted by myself though. Or, perhaps by “time” it is meant that I have “time” to find (another?) love? That is quite a presumptuous thought on my own feelings of love, intimacy, and personal wishes.

I have “options.” Please, dear friend, expound on that. What options specifically? As it is my life, I believe the choices are mine to make. Options for living? Options for moving? Options for a job, a career, another lover? Generic statements that do not really support anything.

“…still have your whole life ahead of you.”

That phrase, however, might be the worst of them all. That is the exact problem. I do have the rest of my life, every second I breathe or have my blood beating, to go. I am all too aware of this. I am aware with every bit of my body that can feel, and every bit of my soul that can feel, time is taking me away from the person I had wanted, expected, and pledged my life to.

I am all too aware of the days, months, years, decades even that lie ahead of me, without the person who swore the deepest oath to be there with me through it.

I have my whole life to live, missing the part of life I wanted to live for. Missing the half of me that wanted to share in living.
That kind of grief and mourning cannot be rushed.

I am thankful for the Hospice services. My local Hospice that served Wash during his illness is a non-profit and I can feel the people who work there really do care, and have a lot of experience in addressing the mourning issues. I can only imagine how much more depressed I would be without them.

For me right now I am trying to work on stopping the comparisons of my life to the friends and social circles around me, and I have to stop comparing how my life is now to what I had in mind it would be.

I had prepared as best as I could, as my husband’s death was inevitable. His was not a cancer that can be “cured.” What is almost harder is knowing I could not prepare for the actual feelings I have had since he has died. Grieving who he was, our love, who he and we were going to be. Grieving the two pregnancies that almost were, and were lost. Grieving the anniversaries that now come, but are not cause for celebration.

Towards February and March I had played around a little with taking my wedding band and engagement ring off. Sometimes just for an hour at home. Sometimes for a whole night while I slept. Once or twice I even went outside on a walk without them. Then came the first wedding I went to since my Wash had passed. It was lovely, and my happiness for the couple is genuine. However, this was a wedding that Wash knew was coming. These were his friends, his brothers. This was a uniting of love that he should have been alive for. He should have been there to make a toast, to wish them well.

I stopped taking off my rings after that. I’m not ready to stop wearing the reminder of his promise to me. I’m not ready to take off my engagement ring that was the other half to his matching engagement ring. I have decided to forego any wedding invitations for the next while. Perhaps through this year, perhaps through next spring. I don’t want to limit myself to a specific number.

It’s not just the odd isolation that comes with being a young widow. I am stuck in many “in-betweens.” I am not in school finishing any degree. I love school, and I do have a desire to return someday. The timing is not right now. I do not yet have a job that provides me income, let alone a career. I’m not yet homeless, but I have no real way of moving anywhere new, despite my desire to leave this home I once shared with my love at some point likely this year. I have days now where I rarely cry, where I am starting to have longer hours together functioning. I am thrust as well into the space behind that where I still have moments breaking down and sobbing for hours until my eyes swell shut.
I am trying to stay friendly and in contact with the many many many more female friends I have who are pregnant or had/have kids.

It is hard for me to see something I wanted, something I had (if only for a few weeks), something I lost, something I will never have again. It is hard to have and own my own emotions and history and still be happy for those I love and care about. To visit and meet the child of a close friend who was born right before my Wash passed; I’m still working on how to cope with my own pain and express joy for the happiness in the lives of the people around me I love and care for. To hold hope for the friends and family I love that they will never have to face the pain I am living.

I will direct you up a few paragraphs and please ask you don’t placate me by saying I’m still young enough to have children, or to get married again, or to adopt (as a single??) or that “things will happen in their own time.”

So, how is this 26 year old widow doing?

There is no simple answer.

There is no set time on grief, or progress, or regression.

I simply am, now in place of “we simply are.”

For now, I am in-between. I still wear my rings, but I said my “goodbye” and listed my status on Facebook as “Widowed” instead of married. I have begun to really sort through his belongings, but have not yet fully parted with everything. Though I physically feel split in twain without him, I’m able to now stand on my one leg, even if I cannot move in any direction yet.

My journey continues.

Hard Words

It's been a while since I've felt comfortable enough, or had the precise words to explain what is going on in my life past the physical details. [Foot not fully broken/fractured, still fraked up for a few weeks.]

Births, marriages, engagements, deaths- too many, pregnancies, jobs, new locations.
This is the excitement and progress of my friends and family.

I am happy for them. I have far more hope for any of them than I hold for myself.

Roger Ebert in one of the short notes he sent to me said that it was alright to write about the horrid parts of life. The nasty parts of cancer not shown in those films with a happy ending. It is ok to share the utter desperation, the desires, the lowering of one's self on the chance for mercy from a world that holds no "fairness".
"Truth is not always a happy ending." R.E.

How very true.


This post might hurt. It hurts to write, and I'm sure for some it will hurt to read. Cancer and dying hurts too. Living and knowing the one person you loved, who loved you back, is gone and will never ever come back- hurts.

"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." - W. Goldman [The Princess Bride]

When we got married slightly to this theme, that quote meant something so different to me. Wash inscribed my wedding band with "As You Wish" on it.
It's quite amazing how much foreshadowing our relationship has without either of us really picking up on it. I had him nicknamed "Wash" within weeks of us dating. We both knew what happened to Hoban in "Serenity".


I am not "stuck". I am however, mad lately. I'm mad that people around me who have not felt this pain feel it is appropriate to tell me how to deal with my pain. I'm mad that they think there is some magic number of weeks, months, or time that can pass before I should be where they want.
I'm mad that people want the Tashi "back" that does not exist anymore.
She's gone just as surely as her Wash. Never coming back.
I think that acceptance is slowly happening.

I'm mad at myself for hurting at someone else's happiness. I am utterly confused at how it is possible for me to feel so happy to see friends get married, or have a child, or get hired at their dream career, or become pregnant- and so mad at my own life for being deprived of that.
I had 4-6 weeks of marriage before the cancer began to grow in his brain.
Twice we almost stayed pregnant. Twice we both held onto Hope that in some way (biologically at the very least) Wash could continue on. Twice it ended in blood, pain, and tears.
Leto the cat is now the only living part of Wash I still have, or can hold.

I find less and less to talk about, socially. I have little I can relate to with my peers.
The Widow's support group is also made up of people in pain like me, but all so much older. All who had time or a chance at a life with the one they loved. They had children, reasons to wake in the morning and function. They had homes they built up together that they could get comfort from. Years, sometimes decades of memories to hold on to. To recall. To soothe.

I am mad at the people who suggest that because I was "only" married for a short time that I can/could/should "move on" now. That 6 months is enough time to "heal".
I am mad at those who imply I will have or find love again. I had it once. I found him once. I gave my heart and soul once. Who are they to know my intentions? Who besides my own self should say if I even desire to love again?

I am at the age where so many of my peers are married, engaged, pregnant, or having children. Over and over I see milestones I wanted to have myself, and cannot.
I will never have a new birthday card from my husband again. I'll never hear him sing to me that I'm his "Queen of Argyle".

I have pain. I have sorrow. I have tears. I have little Hope to share.
I have a large space to carry pain, to support others. Some days I wake as Atlas, carrying the weight of the world upon myself, and not questioning why I do this. Why I carry this burden.

I am hurt that Cancer keeps stealing people we love. I am tired of this. I am 26 and so tired.
I carry Hope, but it is not a weightless burden.

Hope is painful. Hope does not protect the heart. Or the brain. Hope is irrational, one of the confusing parts of being human I am still trying to comprehend.

When I began this written record I chose "Learning to Hope" in the sense of Hope for my Wash. For his future, for his fight, for us. Now, I think the Hope is for me. How to keep wanting to Hope, when I know so well how much it can hurt. How the nights are spent either awake, afraid of the silence and dark, or sleeping restlessly in a dream of chasing someone I can never catch.
Hope that someday life will become desirable, not just passive, waiting for the moment I breathe out but not in.
How do I continue on, when I still hear him in my head? When I can still read his stories and words? See the world from his eye in his photographs.

He is gone but save a digital footprint of his existence.

And, yet.
Yet...

He is the Gaius to my Six.
Whispering in my ears. Touching my hair. Standing in his kilt. Kissing my neck. He lives in me, in my brain, in the memories he shared and gave to me to hold. I cannot begin to imagine how one can "get over" that.


This is my pain. My grief. My anger. My sadness. My soulmate. My timeline.
My life and future to mourn.


Yes, I still hurt. I can smile, but I ache.
I feel a need to hide away from the happy world. From the lives others are living. I am not living. I exist right now.


Is this the trade-off? Is this the start of my re-payment? A karmic debt I owe?
Is this the price of love? Of the short, but fully complete happiness I once had?

I think I am still too young to say that for certainty. I think I am not omnipotent enough to say that for certainty.

If this pain is the start of the price I now pay, I owe.
I owe this pain, and I own it.

I gave my self and my heart up to him. I willingly gave it. I gave him everything I could.
From 2008-2012 I had his love in return. I had him. I had unconditional love for all of me. I had more than a friend. I had more than a lover. I truly knew Hope, in a painless sense, then.
I had his love.

If this pain is my price, it is mine.
I would do it all over again, in a hummingbird's heartbeat. Knowing the pain, the tears, the sadness, the blood, the loss. I would do it again.
He was worth it. 4 years, or 40 seconds. His love was worth it.
It does not ease the pain, does not put a balm on my wounds, but it is the truth.
I would put myself through every bit of this pain again, for him.


I can wish my story had a happy ending. I can wish it was a different type of cancer, a different disease, a life of health. I can write that we struggled, but overcame and lived happy forever until we both died on the same day, decades after our marriage. I can write we had children, and grandchildren. I can write we both had perfect dream lives.
But I write truth here, not fiction.

There is no "happy ending" in my life. My love story is a tragedy, not a happily ended romance.



Photo is from approx 2004-06 from Wash's Speech Black Book. [Speech and Debators will know this.]
This is his opening selection from "Will the Circle be Unbroken" by Studs Terkel that he used in an Oratory or Dramatic piece.

The largest appreciation

Last day the fundly donation site is open. 
I still have so many medical bills from Kevin, and so many more of my own from my broken bones last year and my own health issues. 
If you can donate anything, it helps. 
If you can share the link and our story, it helps. 
If you can give prayers or good thoughts, it helps.

I'll be filing for bankruptcy due to medical bills this year. Again, anything my caring friends, family, or those touched by the story of AZ driving a young widow into utter poverty can do; it all helps. 

Thank you all so much. 
I was Wash's (Kevin's) caregiver for more than 3 years.
Now the people who care and love me are helping to give care to me, so I can continue on with my life. 

My husband did not survive against brain cancer; but with the love, help, social, emotional, religious, and other support from my circle I can survive this next part of my life as a Widow.

Chaz & Roger

Today my heart is with another cancer widow.

It is a horrid beast, to take the ones we love indiscriminately.



Roger, I will miss you for so many reasons.



It is my most sincere hope, if he believed in some afterlife, that he is there now, happy with Gene and access to every movie ever made.



You can read Jo's wonderful post on Roger from 2011 at the link.


Roger? Gene? Grab some popcorn, relax, and now enjoy the show.

John Johnson

I am lonely/
It's really hard/
This poem...
sucks.

DST

6 months.

like healing from a heart transplant that did not happen.


I can walk again, catch my breath most days.

But it feels like being post-surgical. I'm still walking around with a giant hole inside of me.
Like a much much MUCH poorer (and probably sadder and lonelier) Tony Stark.

 Everything is different but it feels like so much has remained the same.



I miss my husband. I miss his company, his jokes, his kisses, his hugs, his laugh, and I miss my best friend.
He was.


I don't have that with anyone anymore.

I do not bore of the company of myself, but I do not wish to remain alone for 360 days a year on say, the Isle of Skye or Mann. That is not a life for me either.

It is quiet here. Disconcerting to me.

If Walls could talk

I bought myself an Anniversary card. One that I thought Wash might have chosen for me.

I think this is going to be the hardest week/anniversary to deal with before this coming Sept.
There is a big part of me that just wants to curl in a ball under my covers with my kitties and cry.
There is also a part that knows time will pass on.

6 months since he died tomorrow. Half of a year. Autumn and 'Winter' [well, AZ winter].
I have extra Xanax for this week, I talked to my doctor about it back in Feb.

I'm so sad, and so angry at the same time.
We never even got one year of marriage without cancer. We never got to have even one anniversary "normal". Without cancer, or the threat of death hanging over us.
I'm mad and sad.



Wash used to create. He would make me things; goggles, watch-chains, a Cryptex (my engagement present) leather pieces. Mini models. Stories. Sketches.
There will never be any new things like that from him ever again.

The card is from me. To me. In his name and memory only.


I wanted more. I was not ready. I am not ready.
It is too late now.
14 March 2009 was the top. That was the happiest Pi day. The day where anything and everything in our life together was possible.

We should have been two joined families. It's too late now.


6 months tomorrow. Should have been our 4th anniversary in 4 days.

Shabbat Shalom!

I have some melancholia in my bones today.

Are anniversaries still something to bring up, to celebrate, if there is no one to celebrate for/with?

My wedding anniversary is next week.
Pi day, of course.


I'm a widow. Am I allowed an anniversary, still? What, if anything is there to celebrate? My husband's death? I'm not that morbid.
The 6 or so weeks of marriage we had before the tumor grew so big it began to change him?
The few months we took to secretly plan an elopement?

Celebrating dreams and ideas that will never happen? The home never built. The children never to be born.



The cats and I have decided staying in bed and crying is the best move.

It doesn't seem real today. That he is gone.


Tomorrow is Sunday. That was his Gaming Day.
Too many memories today of loss.
Too many.

Widowhood

Everything hurts and I just want to wake up to this whole thing being a dream.
How can he be gone? It doesn't feel real.

I've been crying all day. Nothing feels real. It can't be that my husband is now in a box.
It all hurts. Breathing even.
I want to not be sad. I want my husband to hold me. I want a kiss. I want him to embrace me and just be there. Be here.

Nothing makes sense.

6.9

Thinking good thoughts for my friends right now in Japan. Most if not all of my family over there is down on the South side of the mainland or on one of the southern islands; but a lot of my friends from school-age days are still up North.


Births. Bris. Weddings.

I want to feel happy. I try to. For the sake of the people I love, I do. I adore and care about my friends and I want so badly to just enjoy their triumphs in life.

At the same time, I feel like I'm walking around at these social engagements with a giant black "W" on my chest. I don't know people, I'm not an extrovert; that was Wash. That was his job, he would socialize or help me interact.
I feel lost.


It felt bad enough as someone with AS, not knowing what to say, when to speak, or what is appropriate (apparently discussing anything related to medical work/dead bodies/bones is NOT "dinner talk") and now I feel like no one knows what to say to me.
So.
Silence.

I've noticed now that pretty much no one talks about Wash anymore. They don't speak his name. They don't ask me how I'm doing. Maybe it is just assumed or obvious to others and not me?

Or, they've just moved past thinking about him. Which is ok for them. People die. People die who are not integral to one's life, and their memory or need fades.

It's not "starting over". That presumes I've only been moved "back" to a starting point I've been to before. I'm not.
I've never been here. I've never dealt with the loss of my husband before.
I've never had a 3 year employment gap.
I've never had my entire life and future I've dreamed and work towards since I was 12 suddenly vanish.
I hate that term, 'Start Over'.

I can't start over. Starting Over presumes a world without Wash ever in it, which would put me in an entirely different place. That's not what happened. Just because he is dead does not mean I will ever forget he was alive. He was a part of my life, he was a part of me.
This is not a JJ Abrams story. There is no "re-boot" halfway through, no change to another Universe, no extra Wash falling into this world, and no way to erase him from my mind.
He lives in my brain because he used my brain for 3 years.



Too many emotions. I've been crying too much lately.
I see all around me in my friends and family all the dreams I wanted that I will never have now.
There is no way to escape it.

Grief sets its own rules.

Streaking

I feel like I am turning into a character from a Stephen King novel.

It is cold and wet outside; the sky covered in clouds.
I am burying myself in blankets and socks. Also, a warm cat or two to snuggle with.

So much writing. I need a new ribbon for my typewriter. [Smith-Corona Corsair Deluxe portable]
Actually, my online writing is done on the computer, the typewriter is just my old, old friend; I think I got mine back in 1990? Thereabouts.

However, the overall mood, the same themes as are in the books I've read until they became cannon, it feels a bit odd to suddenly be living it.

I don't really want to see anyone right now, no company. No distractions.
My downstairs is finally closer to being cleaned and organized in a way my Asperger brain enjoys and can function in. Part of my brain is already doing the same to my upstairs level, but the actual work there is harder; the bedroom is still the last room where there are things left that he moved and touched and put into place.
It is harder to be 'ready' to change that. Ready, ha. As if such a thing could happen in a human life. Rationality can only go so far, even I could only prepare for some of what was to come.

Cleaning the bedroom changes it. Changes it TO a bedroom. It started that way, when we first moved here in 2008. Once he got sick though, it changed. We slept there, yes, but being bed-bound changes so much. The mood of the room was not the same. The items in it. The sounds. The colours. The photos and objects on the walls, even.
It was a place of sickness, even by accident. By proxy.
Now to me, it still holds the strongest memories, and the majority of my reluctance to change it.

Words and thoughts, even lucid dreams rob me of any real 'rest'. My thoughts have become a perpetual motion machine, spinning ever forward and back. Flipping between some social order of "normal" to be outside of my house and in social situations, to hysterical uncontrolled laughter at something that I find funny or he did. I hear his voice less in my head, but a stronger compulsion to 'talk' to his TARDIS urn.
I miss his body, but in strange ways. I just miss how he felt pressed against me. I miss having my head and my ear line up with his heart when we were physically close. I miss kissing the part of his neck where it met his hairline. I miss how his ears were always cold, even in the Arizona summer.

Mostly it comes at night, when I am alone in the bedroom-that-is-not-a-bedroom, sleeping in a bed that feels half empty.
It is different because there was no choice involved. He did not choose cancer. He did not choose to die young. He did not choose to have a tumor remove his memories and change his being.
He only chose how to live.

Busy days help me. Busy days though, cannot keep out the thoughts. The questions.


The world is so open to me, but the person I want to share everything of myself with is gone.

Is it still a desire if there is complete certainty it will never happen?

Crossposting

Feel free to go and read my latest article over at P-Mag if you would like.

For those who are coming to my blog for the first time; a nice history and summation is to the side in the links, or you can start from my starting place back in 2009.

For those who are here who have been widowed themselves, or lost someone they loved to brain cancer; I truly am sorry for your loss.
I strive to live up to (it was ours first, Wash and I) the title of this blog;
Every day I have to learn how to Hope.

Android Sheep

Another bad night for me.
Adjusting to Widowhood is not easy. For every reason.

I am sad and missing my husband, my late husband, very much.

I will not be shamed about my choice to be more open and public with my grief.
It is far too stigmatized and misunderstood as is, despite almost all the human population feeling it at some point in their life, or several.

Did I laugh today? Yes.

Am I still sad to be going to bed alone tonight, without the person who should be there? Yes.

Grief is complicated, and unique to every person.
This is mine.

I went grocery shopping today.
I cleaned. Did dishes. Took care of laundry and my cats.
I also spent a half hour sobbing on my kitchen floor. Later on, more tears with a pillow.

There have been more functional days, and days where I've started to have more intense emotions, often overwhelming.

It is a mix every time I wake if I think I'm still dreaming, or if I recall right away that he is gone.

He is my husband. He was my late husband.
Such difference in emotion in those phrases, what information it conveys.

I see time like I never have before.

Find You

I have been trying to hold on to the good hours, moments, or even a day at a time now. I'm getting better at it, to a degree.

I made it through Hannukah, and had a really nice Shabbos this past week with my cousin cooking and singing.

As it gets closer to Christmas though, I keep thinking about the few we had together. All the ones we had imagined we would have in the future.
How much I suspected but dreaded that last year might have been his last Christmas and winter holidays with me; and how true it was.

I keep trying to remember the happy moments. How the awesome folks at ThinkGeek were to send him/us those gifts; they gave us his last Christmas.
I've been thinking about them lately, how kind they were to him, and us. My grief takes my words now sometimes, so I cannot figure out how to describe how thankful I am to them. Still.
His last one was a happy one.

I take comfort in that, though it still brings me to tears.

The house seems so much more lonely. I have been keeping the television on downstairs because just hearing a bit of extra noise makes me feel a bit better right now.

I took down the inflatable (twin) guest bed, and Leto is not happy about that. Somehow in the last few months he has outgrown the catbed I bought a bit ago for him. It is comically small compared to him even when he sleeps in the smallest ball he can. He's been sleeping on the guest bed at times over the last few weeks and I believe seems to have thought that was his new bed.
He lies down in the same spot in the room and will squeak at me.
He has been giving me a lot of comfort these past days/weeks.
He feels like a part of Wash that is still living.

The house gets emptier. Boxes to go out to be mailed to friends, or donated. Still so much more to go through. I manage so far to get through it in spurts.

It's putting me back in that state of shock I felt shortly after his passing; these holidays.
My mind hurts and numbs at the thought of waking up Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without him next to me.
No making coffee or special breakfasts. My family is suddenly so much smaller, that my mind just denies the idea of a "family" gathering without him. I keep trying, but the very act of just trying to imagine what that day will hold, what I would say, do, feel; becomes so overwhelming my brain just tells me it is not true.
I fear being around people who are happy at this time. I fear being the one to "bring them down". To be the reminder now of mortality. To have any of my true emotions come through, to still grieve, while others might be trying to celebrate. So many fears.
My brain says "Would it not be better for everyone else to just stay at home, out of sight and mind so others can have their normality?"
I do not know the answer.

I know there is something to make me smile that day; a nice surprise sent by friends. I will find out in two days.

It is a small thing, but I have a bit of Hope that after the New Year I will have the intense bereavement tide down, with less reminders of the big life events not to happen.

How has a year passed already?

How is it that it will be four months in a few weeks since he passed?

Time seems to be more bendy for me lately.

It passes fast, it creeps by, it stalls.

I've gone from living the last three years of my life in the moment, day to day; never knowing when might be his last with me. Never really being able to have any sort of long term plan; at all.
Now, I have to go back, so far back, and start again.



I am so tired.
So uncertain and scared.

I barely recall what it is like to wake up alone these days, end of December.
Mostly cold.
Full of longing.

I dislike night-time of late.

To Teas

I've had a lot of emotions going around inside myself lately.

It is odd; this mixture of feelings I am having. So very lonely at nights, when I should have my love and his warmth next to me.
Twitching at the Silence inside the house, only the cats and artificial sounds abound.
Enjoying the small moments of having both cats cuddling with me. When friends come to visit. Trying to find myself again in whatever way I am strong enough for.

Steps forward and back.
I'm finding it easier on some days to just put on a mask and lie (I consider it lying, at least) and smile and nod and say "I'm fine. I'm doing ok. Let's talk about _________."
Some days, it is not a lie, and I can care. I do care about my friends and their lives.
Some days, it is hard to smile to see someone I love celebrating what I lost or never will have.


I am doing best to move at my own pace. There are some influences in my life (no comments needed, please) that think due to some reason... (age? length of marriage? ??) I should be doing certain things by now, taking certain "steps", walking a certain path.

That's not really what I feel entirely though.
I might have been following a trail once, but it veered very much off the track. I might have been following steps of others who had their trails veer from the paved, smooth road, but it had long since been covered up by circumstances.
Bush-whacking? Is that the term? Trail-blazing?
Some days the walking is easier; the ground level, the air dry and wind calm.
Some days... headway can be measured in inches or centimetres not miles/kilometres.

I get overwhelmed still, so often. At some predictable things I am learning to avoid until I can learn to deal with it. Surprises however can not be that entirely prepared for. I can prep as much as I have learned in my life, but there might still come up some new problem to solve that my wits and skills alone cannot win.
Those days are the ones I fear lately.

A lot of it with the holidays, a lot of it with memories of sadness at holidays past.

Thank you to everyone who has been sending me holiday cards. They do help.

I still have not quite figured out what to do for Christmas eve or day next week.

I am starting to become functional in some ways, but mentally, it is so hard to just make a decision. There are always variables to consider and I am compelled to consider them all.

I miss company as well though. I miss companionship. I miss watching a movie in the evening after dinner with someone, talking maybe even laughing, and going to bed warm, touching the person I love who loves me. I miss the sounds around the house; doors closing. Kitchen sounds. Talking and laughter. My own laugh often sounds so odd to me now, though it does come more often.



I try to be thankful for those who loved us and helped us throughout the years, especially around the holiday times. But, that puts me in the past; such bittersweet memories.
At what point I wonder, does it hurt less to remember? Does it ever?
Perhaps like all grief, it truly varies from one person to the other.


Some times it is the most simple of actions, the littlest of things.
Someone to bring me tea in the morning.
Hugs. On a daily basis. More than once a day even.
Kissing.
Having my hair stroked by him. The way he sometimes would wrap his fingers in it as he slept, keeping close to me.
Hearing my name.
Being told "I love you".  Knowing it is meant when it is said.

The world does go on, yes.
My friend put it very well in some correspondence with me:
"Making friends as a young adult, the way we mostly do it, is easy. Most people have coworkers or fellow students, so their friends are handed to them on a platter. You've got a triple-whammy situation happening, in that you're much older than other people your age (not just because of Wash; I think you started out that way), you're not in school or working some crappy job, and you've seen a whole lot more than most folks do in a lifetime.

There is no way to overcome those barriers that does not disrespect what you've done and who Wash was, so I won't even suggest that you not talk about him or hide what happened.

You must not allow this to make you brittle. You *must* not. Even in the worst moments while Wash was dying, you reached out to other people and were beautifully flexible and loving. Most people don't manage that in a happy life. 

That said. . .these next few months will hurt. I wish there were a way around that, but there's not. You've essentially lived a life already, at 26, that most people don't have until they're 80. Now you have to go through birthing pains again, to be Tashi. It's going to suck, and it's going to feel hopeless at times, and there will be moments when you're glad for the absence of feeling, as opposed to actual pain. You'll end up as Tashi at the end of it, but you'll wonder sometimes if it was worth the price."

I do expect pain. I do expect more misunderstandings, and more patience needed on my part and every one around me. I don't expect it to be perfect or happy, or even an end. Life only ended for him, not me. I somehow how to keep more than breathing, to keep working to find myself again, who I am now, re-defined.

Without him as an 'active' part of me. Only part of my history and my shaping as a human. As the person who taught me what "unconditional love" meant on my own part; not just others'. 

The long journey really begins now. We've done the Kilimanjaro of brain surgeries, the Rockies of chemo and radiation over and over month after month, and now I am left alone to go up Everest. 

The Hope in the allegory being he trained me to do this. I have to trust myself. 

That is the next step. 

If doing this helps the next ones to follow in our path, perhaps my pain will mean something. 

I have to Hope. Some days that is all that is left. 

Midnight worries

I worry about what the cost of his (willed) cremation will really end up costing me. I had to pay upfront for it, and I still have not received any benefit money from Social Security.
I worry about the memorial.
I worry about rent, and other things, little and big.


I worry about how I will feel when more of his things are gone after this weekend when they are taken home by the people he wanted them to go to.
I worry I might enjoy having more space, and a chance to start to put the house the way I want.
I worry if I enjoy it, it means I am not missing him as I 'should'.

I worry about the week, and once my friends leave and my family too (temporary though it is) how lonely I will feel.

I worry about trying to find the right words for Saturday.

I worry about paperwork with DES and for my insurance.

I worry a lot about being poor.

I worry about my debts, and my husbands, and how they might effect me when I decide to go back to a school. I worry about working so hard, paying taxes, and still having to file for medical bankruptcy next year; depend on what the lawyer says.

I worry about the holidays, and feeling alone without him.

I worry about how much pain my heart hurts for this time right now; living alone for the first few years was a choice I made on my own. Living alone now is not by either of our wish.

I worry about waking up Christmas morning in a cold, empty, quiet house.
I worry about having no one to celebrate Hannukah with. I remember Wash working so hard to learn the Hebew prayers.

I worry about saying good-bye to him in a symbolic and final way.

I worry so much about my life is both the same and so unstructured; yet I'm not ready to change myself yet.

I worry about trying to communicate with the ones around me, and either not saying something that can be understood; or saying the wrong thing altogether.
I worry about how many people I will still have in my life next year.

I worry it is not acceptable to find moments to try to laugh.
I worry it is not acceptable if I don't laugh "more" now.

I worry about how confused I am that all I'm hearing is contradictions around me; specific advice on what to do at "this point"; specific advice to listen to no advice but my own wants.

I worry about the memories to come this week and month.

I worry about facing everything.

I worry so much about what will come next.

I worry how confused I am to feel so aged and mature, and so scared and young at the same time.

I worry how much I might forget about him.

Always worries.
Sometimes saying them lets them go. Sometimes not.

Brave (2)

I tried to fall back asleep this morning. No go.

It's one week til Wash's memorial.
I'm not doing well.

There are so many things going on all at the same time. I feel I am coming untethered.

I am terrified of trying to write something about him with that level of finality. I was not afford the luxury of denial like others around him were.
This is, certain.
Final.

It breaks what is left of my heart.



The cats keep me company in the bed most nights. Either Aelphie takes her place by my feet, or Leto comes over and sleeps on top of me. The tend to switch off.
I wake up everyday with this sense of "wrong". Something is off. Not as it should be.

I remember how we used to fall asleep together. How we would cuddle. How some nights it would be me holding him until he fell asleep, and a long long time ago, he used to hold me.
I remember the first winter we had together; he was working night-shift and in school. We hardly ever saw each other during the week. Except for 30 minutes in the mornings when he would come home from work, waking me up to the smell of coffee, which he'd always bring me a fresh cup.
He'd climb into bed and for 30 minutes the world did not exist. It was just us. Our time.
I miss the spot I'd kiss behind his ear, right above his neck.
I miss his smell. I miss that so much.
I miss his comfort.

I've had people, strangers and friends tell me how "brave" I've been. I thank them, but I don't understand it at all.
Is it really "brave" when there is only one direction to go? One way to move?
I have to go on, because what else can I really do? I don't see other choices, options.


I am happy to have friends coming in to help me say "goodbye" to him.
I know that lives don't stop. Well, only mine, and to a literal degree, him.

I miss the normalcy.
I miss Family Tuesday Dinners. Those started long before Wash, and it was the one day a week I knew I could see someone who knew my name, who would hug me, where I could just be me.
Those stopped.
I can understand. It's painful. Too busy. Out of town.

I am left though, with this feeling of being attached to nothing. I feel this greater distance with my own family than I have ever known.
Quite like a balloon. I had been tied for so many years, able to float out a bit, and now, un-cut, I am loose. I am going higher and farther than ever before. Than I ever imagined there to be.
The problem though, is the inevitable.
Balloons don't stay up forever. We all know.
Eventually, they pop. They burst, high and in a different place.

More and more I keep wondering why I am still here, in this place. What besides him was keeping me here?

I wonder if this is temporary, or if I have lost hope for Arizona?


I am scared for another reason. Well, many. I've been scared a long time, it's just easier to ignore the fears when there is someone else who needs comfort.


I wish I had known how few choices I would have had, before.
This will by my first Hannukah alone. My parents leave again the day after Wash's service.
At this point, I no longer even see a point in putting up my yearly little tree. I love the lights, but, it feels like I already know I'll be alone at the end of the month.

This is part of it. Everyone moves on. It's been almost 3 months! I mean, sure, he was my husband and the person I was intending to spend my life with, have children with, move with, be happy with, and my best friend. But, no, yeah, under 3 months is fine. Move on. Do we just stop saying his name next year?
I really am upset no one gave me this time-table for "acceptable" grief ahead of time.
I'm still back in the days of Judith Martin, apparently.
I'm guessing since this 'new' timeline for grief is something I'm really not familiar with; being of the impression I could go at my own emotional speed, could someone send me a link?

That last part was a bit sarcastic.

I cried myself to sleep this morning trying so hard to remember if I held him til he fell asleep that Saturday night. I cannot remember. I know I was with him, I was next to him, but I can't even remember if I held him.

I am scared of next week. I'm scared of who might show up. I'm scared my anger towards some people and how they acted towards Wash will not have passed fully if I see them. I'm scared that I cannot yet say that,
"I forgive you for hurting him so much while he was dying."
I was hurt too, to be sure. In a heinous and vicious way. But, people have hated me for a long time. I'm kind of used to it.
I know what was done to him, though.
I know exactly how many nights he cried himself to sleep over this.
I know how many tears, how much pain, and worse, how he could not even understand it. Part of that was the cancer, but a bigger part was just the shock and the pain of who it was coming from.

So much pain and sadness.

How do I say good-bye to my best friend?
The person I loved heart, body, mind, past and future.
I wish, I wish I knew.