My husband died today

[NarcSis]

Thank you @gizmo, reading that helps me; it's a good reminder that there will be easier days in my future. I can't see them now, I can't believe in them now but they will be there, I just have to hold on and keep breathing through it all.

Saying that makes me feel so torn up inside, because all he had to do was to just hold on and keep breathing through it all. It would have gotten better. There would have been answers. How in God's name did life end up without him in it? HIM of all people who could have gone - him!? Sigh. Those thoughts have no answers, they never will have any resolutions to their dilemmas and they only serve to tangle me up further inside, I have to focus on facts - fact is he IS dead and there is nothing I can do about that. The fact is, he will never be back in this house with me ever again, so his stuff that I'm holding onto, I'm going to have to start letting it go soon. The fact is, that I AM alone now and I have to learn how to deal with that fact or design a strategy to lessen the impact of it in some way. I AM alone.

They say that it doesn't go away, you just learn to accept the hurt as part of your new life and accommodate it. I hear that it hurts many people deeply and you can either drown in those feelings of loneliness or try to find the strength to keep pushing forward and carry on with the life you have. Things I need to remind myself of - WEAK is okay, it is a normal state and overwhelmed and needing help is perfectly fine for the situation I am in. NOT EVERYONE is going to be accepting of my "weakness" nor my prolonged grief reactions, so I need to be real about how I react to being told I need to "get over it", only I know that I quite possibly will never "get over it". I have to remind myself that I AM ALIVE and as such, I can do things in this life for me. I CAN still test my boundaries. I CAN still build confidence. I CAN survive like I've been doing for years already.

I really could use a dog though. I just don't want a big dog or a tiny dog. My sister suggested a mini-lab retriever. We'd always had labs growing up and I like labs, but in this house a regular lab would have just been way too awkward, so I was hoping a medium sized dog would be fine - apparently a mini-lab is a medium sized dog with a perfect temperament. If only I could find one.

I got a little upset today. You see it's still fallout from the whole fiasco of being "queen for a day" and having to do all the work/pay for everything. I didn't get a birthday cake. My sister was supposed to bake one for me, but we didn't have time on my birthday, so she was supposed to do it yesterday and never got around to it, so she'd planned it for today and when we got back from being out, she was "too exhausted" to do it. I mean, I never ever really got a birthday cake on my birthday anyway, part of the reason I kinda hated my birthday but usually I got a piece of cake or dessert of some kind when we'd go out to a restaurant; regardless, when it's promised to me and that promise keeps getting broken, I'm sorry but right now, it just makes me feel even less important in this world. It hurts, so yes, i was very disappointed that I wasn't getting a birthday cake AGAIN today...it's like dangling a piece of food in the face of a starving person and then laughing, at least that's what it feels like to me. So anyway, I just said to myself, "F it, if I'm going to have a birthday cake this year, I will have to make the damned thing myself." And while she was napping I went into the kitchen and whipped myself up a spice cake...from scratch!

I just kept telling myself, "Don't take it out on her. Just do this and put an end to your suffering. Just get this whole cake fiasco over and done with." I swear if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. This year was no different from any other year on my birthday, except I ended up paying for everything instead of hubby paying. If you don't have money, and you know you don't have any, DO NOT make plans and get someone's hopes up because it's totally f'ing heartbreaking to not only pay for your stuff but to end up having to buy her a "gift" because she conveniently forgets her wallet. The bitch in me can't see that she spent a lot of money on a candle with some jewelry hidden in it and can't just appreciate that - she didn't have to do that for me....it's just that broken promises have always dug deep into me and hurt so badly that I feel like I should never trust anyone who makes a promise to me.

Oh and there is a glaring thing right now too hidden in all that - my husband promised to love, honor and cherish me through sickness and health until death do us part and then he hastened his death, not only breaking his vow to me but making me feel like some kind of shit because he'd rather be dead than to continue fighting through life with me. It was so easy for him to forget his promise to me....black and white thinking....all promises get broken....he was the only person I ever fully trusted and he left me here alone to fight our battles on my own. Utterly heartbreaking.

I get mad at him for having wanted to die and then I think that only a few days ago I just wanted to die so badly too just to stop from hurting so badly. I am seriously considering pre-paying a funeral because I do not want to leave a huge bill to my family and I cannot trust myself at points. I do not want to be a successful first attempt in the event I ever attempt and have people stumbling trying to figure out how to send me off because they really never paid enough attention to learn anything about me.

He was the only one who knew me and even then, he couldn't pick out a gift for me without me having to tell him what I liked. Birthdays, Anniversary, Christmases, I had to submit a list to him. He had no idea how to be romantic, he tried so I'll give him credit for that. I got flowers for Valentine's Day enough times to satisfy me but it really hurt those days when I got nothing and not even a Happy Valentine's Day or a card (he hated cards) - I used to tell myself, "It's a stupid commercial holiday anyway, there's no use in spending so much money on perishables." Just to try to stave off the heartbreak. It was my Toughen Up talk. I had high expectations of him even though I knew he was romantically stunted. I was always expected to plan special dates, make reservations etc. and if I didn't, we ended up staying home and I'd just get sad. When he'd give me the, "I feel bad" speech, I'd just brush it off and reassure him that I was fine and didn't need anything anyway....inside i was crying and feeling forgotten and worthless.

So yeah, me struggling to feel worth anything in life has been an ongoing issue most of my life. I feel like I've struggled and struggled to get anywhere but always just ended up digging myself deeper into the mud. Depression? When you've grown up being told by society that you are worthless because of your racial identity, yeah, why would anyone expect me not to have had longstanding depression issues? I've always tried to "rise above" and "not let it beat me" and I did good in handling it until PTSD showed up and suddenly I wanted to die so badly.

If husband was suffering with hidden depression then it's no wonder that we understood each other so well and just clicked so good together. He made me happy. I made him happy. Neither of us could ever touch that black spot in our core though, I'm sure. I remembered something about him the other day. He had a "breakdown" earlier in his career as a paramedic. He never told me much about it other than he saw a counselor, he was very depressed after his breakup with his then fiance and said he needed a break from everything. I think he was away from work for two or three months just trying to "get his head back on straight." He told me he went to his brothers and removed a tree stump for him by hand over the course of several weeks and he also took up a hobby (rug hooking). He said he was contemplating his life choices and wondering where his life was going; It sounds like a depressive episode to me, a "mid-life" crisis at the ripe old age of 25.

I never thought about that until recently. I found the rug he hooked in the basement and I remembered him telling me the story of his taking time off work. God, husband, all we had to do was refocus you, you were going to be fine. It's just life. You'd been through it before.

He was my first love and my only love. I would have been naive to think that I was his, he was 9 years older than me, he'd been engaged for crying out loud but none of that mattered to me because he was my first and my only. I only had eyes for him. You know what I used to love about being with him most? I used to love that when I was with him, other guys would look at me and I'd be thinking, "Ha, ha, Not A Chance, I'm with HIM." I was proud to be beside him. He treated me with respect. He cared for me and most importantly, he loved me and was just as proud of me as I was of him. In our early days together, he opened doors for me, he made me feel special, like his queen - it used to make me feel uncomfortable. Of course, that stopped two years into our relationship and we settled into our routine.

I missed our early days after the routine dull life set in, but you know, right now, I'd give anything to be doing that same dull boring routine every single day with him still.

I miss him every day.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

@Medic72 I say good for you on making your own birthday cake! I am very impressed that you did that for yourself. That was a very positive and healthy thing to do.
I hope that you do get a dog companion for yourself. You can take your dog with you on hikes etc. And you will receive so much unconditional love from your companion and the dog will serve as good protection for you as well. You will find the right one in time and I think it will be a very nurturing choice for you.

I will believe that you will have good days ahead for you if you cannot.

As time passes you will discover who you really are and will be surprised by how strong you are among other things like your gifts and talents. You will have a interest in life again, although you may not have that right now. Past interests will be coming back to you. You will also discover new interests and begin to thrive again. You will experience a new normal. Life is good and full of surprises and some of them are very good.

Happy Birthday Medic!

 

[Deleted member 12723]

@Medic72 I forgot to tell you about something important that you said. After my husband died, I made my own burial arrangements. I picked out my urn and everything is all paid for and taken care of, I also made a will that names my daughter as my exectutor so I also have power of attorney and a health directive not to prolong my life as a vegtable. It gives me peace of mind. My daughter will be upset enough as it so I am making sure that she only has to follow the will and does not have to worry about paying anything. It gives me real peace of mind. I do not want to leave my daughter in the lurch like I was.

 

[ms spock]

Thinking of you @Medic72.

 

[NarcSis]

I gave the standard answer that everyone wants to hear today when my buddy sent me a text to ask how I was, "I'm okay." but then I thought, f*ck it, if you're going to ask, i'm going to be honest, so I said some days are good, some days are bad and others are excruciating. I fully expected to not hear from him again but he asked if I was getting out. Ha! That's a good one...and go where? I stopped short of saying, You and my sister are about the only two people left in my life who aren't virtual and he's just barely above that virtual line.

I don't know anyone. I'm afraid to leave the house alone. I have no outside hobbies and I have no outside interests that would cause me to travel to see people. Hell, it got so I was looking at gardening and farm help jobs yesterday just so I have an excuse to punish myself with back breaking hard work. I have no direction in life. It's hard for me to see any purpose to life anymore without him here. I get overwhelmed by crippling pain and emotion that everyone feels I should be "snapping out of " by now. 105 days and I'm supposed to be over him, over 20 years of a loving relationship, 20 years of being with the only person I've ever felt truly cared for me.

Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel.

My old partner sent a text today wanting to do coffee tomorrow. My other old partner IM'd the other day saying we should get together again for lunch sometime soon, I was non-committal with her and just said, yeah, let me know when / where when you decide. It just so happens that I'd posted on FB about the difficulty I was having with the RRSP company and was sicking the lawyer on them - gee, i wonder why these people suddenly came out of the woodwork to suggest lunch and coffee, huh? Uggh, they're not real friends, they're not doing it because they care, they're doing it out of curiosity and to see how much information they can dig out of me. Typical, the gossip train at work must be slowing down with regard to me. Grrrr.

I'm glad my sister will be with me in the morning to deflect for me. I'd better get to bed, have to go out and pretend happy happy again in the morning. I wish hubby was here to deal with this - oh wait, if he was alive there'd be no reason to come talk to me. I miss my hubby. I miss my one and only true friend I had in life.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

@Medic72 tomorrow is a new day and perhaps something good will happen for you.

 

[NarcSis]

We went to breakfast/coffee with my former partner, she brought the baby who is about 6 weeks old now, so sleepy and, well, sleepy, which was perfectly fine with me. She brought her out to feed her at one point and I kept watching intently worried she'd bang the kids head on the table or the kid would choke or something, so just a wee bit uncomfortable in terms of anxiety but nothing she could help.

We chatted, most of it about the kid and how she's getting on with two kids now. Eventually the conversation directed to me and I got the "So, how are You doing now?" Uggh. If I didn't constrict my chest and pull in some air, I would have just broken down sobbing and hysterically crying, "I f'ing hurt all the time inside, I want it to go away. I'm so f'ing lonely, no one gives a crap about me, I just want to die so badly some days." But instead I sucked in that breath and said, "I have good days, bad days and excruciating days; you know, the usual for something like this...it's just constantly there below the surface and I think about him all the time." She gave me sympathetic pouty face. I just talked about things like how some people say it never goes away or its completely unlike any other type of grief they've ever gone through. So true. I caught myself several times saying "We" and "us" or "our" and each time it was a painful little jab in the gut, so I just pointed out the elephant in the room. She told me that she would hardly expect me to not use those words because I'd been using them for so long my entire life that it will take some time before my memories and Identity become singular. I know that, but it still hurts.

I did notice that she also talked about him as though he were still alive too, she used present tense and not past tense when she referred to him and she got a shocked look in her eye when she realized it. It's still so hard to believe he's dead, he does not FEEL dead to me and this is disturbing on so many levels. I hate saying this repeatedly but sometimes I wish I could just die and be with him again. It takes every ounce of my strength just to hang on and it is so unbelievably exhausting.

Something triggered that death wish in me so strong today and it didn't even matter one bit that my sister was right there with me in the house, I still wanted to just leave the room, go up to my bed and just scream and scream and give up and wish for the Hand of God to reach from the sky and take me. I was feeling lonely, abandoned, worthless, etc, etc, etc. Why? Because my partner had an envelope for me from "work", she said she was told it was a card of condolence from another paramedic service in the province. She warned me though that it was addressed to my niece - the paramedic, who by the way, DOES NOT work for them!!! Talk about making me feel completely worthless. I was his wife but they can't even address the envelope to ME!? There's no legal restriction saying they can't forward mail to me for crying out loud, it's just ridiculousness and continued stigmatizing of me because of my PTSD!!! I closed my eyes and wished and wished and wished for the universe to just squeeze on each and every one of their hearts so that they know extreme pain and no longer draw breath in this life anymore.

There was a note inside, again, addressed to my niece who HARDLY knew my husband (!!!!) and in it my employer expressed their continued condolences to her and her family to let them know that they were being thought of etc. etc. bullshit, bullshit, oh and "especially, to Medic during this difficult time". Okay, I could at least be grateful that I was even mentioned in the letter, right? It's hard to feel grateful when you're the WIFE and in this note from HIS and MY employer, my name is mentioned only briefly at the end as if I were an after thought!! Oh how in that moment I wished their offices would just explode and their bodies disintegrated into a quadrillion tiny pieces of vapor so that their families had nothing to say goodbye too. Now that would be karma.

So yeah, they got in one last jab to me at his expense. I hope he exacts his punishment from beyond for this. My husband vowed to protect me as long as I lived - I'm still alive, the vow still stands. Can you hear me, Tin? I'm sure you're gathering up an army of pissed off angels to exact my revenge. Oh if only it were possible.

Anyway, yes, I felt like a complete piece of shit after that. I felt worthless. I felt like I'd been kicked by them yet again. I felt betrayed. I felt angry. I felt depressed. I felt like there was no point to my life. I felt like I would never be free of them. I felt trapped in this pain. I felt more alone than I've ever felt in my life. I felt like I could not even say anything about how I was feeling to my sister because she just wouldn't get it. I just wanted to die. I just wanted to give up, just stop fighting and give them what they want.

I'm exhausted. The whole thing just drained me and I feel exhausted. So when sister suggested we go "out somewhere and do something" tomorrow I was all for it. I need a reason to stay alive, right? "Let's go on an adventure!!" So we start searching, coming up with ideas, planning, etc. etc. until we have a rough idea of what we want to do and I say, "I'll have to stop at the bank to get some money for you for gas." She says, "Oh, aren't you driving?" and my mood plummeted again. First off, my vehicle eats fuel like candy and this was a 5 hour round trip we were planning and that's not including the time exploring while at our destination. I could just picture money flying out the window - my money - again! She grumped about how her car has to get her to work - then why the F are we planning a long distance trip if you can't drive it and you can't afford it!? Disappointment.

OH and there it is, the feeling that I couldn't name earlier - Disappointment in how I'm treated in this world. Yep, that's how I felt after reading that note to my niece. I don't deserve to be treated like a piece of shit, I gave up EVERYTHING that was ME to that f'ing service and they continue to stigmatize me this way!?? I just...I'm a good person...what did I ever do to deserve to be treated this way? Things have never really worked out for me, everything always ends up working against me.

Husband felt this way too. He would sit holding me while I cried and he would say, "I don't know why nothing ever goes good for us, we're good people, we're honest, we have integrity - WE'RE GOOD PEOPLE!! We don't deserve to be treated like this. You don't deserve to be treated like this." And that complete and utter powerlessness just seeps in there and slowly erodes you....it eroded him. He killed himself.

Sigh. So there will be no spontaneous trip tomorrow because I can't spend money like it's going out of style. I have bills. I have to get a new roof. I have responsibilities. She has a job, she will always be getting more money down the line, it's not my fault she is in debt way over her head. I can't afford to be reckless in my life now. I just can't do that.

Tin, I miss you. Please give me a reason to stay here. I can see no reason. My family can all have the money, I don't give a crap, I just want to be with you again. GOD I MISS YOU!!! Someone please take this pain away, please, i don't want to feel this anymore. I just want all of it to be over, no more harassment, no more lawsuit, just give me my settlement and leave me the F alone for the rest of my life. Just get out of my life!!! Just leave me alone!!!!

Tin, I needed you here with me. I needed you. :(

 

[Deleted member 12723]

:hug:

 

[NarcSis]

So today ended up being a park day - the gates are now open so no more hiking in but it's still pretty cool so, no fish yet. I kept thinking how I should try to sneak some of hubby's ashes in and spread them around in the area where we always hung out, I might feel more at ease there if I knew he was there with me in some way. I still feel odd about spreading his ashes though because I feel afraid to "leave him" anywhere alone, he never really liked being alone; he always seemed scared when he was alone.

We came home and did some weeding in the garden, polished off two bottles of wine in the process and then made dinner. After dinner we were talking and I was holding my husband's wallet, going through his cards and just naming the ones he had in there, store loyalty cards and things. This made me feel less alone and more connected to him on some level but when I looked over at my sister, she was crying. She's of the mind that you don't talk about him because it makes you sad, so she tries to avoid talking about him - where as I NEED to talk about him, handle his things, share our stories, like how he loved that I made him meatloaf on his birthday every year. Meatloaf was his favorite and he always bragged to everyone that "my wife loves me so much that she makes me meatloaf for dinner on my birthday and she eats it with me - she hates meatloaf, but she eats it for me on my birthday."

I do. I'm not a huge fan of meatloaf. When someone asked what I wanted them to make in terms of freezer meals after he died, I said, Shepard's Pie and Meatloaf - his two favorites, the meals were in no way what I wanted, just what he would have eaten, and I was eating it for him, in his honor. I still have meatloaf in my freezer because I didn't want to eat it all at once.

I stopped going through his wallet and she got up to busy herself making dessert for us. She came out with this ice cream cone, neopolitan ice cream but the cone had mostly chocolate in it. She announced, "Here, i made you a cone with LOTS of chocolate in it, special for you chocolate lady." I really hated to say it but I had too - "Ummm, it was Tinny who liked chocolate, not me. I like the strawberry and vanilla. Every time we got this ice cream he would eat all the chocolate stuff." Chocolate ice cream is the one thing I just can't force myself to eat for him, (sorry, Tin).

I missed him a lot today. I was weeding the yard and thinking to myself the entire time, "I only do this by hand because that's the way Tin always liked it done. Some days we'd both be out here crawling around on the ground, pulling weeds." I would have given anything to have had him with me pulling those weeds. At one point I looked up and imagined what he looked like, kneeling there with his wide brimmed hat on, knife in one hand, bag for the weeds in the other. It was always such back breaking work but he insisted it was the only way to get it done properly. Sometimes after work, he'd fish his knife out of his pocket and be toodling around on the front lawn picking weeds - at midnight!!! My crazy husband, lol.

I was fishing in the far end of the river today, in this nice spot where he and I used to go during the summer, the fishing wasn't the best there but it was quiet and away from most people in the park. He'd always set up his folding canopy chair to keep the sun off of him and he'd sit listening to his podcasts while I fished. He would only occasionally get up to toss a line in if he started to feel stiff and sore. I was looking around at the area today and thinking to myself just how strange it is going to be to not have him with me this year. I wish he could be with me, just once more there to think about what he's going to be missing.

I wish he could just hold me one last time, so he knows just what he's given up. I so wasn't ready to let go of him. I just was not ready. I honestly wonder if he seriously thought he would die that day....did he think some miracle was going to happen? Some hand of God reach down and spare his life? You don't get a second chance to change it. It's permanent. The being gone, that is permanent and it's not glorious or magical or serene, it's just gone, blank, nothing and for those left behind, it is excruciating to deal with.

I tried not to think of the pain today. I tried to focus on smiling about him. I tried to convince myself that he would not want me to die, if he did, he would have shot me that day in addition to himself. I tried to tell myself that I just have to keep holding on to something. I thought about a dog again today and I half filled out an adoption application for a rescue until I read the fine print - the well over $500 price tag and the red flag that said, "cash only" made me erase the application. I'll look for a regular dog from a proper and reputable shelter.

Tin, if you can hear me, I miss you. I still love you. If you're mad at yourself for dying and leaving me, please don't be, there is nothing either of us can do to change that fact, it's done. I don't blame you, you were in a panic, you felt the world was ending all around you, you couldn't stand the heaviness and pain of the unknowns you were facing - I get that, Tin. I know how you felt. I wish I could have made you feel better. but I couldn't. I'm sorry you thought you had to die. I still love you despite what you did. I miss you every second of every day.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

:hug:

 

[NarcSis]

This is a weird type of separation anxiety. We were supposed to stay at my sister's house overnight, so we drove up, went for lunch at a park near her place and as we're eating I just burst into tears and started bawling about how I felt so homesick and I just wanted to come back home. So after lunch we did a brief stop into her house and then she brought me back home.

I don't know if that is really because this would have been the first overnight stay at her house since that day he died when she scooped me and drove me to her place. I haven't stayed there since that day. It brought up a lot of sad memories, bits and pieces of what I remember about being at her place for those two days? Three days? Mostly I was in bed. I wasn't really conscious, in that, I know people came and went wanting to see me but I don't know who they were. I hardly remember eating. I do remember crying and crying and having juice at 3am one night with the lights on. I remember my sister wouldn't leave my side. I think she slept beside me for two full weeks.

Every time I spoke today it was about him. I remember when Tinny and I did this, or did that, or wow, that reminds me of how Tinny used too...His memory was pretty heavy with me today. Fun stuff. Sad stuff. Bittersweet, like me tossing a line in at the pier near her house and thinking how we'd planned to come up to try fishing there this summer. My sister talked about going to my brother's place and I thought, "Tin wanted to go fishing at the lake again this year." We were passing by fields and I could imagine walking through the fields holding his hand and talking like we used to.

I really missed him today. I was near tears every hour or so. Most of the drive back I was "little" to self soothe and avoid dealing with the really heavy emotion. I kept feeling like I'd left him alone and it kept running through my mind on the way home, "Don't worry Tin, I'm coming home, you won't be alone. I'll be there with you." When we got to the house the strangest odd little thing happened; I'd changed the bulb in our outside light this morning but when we got home, it was flickering and flashing. I didn't know what to make of it, there was nothing obviously wrong with it. The second my sister put the key in the lock to open the front door, the light just stopped flashing. Immediately in my head I thought, "It's okay, Tin, I wasn't going to leave you alone. I'm home now, it's okay, don't be afraid." I went up to the room where I keep his ashes and I rubbed his urn and said, "I'm home. You're not alone. I'd never leave you alone. I know how you were always afraid to be alone, Tin. I'm here."

We ordered pizza and I cried openly while we ate. I was just so exhausted. It was a long day for me so sister and I both decided to take naps - my nap turned into two full hours of sleep. Sleep that I really needed.

I don't know exactly where he is, or if he even is anymore, but I do know that I get out of the town limits with intent to stay somewhere and I start to get pre-occupied about thinking about him, worried that I've "left him alone" and not wanting to be away from my home and "him" for long. When he was alive and I'd go away to my sister's he'd text me a lot and I'd worry about him. He used to use a jug of water to block the door when he slept at night because he was afraid being alone in the house (this started after the murderer who'd threatened his life was released from prison). My hubby got very afraid to be alone as he got older. I'd feel guilty being away having fun with my sister when my trip would include one of his days off. She'd always say, "He'll be fine, guys need their Guy-Time." He wasn't like that, he always said he hated alone time.

I leave this place and now I worry that I'm leaving him alone because I can't be sure if he still exists in some form or if, in that form, he can come with me or if he's stuck in the house or bound somehow to his ashes - I just don't know what to believe. I think right now, I'm of the mind that he's in this house with me, he's in bed with me at night because of his shirt/smell, and he's somehow in those ashes. This is why I have a difficult time dealing with the "spreading of the ashes" thing. I think its romanticized too much. I'm not sure if he'd want me to leave parts of him in places where I can't always be with him. This is precisely why I cancelled the interment of his ashes back home. I can't leave him alone in any way, I feel like he's afraid and I really do not want him to be afraid - we always had each other.

Missed him so much today.

 

[Sighs]

:hug: if you accept them.

This may sound a bit off the wall and please feel free to disregard but have you thought of having his ashes made into a gemstone? You could wear it always. I'm not sure how much it costs but I know there are places that compress and heat the ashes until they turn into gems. If you Google "cremation jewelry" you will find them.