Trusting the Process

Grieving and raising a family are not very compatible early on in the process.  I try so hard to be what my kids need me to be right now, because I know this is terribly hard on them and they need someone constant and strong in their lives.  Some days I fail miserably.  A couple of Saturdays ago, Annalina had her first volleyball tournament.  It was an all day event and Richard and I went to each of her tournaments together last year. They were always so much fun.  I wanted to be there for Annalina and let her know that I would always be there to cheer her on.

It was loud and chaotic.  I began to feel physical pain sitting there watching.  I took Advil and Tylenol, but nothing helped as the pain got worse and worse.  Finally after 5 hours I told Annalina I wasn't feeling well and I needed to go home.  She arranged a ride for herself and I left, feeling like an utter failure as a mother.  I got home and climbed into bed and within minutes the severe pain faded and then was gone.  Is my emotional state manifesting itself physically?  And if so, how do I balance my own needs in this grieving process with the needs of my children? I feel the weight of parenthood crushing down around me at times.  I love being a mother. If I could spend eternity raising children, it would truly be heaven to me.  But it is so much harder when it is all up to me, alone.

I spent much of the rest of Saturday in bed. Then came Sunday and I spent the entire day in bed. I just could not leave the comfort of my warm, accepting bed.  I felt so much emotional pain on Sunday.  At times I could not help myself and I laid there sobbing.  I tried to read, but got sleepy each time I opened my book.  It was like the emotional dam that has held back all the feelings of despair had broken completely. The kids spent some time with Adrienne, they spent time together, but they spent little time with me. I just could not do it.

There is no handbook that goes along with grieving.  But there are resources.  Lately I struggle with concentration when I read, but I have been reading bits and pieces of the book, "On Grief and Grieving".  I found a section called Isolation.  It was very familiar to me.  It is what I have always done in times of great emotional upheaval.  I have always felt that I was doing "it" wrong because I turn inward.  But the book told me that isolating is a natural part of the grief process and that it is okay as long as it is just a step and I don't get stuck there.  People often see isolation as a sign of danger. I have a friend who really does not understand that it is okay.  She gets frustrated that I am not ready to go out with her, or when I don't answer my phone, or when I miss church.  She says, "what am I going to do with you".  She loves me and I appreciate her concern. But sometimes I feel I am being judged. I feel like I need to explain myself and right now I just cannot do that.

What I need friends and family to understand is that I am doing the best I can.  I am not one to let anything conquer me and I will get back on my feet and keep fighting to move forward.  That is just who I am.  But there will be setbacks and there will be times when I don't do what seems normal or "right". But I am doing what is right for me.  I am listening very closely to my inner voice, trying to do what is best for me and my family.  I am trying very hard to trust a process that I do not completely understand.  I need for others to trust that I won't give up, but sometimes I will need a break.  I feel like my state of being right now is exhausting. If I had a broken leg no one would question my need to take it easy and heal.  No one would push me to run a marathon, or even walk down the street.  A broken heart is no different. 

Bumps in the Road

Earlier this week the Detective on Richard's case came by to tell me that they were closing the case. He also needed a signature from me on the form releasing the shotgun because I didn't want it back.  There are so many holes in the timeline of that morning and I asked him questions. Perhaps it would have been better not to know, but I have found that every piece of information helps me to process what happened that day. And at times I feel I am desperate to make sense of it all, as if that is even possible. 

The death certificate states he died between 5 and 6 am.  I knew he did not hit send on the email he wrote to me until 5:47, so why did they think he could have died earlier?  I asked the detective and was told that a security camera showed the Jeep pulling into the parking lot at 5am.  If each day is a step forward in healing, this information set me back miles.  I had always thought he was on autopilot and that it all happened incredibly fast, before he could think about it, or talk himself out of it.  But now I know better. I know that he sat in the back of that parking lot for at least 47 minutes before he got out and took his own life.  Did he try to talk himself out of it? Did he consider calling me and asking for help?  Did he just sit there in complete mental darkness for such a long time, sinking deeper into despair each minute?

When someone we love passes away, we find comfort in knowing it was quick and the suffering was short.  But to know that someone has suffered so deeply for any length of time is devastating.  The wounds in my heart, which will never heal properly, were torn open again and I feel as though the mourning process has started over.  I ache for my poor lost husband who felt he had to bear his burdens all on his own.  I am so sad he he felt all alone.

For a couple weeks after his death I felt so much guilt about not knowing, not getting him help, not saving him.  My mind understands it was not my fault, but my heart still struggles with this.   I am working through those feelings and I think my subconscious attempted to help with that through a dream I had a few weeks ago.  I was with Richard in the hospital. He was in a hospital bed.  We were told he was being released and I could take him home.  In my mind I knew we only had moments left and that he was about to die.  He got out of the bed and as we walked to the door together, he fell to the ground. I knelt beside him and knew he was going to die and I held him as he passed away.  In that dream I knew there was nothing I could do to stop what was going to happen.  But I got to be with him, to ease his last moments and help him feel my love for him.

I wish so much that I could have eased his burdens at the end.  What I wouldn't give to have been able to hold his hand through his suffering.  But I am also coming to the realization that there was nothing more that I could do.  We had a loving marriage. I expressed my love to him often. I liked to tell him, "I don't just love you, I adore you".  I knew he had huge things he was struggling with and I was here to help him, but I also knew there were things he wasn't comfortable sharing.   He was a wonderful husband and I tried to be a good wife.  I think that some damage just runs too deep.  There was so much distrust for others throughout his early life that I think that carried over into our marriage.  Through no fault of his or mine, he just couldn't trust that I would always be here for him.  Which is incredibly frustrating to me, given all we have gone through together, and the fact that I was still here!  I feel I have been blessed with compassion and great understanding of his trials in life and how they affected us.  It is because of this that I feel no anger towards him.  I still love him and still look forward to eternity with him.  I have a journal in which I write to him.  In it I remind him often to work hard to do those things he needs to do to be ready for us as we join him one by one.  A friend said to me that she believes the healing he needed could only happen in the arms of the Savior.  What a beautiful picture that brings into my mind. 

The Day Life Changed Forever

I woke up in early hours of the morning on January 22nd and my Richard was not in bed.  I went to find him and he said he was unable to sleep and was just checking email.  I went back to bed and left my lamp on so I would not be too deeply asleep when he came back to bed. I wanted to talk with him before we had to start the day. I never saw him again.

He had been feeling down all week, but my sweet husband tried to hide that from us. He didn't want to burden anyone.  As everyone who knew him knows, he was always willing to help with a smile on his face. He was happy, friendly and outgoing, never revealing his inner turmoil.  He never returned to our room and when I awoke I found an email - the saddest email ever - in my inbox.  My sweet husband had been suffering for so long.  He had reached a point of hopelessness and in his dark state of mind, he felt the best thing for everyone would be if he was gone.  He had promised many times over the last year that he would never leave me again and I remember saying out loud, "No, No, No" as I rushed to get dressed. My heart was pounding as I imagined the worst. I somehow managed to get the kids off to school without a word. I thought I could find him and bring him home and love him and it would all be okay.

He had mentioned the Temple in his email so I drove there to look for him, praying the whole way that I would find him alive.  He was not there so I came home to start calling him, never realizing I passed him along the way, but he was already gone.  I called my Bishop, but he was out of the country. I called the first counselor who immediately came over and advised me to call the police right away.  Adrienne rushed home from school when I asked her to and my counselor came over to be with us too.  Richard had left his cell phone on next to his wallet in the Jeep so he could easily be found, but he did not die in his Jeep.  The police came and took information and his cell phone number and shortly after that got a ping nearby.  They left to check on it and when they weren't back in 45 minutes I called the detective. He did not answer. I knew this was a bad sign, and yet a silent plea continued, "please let him be okay".  A few minutes later the police officer and the detective came back with the news that my husband had been found, but that he was not alive. The world stopped in that moment. My mind flooded with thoughts of my children and how crushed they would be, questions about how could I go on alone, without my best friend and eternal companion. They say when you die your life flashes before your eyes. In that moment my future flashed before my eyes, all our plans, our goals, our dreams, how would they be possible now?  The pain was more than anything I have ever felt before.

My sweet daughter Adrienne held my hand as we cried together.   I have a great respect for law enforcement.  They took plenty of time to answer questions and help me understand what would have to happen next.  They were kind and compassionate. I learned later that he was not found where they originally told me his phone had been pinged.  And they would not tell me where he was found until after his body had been taken away.  They worried I would try to go and see Richard and they wanted to protect me from that.  I am grateful.  The detective shared advice from his own experience of losing a child to suicide.  Jacob came home and was so emotional at the news.  The police called the schools to tell them the kids would be leaving early and my sweet friend Taunya picked them up and brought them home.  It was the hardest thing to have to tell them daddy was gone. My counselor told me to be vague and just say that daddy had passed away, but Joseph started to ask the hard questions right away and I had to carefully share that daddy was struggling and took his own life.  Heartache after headache.  My children cried in my arms.  All we could do was cling to each other.  We sat together for hours, in shock over this incredibly heartbreaking loss.

People were in and out all the rest of the day, though I cannot really remember exactly who.  President Parkinson came by and gave the kids and I all blessings.  The police came back a third time to discuss where the body had been taken and details of what would need to be done in the next few days.  They were kind and told me to take the rest of the day and just be with my family. But more people came by and papers needed to be signed.  I had to call and let family know. By evening I felt the need to do something. The police had told me the Jeep was released for pick up, so I had Adrienne drive me to it.  I just sat there crying for quite some time, trying to fathom how this was all possible.  I prayed, I cried some more. Being there, where his last moments took place, my heart just ached for Richard, that he had been so alone, that I was not able to be there to ease his burden.  I drove the Jeep for the first time that night.  I brought it home. It smelled of him.  So many happy memories we had in that Jeep, exploring the beauty of Idaho.  I parked at home and sat there for the longest time, sobbing.

The little kids decided to sleep with me. I was grateful because I did not want them to be alone and I didn't want to be alone either.   I took a sleeping pill.  About an hour after finally falling to sleep I woke up terribly thirsty.  I got up to get a drink and immediately got dizzy.  I leaned against the doorway and closed my eyes for a moment and suddenly I was falling. I was so tired I fell asleep standing there.  I climbed back into bed but didn't sleep more than a couple of hours.  That would be my new normal as far as sleep goes.

Looking back, I don't know how I survived that day emotionally.  Or the days and weeks that followed.   I have been told that I am strong and that I am doing well handling it all.  I appreciate such kind comments, but I have learned that we just do what has to be done. We move forward because there is no choice.  I am grateful for the faith that I have developed over my lifetime. I am grateful for the knowledge that the Lord is our merciful Father who knows our hearts and will make sure all is as it should be in the end, which is really just the beginning.  I am grateful for the love and support my family has received and I will write more on that later.  Mostly I felt the need to record my experience, to make this a part of our family history.  I don't know what our future holds, but I want to be able to remind myself that I am a survivor, that I can do impossible things, that I am strong.  And I hope at some point someone at the beginning of their journey of heartache might read this and know there is hope.  As dark as things may seem, the light will eventually start to shine through. 

5 Things About Grief

Here are my thoughts on some advice I just read on grief.

"#1 - It won't look normal. What the heck is normal anyway? Cry, don't cry, walk around in a daze - it's ALL NORMAL."
Funny thing about me, I like to do things "right", how I perceive they should be done. I struggled for a while in counseling because I felt like I was doing it wrong.  The same has happened with grieving.  A sweet friend came to visit me last week. She said she had heard that people were worried about me because I wouldn't go out walking with them or go visit with them or answer my phone.  She wanted to check in with me to be sure I was ok.  I apologized and started to explain how sometimes its just hard to pick up the phone, or to leave my house.  How the world seems somehow scary to me now that it is missing the presence of my sweet companion Richard.  How I am afraid someone will need something from me that I just cannot give right now.  She said I did not need to explain it to her.  She told me I was doing what my mind/body/spirit needs at this time to feel safe and that grief looks different to everyone experiencing it.  I am a worrier, I am often more likely to try not to offend someone than take care of myself and my own needs.  She told me that my friends are not offended when I don't take them up on their offers and that was nice to hear. They are just trying to help in any way they can think of.  That day I learned its okay to admit I am not okay and that I don't have to put on the face of "everything being okay" when its not, when I am not.  I don't have to grieve in the way that seems "normal" and that each day my grief can look very different. 

So what is normal?  Some days I cannot get out of bed, some days I cannot stay in bed. Some nights I sleep an incredibly long stretch at a time, other nights I barely get an hour or two of sleep.  Some days I feel no emotion, other days I could cry all day long if I allowed myself to.  Some days I feel ambitious and attempt to get things done, others I can barely motivate myself to take a shower, let alone plan dinner for my family.  One thing hasn't changed, and that is this: I miss my husband so much. And I love him still.  Some days life just feels like it is something to endure and while I have heard that the joy will return to my life, I just don't see it...yet.

"#2 - You will want to talk about the person who died - at length."
When my mother was here I talked a TON about Richard and our life together.  She was wonderful to sit and listen to me and to join in with her own thoughts and memories.  So much reminds me of him and it is hard for me not to talk about him. Having my mother here to listen to me was very therapeutic. She loved my husband so much and that has been such a blessing to me.  Sometimes when I talk about Richard in front of the kids, its makes them sad, so I find myself thinking carefully about what I say about him.  A couple of weeks ago I wanted to write down memories of him that the kids have so we could always remember them.  It was too soon and Annalina just turned around and went to her room.  I found her later in her closet with the door closed.  It is a tough balancing act, all of us grieving in our own way.

"#3 - People will shun you to protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable."
I am probably hyper aware that some people are uncomfortable around me.  And its okay, it makes perfect sense to me. I try not to talk too much about things with people I sense may be uncomfortable.  I have a few very close friends who come by to visit whom I feel very comfortable sharing with.  My friend Lisa came from Oregon to spend almost a week here in Rexburg with me and I was telling her how everyone is always asking me if I am working yet and sometimes it drives me crazy.  She told me it was a safe question for people, that it showed they were interested in my life and how we are doing without talking about the heavy stuff.  Brilliant!  That made so much sense to me and that question doesn't bother me anymore.  The last thing I want is to make other people feel uncomfortable.  Maybe that is another reason I prefer to stay in my home and not interact with people.

"#4 - You will laugh at the most inappropriate things probably for the rest of your life. I call it widow humor."
I think my mom and I started to do this a bit while she was here.  Sometimes its easier to laugh at the things that really hurt rather than to cry about them.  I don't do this a whole lot yet, but I can see where it may be something that develops as time goes on.

"#5 - You will smile again and at first it will make you feel incredibly guilty but in time you realize your smile is a tribute to their life."
The first few days after Richard's death I could not eat and I barely drank. I couldn't listen to music. I could not play cell phone games for weeks. I could not watch tv shows or movies or read books. I felt like it wasn't right that I should go on doing things that I enjoyed when he had been in such despair that he took his own life.I felt like I had to punish myself for still being alive when I couldn't keep him here.  And before anyone says, "you must know this was not your fault and there was nothing you could do to save him", please realize that my mind understands this, but my heart still struggles with it. If I could go back, knowing how bad things were for him, I believe he would still be here and I could have made a difference. I try to keep things light with the kids, we giggle, tease, and play and at times life seems almost normal again.  But it doesn't always feel real or complete.

I am trying so hard to understand what has happened and what will happen next.  I want to see the big picture. I am tired of devastating surprises in life, but complaining about it is not the way to learn and grow.  I find myself leaning on my faith and the Lord to help me develop into the person He knows I can be.  I cling to the beauty of the Plan of Salvation.  I see myself walking into the arms of my husband someday and I find that comforting.  As much as I know that life is a gift, I truly look forward to that day.