On Random Updates

I have decided to do something out-of-character tonight.

Usually when I sit in front of this screen, it is after a post has been on my mind for anywhere from a few days to a few months. It is neatly framed in my mind with all of the talking points in order. I don’t compose the actual words until I sit down to type, but the framework is there.

But tonight is different. I have felt increasingly compelled to write here, but am not starting out with a specific topic in mind. Sure, there are things I’d like to write about, but one of the unforeseen elements of being in a committed relationship now is that so many of these situations involve private conversations which are not for public consumption. There may come a time down the road when, with Winn-D’s blessing, I might share some of those things here, but that time has not yet arrived. So instead, I’ll begin with a quick recap of our vacation (yes, it’s been that long since I’ve written here!) and see where things go from there.

The trip to the Midwest went amazingly well. It turned out to be an even better idea to take Winn-D to the places of my youth this summer than I thought it would be. That’s not to say that there weren’t stressful moments, but she handled them beautifully. The first part of our trip was spent with my late wife’s family. They have embraced Winn-D, but she had only met half of the family before the trip. Add to that all of my late wife’s friends (some of whom we had not seen in a few years) and she was bombarded with tons of new faces and old stories.

That was something I had not expected. I am not naïve enough to expect that we would not talk about my late wife at times, and I actually wanted to so Winn-D would get a more complete picture of who she was, but I did not expect it to happen across multiple settings and at such an intense level. I think people meant well, but I don’t think they realized that, while this trip was about letting Winn-D see where I came from, it was also about being a couple around the people I care about most. I think when we return to the Midwest after Christmas I will be better prepared to change the subject (or address it head-on, if needed) when these situations arise.

The second leg of the trip was actually to the great state of Minnesota. I know I don’t mention specific places here often, but Minnesota has made the list of places I’d like to visit again. We stayed mostly in the Twin Cities, but even then I felt like we barely scratched the surface of all there is to do there. It was a great chance for us to get away for a few days and spend time together making new memories (especially after being immersed in old ones for a week). My daughter loved the Mall of America even more than the wedding we were there to attend (and this girl loves some weddings!), so everyone heard more about that than anything else when she talked about the trip. It was a beautiful drive from where I grew up and we were all able to add some new states to our lists.

The final stop on our Midwestern tour was my hometown, which is also near the city where I went to college. There were more stories shared here than I expected too, but to a lesser degree at least. (Now, please don’t get me wrong. I want people to feel free to share stories about my late wife, especially with my daughter. I just thought they would spend some of that time getting to know Winn-D too.) She was able to meet my brother and sister and several friends that week as well. We spent time in big cities and small towns, attempted to drive through my old college campus (which was closed for construction), ate doughnuts from my favorite bakery, and spent lots of time in my childhood home. I knew I was excited to “bring her home”, but I don’t think I knew how much I would enjoy sharing that part of my life with her. It was a perfect way to cap off our adventure.

July has two significant potential grief-triggers for me. The first is my late wife’s birthday, which occurred while we were visiting my parents. Some years that one is harder than others. She would have been 33, so the age was not necessarily of significance, but the fact that it was the fifth birthday without her could have been.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember part of that day.

The day before her birthday, I woke up not feeling well. I was pretty sure I knew what was happening, but elected not to tell anyone at first. As the day wore on, the back pain intensified, and the first puff of my inhaler didn’t help. I tried to rest hoping that I could ward off the inevitable. By evening, I was starting to have mild trouble breathing and the back pain had not abated. My family was acting silly and dancing around and I couldn’t join in, even when my daughter asked me to, which broke her heart. I didn’t want her to worry, so I just said my back hurt and left it at that. By the time we went to bed, I knew I was going to need to go to the doctor, but I was 800 miles away and thought that at the very least I could make it till morning (and who knows what a good night’s sleep might have done, right?)

I tried my inhaler again shortly after eleven and laid awake waiting for something to change. It did, just not for the better. By midnight I knew I needed to get help. The only problem with that was that the help available to me at that time of night would come in the form of a hospital – more specifically, an emergency room.

She died the first time in an emergency room.

This was the only benefit to being 800 miles away from home. Instead of going to the ER where she died, I went to the one where I had stitches in my finger once and had my broken arm set and cast, in the same hospital where I was born over 33 years ago. I thought that would soften the blow, and maybe it did a little. But by the time my mom and Winn-D and I arrived (my stepdad had stayed home with my daughter, who didn’t know I was gone until we told her the next day), my blood pressure had sky-rocketed and my breathing had become labored. I didn’t have the foresight to tell them why my blood pressure might be so high (if you missed it, read the single line above), so I quickly ended up in the triage section of the ER. Thankfully, I didn’t know that until we left the hospital, but it added to the worries of the two ladies who were with me.

I have never had to stay in the hospital for myself. Sure, there were a few hospital stays with my late wife, but I could still come and go (from the room at least) with relative ease. Sitting in that bed, I gained a whole new respect for anyone who has ever been hospitalized. After I received a breathing treatment and could talk at a normal volume again, all I wanted was to get out of there. Knowing my body as I do, I knew that the breathing treatment would be enough to make me well again. But when you are in the hospital, even if it’s a triage bed in the ER, you are completely at their mercy (and they don’t show you any as far as your time is concerned!) To be fair though, they took great care of me and I am grateful for that.

Now, I know that some of you might be asthma sufferers yourself or might be concerned that I allowed the “attack” to progress for as long as I did. For some reason I don’t get a sudden attack. My symptoms are gradual, which gives me plenty of time to make a decision. Unfortunately, I still can’t get help until the symptoms reach a certain level (if I had gone to a med center earlier in the day, they would have likely sent me home without a treatment given my symptoms at that time). I was more than a little concerned that I had my first attack in over a year shortly after I started medication, but things have remained fine for me health-wise since that night.

The events of that night and the subsequent morning of sleep overshadowed the date on the calendar, and I managed to make it through okay. But the very next week, after we returned to the Southeast, was what would have been our tenth anniversary. I expected that one to be a tremendous kick-in-the-pants, complete with an outpouring of tears and anger about what could have been.

But in a lot of ways, it was just like any other summer day.

It would be easy to assume that this is because I’m in a relationship now and am therefore “happy” again (how many more times do I have to hear that?!?), but I really think it’s more a testament to where I am in the grief cycle. I don’t mean to sound callous because I will always care about my late wife in ways I cannot describe, but I don’t pine for her like I did the first few years after she died (which I suppose is good news for Winn-D). I can’t remember the last time I spent time crying in that painful, grief-stricken manner, but then, I couldn’t remember that before I met Winn-D either. Again, I’m not naïve enough to think that this might not ever happen again. But I am certainly glad that this day that should have turned out to be a major grief-trigger ended up being completely bearable.

There are plenty of other things rattling around in my head tonight, but this has become lengthy, so I will close with some good news. I received an e-mail the other day that this blog has been placed on a list of the 50 Best Memoir Blogs. This came at a time when I was feeling bad about not being able to post on here more often and is my first official honor as a blog author. That’s certainly not why I do this, but it does feel good to have my work here recognized in some way.

Guess that goes to show you never know who might be reading…

On Being a Disqualified Widower

So I’ve finished my taxes for another year. (Stay tuned or scroll down if you’re looking for non-tax-related info.) You’d think that after four years of filing on my own, I’d get used to this. I mean, it’s really the same old pattern. I plug in the information, the computer spits out a number signifying the amount I can expect to receive in a check (okay, so it’s really a direct deposit) and that number is significantly lower each year as inflation rates, gas prices, and the general cost of living seems to be increasing. Not a pretty pattern, but a predictable one at least, right?

Wrong. This year the federal government had a dirty trick up its sleeve.

That’s right. I have now been widowed long enough that I can no longer file as a “Qualifying Widower”. Now, to be fair, I knew this day was coming. But I had forgotten and seeing this reality on the screen before me was unsettling to say the least. Not to mention that my old friend TurboTax tried to tell me I should file as “Single” when it was clearly a better choice to file as “Head of Household”. I’d like to know what gives the federal government the right to decide how long I can be considered a “qualifying widower”. Does being widowed longer than three tax years mean I am somehow a less-qualified widower? If so, that would make me an “unqualified widower”. But I would contend that if anything, I am a more qualified widower. At this point I have endured and learned to handle more than most people who are forty years my senior.

So instead, I’ve decided that the government regards me as a “Disqualified Widower”. I can be a widower as long as I want (or at least until I choose to remarry), but I’m going to have to do it on my own terms, and will warrant no special tax title from the IRS. I’m not unqualified, I’ve just been disqualified as far as the government is concerned. I know it’s all semantics really, but aside from the linguistic aspects, that loss of title cost me about a third of last year’s refund!

Now on to the non-tax-related things I alluded to above:

I spent a couple of days last week sick. I think I’ve mentioned this here before, but it is really scary for a child when his/her single parent gets sick. My daughter has gotten better with the headaches and sinus infections I tend to get (love Spring, hate pollen!), but I took a day and a half off of work last week, which is unheard of for me. I have often said that if I wake up and don’t care if I see my school that day I am really sick (did I mention I took a day and a half off last week?) This time it was food poisoning followed by a headache of almost-migraine proportions. Not fun, but I bounced back quickly. My daughter had a difficult time adjusting to the idea that I wasn’t going to work the first day, but was noticeably more accepting the second day. There was a special event at her school that night, so I came home and rested between and made it a point to be as “up” as I could during the event, which helped, I think. Hmm, I think that sounds like something a “qualified widower” might do, Mr. Government Official…

We managed to make it through another February. For those of you on my FB page (if not, see sidebar) and who are long-time readers, you know that February is the longest month on the calendar for me. It was not an easy month, as I don’t expect it will ever be, but here we are now, more than twenty days on the other side of it. My daughter has become quite the good little writer at the tender age of (now) seven and I am amazed at the times she will write about her feelings and I will find the pages only after she has gone to bed. Thankfully she is also still very willing to voice them, but I fear as she grows older she may turn toward her writing more (which I know is normal, but it eliminates a need for talking to Daddy about it and I will miss that. And yes, now I know how you feel Mom…)

I have often thought that one of the reasons God allowed my daughter to be born in the month of February (five weeks early, but healthy) was to give me something to look forward to during that month. This year was no exception. All of my daughter’s grandparents were able to make the journey for her birthday this year (they are still of the age that work obligations might keep them from coming, rather than health issues). She knew they were coming, unlike years’ past when it has been a surprise, but I don’t think this diminished her joy any. She had a wonderful party and a great weekend with her grandparents. And I think that’s all any parent can hope for, single, widowed, or otherwise.

In keeping with my promise in an earlier post, I wanted to mention that I have started dating someone. I have thus far held to the pattern I used in my last relationship regarding how quickly to progress, how soon to involve my daughter, and things of that nature. The one big difference between this time and last is that my daughter knew the first woman I dated and was able to see the connection we were developing and she was not a part of that this time around (due to where/how we met, not because I tried to do anything differently in that regard). In fact, when I told her we were going out, she finally admitted that the reason she was less-than-thrilled was that she didn’t feel like she knew her (she had only met her once at that point) and wasn’t sure she would like her. I reassured her, but also told her that I would remind her of this in a couple months when she did meet her and DID like her, which I have found myself doing over the past couple weeks. It’s already evident that they like each other. She is a school-based employee as well, though not at my school, and is, as my friends put it, “more age-appropriate” than the last woman I dated. I won’t get all mushy at this point, but I will say that this relationship has definite potential.

Now, for those of you who remember back a couple months to my last post, you might be wondering why I would even entertain the possibility of dating someone when I thought I was dying. It is a valid question. The only reason I opened the door to getting to know her better at all was that I wanted to live as if I wasn’t dying (at least not yet). It was a risky move for this non-risk-taking widower, but it proved to be a good one. I did not ask her out until after I got the news from my doctor that I had a completely manageable condition, but I did spend quite a bit of time getting to know her through e-mails and phone calls. I weighed my options and decided that if I was as sick as I thought I was, she would lose a friend with a mutual romantic interest. But if I wasn’t, then by not getting to know her, we might both be losing the possibility of something long-lasting. I can’t say that it will definitely go that direction. But so far, I’m confident I made the right call.

On Thursday, I am scheduled to have my periodontal work/surgery done (the 31st). It’s not something I’m looking even remotely forward to, but when I still have my own teeth in thirty years I’ll be grateful I did. I’m having all of the work done in one day (12 teeth total – yikes!) so it’ll be all soft foods and pain killers for me for a few days. I’d appreciate any and all prayers as that time draws near – both for me as I endure the procedure and whatever pain it entails and for my daughter as she has to see me endure that pain for a few days. (On the bright side, Grandma is here to play with her and keep me medicated).

Thanks for bearing with all of my “updates” and for your continued reading, no matter how few and far between my posts become.

On Staring Death in the Face

The information in this post, which was originally titled “On People and Places that Evoke Grief”, covers events that have occurred over the past 6-8 months and follows up a separate post. I have chosen to post my initial writing on this topic below, with an update following. Some of this information may be familiar as I posted about my daughter’s teacher in a separate previous post. Please know that this is not information that I find easy to share (and may not be easy to read), but for the sake of staying true to my journey, I feel that I am able to do so now. Just bear with me and keep reading for that update.

I hate the fact that after nearly four years, grief can still blindside me, but it does.

My daughter started first grade in August. Naturally, I did not expect this to be a source of grief for me, but it was for more reasons than I could have imagined. I have mentioned here before that my wife was a teacher by trade. She spent most of her short teaching career in third grade, but was moved to first a couple years before she died. And for some reason, my daughter being in first grade has bothered me. She doesn’t attend the school where my wife taught. Her teacher doesn’t look anything like my wife did. But still there’s just something that evokes grief in me.

Maybe the fact that her teacher is young and pregnant with her first child doesn’t help. My wife was still teaching third grade when she had our daughter, but it was at a similar time during the school year. Plus there’s the whole “excited about the first child/happy to be expecting” sense that surrounds the teacher. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy for her, it just makes me grieve for that happy time in my own life when I think about it. If she was having a girl, it might just push me over the edge, but she’ll be the proud mother of a little boy this winter, so I think I’ll be okay.

That was enough on its own, but there have been some other, even more significant events, that have taken place over the past few months. When I wrote this post last summer, I felt like it was something that needed to be written, I just wasn’t sure why at the time. Now I know. I mentioned then that I did not believe the breathing issue I had in June was bronchitis as the med center doctor had diagnosed.

There are times when it’s better not to be right.

After I posted that it occurred to me that, because of the way the symptoms presented themselves, it was more likely adult-onset asthma. I researched every lung disease I could think of and the only symptoms that even remotely matched were in-fact, those of adult-onset asthma. So I headed to my follow-up appointment in August fully prepared to talk to my regular doctor about this possibility. I didn’t even have to mention it. He was concerned that I was still having minor symptoms and sent me to the hospital for spirometry, which is the first step in diagnosing asthma.

That’s right. I said hospital. As in, my first visit to the place where my wife took her last breath.

And as it turns out, the first open appointment just happened to be on the first day of school. So I dropped my daughter off at school and headed across town to the hospital. I was able to enter the main doors, which reminded me more of when we were there having our daughter than the day my wife died. My chest didn’t immediately seize up and my breathing rate didn’t increase. I felt pretty normal physically, but my mind was reeling. I managed to keep it under control and completed the test when it was time. It showed that my lung capacity was diminished, but improved significantly with albuterol, which was what I expected. I went off to work and braced myself for an asthma diagnosis from my regular doctor.

When they called with the results, the news was not as I expected. There was no diagnosis of asthma. No establishment of an asthma action plan. There was only a referral to a pulmonologist for further assessment.

I froze when the nurse gave me the name of the pulmonologist.

I live in a small city, but there is more than one pulmonologist. I know of at least two by name and am aware that there are a few others around. My doctor unknowingly scheduled me with the pulmonologist who tried to revive my wife the day she died. I thanked the nurse and promptly sat down. My immediate thought was to call back and explain my reason for not being able to see him. But the longer I thought about it, the more I developed this need to see him. I remembered him as being very kind when he spoke to me about some tests they ran on her earlier in the day. I also remember the look on his face when he and the internist came out of the ICU wing to tell me they did not believe they could revive her. I have no hard feelings toward the man. He did everything he could to keep her from dying.

Unfortunately, everything wasn’t enough that day.

I couldn’t get an appointment for about six weeks, so I had a lot of time to worry/fret/agonize about the appointment. By the time it arrived, I was almost as excited as I was nervous. I take my health pretty seriously and have most of my adult life. Being a sole parent makes me even more conscious of it, especially given my wife’s health-related battles. I know that asthma is not a great thing to have, but it is manageable and I was ready to have an official diagnosis so that a treatment plan could be developed and I’d be able to feel and function better than I had been.

I was equally nervous because I was going to see this doctor for the first time in almost four years. It was over an hour before he finally came into the room and in that time my mind raced with different scenarios. The one I liked the best was the one where he entered the room and recognized my name or face and validated my loss in some small way. I knew it was a long shot, but that’s the one I had settled on when he finally opened the door. His face was a blank slate. If there was any recognition at all, he did not show it.

I realized then as I do now, how absurd it is to think that a doctor who has encountered countless patients in the intervening years might actually remember the husband of one that didn’t make it. But I still needed to find out. He conducted the appointment as I’m certain he does with all of his new patients. So I allowed myself to return to excitement about the possibility of getting an actual answer at this appointment.

When the exam was over, the news was not what I expected. There was no diagnosis of asthma. No establishment of an asthma action plan. There was only a referral for a follow-up chest x-ray and more tests.

I scheduled all of the tests and returned to see him three weeks later. I still had some level of excitement about receiving some answers, but they were covered by the fact that I was more nervous than ever and pretty sure the diagnosis was going to be something other than asthma. I worked the computer keys and stretched the limits of my internet search engine, but I still couldn’t find anything with symptoms that even remotely matched mine, other than asthma.

When I returned for the follow-up appointment I was given an answer, but it only lead to more questions.

This is the point where I may upset some of you, but for now I have decided not to state what my diagnosis is. My main reason for this is that there is such a wide-range of information on it that I want to talk to my doctor about my specific prognosis before I give it a name on this site. I will say that I found it incredibly overwhelming to read one reputable site that talked about the slight possibility of spontaneous remission (their word, but he is positive it is not cancer) and another equally reputable site that talked in terms of life expectancy.

In single digit years.

I am trying really hard not to dwell on that type of my condition. I don’t believe that’s what I have, though it is likely to get progressively worse over time regardless of the type I have. But I can tell the possibility is nagging at me even when I don’t entertain the thoughts. I’m not depressed, but I am also having to be really careful not to be. The possibility of slipping into depressive habits is inviting, but I have to resist them for my own sake and the sake of my child.

Right now we are in a “wait and see” period. This in itself makes me hopeful that I do not have an advanced form of this disease. I am not currently on any medication for it, and when I do have symptoms, the onset is gradual and the pain is minimal until I rest. I am still able to function just as I was before, only I have to be careful about how much I exert myself at a given time so as not to become worn out. I have a follow-up appointment in two months where we will reassess the situation and the doctor will determine if medication and/or additional tests are necessary.

Like I said, wait and see.

I have debated about if/when I should post this information. It doesn’t seem fair to say there’s something wrong and not give all of the details, but it is also very hard for me to talk about it at all right now. In fact, as I am writing this, I have not told anyone, including my parents. But by the time you read this I will have told them. I was in the mood to write about it tonight and am hopeful that it might be the catalyst for helping me actually verbalize these things to them. We have some family friends who have/had lung issues, and none of them have been good, so my mom especially is a little gun-shy about them. I will tell them when I finish working up the nerve.

And I will tell you all more when I am able to share more as well.”


UPDATE: I had my follow-up appointment with the pulmonologist yesterday. I have felt better in general for the past few months, but had tried not to allow myself to get my hopes up. The disease I was diagnosed with was not one that I was likely to recover from, and even though when I wrote my initial post I was trying hard not to think about the possible repercussions of my disease, I lost that battle more often than not over the two months between that original writing and this update.

It’s a scary thing to stare death in the face. Most of us know this, but from the vantage point of our spouse’s death and not in terms of our own mortality. That was one of the many reasons I could not post this when I wrote it and why I only told my parents this information earlier today. I have felt like I needed to carry this alone for now. One of the friends I mentioned above is also on the losing end of her battle with lung disease and I just couldn’t tell my parents that they might be facing that with me before now.

It’s hard to think about the possibility of not raising my daughter to adulthood. The first emotion I encountered was anger at the sheer unfairness of it all. She has already lost her mother and now there’s a chance she might lose me too? So my goal became to fight this thing as hard as I could with the hopes that I could at least see her off to college. I thought about the possibility of what my life would become as my disease progressed. Would I be able to stay in the South, or would there come a point where I would have to move to someplace where I had a better support system? How long could I continue to work? What would I do about health insurance when I couldn’t work anymore? I wasn’t worried about what would happen to me after I died, just what would happen to us beforehand and my daughter afterward. And the emotions I’ve written about here barely scratch the surface of what I have felt the past three months.

So I tried not to be too hopeful as I headed to the pulmonologist’s office yesterday. After all, I had been optimistic the first time and that hadn’t exactly panned out. I went in for my pulmonary function test (PFT) which is similar to spirometry, but more thorough and less expensive. During the first portion the tech said that things hadn’t gotten worse and that was good news, but she remained silent about my performance on the rest of the test. So I went back to the waiting room for a long while (I always take a book with me, since I know I’ll have to wait) before being called back to a room. When the doctor came in, we reviewed my information and it again was not what I expected.

This time there was an official diagnosis of asthma. There was the establishment of an asthma action plan. And most importantly, there was a change from my initial diagnosis and a lifting of my impending death sentence.

It might seem cliché to say that I left his office breathing easier, but I did. In fact, I think I was in shock about the whole situation, which is why I didn’t call to tell my parents about it until today. I can’t quite describe the feeling of thinking you’re going to be given a time frame on life expectancy during an appointment and leaving knowing that you have a completely manageable condition and can expect to live a full, normal life (and consequently, that you were right all along in terms of what was really going on in your body.)

Now, before I get a bunch of negative comments or e-mails about the doctor unnecessarily putting me through this, I want to state that I have no ill feelings toward him and plan to continue seeing him as my pulmonologist (though I’ve been cleared till June!) I don’t believe anything is ever wasted and that there must be some reason I needed to experience all of this, even if I am unsure of that reason at the present time. My doctor made the initial diagnosis based on my symptoms and the results of my x-rays and PFT. And it all fit with that diagnosis. Apparently what I actually had were symptoms of asthma which had been exacerbated by an undiagnosed “walking” pneumonia. (To further complicate things, my asthma symptoms do not follow the normal pattern of development). Once the pneumonia cleared, he was able to see that it was asthma versus the initial diagnosis (hence the reason for the “wait and see” period I’ve endured the last three months).

When I wrote the initial post, I said that I wasn’t ready to give my original diagnosis a name on this site. Now that it has been changed (and I believe, rightly so), I have decided to name it. I would encourage you not to do any research on the condition though (this means you Mom and G!) as most of the major medical sites paint a dismal outlook regarding prognosis and recovery (with the exception of the slight possibility of “spontaneous remission” I mentioned above). My original diagnosis was something called interstitial lung disease. My current diagnosis is adult-onset asthma (of unknown origin).

This post has become longer than I anticipated and I really should have made it two. But I didn’t like the idea of finally telling you all of this and then making you wait for the update, now that I have one. I am happy to say that right now, my overall health is pretty good.

But my overall outlook is even better.

On Another Year, Another Christmas

I have just spent a good deal of time reading over my three final posts from last year. I had thought that this might serve me well in assessing how “far I’ve come” over the past year. And in some ways, it has.

My mood at this time last year was dreadful. I simply couldn’t get out of my holiday funk. It was a time filled with change, some of which I disclosed in those posts and some of which I did not disclose until posts written after the holidays. Some of those things have changed and some have not.

At this time last year I had just begun my first dating experience following my wife’s death. Though it was somewhat short-lived (three and a half months from start to finish), it was a necessary learning experience. It was also the item I did not disclose at this time last year, but I pledge to let you all in a bit sooner if/when I should date again. I did not see direct evidence of that relationship having a negative impact on my holiday mood, but I am certain that it must have.

What emerged as the most obvious contributor to my “bah-humbug” mentality were the changes in my extended family over this time the previous year. At the time I thought that neither of my brothers would be coming home for Christmas, but one of them had a change of heart at the last minute and decided to come after all. The other did not. And sadly, that is one area that has not changed over the past year. At least not in a positive way. Unfortunately, my relationship with that brother (and his relationship with every other member of the family) has only become more strained. It has been touch-and-go with him for years, but it has really started to affect my daughter this year. I have tried to talk to him about it (even again recently), but unfortunately I get more excuses than I do genuine communication that might help solve some of these issues. It’s an unfortunate situation and one I had hoped would be on the mend by now. But at least my sister is consistent and seems to value family as much as my parents and I do.

At this time last year I had just finished most of the decorating, card sending, and shopping, which was uncharacteristic for me. This year I finished the decorating early in December (due to our trip to the Midwest over Thanksgiving), had the cards mailed out this past Monday, and had the shopping and most of the wrapping done with two days to spare. I started listening to Christmas music two weeks before Thanksgiving (which goes against one of my staunchest rules), due mostly to the release of this holiday collection. And I’ve just had a genuinely jovial outlook toward the holidays this year.

Now, that’s not to sugarcoat the frustrations I shared (and alluded to) in my last post. Those things are all still very real and very much on my mind. I spoke with the dentist about my periodontal surgery and he concurred with the periodontist. I can do this sometime in the near future, or I can continue to put my teeth at risk of having to be extracted down the line. Periodontal surgery is still tentatively scheduled for March 2011. I did receive a check that will help defray the costs some and also helped replenish my dwindling emergency fund, so I am not quite as worried about finances as I was when I wrote the last post. And my water heater is not only fixed, but it was an inexpensive repair and I don’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars to replace the entire unit right now!

The good news in all of those things is that even though I’ve had things on my mind that have weighed me down this holiday season (and still do, unfortunately) they have not managed to crush my overall outlook like similar circumstances did a year ago. And a brighter outlook has allowed me to find a little more joy in the holidays this year.
My daughter and I always spend the first week of our Christmas Break from school at home, before heading to the Midwest to see our extended family. And we always try to make the most of that special time together. This week we visited some of her old daycare teachers and had lunch with some friends/former co-workers of mine. We also visited an area lighthouse with a new/old friend (someone from my childhood that I have recently become reacquainted with. And for those of you who are wondering, there’s no dating potential-this particular friend is a man.) We carved out some time to see Tangled, which vastly exceeded my expectations. And we headed to the beach for our annual Christmas Eve excursion. And in the midst of all the excitement, my daughter managed to lose three teeth, two of which were the coveted “two front teeth” she had so desperately wanted to lose before the Big Day. Tomorrow, after all of our morning festivities, we’ll hit the road for the first part of our journey to see the rest of the family. It’s been a busy week, but I’ve found in some instances being busy can be a good thing.

So what can I conclude from all of this? Am I naïve enough to believe that grief cannot strike when my mood is “up”? Absolutely not. It already has this season and it will continue to. Do I think that I am somehow untouchable because I’m not in the same kind of rut I was in last year? Not at all. There are still plenty of negative circumstances surrounding these holidays and life in general. They have just not affected my overall outlook in the same way similar things did a year ago.

My daughter asked me last night how many Christmases this makes without her mother. She seemed surprised when I told her it would be the fourth. She sadly does not really remember Christmas with her mother, but thankfully we have video she can watch to supplement what her mind will not conjure up. She had some tough moments early in the season and has done more visible grieving than I recall her doing at this time last year. My moments of grief have been more subtle, but still very much a presence. During this, my fourth Christmas without her, the overall grief has abated some. I know this does not mean it will do the same next year, but I think a general pattern of abatement is likely.
Which makes me all the more mindful of the widow/ers who are still newer at this than I am. For some it will be the third or second or even the dreaded first Christmas without their husband or wife. If you are reading this and fall into that category, know that you are on my heart and in my prayers more at this moment than any other. And know that each Christmas is different. If this one is particularly hard, the next one may be better. And if it isn’t, then perhaps the one after that will be.

Wherever you are in life as you read this, I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011.

On Random Updates

I don’t really know how to begin this post.

And that has been a good portion of the reason for my absence from this site the past few months. There have been things I have wanted to write and times I have wanted to write them, but the two have not crossed paths. And even then, the posts have not been taking shape in my mind the way they usually do before I ever sit in front of this screen (and even now there have been much longer pauses in my keystrokes than normal). In order for a post to make the site (generally) it has to flow from my brain through my fingertips. And that just hasn’t been happening.

Now, I won’t lie and say that I don’t know the reason(s) for this, because I do. Sheer busy-ness has been one of the main culprits. I rarely play the single dad card, but in this case I must. For those of you who are new to this site, I live 800 miles from my closest relatives. So everything that needs to be taken care of in a day/week/month/year falls on my shoulders. There is no dropping my daughter off at grandma and grandpa’s so I can do this or that. Now, I realize that I made the choice to stay here after my wife died, but one of the unfortunate consequences has been not being able to update this site nearly as often as I would like.

I have also had a lot weighing on my mind, some of which I unfortunately cannot go into here right now. I can sum things up by saying there have been some health issues, some family issues, and some possible financial issues. Actually, that one I can go into here. I found out the day before Thanksgiving that I am going to require some extensive periodontal surgery in the spring. Well, really anytime is good, but I don’t think I’ll have the money until then. I’m not a perfect financial planner, but I do have a budget and live within my means from month to month, so money is not as constant a worry as it once was. But I don’t have dental insurance. And my emergency fund is not prepared to take that kind of a hit right now. And truth-be-told, I’m a bit of a control freak about certain things, and oral surgery was not part of my overall plan (even though I have known it might be a possibility for a while). And on top of that I found out I am likely going to have to buy a new water heater…

But I digress.

Most nights I have been falling asleep earlier than normal. I’m a night owl by nature and most nights recently I haven’t seen ten o’clock. Which is good for my overall health and well-being. But it’s short-lived. It inevitably comes in cycles and I end up with nights like the past couple where I cannot get to sleep until the normal time or even later. (It’s the middle of the night as I type this, though I will not likely post it until tomorrow). So I’m exhausted when I need to be alert and sometimes alert when I need to be exhausted. And as if that wasn’t enough, I had a dream about my wife last weekend. It was the first one I’ve had in a very long time and was similar to the first few dreams I had after she died. Only this time she was already in the hospital when I found out she was going to die and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Those dreams never get any easier to take.

But actually, as many of my long-time readers will note, the sleep issue is not really such a new pattern with me after all, so I guess I should get to the updates.

My daughter started first grade in August. I didn’t think that first grade would be a grief-trigger for me, but I was wrong. Parents expect to have difficulty letting go when their child starts kindergarten, but first grade should be old hat, right? It was in all of the normal, routine ways. But my wife was in her second year of teaching first grade when she died and that thought has bombarded my mind many times over the past several months. I think about the skills my daughter is learning that my wife taught to her students now four and five years removed, the books she read with them, the papers I helped her grade. And to complicate matters, my daughter’s teacher is a young expectant mother whose baby is due near my daughter’s birthday. She does not remind me of my wife in appearance or demeanor, but the new mom dimension has been hard to think about at times. Those were such happy times, and while I’m thrilled for her teacher and her husband, it still amplifies my own sense of loss. I think it would be that much harder if my wife had been teaching first grade when our daughter was born, but thankfully she was still teaching third at the time. And my daughter’s teacher is expecting a boy, which somehow helps a little as well…

We spent a lot of time trying to see family this fall. Living as far apart as we do, we welcome any chance we get to meet family, either where we live, where they live, or somewhere in-between. In October we met my parents in-between one weekend and my wife’s parents in-between the next weekend. It was a lot of time on the road for a little bit of quality time, but it was well worth it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, so the week before Thanksgiving I made the official decision (I had been contemplating it for a long time) to head back to the Midwest for Thanksgiving. That’s not something we do every year and it was a decision which was complicated by a few factors. Normally I have the day before Thanksgiving off, but due to some school cancellations early in the year we were required to use that day as a make-up day. On top of that, plane tickets were outrageously priced (a thousand dollars for two weekend plane tickets was also not in my budget), so we were locked into driving. Fifteen hours each way. To be with family for two and a half days. I know a lot of people would have taken the day off and pulled their child/ren out of school, but I made a rule before kindergarten that I would only keep my daughter out if she was too sick to attend. (Which, interestingly enough, happened the day after we drove fifteen hours home!) Even so, it was still worth making the trip to be with family for Thanksgiving and a few other special events…

The weekend after Thanksgiving held a milestone of sorts. It was the anniversary of my first foray into the dating arena. I didn’t actually think about it until the day before and am not sure I would have at all had it not been in such close proximity to Thanksgiving. But I did think about it some. A year later, it’s not a decision I regret making. But it’s also not one I’m anxious to make again anytime soon, no matter how many “nice Christian girls” my friends and co-workers want to set me up with…

And now Christmas is upon us. Last year at this time I was in a rut and had difficulty being excited about Christmas. Thankfully that is not the case for me this year. We got the house decorated last weekend, the Christmas shopping is about half-completed, and the cards are in a box on the kitchen table ready to be signed. Having a brighter outlook toward Christmas this year has been a huge blessing.

Mostly because my daughter is struggling so much with it now.

My daughter continues to experience her grief in waves, much like I do (though not always during the same periods). But sometimes it blindsides her as well. Last weekend was one example. If you’re not a widowed single parent of small children, then you’ll have to take my word for this next sentence: Comforting my grieving child is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. When she says things like “Mommy will never get to watch me open presents again” or “Mommy won’t ever get to read me a Christmas story again”… there are no words that can heal that kind of pain. But even worse than trying to comfort her without being patronizing, is having to watch her endure the kind of pain that grief can bring and not being able to do a thing about it…

So I guess that is my update of sorts. Now that I’ve typed it, it seems as scattered as it did in my head. But I wanted to get something on here for those of you who have been genuinely concerned about my absence. I truly do appreciate your messages and Facebook comments. I’m slightly better about returning e-mails than I am about posting here or on Facebook, so should I go missing again, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

It actually kind of brightens my day when you do.

And right now my days could use a little brightening.

On How I Spent My Summer Vacation

As a school-based employee, I am afforded the luxury of having an extended break from work during the summer months. Yes, I do work a couple days a week most weeks, but in general I am able to take the time off and really enjoy the summer months. My wife was a teacher, so it was a double blessing for us to be able to spend this time together when we were first married and throughout our marriage. Many of our vacations were spent with family, either visiting them or entertaining them in our home, but occasionally we branched out a bit from our normal vacation routine.

Four years ago was one such time. My stepdad turned sixty that summer and my mom planned a surprise trip with out entire family, which was no easy task considering there were thirteen of us at the time and we lived in three separate states. However, being the expert planner she is, she/we were able to pull off the surprise. We actually rented a beach house about half an hour from where I live, which made the surprise part all that much easier (we incorporated the week into part of their annual summer trek to our house). My wife and I enjoyed being able to play a small part in the surprise, and it was our best vacation as an entire family.

It was also our last vacation as an entire family.

At the time, my wife was starting to show signs of her illness becoming worse, but she was under the best care we could find and the doctors had given her clearance to lead as normal a life as she cared to. The month after our beach trip we spent our five year wedding anniversary in New York, a city she had never visited, but had always wanted to. Seven months later, she was gone.

This summer my mom also had a milestone birthday (though with respect to the lady, I will not mention just which milestone it was). My sister and I had previously discussed doing a trip for Mom’s next milestone birthday when we were all at the beach four years ago, but none of us knew what would happen in the intervening months and years. Last fall we decided to start looking for a place to vacation anyway. My only request was that we did not do it here again, as I thought it might be too painful to duplicate that atmosphere with all of the same players. Minus one.

Our original plan was to head to the Gulf Coast. She had a friend in Alabama who could get us a good deal on a rental, so we set the plan into motion. Then my older brother announced that (for reasons I cannot go into here) they would not be joining us. That dropped our number to ten. Then the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill happened. (On a side note, I am amazed at the number of times I heard about the poor pelicans and possibility of oil stained beaches in comparison to the number of times I heard about the people who were killed and the families they left behind). So we decided to move our trip elsewhere, preferably as far away from the possible effects of trace oil and tar balls as possible.

So in mid-June, we set off toward Maine. I had never traveled to the New England states (well, not any further than Stamford, CT at that point), so we took a couple of extra days to get there. It turns out a lot of that time was spent stuck in traffic and driving around certain cities looking for the way back to the interstate. My parents traveled with us, so that was an added bonus and we had an enjoyable time. We finally arrived in Maine on Saturday afternoon and my sister met us with her family a few hours later. By this time, my younger brother had also backed out of the trip (for reasons that were at least a bit more valid than my other brother’s, but frustrating nonetheless), so there were only eight of us who spent the week together in our rented house. We were about a five minute walk from the beach, which was magnificent, but so very different from the beaches I have grown accustomed to here in the Southeast. I’m not much of a shutterbug, but I took several hundred pictures during our week-long stay. (Check out my Facebook page for a larger selection than what I’ve posted here).

I have to say that New England was everything I thought it would be. From the many quaint towns we visited, to the rock outcroppings along certain highways and the entire coastline, it was simply magnificent. There were so many places we were unable to travel to (Gloucester and Rockport, MA for one) that I am most assuredly going to have to travel that way again sometime. We did manage to spend a day in Boston hiking the Freedom Trail, which took us throughout the city and allowed us to see many famous sites that were important in the Revolutionary War (check out photos of that on my Facebook page as well) and an afternoon at the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, ME (yep, more pictures of that on Facebook too).

I cannot say enough what an amazing time it was. Family has always been very important to me and I cherish whatever time I am able to spend with my loved ones. I was worried that this trip would have an adverse effect on me, even though the location was so very different from our last family beach trip. I cannot say that the effect was adverse, but there were many times when my grief was much closer to the surface than I am used to it being these days. One afternoon in particular I remember being in my room at the rented house and just sorely missing her. It seems a bit silly, knowing that she’s in Heaven, but in those moments, I just really wanted her to share Maine with me.

The day after we returned from Maine, Bible school started, so I busied myself with lesson-planning and skit practice for my role as a ranch-hand who couldn’t sing on-key. My parents left and her parents arrived. We spent a few days with them, including some time at the beach and watching fireworks over the water on the Fourth of July, before heading to another place I had never visited (though this one was a much closer than Maine!)

Charleston, South Carolina is another place that did not disappoint. We only stayed a couple of days, but we packed a lot in. The first day was spent at a rice plantation, where we learned about the local wildlife (including alligators!), the way plantations were run, and the importance of the slaves who lived and worked there (not only for their labor, but also for their knowledge). In an interesting twist, we learned that following a major hurricane in South Carolina many years ago, logs from that particular plantation were sent to Boston and used to restore the USS Constitution, which my daughter and I had just seen less than two weeks earlier.

We spent that evening downtown viewing the slave market (which we were told was used by the slaves to do their trading and not used for the actual selling of slaves), eating, and taking an informational carriage tour around the historic areas of the city. The next morning we took the boat to Ft. Sumter and toured the area where the Civil War officially began. It was amazing to be able to see sites from both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in a two week time period (yes, yes, those pictures are on Facebook as well).

The trip to Charleston was bittersweet for me. We moved to the Southeast less than a year after we got married, so I got it in my head that I would surprise my wife with a first anniversary getaway and Charleston was a feasible place to do so. Plus it was on her list of places she had always wanted to go. I wish I could say that we went and had a great time, but it was not so. As I was getting ready to set up the details for the trip I realized that I had made an error and left the cost of the moving van out of our checkbook. We were juggling two checking accounts at the time, waiting for things to clear so we could close the one back home, and it was a complete oversight on my part (which was incredibly hard because I am overly cautious about finances and it ended up ruining our chances to take the trip). She was disappointed, but understanding when I told her what had happened and that I had planned to surprise her with the trip. By the next summer our daughter was on the way and we just never seemed to find the time or the money to see Charleston together after that.

My in-laws left the day after we returned from Charleston and some friends arrived two days after that. We spent a lot of time visiting local places (within a two hour radius anyway), but I unfortunately do not have pictures to accompany those travels. It was, however, very nice to be able to enjoy and appreciate some of the areas that are very close-to-home. The two weeks following that brought my neighbor’s sister and her daughter from out of state (think blueberry patch from my previous post), so we spent a lot more time around home during those weeks.

The final few weeks of the summer were spent in various states in the Midwest visiting and traveling with family. We managed to work in five days with each family, plus travel time and a side-trip of our own. In that time with family we: saw an exhibition of big-wheeled bicycles, went to a small zoo, celebrated my in-laws’ fortieth wedding anniversary (my parents celebrated their twentieth earlier this summer as well, but we were not able to be with them then), took my daughter to see her first of the Great Lakes (which she enjoyed, but promptly reminded her grandmother that it was nothing like the ocean), attended a minor league baseball game, visited friends in their home, celebrated my Mom’s actual milestone birthday (trip was planned earlier in the summer due to the likelihood of higher temperatures in our initial location in August), helped my parents with an outdoor project, visited with friends in my parents’ home, met some new people and pets, and had an all-around enjoyable time (I know, I know - quit selling the Facebook page already!).

On the way home last week, my daughter and I took a detour and went to a new zoo. It has become a tradition of sorts for us to visit a new zoo each summer. We usually take this trip by ourselves, but last summer we had the pleasure of incorporating it into a trip we were on with my parents. The zoo we went to was nice, though the exhibits were a bit overgrown, so it was hard to see some of the animals. We enjoyed our daddy-daughter time together immensely though, especially since it was our last big hurrah before school starts tomorrow.

All in all, we set foot in twenty different states this summer. Six of these were new for me, which brought my overall states visited count up to thirty. Eleven were new for my daughter, which brought her overall count to twenty-five (and she’s only six!) We spent more time away from home than we did at home, which is unusual for us. And we had an excellent summer, but for one thing:

Every memory made and experience shared is another one without her.

On Unrealized Dreams

July is always a hard month for me. Not as hard as February, but it is what I have decided to refer to as “my other hard month”. The only redeeming quality it has is that it falls during the summer and I, therefore, have more options to avoid grieving than I do in February.

July 21st would have been my wife’s 32nd birthday. It is the fourth one I have recognized alone. I hesitate to say that it is getting “easier”, but the truth is that the grief is not as raw now as it was during the first couple. Plus, my daughter is older now, so I have been able to share what the date means over the last two years, whereas I was totally alone in it the first two. (We were actually with family last year, which also helped).

For us it was a quiet day. I work two days a week in the summer, and this year her birthday happened to fall on one of those days. I did have lots of time to think about her on the drive to and from work and during the afternoon hours while my daughter was still at her summer program, but the feelings were primarily of fondness and the pangs of grief were held at bay. I teach some of our elementary-aged kids at church on Wednesday nights, so that was another welcome distraction. And as I recall, I fell asleep on the couch watching tv with my daughter that night.

Mile one, down.

One week later came what should have been our ninth wedding anniversary. As far as the day itself goes, it was very similar to her birthday in that I worked during the day and had church that night. I was able to pick my daughter up earlier that day (no field trip with the day program), but she watched tv while I took a nap, then went to play with a friend nearby while I made dinner. That evening (after church) we sat and talked to some neighbors, which was another nice distraction. I was still trying not to dwell on the day when I posted about it on my Facebook page with less than half an hour to go. But eventually I found sleep and the next morning arrived.

Mile two, down.

I think I sometimes downplay my emotions on this site. I don’t have very many attacks of raw grief like I did at first (before I could even write about it) or like some of my favorite bloggers are still encountering and enduring, but that doesn’t make it any less hard when these days arrive. It just makes it a different kind of hard.

That’s what I’ve begun to realize over the past few days. Her birthday will always be difficult in that it symbolizes one more year that she could have lived on earth and one more year she is not here with us now. No one’s birthday should be symbolic before age thirty-two. But for me, every day symbolizes that. Her birthday is just an enhanced reminder of what I live daily.

Our anniversary is another story. While I “made it through” the day okay, it’s the one that gets me. It’s the day that reminds me that I’ll never realize the dream of 6-7-8-9+ years of marriage with her. Yes, there could be another Mrs. 3SF someday, but it’s not something I am concentrating on at the moment. And the fact of the matter is, even if I do “find love again” it can’t be with her.

Now, this may seem conflicting for some of my long-time readers, considering the fact that I dated a very nice young woman this winter. (Supa wrote a great post about being a remarried widow recently). Dating or marrying someone else doesn’t suddenly erase the sense of loss you feel at having never realized certain dreams with the spouse who made you a widow/er. And I believe I may have only scratched the surface regarding that when I dated last winter.

Most of the time I am truly at peace with the idea that I could remain single for a very long time. I was okay with it before I dated and was again pretty soon after we broke-up. Being comfortable with myself with or without someone else has always been important and after two-plus years of being widowed, I finally regained that sense of self, which is what allowed me to be ready to date when I did.

But something happened Friday evening that caught me off-guard.

My daughter and I were eating at one of our favorite Italian restaurants after her appointment with her ENT in another city. We were seated at a table-for-two, which is obviously not uncommon for us. I sat facing a window and the table just below it. It was another table-for-two, and I could not help but stare at the people seated there throughout our meal.

Seated over my daughter’s shoulder were two people who could be us in 15 years.

The man was in his work uniform, which made me believe he was a mechanic of some variety. He had a full beard and his eye color was different from mine. But other than those differences, he could have easily been me. The resemblance with the girl was even more striking. Other than the eye color difference, she could have been a computer-aged image of my daughter in fifteen years.

Normally I would find a scenario like that endearing, but the other night it just made me sad. I kept thinking “This could be my life for the next fifteen years”. I have obviously known that since February 26, 2007, but these people placed in this setting at this moment in time reminded me that no matter how comfortable I am with myself and my current single/widowed status, there will always be moments of sadness. There will always be pangs of regret.

There will always be unrealized dreams.

Yesterday an opportunity arose to spend some time with a single woman and her daughter and I took it. I normally shy away from these types of situations for fear that I might lead someone on, but yesterday I was a bit more selfish (though I tried very hard not to send any mixed signals). We took the kids to a pizza place and then to pick blueberries - a very typical family-type event. And even though I wasn’t really part of a nuclear family, it felt good to spend a few hours in that type of situation. (Plus I made a delicious blueberry pie from the fruits of our labor!)

Writing that just now, I’m not sure if I actually feel good about doing it or not. But my promise to my readers has always been to stay true to my journey, and that includes the parts I’m a bit embarrassed to admit now. (Please don’t judge me too harshly).

Today has been better. I don’t feel the same sense of imminent sadness I felt Friday evening, nor do I feel the need to take any single ladies out to the blueberry patch to fill my need to feel like part of a pseudo-family for a few hours. I’m back to being comfortable with the day-to-day aspects of my single/widowed life.

And I’m really glad it’s August.

On Breathing

The last month of the school is always very hectic for me. I have mentioned before that I am not a teacher in the traditional sense of the word, so it always means extra paperwork and headaches for me. I’ve often compared it to a race, with the finish line being the final day of school and always approaching much too quickly. This year was no exception.

So why, you may ask, am I finally addressing this topic when the school year officially ended five weeks ago? And what could this possibly have to do with my title regarding “breathing” anyway?

Patience, my friend. I’ll get to that.

This year I began working at a new school, which was much closer to home and was just the environmental change I needed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my old school, but my total drive (partly due to my daughter starting school this year) went from an hour one way to twenty minutes. Unfortunately, during the last month of school I spent the difference sitting at my desk, or in meetings, or running about the school building collecting information, or… well, you get the idea.

And on top of that, I broke my cardinal rule and brought work home with me. Almost every night that month and every night during the last week or two. I even spent the better part of the last weekend before summer at this very computer typing one piece of information after another into the necessary forms. In fact, I spent so much time here that weekend that my back really began to ache. A lot.

By Sunday afternoon my back was so tight that it was actually painful. And this is from someone who prides himself on having a very high pain tolerance.

By Monday morning I was wincing whenever I moved the wrong way at work and was worried that co-workers would start to notice.

By Monday afternoon, it was evident that I needed to go to the doctor/med center. In addition to the severe pain across my upper back, I was also having trouble breathing. And that lump in my throat that I forgot to mention earlier, but had until this point thought was indigestion, had refused to go away.

So I called a friend to watch my daughter and headed to the med center, as my doctor’s office had closed by this time. As I sat there my head also began to hurt, but only as long as I kept my eyes open. It did not turn out to be a migraine as I had originally feared, but it did cause me to spend the majority of my time waiting (several hours’ worth) with my eyes closed unless it was absolutely necessary to open them.

And during this time it also became increasingly difficult to breathe. At one point I worried that it might be some sort of panic attack brought on by the overwhelming amount of work I had yet to complete. But I’ve been with several people who have had panic attacks in the past, and none of the symptoms really seemed to match up. So I sat. And waited. And worried. And tried to catch my breath.

They finally called me back to a room, but I waited there so long that I thought they had forgotten about me. Just about the time I was ready to climb off of the table and open the door, the doctor came in, all apologies about having to suture someone’s finger.

I guess open wounds trump the inability to breathe at this establishment.

The doctor said I had bronchitis and that I was to go with the nurse for a breathing treatment. They checked my lung capacity before and after the treatment and said that I needed to come back in the morning to get an x-ray. It was too late to fill my prescriptions, so I picked up my daughter and went home to bed.

Throughout this time I was a bit troubled by the diagnosis of bronchitis. I had bronchitis once in college and I remember it being accompanied by other symptoms much like those that come with a severe chest cold. A family member had also had bronchitis recently and had the same chest-cold-like symptoms. I felt fine other than the lump in my throat, the pain in my back, and the extreme difficulty in breathing just one single, normal breath.

So the next morning I put my daughter on the bus and headed back to the med center for my x-ray and follow-up. They said that I had “something suspicious” in my right lung (though it was the left lung that hurt when I took a deep breath) and that I should take my medicine and have another x-ray done in August (keep in mind this was early June). So I stayed off work the rest of that day and part of the next day (but that was prearranged as my daughter’s kindergarten program was that morning). But the work wasn’t going to wait any longer and I could breathe well enough to function at that point, so I went in. As it turns out, I made those days up as it took me an extra day and a half to finish all of the work necessary to end the school year (I just ended up doing it on my own time).

I’m still not entirely convinced that I had bronchitis. I think it was more likely pneumonia, or walking pneumonia at the very least, but I’m not a doctor, so what do I know?

What I did find odd is that I take the ability to breathe so completely for granted. As a widower, you would think that I would cherish every life-giving breath. After all, it was the cessation of breathing that made me a widower in the first place. And many of you reading this are here because your spouse or another loved one also lost the ability to breathe. And yet, I take that ability for granted.

I did not, at any point during this ordeal, think that I was going to die. I felt reasonably certain that the doctors would know what to do and that I would feel better in a few days’ time. But I felt reasonably certain of that on the night of February 25 and during the day on February 26, 2007 too, so I guess one can never be too certain. I can say that I haven’t taken the ability to breathe quite so much for granted over the last month though…

So that explains my absence from the Mother’s Day post to about mid-June. There’s another explanation for my absence this last month, but it will have to wait for a future post. In the meantime, please check out my Facebook page and be sure to click that you “like” it. The more people who like it, the faster my blog posts will appear on the page. (A special thanks to the three of you who have checked “like” already!) And the more interest shown in the page, the more interactive it will likely become.

Stay tuned for future updates.

And cherish your ability to breathe.

On Being a Mom by Default

As happens every year, Mother’s Day has come. And by the time this is actually posted, it will likely have gone as well. This year I am not overly concerned about it (it happened last year too) as I was on the phone late with my own mom, which seems to have something to do with what Mother’s Day is all about.

Except when the mother of your child has died.

As many widowed single fathers have come to realize, Mother’s Day takes on a whole new meaning when your wife and the mother of your child/ren is no longer here to be celebrated. Its primary purpose seems to be to bring that in-your-face reminder that she’s not here and seemingly everyone else’s mother is.

Mother’s Day began for us about a month ago with the inevitable discussion with my daughter’s teacher about how I wanted her to handle Mother’s Day crafts and activities. I gave her the same answer I have given her daycare teachers in previous years - allow her to participate in the same capacity as the other students and let her choose the recipient of whatever she makes – and that is exactly what she did.

Mother’s Day must be a huge event at my daughter’s school. It seems like every day for the last week she was involved in the making of some craft or writing assignment or the like, which was compounded by the activities in her separately-run after-school program. She was vague about some of the details, which of course lead me to believe that I might be on the recipients' list again this year.

The last few years she has taken all of the Mother’s Day hubbub in stride. But this year her grief has been more visible. I’m not certain how much of this is a reaction to the intensified grieving period I can’t seem to shake (which I wrote about in my last post and is on-going) and how much is a reaction to her own feelings of sorrow. I know that both are factors. And I know that I can’t change either one for her.

So over the past few weeks she has made more comments about missing Mommy and Mother’s Day approaching. Sometimes she has wanted to talk, though all conversations regarding this topic lately have been brief, and sometimes she has simply wanted to make her comment and move on to another topic. I try to follow her lead when she initiates these conversations/ comments, but sometimes it’s hard not to draw her out more when she clams up. It’s something I have to respect in her though, as I am prone to doing precisely the same thing, so I know she will talk about it when she’s ready.

Which leads me to the saga of the Mother’s Day Tea. The culmination of the weeks’ Mother’s Day events was the aforementioned tea. My daughter had asked if I could come, but I explained that I couldn’t due to the scheduling, and reminded her that I will be taking an entire day off to accompany her on a field trip in a couple weeks. She appeared to be okay with that decision and I wasn’t worried about it as there has been very little parent participation in her classroom this year, so I knew that few students would have someone attend and she wouldn’t be left out.

Guess I missed the “Mother’s Day is the Most Celebrated Holiday at our School” memo.

When I picked my daughter up that afternoon she brought up the tea and the fact that she almost cried during it. I assumed the reason had something to do with seeing some of the other kids with their moms and grandmas (we live 800 miles from both of her grandmas, so they couldn’t attend either). I assumed wrong. She was upset because she thought I would come and surprise her even after our discussion about my not attending. She recovered quickly and told me about the rest of the day, but not before reporting that almost every other student had an adult relative attend. If my daughter exaggerated often, I would not have felt bad. But her observations are usually on the mark, so this was part two of her unintentional one-two punch. For those of you reading who have never seen your child disappointed by you, for whatever reason, brace yourselves. It was one of my hardest moments as a parent, to date.

But Mother’s Day itself was mostly about me. She woke me up with two cards. One was made by a friend at church, but my daughter had signed it. The other was a drawing she made before I got up this morning that said “Happy mathrs day! I love you” with pictures of both of us as people and again as cats. When I went out to the living room I noticed immediately that she had picked up all of the toys she had left out the night before (and simultaneously wondered just exactly how long she had been up!) I half-expected to see the table set for breakfast, but she stopped short of that (which is good as it would have involved climbing on a chair to reach the plates, so I’m glad she exercised good judgment there.)

During breakfast she asked if she could give me my present. Now, here’s an interesting story. When I picked her up on Friday she mentioned that she had a surprise in one hand and that I was not to look behind her back. She made a big show of hiding it even when she got into the van. At some point before or after the conversation regarding the Tea, she mentioned that the gift in the bag would need some water. Then she inquired as to whether I might know what it was. So I said that if it needed water it must be a plant or an animal. There was a short period of silence, followed by soft mewing sounds from the backseat! When we got home I gave her an appropriate amount of water and she disappeared into her bedroom with it. I did not hear any more mewing all weekend. Until this morning. I could hear her footsteps as she crossed the living room, but before she came into view. What I could also hear once again, was that soft mewing sound. She came into the dining room with my gift behind her back. And I can now say I am the proud owner of the only pink petunia planted in a plastic cup that can say “meow”!

After breakfast we headed to church, which was an exercise in torture. (Bear with me here). I’m starting to realize that attending church on Mother’s Day might not be in either one of our best interests, especially if we are in the midst of a particularly difficult period of grief as we have been this year. And this comes on the heels of a service which had very little mention of Mother’s Day as the pastor is preaching through one of the books of the Bible. I can only imagine what it might have been like if he had delivered a traditional Mother’s Day sermon. The first year we spent the weekend alone at a friend’s beach cottage. I’m tempted to see if I can call in a similar favor for this Sunday in May next year.

After church we went out to eat, then to a birthday party for one of my daughter’s classmates. It wasn’t exactly how I wanted to spend the afternoon, but it was important to her that we went. The timing of the birthday party interfered with my plans to head to the beach, even though it was twenty degrees colder today than it was yesterday, so I knew it would likely be cold and windy standing on the edge of the country with the ocean at my feet. But after the party my daughter asked if we could still head to the beach because it was Mother’s Day and she wanted “to do something special to remember Mommy”.

They say “great minds think alike”. I say sometimes grieving minds do too.

So we drove down to the beach in attire that was not appropriate for beach combing, but was good for a short walk on a windy beach day. Except we would have been better off in shorts and swimsuits. As a general rule of thumb, the beach will range anywhere from five to ten degrees cooler than it is in town during all seasons except summer. Today, of all days, was the exception to the rule. Not only was it just the right temperature, the breeze was slight, and the waves were gentle. It was one of those perfect days at the beach. Except we weren’t dressed for it, and it was Mother’s Day, and I was getting a sinus headache.

Okay, the headache hit pretty fast so I’m not sure how much of it was truly sinus-related and how much was me being angry that of all days this would be the perfect beach day and we weren’t in the right attire or frame of mind to enjoy it. Despite all of this, we did stay for a short while – long enough for my daughter to carefully make a small fortress out of wet sand. I was further irritated thinking that she was going to somehow get her clothes wet and I had no way to dry her off (though I thankfully did not let her know I was irritated). When we left, she told me that she had built that for Mommy and she as glad we had come to the beach.

Leave it to my six-year-old to put a positive spin on my negative outlook.

When we got home it was time for the dinner/bath/bedtime routine. Then I called my mom (my daughter had spoken to her earlier in the day), which is where I had just left off when I started this post. And as I mentioned, it is already after midnight, so Mother’s Day has officially passed on the 2010 calendar.

But I can’t help but wonder what it will continue to bring on our grief calendar.

On Avoiding Grief

I have been avoiding this post for two weeks.

Or trying to anyway. The content has been here, it’s the writing I’ve been trying to avoid. This, of course, has been part of an attempt to avoid something of a much greater magnitude. Namely, my grief.

It’s been over three years. I’ve managed to resume a sense of normalcy for my daughter and myself. I’ve even tried my hand at dating again. I have what I would consider to be a relatively content life, especially given the circumstances. So why in the world have I been actively grieving the past two weeks?

I should take a moment to clarify that statement. I have never ceased grieving over my wife’s death. I have just felt over the last 12-15 months that it has moved from an active state of grief to a more passive one. I miss her just as much now, but not in the raw, broken way I did during those first several months and into the second year.

So in a moment of naiveté I guess I allowed myself to put my guard down a bit. I got comfortable. I became passive in my grief. Then I was slammed back into the rocky crags by yet another pounding wave of active, self-exposing grief. And as has been the case over the past three-plus years, I was completely blindsided by it.

I should have noticed the signs. We had a particularly nice visit with family over Spring Break, but I was more aware of my wife’s absence during this trip than I have been at any other time in the last year or so. It seemed that everything reminded me of her. The visit to her stone was especially poignant in that my daughter asked for a moment alone, then went to the car so that I could have some time by myself. She returned from the car just at the moment that my tears began to flow, though she had no way of knowing that since my back was turned to her the whole time.

We returned to a flurry of activity and I thought I could bury myself in all the trappings the end of the school year brings. The first week home was especially busy and stressful, but by then my sleep cycle was out-of-whack – another sign of things to come. Many widow/ers have mentioned the issues with sleep cycles, but again, I was naïve enough to think that once this evened out initially, the erratic patterns would not return. But for the better part of two weeks my sleep cycles were wildly out-of-control. One night I’d be up till the wee hours before sunrise, and the next I’d be asleep on the couch soon after sunset.

Then there was the dream. I have mentioned in previous posts that I have seldom dreamed about my wife since her death. And all of my dreams thus far have been overshadowed throughout by an impending sense of doom. This dream was different. But I think I’d like to go back to the impending doom dreams again.

I don’t remember much of the actual dream itself. What I do remember are the last few fleeting frames – glimpses of beauty I have not seen in a very long time. When I awoke I truly thought it had been real. And in that foggy, pre-dawn moment, my reality came crashing down around me all over again.

I felt a bit like the Time Traveler’s Wife, a woman who spent her life constantly holding on to her love, knowing he would disappear, and often waking up with the realization that he had. I left the dream holding on to my love, and woke up knowing that she, too, had.

It is never easy to be blindsided by grief. I have mentioned here before that every time I figure out how it is going to manifest itself, it develops a different pattern for doing so. I’m serious when I say that I’d like to return to the impending doom style of grief-related dreaming. At least in those dreams I am already aware of what has happened and the fact that I am powerless to change it. I prefer that to being handed a glimpse of hope and waking to find that it cannot be attained this side of Heaven.

That happened on a Saturday, the week before last. The weather was beautiful, so I threw myself into several hours of yard work (or as I like to call it “yard therapy”). I transplanted flowers into a new bed (the one with the birdbath I’ve shown in previous posts), weeded for several hours in other beds, and even dug out the space where I plan to eventually hang my hammock. But apparently my yard therapist needs a raise. None of that work provided the payoff that a job well done typically yields. But I guess it was worth a shot. And at least the yard was starting to look ready for the season, which was an improvement over the house.

I generally keep a clean house. Now, that doesn’t mean that the dishes are always washed immediately following a meal, or that I don’t miss a week cleaning the bathrooms, but as far as cleanliness goes, I’d say we do okay. It’s definitely nothing that would land us on an episode of Hoarders (I watch that too, Dan), even when my daughter has toys and artwork strung across the entire living room.

But that week I let the housework go. Completely. I washed clothes and dishes on an as-needed basis, but nothing else got done. No sweeping. No vacuuming. Certainly no dusting or mopping or cleaning of bathrooms. But by Sunday I realized that it needed to be cleaned regardless of my emotional state, so after church I put on some cleaning music and my daughter and I spent the afternoon cleaning up our respective messes. And several days later it remains in a state of relative cleanliness.

I need order. I seek calm. Chaos has no place in my life. And three-plus years after the most chaos-inducing event I’ve ever endured, we have managed to come to a place of order and calm.

But that does not, by any means, make us untouchable. Rather it makes us vulnerable in increasingly penetrable ways. It takes us from a long series of relatively normal days to erratic sleep cycles and haunted dreams, interrupted routines and binge sessions with a large bag of M&Ms.

It is grief. It is raw.

And it is my reality.