Easy Street

I'm sick of hardship. There are times I fully admit to the Universe that I want an easier life and I want it now! I've had my share of learning from grief, loss and difficulties. Seems to me that we can learn from kind and gentle experiences too.

We already live in a society that focuses on making the details in our life less cumbersome. All the fast food places, instant copies, Nice & Easy Hair Color, frozen dinners, to name just a few examples of so many.

I've started to use plastic cutlery and paper plates in an effort to cut down on the dishes piling up in the sink. I've even played the Lotto twice when the winning amount was way up there for the heck of it - someone will win and if I don't get a ticket it won't be me.

Bring on the easy life. I've worked hard all my life. In school, at home, in my marriages, with my children, on the jobs.

Tonight at Knit Club I struggled with a difficult pattern and after a few hours of work realized I would have to start over. All my work was for nothing. I lamented about this and how it tied in with the theme of what I wanted to post on as I drove home. Funny, but I thought about what photo I'd use for this post and low and behold ended up passing the street sign I used in this photo. I laughed about this coincidence - or was it really a coincidence? Wish everything would come to me as easily as this photo did to me today.

Reflection, Renewal and Healing

It has been less than a month since my father's death and I have been doing a significant amount of reflecting on grief, loss and the way our society deals with these issues. At work, no one and I repeat NO ONE, acknowledged my father's death. Not one "I'm sorry" or "How are you doing?" I know that I am a new employee and that some of the people I work with are younger. But not one acknowledgment seemed so bizarre and insensitive. What are we teaching our young people in school, what are parents teaching their children about life and death?

I know that an elderly parent's death warrants less sympathy in the grand scheme of things than a young person or even middle-aged one. There was sympathy provided when my husband died. But somehow this blatant disregard in acknowledging the loss of my dad hit me very hard.
When I mentioned that my father had died on 12/21 to the group of friends I went out with on New Year's Eve, one of the women actually told me to stop talking about it because she did not want to ruin her evening. I wasn't planning of dwelling on the subject. I just mentioned it because it was a big factor in my life. To have such a major event dismissed is troubling to me.

The last week has been insane. Dealing with the repair of two vehicles, getting the boys through finals, filling out the college financial aid reports, going to work, trying to shop for an outfit to wear to my father's service (unsuccessful), and dealing with all the requirements of getting my oldest to the talent contest, in addition to all the other normal duties of life as a widowed mom pulled me under the waves. There was just too much on my plate. I was exhausted and absent minded. I ended up losing the key to our mail box and having to pay $40.00 to have the lock changed. I also lost my knitting bag and all my expensive gadgets, implements and a skein of yarn from the project I was working on.

We got home from the talent contest at 2:00 a.m. Sunday (I'll post about the talent contest in another entry). I awakened tired and still had to quickly go through boxes and bags of my father's photos and awards to take to the service, starting at 1:00. I was upset with my family for being put in the position of having to jump through hoops to attend the ceremony. I felt more consideration should have been given to my situation with the talent contest where we could have held the ceremony either the week before or after that event. Again, I constantly struggle with how so few people get how hard it is to be an only parent. To just get through a normal week is challenging enough but to add on extra ordinary events pushes me beyond my limits.

I certainly was on an adrenaline rush last week. But now I seem to have crashed. I am exhausted and it is so cold here. I just want a day to myself, to take some time to reflect on my father and to renew my spirit. I am reminded of my husband's death and how there is approval for grief during the funeral and early period which gradually dissipates around the three month mark. Now that my father's service is over I'm supposed to be magically recovered, only I am finding that I'm not. The problem becomes trying to find the time to reflect and renew. As a widowed mom there is even less opportunity to fit this into my life.

I read in Dr. Phil's column in this month's "O" magazine about a woman who feels smothered by her husband's attentiveness - she lost both her parents in the past year and he apparently is worried about her well being. She feels he is being overattentive. Good for him I want to say. There are some of us out here dealing with grief and life on our own. We don't hear many words of kindness or concern or receive the support of a loving, caring spouse.

I recently was told that phrase I have absolutely grown to hate - "God doesn't give us more than we can handle." First of all, how does God really know how much I can handle? I've pretty much reached my limit as this past week has demonstrated. Message to God here - "You can stop the challenges for awhile. They are not making me stronger. I am becoming weaker, in fact. Ease up on the worn and weary and especially the widowed. We already carry such a burden in our hearts and souls." For those who believe adversity brings on strength, I will counter that sometimes that is not the case. I know it is contrary to what one would expect. But people only can handle so much before breaking.

As for the weeks and months ahead. If I have learned anything from my husband's and my Mom's death, it is that I will not stop grieving or put my needs aside because of the discomfort of others. I need time for healing, reflection and renewal with this new loss. I won't stop talking about it. Maybe I'll ask for a day off.

The dead deserve respect and we provide that with services and memorial. But so do the living and somehow we seem to shortchange the ones left behind. We are expected to go on demonstrating strength and courage. The reality is that without taking the time for renewal and healing, it isn't really possible to go on successfully.

Grief Overload

In this blog I've tried to describe how it is to live in The Land of the Untouched (those whose lives have not been touched by much loss or grief) and The Land of the Married. In a nut shell, these past almost seven years, I've felt constantly judged and compared to those who live "normal" lives, married and with a spouse. I have struggled to keep up with all of this - continuing to volunteer at school events and to be a part of car pools. But I have reached the conclusion after my futile efforts that I can't keep up and I am so miserable trying to do so, it is just better to say "No" and not care if I'm judged negatively or not.

I'm always going to come in second place or fall short because the criteria used to rate me hasn't been adjusted. And that has been a big source of my frustration over the years. It would simply be easier and more fair for everyone involved to simply cut me some slack or give me a break. To acknowledge that my load is unfortunately different from that of intact families. But there has always seemed to be such a force to keep me at that same level of evaluation. Wouldn't it have been a kind and decent gesture on the middle school to have pardoned the boys' Saturday morning detentions for being late when it was their poor overburdened mom that was the real reason they had been dropped off a few minutes past the final bell?

Why has there been such a lack of sympathy and compassion expressed? Such forceful, mean-spirited adherence to the "laws" and "rules" without even consideration of their being slightly adjusted (even once as a favor?).

When my husband was in his final weeks of life, my boss, a master's level clinician in counseling, refused to give me time off to go to the hospital. I was so disgusted I pretty much told her I was quitting because I knew it was the end and I knew that I had to be with him. It was eye-opening to me that a woman of her intelligence and education, working in a humanitarian field besides was giving me such a hard time. Did she really believe that I would ask for precious time off to go off and spend my days at a hospital? Wouldn't it make sense that I'd only be doing so if it were an emergency?

Two years after my husband's death, my oldest son needed surgery to remove some cysts. The doctor tried to assure us that they were almost certainly not cancerous but there was that remote chance. My son was scared out of his mind because his father had died of an aggressive tumor. He pleaded with me, crying, "Mama, just get them out..." The kid had reached the point where all he was doing was digging into the cysts on his leg. He was not eating or concentrating at school. Then there was a snag with scheduling the surgery because it was around spring break. the doctor was leaving on vacation and wanted to do the surgery the Friday before break. But that meant I'd need to take a day off from my job.

I was working as a teacher's aide for children with autism at the time. And when I made my request for a personal day off, they refused it. I met with the school's principal and the head of administration to explain the situation - I'm a recently widowed mom, there isn't anyone who can be there with my son, because of his dad's death from a cancerous tumor my 12-year-old is becoming frantic, the doctor is going out of town for two weeks and I don't think I can delay the surgery...

None of this made any impact. I was told that I had to make a decision on the spot and if I chose to take the day off, I'd be demoted to a substitute aide. I should add, that they were being hard-nosed because I had taken days off throughout the year when my sons were home sick or to care for my father. I was not aware that there had been a problem or that they'd been tracking my days off. I pleaded with them that now that I knew, I would not take days off in the future but could they please grant me the one day off.

They wouldn't budge. The principal suggested I try and find someone to be there with my son. I replied that I felt I needed to be present in case of an emergency. She had also suggested that I just drop my son off for the surgery and leave him there on his own. To that I responded that I felt it could qualify as child abuse since my son was so young. She just shrugged her shoulders.

Well, you know the decision I made. I took my son to the surgery and I never returned to that job again. I started taking more care of my parents with my time off and shortly thereafter, met my second husband. Life went on.

But this same type of obstacle just keeps repeating itself over and over again. Thankfully, not to the extent of this example. But recently, when I started the new job and was so horribly sick and really taken to task for having to take three days off.

I've disclosed a lot about how disheartening it always is to live among the married, among their rules and guidelines. There has been such little regard, compassion or understanding for my role as an only parent. If I had I husband, we'd probably be able to double-up and come up with alternate workable solutions. Just no comprehension of the dilemma an only parent has to face.

It has been tiring to try and have to explain myself again and again to people who just don't get it and will never get it. It is like being stuck in a car in a snowbank, unable to get out. The wheels turn over and over endlessly but you stay in the same spot, not even moving an inch. You're stuck!

I've come to the conclusion that this is the way it is going to be for me until I am hopefully in the position of being remarried. Endlessly spinning my wheels. In the end, it doesn't matter. All my qualified and reasonable explanations go unheeded. Are they even heard?

I am growing weary and so despondent of this chronicle of my life. I think that when I started this blog I really believed that I would in some way be a catalyst for change. That my posting about my widowhood would provide me greater clarity and I'd be able to somehow transmit that out into the world. But that doesn't seem to be happening. I have the clarity and the introspection but the rest of the world hasn't made any progress.

I am finding that the more I blog about widowhood, hardship, grief and loss, the more I feel all the crappy stuff surrounding my circumstances. It is like I become enmeshed in the pain - it permeates me. Sometimes I reflect on the topics I want to post about for considerable time. In writing this blog, it is as though I think about my widowhood all the time. And I've reached the point where I have to take a break from it all.

Again, I reiterate that I don't see the world or its people doing much to change around me. Is it unreasonable to even request they do so? No, I don't think it is too much to ask for people to consider the circumstances surrounding your life - to have a bit of compassion and understanding. But I haven't seen much shift in that direction by the untouched and the married. So I am resigned to this now. Not happy about it but resigned. The issue has become that I don't want to continue to endure the level of pain that putting out this blog has resulted in. I already live with a bunch of pain on a daily basis. Does it make sense that blogging about it results in me feeling and experiencing it 10-fold? I hope I am explaining it so it somewhat makes sense.

I guess the bottom line is that I want to take a vacation from my grief/loss for awhile. It won't mean it will all go away. My scrambled egg life will continue with the hurdles of financial pressure, only parenting and the relentless efforts of trying to fit into a world ruled by couples and intact families. But I do think I've spent a considerable effort trying to get through the muddle of grief/loss that I've been saddled with. People take vacations to rest and recover after long periods of work. They return refreshed, revitalized with renewed energy and insight. I am hoping taking a break from blogging will accomplish that for me. I just want to stop thinking about it so intensely and processing so much. I've reached grief overload if there is such a thing.