Solo voyage.

"Grief is like the sea, sometimes the waves overwhelm you."

As time passes I realise that it isn't grief that is like the ocean, it is in fact life itself. Most of the time we bob along experiencing the highs and lows that life holds, the waves are bearable. Most of us will occasionally hit a spot of dead calm, it doesn't last and life would be boring if it did. Even those who we perceive must have an easy life will still have their highs and lows.

It is guaranteed that life will throw up massive waves, deaths, break-ups, changes that we have no control over. Everyone experiences those waves. My life with Tall had more than most. A few times I was washed overboard, drowning in the confusion. Tall was always there to grab my hand and pull me back onto our little vessel, and we would ride out the storms together.  

I think that is what differentiates the loss of a spouse from any other grief. To lose the person who was your co-pilot and rescuer means having to save yourself when washed overboard. It can take months to be able to pull yourself back into your little boat, and when you are back aboard, navigating life's waters is a lonely life. 

More than four years on and I'm still struggling to find my way. The waves keep coming, and I have struggled to get back into my little boat. Four years ago, there were other boats I could call on. They have all sailed off on their own journeys now. Maybe they thought I would be okay alone, maybe I wasn't grateful enough, maybe my plight was too much for them. 

So now I am missing Tall's hand almost as much as I did four years ago. There isn't anyone else to rescue me.

Rainy days.

 It seems to have been raining for weeks and the only thing that appears to be flourishing in the garden is the grass. It is of course too wet to cut and it wouldn't be advisable given the lawn mower is electric. Tall once thought he would get away with it, and we had to buy a new mower. 

I thought having gotten through the anniversary of Tall's death that everything would be okay. It isn't. The dark rain clouds are not just literal, but also mental. No amount of volunteering, keeping busy or filling the day can stop the waking up in the night sobbing because there's a Tall sized hole that simply cannot be filled. A loneliness that is there even in a group of people. Even after two years I find myself wanting to tell him about something I have seen or done. To ask him his opinion on a choice I have to make. I long to have a conversation about nothing and everything, to talk about the stars under the night sky. 

I should be finding myself, instead I am simply finding that I am nothing without him. All around me people are getting back to normal. Back to their lives of holidays and coupledom. I am aware that there are those who might be in a relationship that is unhappy, I know that I am better off than them. Still, seeing people together, holding hands or simply sitting side by side, makes me sad.

The second is worse.

 I had read other people saying that the seconds can be harder, yet up until today that hadn't been the case for me. My second birthday, my second Christmas and Tall's birthday had all been easier. Today being my second Valentine's Day without Tall has been much harder. 

As I said last year we never really went in for all the roses and chocolate stuff. Yet reading what I wrote last year feels surreal, I can't believe how unfazed I seemed to be. I wish I was feeling that laid back this year. May be the whole pandemic and lockdown are taking their toll on my mental health. May be I am just feeling a bit more raw. I'm not longing for a card or a dozen over priced roses, and I can buy my own chocolate and wine if I feel the need.  I am longing for my Valentine to be here next to me, to have him holding my hand as we watch the world pass by. 

Confession

 Hello. My name is Pixie and I have a confession. I am glad Tall isn't here for the pandemic. 

Yesterday the UK added another one thousand, eight hundred and twenty people to the toll of those who have died from covid-19. 1,820. Which brings the government's running total to 95,829, a figure which is probably below the reality as they only count those who died within 28 days of a positive test. In reality the number is probably over 100,000!

The truth is if Tall had still been alive the last ten months would have been awful. He would at some point had to visit the hospital, be it for a blood transfusion, dialysis or a lung drain. Probably all three several times. Even if he hadn't caught covid-19 there, there's a chance I might have caught it at the shops, for all I know I have had it asymptomatically. Tall hated being told what to do, hated being shut in the house and if he had been stuck in for the last ten months chances are he'd have broken his shielding and caught it outside somewhere. We would have argued and fallen out as I would have tried to wrap him in cotton wool and he would have done the exact opposite just to be awkward.  

I miss having him here to talk to, having him around to lift my mood when I'm feeling down, yet I know that life would have been even tougher with him here and I feel a bit guilty for being glad he isn't. 

Snakes and ladders

I feel like I am back to square one, that all the progress of the last twelve months has been lost. The perfect storm of covid-19 was followed by May and it's constant "this time last year" moments. I knew it would happen, I knew I would weep for hours on end and long for Tall, but that feeling of being lost was heightened by being alone both physically and socially. May became June and the memories continued, but this year there was no birthday card, no present to open and there were no friends to help me raise a glass of bubbly on our wedding anniversary. 

The snakes haven't just been the expected ones, there are also all the ones related to covid-19, no volunteering, no groups, no support. There was a particularly unexpected one because I signed up to an online course. One area of support was meant to help me gain the confidence to get back to work and help me with the process. My link worker had been calling me weekly to find out how I was doing and he suggested I find a course to study online to keep myself busy, so I did. It was only after I had signed up that he told me that the course meant I had to exit the programme. I think it was that snake that did the most damage.

I spent a year climbing ladders, going down snakes, but generally feeling I was making progress. Now I feel like I am back to square one, I have no purpose, no reason to "live" and so I merely exist. My anxiety of leaving the house or using the phone is back and I find myself in a deep depression. 

Without Tall life is empty.

The terrible 'T's

The global pandemic and the measures to contain it have caused mental health issues in a lot of people. There will be many people who are grieving without having been given the chance to say goodbye, living with a guilt that their loved one was without family at the end. I can only imagine how awful that must be.

For me it has meant the terrible two 'T's, trapped and terrified. I feel trapped alone in the house. There are no phone calls, no family dropping by to wave through the window. All the connections I made outside have been lost, and the support services have abandoned me. I feel very alone. Everyone I know has somebody, a physical being to hug, someone to talk to or argue with, someone to interact with.

I tried getting out the house, tried walking a bit further to shop. My anxiety was off the scale. So many people outside, so many cars. The constant crossing the road to avoid those who had no intention of keeping their distance was mentally exhausting and by the time I got home I was in tears, terrified of the outside world. I am trying to be kind to myself, but it is hard. I hate myself for going backwards, I worked at getting myself to a place where I could travel to Australia, but all that has gone.

The anxiety inevitably leads to grief, the grief that I don't have Tall to hold my hand through these difficult times. Yesterday was the anniversary of his funeral, and I thought about him all day. I want to be strong for him, I want to be all the things he wished for me, but at the moment all I want is to be with him.

I have tried.

I have tried to keep myself busy, to occupy my troubled mind. I spent last week making a bird table from an old wooden pallet, using tools that Tall claimed were his. In truth he was faster and possibly more skilled, but as the only machines we were allowed to use at school were the ovens and sewing machines, it is hardly surprising. 

During the time that I waited for the glue and filler to dry the dark clouds descended once more. Thoughts of what Tall would have said heightened my sense of loss. I tried knitting, but I couldn't sit and concentrate. 

I bought a second rainwater butt and installed it without Tall. I cussed the fact I hadn't checked the size and had to drill a different hole lower down and buy a different pipe to fit on the 'T' piece from the first. 

I know I should be proud of what I have achieved, yet all I feel is empty. The current pandemic has me trapped within my four walls alone, the steps forward I had taken have been dashed away. There's no volunteering, no groups to attend. The reality of watching people talking on TV about getting back to normal once it is all over leave me recalling that my normal is exactly what I have now.

Missing

Dear Tall.

Last night I dreamt about us. The two of us getting on with normal life, nothing special, just the boring stuff. You were walking alongside me, but I'm not sure now where we were. It felt so real, so real that when I woke to find you missing my heart broke into a thousand pieces once more. I wish I could tell you how much I need you to hug me. How much I miss having you to talk to. How much I miss you simply loving me.

I try to visualise how it felt to have your arms wrapped around me, I try to trick my mind into believing I can feel it, but today the mind trick won't work. I know all the analogies about the box with the pain button and the one about glitter (to name but two), I recite them to myself in the hope of calming my head and heart, but ultimately what I am feeling is normal. I must be kind to myself and just let it all out. 

The enforced isolation caused by the virus does little to help, the news articles on intensive care only reminding me of the awful events of almost three years ago when I thought I had lost you. You never did truly recover, and I worry for all those who have left intensive care, with many months of recovery ahead of them. Will they struggle too? 

I watch the TV and see people's lives and stories unfold. People who have found love again, a new happiness, and I am pleased for them. For me there will only be you, the love we had can never be repeated, and I know that no one would be able to match up to you, I'm far too picky. 

You will always have my heart.

Good Cheer Pixie

Abandoned

That is exactly how I feel. Abandoned by Tall. Abandoned by friends. Abandoned by the world. I could live with the friends abandoning me if I had Tall, but he isn't here to give me his words of wisdom. How I miss those words. I wonder what I have said or done to offend people. What did I do to drive them away?

My grief magnifies my insecurities like a magnifying glass with sunlight, causing sudden flare-ups of anxiety. The chain reaction of anxiety and grief, the one causing the other, until I manage to get a grip on one of them once more.  

 All I can do is get up each morning and hope that things will be different.

Sometimes.....

Tomorrow it will be thirty-five weeks to the day and exactly eight months since Tall died. May be it is because last month my mood was lifted by the promise of Christmas, may be December just was better, I don't know, but this month it is affecting me badly. 

Sometimes I wish I could just hold his hand again, have the chance to tell him just once more how I feel about him.

Sometimes I wish I could nuzzle into his shoulder and remember how he smelled, not his aftershave but him. 

Sometimes I wish he was here to just hold me in his arms, his head bent over resting on the top of mine. 

Sometimes I wish that the dip in the mattress was filled with him, his legs tucked up so his feet aren't over the end.

Sometimes I wish I could be with him........

I know I'm not alone in feeling the way I do. I know that in a few days the grief will pass once more and I will just get on with life. So for today and for tomorrow I will allow myself my tears, my uncontrollable sobbing and my anger at life.

December 9th

After a bad night, sleep broken by dreams that had me in tears, I am tired. The "happy families" in all the television adverts are starting to get to me, and I am very aware of my loneliness right now. Still, there's nothing I can do about it except ride the wave of continuing grief.

 
I said decorate the tree Billy, not climb it!

 

December 5th

The cloud is still sitting above my head. Struggling to see the point of it all. I have reached out to family and to friends, but they all seem to be busy with their own lives. Hopefully something will happen to chase the cloud away soon. 

 Get down from there Billy!!!

No need to look so snug!
 

Damsel in distress

This blog is a place to rant and rave, a place to vent. If anything I say offends or upsets, I can only apologise in advance, it isn't my intention to hurt anyone's feelings. 

After years of feminist rhetoric I am supposed to say "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle", but the fact is that right now I need a man. If the truth be told I actually need someone, anyone or anything that can help me with the practicalities around the house. I can paint a wall, and at a push a door, but skirting boards are beyond me. The hallway has patches that need filling (thanks Tall) but I don't do ladders above a certain height, and definitely not ladders on stairs. The tap in the kitchen is dripping, but I don't know what washer I need, and I'm too scared to take it apart to try and find out. The list goes on. Helpful people say "get a man in", (everyone assumes it is a handyman), without thinking how difficult it might be for a lone female to invite a strange man into the house. 

Then there is the mattress. Our mattress needs its seasonal flip. I just about managed to top-to-tail it in June, but the flip isn't something I can do alone. "Get your kids to help you." Well I could, if they actually lived closer / were physically able to and I wasn't embarrassed by the state of the mattress. You see Tall was a stubborn man and refused to sleep on a waterproof protector. He was also ill. His low immune system left him vulnerable to stomach bugs, so along with his lymphocytic colitis, a side effect of his first SCT, there were times when he was caught short in his sleep. I did what I could to spot clean the small areas where the normal protector fell short, but the mattress was still marked. Sometimes despite him thinking his fistula had stopped bleeding, it would start again in the night. Tall's low platelets left him pouring sometimes, but they weren't low enough for the hospital to bother doing anything. Again I spot cleaned, but blood is a tricky foe. "Get a new mattress!!" Well I will one day, but for now I am comforted by being able to sleep on the bed Tall died in. I like to see the dip where he lay, and sometimes I lie in the hollow just so I can feel close to him. Yes one day I will buy a new mattress, but not today. 

I am a damsel in distress on many levels.

After the storm.

I'm sure all of you are getting fed up of the cliches and analogies, but sometimes they seem to be the only way to express how I feel.

Life has been happening around me, on the whole I have been bobbing about on the tide, still out at sea, but content that I'm not currently drowning. Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from Bernard, Paula's husband. I have to confess that he has tried to call several times before since Mike died, and I have never been able to answer. Yesterday I did. The call went okay, a few tears from me, so I asked Bernard to talk about Buddy the dog for a bit. Yes dear old Buddy is still around, he's eleven now, just like Toni. Bernard talked at me for about fifteen minutes. He said how he still missed Paula seven years on, how his family had said he needed to start seeing other women, and how so far he hadn't actually been on any dates (he joined in January) as none of the ladies came up to Paula's standard. He told me he hasn't been on holiday since Paula died, there's not point wasting money he might just as well stay at home. I was clear to me after that fifteen minute call that he is lonely.

After we had said our goodbyes the calmness slowly turned to a storm. I could feel it coming, the grief for both Mike and Paula welled up inside me. The tears began to flow and I was still crying when I went to bed. I desperately wanted Mike to be there to give me a hug, to ease the pain of Paula's loss, and I wanted to be able to talk to Paula about how to cope with Mike's loss. 

This morning I am exhausted. I slept perfectly well, it is just the after effects of the storm.  I am emotionally drained.

I want to be Taz

Don't tell me you don't know who he is! Okay I guess younger readers, if I have any, won't know. Cartoon Tasmanian devil who has anger management issues, yet we all love him. 

As my limited audience is made up of people from FB, you will all already know that yesterday wasn't a good day. I was actually just another bad day in a week of not too good days where I have been missing Mike's presence very badly. I have woken up and immediately wished he was next to me. I tried to express, clumsily that I was feeling lonely on FB and the usual friends came along and simply said they were thinking of me or sending a virtual hug. That was okay, I know I wouldn't know what to say either. Then came "friends" who thought some advice was needed. I politely said thank you to everyone and expressed that their kind remarks wouldn't hold me when I had nightmares or make me a coffee first thing. I thought that would stop them in their tracks, that they would understand. Hell no! I cannot remember the exact words, but a reply came that with time I would be able to make my own coffee (excuse me, but I already can) and that hopefully the nightmares would stop (over my dead body?). Why don't you get out those four walls, get a job, go on a college course? What if I did? Would that give me someone to hold me in bed at night? Would that fill the gaping Mike sized hole? Such stupid remarks when I had clearly said what it was I was lonely about.

The cherry on the cake was someone lamenting the loss of their dog who had died aged three. Lots of her friends saying how sorry they were. How they knew how she felt, they missed their dogs too. Someone asked what had happened, she quickly responded that she was too upset to talk about it but Doodah would fill them in (Doodah being the husband). That one remark sums it up, I have no Doodah, no one to turn to when something happens, whether it be minor or major. That is why the loss of a soulmate is so much worse than losing anyone else, there is no one to turn to for comfort or advice. 

You see I am a Taz. I am so angry with the world and the stupid things people say. I want to tear the place up, it isn't fair.  I am angry with myself for not being able to make him better. I know deep down that as I don't have godly powers there was nothing I could do, but if only I had been more insistent about him not having the second SCT his lungs wouldn't have been damaged and his last two years wouldn't have been so miserable. I know in reality that he probably  wouldn't have lived the two years without the SCT, but grief doesn't necessarily compute logically. I'm angry that others still live, bad people who should have taken Mike's place. Again I know I don't have godly powers, the right to say who should or shouldn't live, but I bet I'm not the first or last person to feel this way. 

I could rant on for hours. Feel free to join in.

High days and holidays.

It is a bank holiday weekend here. The sun has been shining and FB and the media are full of pictures of people enjoying themselves on the beach, in the park and at BBQs. Last night I had to shut the windows despite the heat to reduce the noise from the loud music being played at the local pub and the fireworks possibly the same place, although they seemed to be in a different direction. 

I have tried valiantly to keep a smile on my face and up until an hour ago I wasn't doing too badly. I went outside to see how hot it was and the smells of other people cooking and their party music playing just hit a nerve. I realised that this is how it is going to be until the day I die, unless I do something to change it. For some people every day is the same as the last, I don't want special days to become just another day. I want to have fun, rejoice, celebrate and have parties. I want life to have meaning and purpose. I also want others to actually think about me too. I have become the parent who is always there when needed, "so we don't have to bother making an effort with her." 

I don't have any answers today. I do know it is seventeen weeks until Christmas, ages away I hear you say. Well I am not spending it alone. My children have until the end of September to tell me their plans and if they don't include me, then I'm going to make my own plans!