A Little Too Late

Tell your story.

Shout it. Write it.

Whisper it if you have to.

But tell it.

 Some won’t understand it.

Some will outright reject it.

But many will thank you for it.

And then the most magical thing will happen.

One by one, voices will start whispering, me too.

And your tribe will gather. And you will never feel alone again. ~L. R. Knost

This. This poem expresses beautifully why I chose to start sharing my painful journey on Facebook Land. I desperately needed to know I wasn’t alone. I knew there had to be others out there like me who were floundering around just as terrified and lost as I was navigating this new life that was forced upon me. Most times, I was desperately holding on for dear life with not as much as a life jacket. Drowning. I felt incredibly isolated because no one knew my pain, but I knew there must be someone out there who did. I hated feeling alone in my pain. I could be in a house full of all of the people who loved me and Rick, including our children and still feel so damned alone. But slowly widows started coming out of the woodwork to share their own stories of loss and survival. Widowed strangers became my friends and I leaned on a few of them hard. Those women became my lifeline, when in the beginning I didn’t have one.

Bri had dragged me to a dog competition less than two months after Rick died. There was a World Cup competition for the best dogs. I had two really good dogs Maizie and Tucker, they had won a couple of times, and had been in the bay off too many times to count, but we always missed a winning hole. To be fair, we didn’t have wild pigs in Washington so the only time our dogs got to practice was at the competitions. So, with that in mind, I was pretty proud of my dogs. Every single one would “work,” but they didn’t quite have what it took to be in that 5% niche. That was one reason we decided to move to Texas. We could get lots of practice in and our dogs could win, we both were confident of that. In this competition for each dog you ran, you got to draw a name to pair up with a professional winning dog. I never really liked to compete with other dogs, because I always felt so responsible if mine was the one to screw up and lose the chance to place. So, I tried to avoid it. Rick on the other hand was all about it. We were such opposites when it came to competing with our dogs.

Being there was the closest I felt to Rick, and I loved the feeling of comfort knowing we were doing what made his heart so happy. There would be some stiff competition, and I was hopeful we could have ourselves a winning run. I was still in that early stage where a sight, a smell, or a voice could bring me to tears. This day was no exception. Except, I was embarrassed to cry in front of these people. These people were just like my people in Montana. Country folk who loved and supported one another, they were one big family. Rick and I had slowly become accepted into their “bay pen family” and we loved so many of these people. I was always much less sociable than Rick, so I would retreat to bed at a decent time. He on the other hand, loved socializing and having a fun time during the “after parties” and would stay up well into the night. Bri was a lot like her dad that way. We had  convinced Wade and Ashley to go with us and Rick’s sister Teresa, so it was a true family affair just like Rick liked it to be.

Country people embody a unique kind of strength that I don’t think you can find within any other group, a special kind of stoic. They knew how to roll with the punches and possessed that never give up attitude. Many of the women there were “take no bull” types; my kind of people. I felt a connection with them because they reminded me of my family in Montana. And they all had a similar motto to mine: Suck It Up Buttercup! But, sucking it up didn’t apply to grief, which was a foreign concept to me.

Anyway, it was the beginning of the competition and I had rolled out of bed to check out the progress. Rick’s favorite dog Ape was running, out of nowhere tears started falling, thinking “Rick should be here.” I was standing there, ashamed of my tears because they made me feel weak. One of our friends whose name happened to be Ricky saw me quietly crying and put his arm around me to comfort me and remind me they all were so happy to see me there. As he hugged me the tears silently fell and ashamed, I wanted to melt into the ground. I told him how hard life was and he gave me a sweet, sad smile and said, “We all love you Mrs. Darlene. Please let us know how we can help you. I hate to see you crying.” As he reached over and gently dried a tear as it slipped down my face.

And that’s where my mind would freeze because I didn’t know how to ask for help. Hell, I didn’t even know what I needed. All I knew was my life unexpectedly ended in May. I didn’t know who I was, or what was happening to me. I had no idea what the future held for me, which was the most unsettling part. I was as lost as a person could ever be. As time has marched on, I have since learned that no matter what, most of us don’t have the brain capacity to even know what to ask for. Which means it’s on our friends and family to figure out ways in which to help. The only people I was good at reaching out to were my kids. And for me that was a huge step, since I prided myself on being the strong matriarch that never gave up, not this grieving widow consumed with grief wishing her own life would end! As I began to heal, I was able to offer suggestions for what people could do to help in the initial stages of loss. But, in the beginning, to ask for myself, I simply was not capable. I’d love for us to learn together.

We had a wonderful time at the competition, and everyone marveled at how much Wade looked and sounded like his dad. Wade handled Tucker because he usually ran great for Rick, but Tucker ignored me. I had run him a couple of times since Rick had passed and while he ran perfects, when it came to getting him out of the ring, he ran around thinking it was funny for me to chase him, which was also infuriating. Maizie got lucky and ran with a veteran old dog, named Red. Her owner was a good guy named Tom and he called her “Princess.” It warmed my heart how much he loved that old Red girl. I was surprised that Tucker didn’t make it into the bay off. But Maizie and Red did, and those girls showed up. Enough so, we one third in the World Cup after three rounds in the bay offs! Even cooler, three women had dogs in first, second, third place which was pretty cool for a men’s sport. We got our picture taken with the whole family and I couldn’t help but notice one was missing. Rick would have been over the moon to see this! Why did he have to miss it?

I should have been elated, while reveling in this victorious moment. Instead, all I kept thinking was, “He just missed it! He died too soon!” I pushed away the bitterness growing in my heart. It was bittersweet, with our kids and Teresa there to share in our victory, I missed Rick terribly. This win would’ve meant so much to him! Instead, I had to settle for him watching from beyond. I felt his presence that day. And some said that Rick had a hand in the dog I drew, which made me smile.

Before Rick died, I lived and breathed the Catahoula breed. I was immersed in classes, showing, competing, and rescuing. I even considered going back to school to get certified in dog behavior and doing dog boarding in Texas. Sadly, my spark went out and it didn’t reignite. Friends told me it was too early to know for sure. But deep down, I knew. It destroyed me to see that my love for this breed was extinguished when Rick died, too. I wanted people to see the ways Rick’s death impacted our lives.

It was a year into my grieving out loud on FB land, when people started telling me that I should write a book. Since I was a little girl, I have loved writing. In fact, I had a couple of manuscripts in my dresser, never to be published. I wasn’t quite confident I had anything new to offer. But I considered the thought increasingly the more pages I had written to Rick, in the pages of my journal, or my Facebook posts. I thought it was helpful for my friends to see what raw grief looked like. I loved that a kind of “me too” movement was happening as I grieved out loud. And that is where the seed was planted and has grown into not one, but two books! Stay tuned. I’m working on getting them published.