The Search

As the weeks crept ever so slowly following Rick’s death, I was frantically searching for people who knew from experience what I was going through. I was desperate to know that I was going to make it through this. I was okay. I was normal.

The movie reel played endlessly on repeat in my head, and I was powerless to make it stop. I had nightmares about that night. I could even smell the mothballs and mixture of gas and oil which made me queasy. I wanted to scream and throw a temper tantrum, I wanted to pull my hair out by the roots. I didn’t sleep longer than a few hours at a time. I didn’t eat, I didn’t speak unless I was screaming at the Universe for beating the shit out of me. I rarely showered or brushed my teeth. I purely had no energy, the grief was exhausting, painful, mentally, and physically draining me. I was confident I was mentally unstable and would need to be admitted if I continued down this slippery slope.

I thought I was descending into madness. It only served to add to my fear and anxiety in addition to the physical and mental agony of grief. It was as if I was holding on for dear life. White knuckling it, no life vest, without even a boat, in a vast sea of despair. It was dark, cold, and terrifying. It was as if I was in the Ocean with no land in sight. How was I going to do this? When I wasn’t overcome with dread and anxiety over this new life that was forced on me, I was searching for anyone, or anything to tell me that what I was feeling was completely and utterly normal. I needed someone to tell me this horrific pain is the price we pay for a beautiful love. But I didn’t, so I was suffering in silence. Waiting until someone noticed I had lost my mind.

It overwhelmed me and the constant fight or flight mode wasn’t helping, either. I was living alone for a few more weeks while I waited for my sister-in-law Teresa to come and stay with me for a while, to help me in this early grief period. That woman knew grief more personally than most, but even my grief seemed so dark compared to hers, so I was still unsure if I was okay or not. She had endured more heartache than anyone should ever have to in one lifetime. Her son died in a tragic accident when he was thirteen. Her husband found an escape in bottles of Vodka that ended his life twenty years later. I will never forget when she told me, “All I have to show for 30 years of my life, are two cold headstones.” I knew she would not be afraid or shocked by my grief. I was anxiously counting down the days until she got here.

I didn’t realize it then, but I experienced some substantial changes in a brief period of time. I sold my private practice after 24 years, sold our first house, sold our second home, I retired, moved to Texas, became empty nesters. Less than 6 months later, I was a widow. I suppose it makes perfect sense why my life felt like one big ball of chaos. Any one of these life changes alone would cause a person to pause, but this was loss after loss with no opportunity to heal and adjust before the next. The final rupture wasn’t only that Rick died, but the trauma of desperately trying to breathe life into him. And the reality I failed him. It was too much. It broke me, and I was terrified and was sure that I couldn’t do all the things I needed to move forward in life. Frankly, I didn’t want to.

I was a proud product of growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. We are a “suck it up, Buttercup” generation and I wore that shit like a badge of honor! I had no doubt that I was a strong independent woman. I had done hard things my whole life. Survived a neglectful mother, a house of domestic violence and psychological torture, ran a successful private practice and small business, and raised five kids! I knew I could do hard things. But this. This was  much bigger and more intimidating than I could manage. I simply didn’t know how to fight back against it. I knew I couldn’t shut it out. I knew I needed to feel all the feelings if I wanted to heal. But that was also scary for me because I didn’t really know how to show my emotions very well. So, when the tears and screams of agony pushed out into the open for all to see, it felt unsafe. I had no control over it, it just was. We all carry layers to our grief. This just happened to be mine. It’s complex for those who grieve, and I’ve heard it said that it’s as individual as a fingerprint. It is our individual life’s experiences that impact how we experience  grief and how we respond to it. And yet, there are similarities no matter who we are, no matter our race, gender, socio-economic status. Further, we can find support from others navigating the same unchartered waters that we are. There is a comfort in that simple fact.

I was searching for books that showed me what grief was like in real time. I needed to understand what was happening to me, how long it would last, and that others had similar thoughts to mine. I hated the ones that spoke of the stages of grief because intuitively that felt like a myth, and I wasn’t sure it was based on any science. It was a start though, just not what I needed. I lost what little faith I had left, so those books speaking about Heaven were not helpful for me. I went into Spiritual crisis as well. Asking  every day, “Where is my husband?” I continued to be unable to find anything about self-harm as a normal part of grief. I was still plagued by overwhelming feelings of wanting to rip my skin off. I knew it was not normal to feel that. It was an all-consuming urge, nevertheless.

I injured my right hand and ring finger performing CPR on Rick. I noticed the bruises on my hand the following day and while the bruises faded, there was a lingering injury to my finger. It was twice the size of my other fingers, and I was unable to make a fist or use that hand for anything, really without a lot of pain. Thankfully, I was left-handed because that injury lasted eight months. So, when I was feeling that crazy urge to hurt myself, I would make a fist and squeeze until I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. I also began to find solace in scalding hot water in the shower. I would sit under the water for as long as I could stand it and it was oddly comforting. It took my mind off the other pain that preoccupied my life 98% of the time. My husband died and I was a widow. I was alone, broken, and frightened.

In the first few months after Rick died, I would forget he was gone in those minutes that I went from a sleep state to being fully awake. Before my brain was fully aware. I would start to rollover expecting to see Rick in bed next to me playing on his phone, smiling as he looked at me. I would get all the way over and it would slam into me, knocking the wind out of me! Rick is dead, remember!? It was like learning he died all over again, I would scream and plead for him to come back. The mournful wails never sounded like they were coming from me. It was like it was someone else, it made me uncomfortable. This alone made me wonder if I had what it took to endure this for years to come. It was excruciating. The answer came as a resounding No!

If I were able to sleep, I would be tortured with nightmares of working on Rick in the shop. I’d bolt up in bed, chest heaving, finger hurting, sweating as if I were performing CPR. If I was “lucky” enough to avoid the nightmares another dream played on repeat. Those were the only dreams I remembered for the next two years, except for three visitation dreams from Rick. I was on a mission to find something. I didn’t fully understand what it was, but over time I realized I was searching for Rick. The only difference in my dream was the places I visited, I only visited once. But the theme was the same. I was desperately searching for something, and people were telling me I couldn’t find it, that it was too hard or impossible. I would get angry and scream at them, “I will find it. You don’t understand! I must, please help me!” The dream was chaotic as I changed outfits for the activity I was doing. Skiing the alps, driving a submarine, mountain climbing, then descending into a fiery volcano, driving a yacht, a speed boat, a sea do. Climbing Mt. Everest, visiting Mt. Shasta, mountain biking in Woodworth, horseback riding in all kinds of terrain, whitewater rafting, flying a plane. I was determined to find whatever it was, no matter what the cost. Every time I woke up, I felt a huge sense of disappointment and failure.

On the nights I couldn’t sleep, I would wander around the house for hours feeling lost and out of sorts. Like I misplaced something and yet I had no idea what “it” was. This went on for days. I would walk around the dining room table in circles with this feeling that something was missing. When I finally realized my subconscious was searching for Rick I fell to the floor. Pounding my fists on the floor, screaming for the unfairness of it all that God took my person. The one person who loved me no matter if I was lovable or not. I trusted him with every fiber of my being, and he was gone! I knew I was strong and confident because he believed in me. I was self-assured and able to lead our family with him because we were a team. I’ve always believed that Rick and I alone were the type of people to be successful no matter what we did in life, but together we were a force to be reckoned with. Nothing stood in our way, if we wanted it, we attained it through hard work and determination. Neither of us were afraid to roll up our sleeves and get to work. In contrast, without him I would be scared, unsure, insecure, and even unlovable. When I had the epiphany that the reason Rick’s death was so hard for me to accept was that people like us usually got what we wanted. It wasn’t easy or handed to us, we did it from sweat and tears and determination. This would be one time that no matter how hard I manifested this. No matter how hard I worked for it, I would never be able to bring him back to me. That was impossible for me to come to terms with.

After I dried my tears and picked myself up off the floor. My hands were aching from hitting the tile floor repeatedly in a temper tantrum. I reached out for help. I wasn’t particularly good at it, but it started me on the path to learning that sometimes it’s brave to ask for help. And if nothing else, it’s part of survival. I could do a lot of things on my own, but not this. Like everything else in my life, I had no choice but to be vulnerable and I was extremely uncomfortable with it. If I was going to survive this though, I needed my kids, they were a part of Rick. I was sure they were all sleeping because it was midnight, but I did it anyway hoping one of them would see it. I knew I wouldn’t call them to ask. I posted it in our group chat though, “I need help. Can someone please be with me?”

Within an hour Wade was at my house with a warm smile and a big hug with a bag of fries and a milkshake. My baby, so much like his dad. He even gave great hugs like Rick. I wasn’t hungry but I ate a few of the fries. Then, he tucked me in, turned the TV on in my room and he sat on my bed next to me, while I drifted off to sleep. I not only felt safe with him there, but I was also utterly exhausted. As I drifted off, my heart felt full of love and gratitude for our amazing kids. Rick would be so proud of them for taking care of me as he fully expected them to.

It was around this time that I decided that I needed to share my grief for all to see. Yes, I was nervous and unsure because I had never posted dark feelings or sadness on Facebook. I liked to use FB as a resource to stay connected and make people laugh, not these moments of grief over my dead husband. It was the best thing I ever did for myself. Even though it was often hard to push the “post” button because I worried what others would think and I loathed being vulnerable. I did it anyway. I needed people to understand and see what unadulterated, gut-wrenching grief looked like. I had no idea how long grief would last, but I suspected it would be much longer than what our society thought it should be. I was determined to help improve our grief culture one post at a time.

I’m so thankful I started posting in Facebook Land, it saved me from feeling crazy and it gave me a purpose. To help others see all that is rolled into grief. The ugly, the painful, the chaos, the defeat, the ebb and flow, and the sheer terror that we face in deep grief. Nope. It isn’t simply a deep sadness we get over in a few months. That was my biggest lesson to learn. I had no idea and truthfully,  I seriously doubted my ability to survive it.