No Skin Off My Nose

Judging behavior not the person and based on experiences.  I tell myself "no skin off my nose" about things I try to not let bother me lately and often I find it is what I try to convince myself of with the annoyances of what Jerry's son does or does not do.  Yes, supposed to be my son too after being married to his father for 53 years, but I do not feel that comfortable with him and I do not believe he does with me either.  After all his head has been directed by his mother and even though he was here through and on Jerry's last day, and did what he felt he could, the attitude resumes. While here he sat with his phone most often.  Was ready to leave as fast  as he could which was ok with me. No way  would I try to explain to him that just maybe a bit of support would have been nice.  The words and promises, "if you need anything just call me..."  Sure, as if it were that easy.  They live in CA, we/me in MN.  So that is empty to me.  

Actions speak louder than words and lack of being in touch and overall lack of concern  resonate clearly with me. Now not even occasional texts from DIL. What else did I expect?  Not much really but guess I had hoped for better.  What has me referring to no skin off my nose is the latest  as time approaches for Jerry's committal service in May. "We'll be there" he said when he was here and on the phone since.  And they will.  We means he, DIL, and adult grand daughter and grandson.  Although both grands are married with their own lives (?) they are still interwoven.  That is how they live and it is a lifestyle neither Jerry nor I understood having been independent people who managed to live away from family and who raised our late son to be independent as well.  Not so they. So he called to say they had booked their hotel suite  would fly the day before the service and leave a day after.  Staying at a hotel across the river in La Crosse.  I ponder why other than they know it is the "right thing to do" they are  flying in for the service.  Perhaps he really does care, but this feels very nonchalant.  Obviously no concern about if I might need something because there will be no time for it.  I can hear Jerry telling me, "you expect too much from people"   

At least the granddaughter is in touch, phones at times and talks.  I feel a closeness, love for her.  The grandson, nope not after his snit when we were in CA in 2015.  He hurt Jerry and never apologized and so I was done then and  remain done. When I am through I am really through, truly a no skin reaction.   Perhaps it is defensive on my part to not experience the same treatment again.  I prefer to think I am wiser  than I used to be and have learned that when people show you who they are, believe them the first time.  Do not give them another chance to show you.  Forgive, sure but that does not mean interact or return for another dose.  I would love to have had time to spend just with granddaughter who called to share her exciting news that she is pregnant, expecting their first  in September.  Her hubby will not be coming along, someone has to take care of the home and their 3 dogs! But that will not be either and Mom and Dad are in control. 

I am also a bit disappointed that SIL will not be staying longer, but her partner is coming with her and he has a medical appointment on May 10, the service is May 7, so they will need to return to Denver quickly.  What was I expecting?  Maybe that she would be able to stay for a week or so and  spend time with me.  Yet I understand and she did a lot when Jerry was ill.  Marty has issues to be dealt with and yet he is making the effort to be here in support.  And Jerry reminds me from afar beyond, "you expect too much from people.  Expect nothing and they will not disappoint you.".  

 I did not realize my expectations were so high but now I am learning that really they are.  When I got annoyed about something Jerry would remind me to "consider the source. People  only know what they know. For some with limited life experiences they do not know much.  

I suppose I expected that they might have a taste of  grief I am working along.  Maybe they do.  I am perhaps looking through my own expectations and how I have and continue to act  helping through deaths, burials, funerals.  It was never about me, always about them. Now that it is central to me, I feel it is still just about them for their convenience for fitting into whatever all else they have happening.  I suppose I expected that these really were concerned about me just a little, and yet now I clearly feel not so and I am disappointed.  I know I am on my own.  I know I will survive.  And I know I will get through this.  

I will be here alone again right after the committal. nothing new, I have been alone these month s now since December.  I will deal with myself and my grief  just as I  have been doing.   I will survive because I have to.  But this has been a  reminder that all I have is me and the Lord. and my friends here whom I try not to pester.   

 I  follow a FB group, "Grief Speaks Out" and usually always gain some tidbit of wisdom or comfort from reading, and commenting.  Most of us in that site are currently in grief stages,  some have been there for years, some are new to yet another grief, like me,  some are young, some are old.  The other day we agreed how grief does not have a timeline. 

I think I am doing well and most who see me agree.  Some marvel, some wonder, I suppose.  But only a few really know that this is the most lifechanging event for me,  possibly worse than losing Steve, our son, because after all, I still had Jerry and he was my rock.  Few know me well enough to realize and the truth is most people are talk and that's where it stops.  

Best to not reflect on what is beyond our control and on those things we cannot change. Survival means  getting back to it, no skin off my nose. .  

Lenten Meditation on why me

 

Yesterday's meditation in the Little Black Book, pictured on  the left,  appropriately reflects a lesson about the crosses we get to bear in life.  been through can share.   When Jerry was so ill and coming to the last months of his lfe, our PCP told me at my annual visit, "we all get our crosses to bear."  So true and I was certainly thinking why me, why him, why us, why now, just WHY?

Years ago in PA a longtime friend and I were commiserating.  we have both lost adult children, a grief only those who have encountered can share.  We admitted that at times we thought this "why me?" As we talked about the questions we would be asking the Lord at the end of our time on earth, my friend said, "likely when we ask why, why me?"  we might be shocked to hear the Lord respond, "why not you,  you are nobody special."  

Ever since, I have followed my why me thoughts with that response, yes indeed, why not. Some of us are given heavier crosses certainly, but if we have faith and trust, the Lord will bear them with us.  This does not ease some of the pangs of misery that we feel at the moment but it can provide comfort.  

This Lenten meditation was another good reminder....it happens in this existence,  our life here on earth.  We can only try to Be Still and Be Not Afraid.   

"Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has, and this requires transforming greed into gratitude."

— St. John Chrysostom

Grief stages and reality of aloneness

Before mass the other Saturday evening, our deacon  asked me how I was doing and said he thinks about me frequently.  I  replied, "I am doing good, I think,  and others seem to say so too.  I have my moments but I expect them and I let them be."   He asked how long we had been married and when I told him 53 years, he replied, "when you share a lifetime together like that and that is a lifetime for many and beyond a lifetime for others, you can expect to grieve.  It is absolutely perfectly natural."  I shared with him that I think I am at peace, if this is peace because I know I did all I could for those months and the last hardest weeks, when I so worried about how I would continue to care for him as he became weaker and could hardly get up out of bed.  All I could do was pray.  But God was with me and still is always. I knew Jerry despised becoming frail and feeble, his main complaint was he hated not being able to do anything, he would say, "I can't do anything."  He had always been strong, healthy. He had overcome and survived. At Jerry's last breath when he gasped and was gone immediately and I saw the peaceful look of comfort that came all over his face immediately, I knew he was better off, that his struggle ended with victory of eternal rest and that we will be together again, that we will be together in my heart here on earth as long as I live."  "  He agreed that my faith is my great sustainer and I replied, "yes, I know ...it has held me through the loss of my only son and others...it is all I have left and it will just have to be there for me.  Somehow I always suspected I might become4 a widow because Jerry was 7 years older than me, but with his health and the longevity of his family, his genes surely meant a long life ahead.  He would tease that he would see 100 and surely he could have if those lungs had not been ravaged." 

Later, after mass, at home, I pondered  if all the practice I have had these past few years in losing  my dearest to deaths has numbed me or prepared me.  I have been blessed with little despair, not the  weeping and sobbing as some do at all.  The losses may have helped me to realize that death is the end of this life for each and every one of us, no one gets out of this life alive. It certainly has required me to become resilient, but then I had Jerry alongside me as my rock, now  just me and God.  I have had plenty of grief rehearsals. 

Currently a longtime friend from PA is grieving  and marking her first a month loss of her husband.  But she has family and  from her FB posts her daughter stays the night with her,  she does not face aloneness and seems to be unable to cope.  She is truly mournful to the depths.  I feel sorry for her and yet, I feel a bit annoyed.  I think, "get a hold of yourself, you have support, family people right there....and remember you are not the only widow in the world."  But I do not say that to her,  I  only do as others, offer a few encouraging words and  will send her another card soon.  And yet I compare to myself and my situation.  I know we are different people and perhaps I am super strong because I have to be. There is no one who will shoulder this with me.  There are days when I hear from nobody and on gloomy cold wintry days I keep myself busy inside doing something, any project, because I have no human contact.  I can make phone calls and I do.  I can post to FB and talk with others and I do, but it is not the same as having another person around.  But I just have to get used to it,  Jerry is not coming back.  This I know.  

t is now just me and I must do my darndest no matter what.  I must take care of me.  I promised Jerry I would.  In fact I think once I got it into his mind that I would be ok and he believed that he was free to leave this earth.  The last week he would say, "you are strong, you will be ok, and I will always watch for you." This little cartoon I saw years ago is so appropriate, . 

 

My mother and father 
 1943 Charleston, SC

I  think back over my family and all the women who became widows, not a one of them sat around and wept nor carried on.  It just is not our way, not that they did not grieve, they too were hurt, devastated, but they knew life must go on. I think of my Mom, pregnant with me,  WWII era and my father a B24 pilot in the Army Air Corps.  He and his plane and entire crew disappeared into the Atlantic.  No trace ever found.  Mom was
young only 20 and alone there in South Carolina when she got that dreadful news, her mother, my grandmother went to her on the train and brought her back to PA. Mom always said, "life is for the living."  She did remarry and life did go on.  My grandma became a widow later in life and then immediately moved into our house.  Years later when she came out to CA to help me, a dumb young, struggling single mother, she said that she wished she would have had a way to keep her own place instead of moving in and  cautioned me to always be able to take care of myself.  Life was different then for her, she had no income. She said back then that "you never know what life will throw at you so just be sure to keep your hands folded to the Lord.  

Something else that has given me strength is my foundation in change management in career days, way back when I was implementing quality teams, etc.  Part of the training focused on the stages of grief based on the  research work of Elizabeth Kubler Ross into deaths.  Death is the ultimate change.  We learned about DABDA, and how some people cycle back and around and may become perpetually stuck in one cycle or another.  She asserts there are  5 stages of grief, reflected by the first letter of each, and peoples reactions vary.  They may not  smoothly flowing from one stage to another.  They may not move through the stages in a linear way.   

• Denial   What?  Can't be.  Will not happen.  No way
• Anger   How can this happen.. I do not deserve this. This is not fair. Where's God?
• Bargaining  Just another month, year, day, etc.  I will be a better person.  I will do.....
• Depression  My heart is broken.  I can't go on. I want to die.   
• Acceptance      So this is the end.  Let me be still.  I can go on.  I must persevere

I feel blessed and that my faith has me at acceptance.  That my faith and life brought me to this.  And though I do not like it,  I wouldn't have chosen this, it is now here .And I must go on, alone.  And keep my faith.