Fifteen Weeks

I've asked around and I've read around. Guess it's pretty normal to feel alone, abandoned, ostracized. It comes hard at so many levels and at so many times.

After the funeral, when everyone except my mother and brother headed home, when the phone quit ringing off the hook, when I was no longer pulled in thirty-seven directions; I got scared. What was going to happen when everyone had to leave? I still had family with me and my main support group of friends who never left my side. But I started to understand that at some point, I was going to be left alone with this grief. And I knew the grief was only going to settle in and get deeper as the shock wore off.

The day I drove my mother to airport, my brother having left a couple days earlier, was panic inducing. I sobbed the entire drive home. I walked in the door and tried not to scream. It was the first moment I had been alone in our home since I heard the news of my husband's death. My neighbors showed up later and brought Chinese to eat on the porch. They stayed up with me until I could go inside to sleep. And for weeks, my little support troupe traded me off, one to another, never leaving me alone for more than a few hours at a time.

I knew at some point these wonderful people who are my main support, people I saw daily, would have to pick their lives back up and I'd start seeing less of them. I'm so thankful for all they gave up to spend each day with me, make sure I was eating, stay up all night with me until I could sleep, take me grocery shopping because I hated to cry in the market isle like a common housewife. They stood beside me for every first I had to do without my Steve. The second and third usually, too. And they're still here. I can call at any hour; they'll come running full tilt boogie. I try and save those calls for when I can't last another minute without a person sitting next to me, just to lay eyes on another living human. They've given so much to me already, I hate to ask for more.

So I started looking around for others with which to spend a little time. Distraction with dinner, a movie, pedicures. Anything. I'm not good at asking for help. But I knew I couldn't spend too much time alone and it was unfair to continue to rely so much on those around me - they needed a break. So I started making a few tentative calls, sent out a few e-mails, a text here or there. A few people said they wanted to get together but were never able to pull the trigger on setting a date. I quit calling them. To be fair, I never specifically said "I need this. I need some human interaction or I may just disappear in all this grief." It felt too much like begging.

A couple of people have managed to set dates. Sometimes they aren't available for more than a week out. I don't mind; it's something to look forward to. I get the sense they are looking forward to seeing me - if not as much as I am to see them, at least they aren't avoiding me. I don't feel like they're scared my widowhood will rub off on them. But there are an amazingly short supply of people who feel comfortable spending time with me, even if it's just over the phone.

Then there's the real reason I'm alone. My husband is dead. I know he didn't want to leave me, he had no choice in that matter, he would've fought or bought his way out of leaving me if he could. It doesn't change the fact that he's gone. And at some most basic level, I am so very hurt by him that he's not here. As if it were his choice. As if he packed his bags and walked out on our marriage. As if he could change his mind at any moment and come back home. And it just hurts so. damn. much.

I've tried on several occasions to explain "I just need a little contact. Talk about celebrity gossip, tell fart jokes, read the telephone book to me, it doesn't matter. I just need to feel a little human contact now and again." I've tried explaining "It doesn't matter if you say the wrong thing, I'll decipher the true meaning of the sentiment. I'm grieving, not stupid." I've tried hard not to break down or crack in front of anyone except my nearest and dearest. I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable. In the end, I can't make people show up and I've had to quit trying to figure out the why of it.

Instead, I decided it's time to go out and start getting that new life. That after-Steve-life. So I'm going to yoga twice a week. The goal is three times a week. I may not meet people but I feel more centered afterward. I feel cleansed. I've been invited to join a quiz night with a group of people at a local pub on Wednesday nights. It's one less dinner I have to cook and it turns out I know a few weird pieces of information. Eventually I may learn how to interact like a normal person again, but they don't seem to mind I'm a little off in the head. And I enjoy their company.

It isn't much, but I'm getting out the door a little more often now. I have the people who return my calls, the ones who are happy to spend a little time with me. I am learning to be more thankful every day. And, maybe, just a little more tuned in to what's going on around me; a little less absorbed in my own small world. A reason to be even more thankful.