The saddest club ever
The week is not even half over, but it's been a hard one.Yesterday morning, my daughter had one of those perfectly normal three-year-old days on which her response to everything was, "No, I don't want to do that thing." She wouldn't eat her breakfast, which included at least four separate items I had prepared. She vetoed everything I was putting in her school lunch. She refused to wear a sweater, or to leave her shoes on.
I was feeling especially pressed yesterday; I had class prep left to do, and a list of phone calls to make and return that is approximately the length of my leg (and I'm pretty tall, for a girl). We're finishing up a search, and in anticipation of its conclusion, all the postponed tasks for the department and the university are reasserting themselves. We didn't have anything for dinner. It had been 3 days since my daughter last encountered a vegetable. The weather has been crappy, the bills are unpaid, the plumber isn't returning my calls. The chimney repair guys want to wait another month.
And I miss my husband. Oh, wait, that should have been the first item on the list, and the subtext of every other item.
By the time my daughter (I have got to think of a clever acronym for her) and I got to her school, we were both crying. Her teacher reports that she got over it much sooner than I did.
And now I find out that the lonely club made up primarily by Badger and me has another member.
It's not supposed to be like this. Worst of all, I suspect there are more of us. There must be.
I guess—no, I know—that it is wonderful that we found each other. I know that reading Badger's story has helped me endure my own, and that there is great strength in simply knowing others endure and survive this. There is also great sorrow in knowing someone else is suffering as we have suffered (and still do).
It's exhausting, being brave. I'm so tired that fate has made me an example of how to "get through" things. I don't want to be courageous, competent, or exemplary. I just wanted a life and family with the man I loved. I wanted him to have a rich, long life of his own, and with me. I'm still not ready to give up that wanting, or the anger at the destruction of our dreams.
Snickollet, we're here. We know, and we grieve, and we celebrate the minor miracles. We're proof that it can be done, and that it is also unbearable. How I hope your story has a better ending.
posted by Unknown @ 9:36 AM
10 Comments:
Dorcasina, thank you. Like you, I hate that we had to find each other at all. I feel strangely guilty sometimes that just watching you and Badger get through the day-to-day is a source of strength for me. And like you, I hate being courageous, it makes me tired to "look on the bright side," and I'd be thrilled to be doing an average job of just having a normal life.
Again, thank you. I don't know what else to say except "Thank you," "I'm so, so sorry," and "I'm here."
This post made me cry.
It's so true, and you are so brave, and I can only imagine how hard it must be to be that brave, too.
Bless you.
Thinking of you, Dorcasina. Now thinking of Snickollet as well. :(
I know you are exhausted and busy and brave, and demands do not stop. I know you ache for what cannot be and that there is no balm for this aching. This is the point at which my temptation is to turn quietly away, not because I do not care, but because there seems nothing I can do. But I can do this: I can be here and listen and care about you and your daughter, Badger and Badger Boy and Snickollet, her husband, and her unborn children. Still here.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
That came out all wrong. Let me try again.
What I was trying to say (and thank god for the delete button) is nothing more than a simple "I'm sorry" and I wish I could help. You, Badger, and Snickollet must get exhausted by being forced to be brave and strong. You and your little doll are in my thoughts daily.
I miss so much, and long for so much, I don't know what I'd do if I had to miss and long for this loss, too.
The world seems to be unraveling, America slips toward chaos, much of what I loved as a child has melted away.
I don't know what I'd do if someone this close slipped away too.
Everything feels so fragile.
Sometimes even poetry isn't enough.
I'm so sorry for all suffering.
Why does "one day at a time" simply seem to be the answer to everything ...
old and weary,
/e
another member for the saddest club of all.One minute he was here laughing and joking ,the next minute he was gone (sudden cardiac death)they said.
Fit young and healthy.Life has stopped.Hate the effort to do everything by myself.
I hate grieving,I hate everything.I want my life back.I hate shiny families.
Why?Why?Why
Will these feelings go away.They say you are young and attractive.You will find another.Idon't want another.I want HIM.
Thinking of you all in my misery,
Dorcasina, your words are profound, painful and wise. Nothing I could say would take away your pain, and that is what an expectator feels when they see others suffer, bleed, cry like you are doing right now. As someone who lost her mother (again, not the same as a spouse) I can only say that you become a different person, a renewed person, the stinging pain will become dull, and then you will start to blossom. Only time heals this wound, even though the scar will always be there. Have you thought of planting a tree in his memory, in your backyard? I have one in mine that I planted on behalf of my mother. It might help, as a symbol of your promise to blossom for yourself and him. You and your sweet daughter are in my thoughts
February 2006. God, my husband was bedridden on his "miracle drug" and four months from death. We were in serious sadness and denial and separation. God, I don't know what i would have done without the other YWOWs that I found locally, but there are so, so few of us. I can only imagine how well it would be if I'd been blogging then. Well, maybe it would not have been "good" at all, but at least I would have had company. There was NO support for caregivers and I tried.
I was so depressed. Things were so hard, with a 2-year-old, doing everything myself.
thank you for reminding me, for being so articulate and so far along.
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