Oh, April

April is the beginning of springtime.  Plants are blooming, birds are chirping, the gloom of winter is fading and I'm forced to remember a time years ago when I was my happiest and nobody had died yet.

The beginning of April can be a little rough on me, since April 8th is my wedding anniversary and April 11th is my mom's birthday.

My wedding to Jeff was everything I could have hoped for.  We had a destination wedding that I had no part in planning so there was very little pressure or stress.  Jeff's mom planned and paid for every detail so all we had to do was show up, do as we were told, and have fun with our friends.  Writing that makes me sound like a child even though I was 31 and he was 35, but because we didn't want to plan or pay for a wedding, his parents stepped in and took over.  My mom was still recovering from planning my sister's epic multi-day wedding so she was happy to allow Jeff's mom to plan our wedding.

It was glorious.  Everything turned out beautifully and all of the before and after wedding activities were a blast.  Friends and family all said how much fun our wedding was (I'm sure my mother-in-law and father-in-law might have been a little stressed out).

The best thing about it all was that Jeff and I were able to truly enjoy the experience and each other since we really weren't responsible for anything.  My wedding day was magical and wondrous.

We then celebrated my mom's birthday a few days after the wedding and then Jeff and I were able to go on our fantastic Caribbean honeymoon without having to clean up any mess or deal with any extra bills.

Now, I sit back and reminisce about that wonderful time in my life.  Mostly everyone I loved and cared about, who was important to me at the time, was there at that specific moment to celebrate with me.  Everyone was in good health and nobody was sick.  Jeff and I were happy and healthy.  My mom was alive and well.

I truly was lucky.

I still am lucky.

I'm lucky because I was able to have that opportunity with Jeff and my mom who are no longer with me now.  I was able to experience the love from people I cared about.  Some people never get to have something like that so I am grateful for those experiences as well as the people I loved and who loved me.

Even though I get sad and nostalgic at the beginning of April, it reminds me that I need to remember how lucky I was and still am to have had someone like Jeff love me and to have had the best mother anyone could ask for.  It allows me to be grateful for all those people I still have in my life who love and care about me as well.

April and spring are the opportunities for new beginnings and I need to remember to embrace every moment and not focus on what I did have but what I still am able to have an opportunity to gain.

This Widow's Experience with Young Living

I have had a handful of people ask me about Young Living from this post if you missed it.

I just want to make sure that before anyone starts using essential oils, that you choose quality oils (like those from Young Living or another reputable company) and that you check with your doctor if you have any immunity issues or pre-existing conditions.

If you are interested in joining my Young Living community, the most affordable option is to become a member and buy one of the premium starter kits.  If you choose to become a member you will be able to buy oils at the wholesale price instead of the retail price.  But if you just want to give it a try, you can still buy without becoming a member, you just pay the full retail price.

When I first started buying Young Living oils I did not become a member right away.  It took me about two years before I actually bought my premium starter kit.  I just wanted one or two oils and wasn't interested in investing too much money.  I paid retail for the couple of oils I wanted.  When I started doing more and more research on essential oils, I went back to Young Living and bought a few more oils at retail price.

I finally realized that I could save a lot of money by becoming a member because I wanted so many more oils.  I wish I would have bought the premium starter kit to begin with.  All that matters now is that I am saving money on oils I would be buying at retail prices now that I can get them at wholesale prices.

You could also check out other reputable essential oil companies such as doTERRA or Floracopeia too.  You don't only have to buy from Young Living.  Just be sure to do your research and make sure you aren't buying low quality oils.

One of the reasons I chose Young Living over other essential oil companies was that I became a part of the Young Living community when I joined (which you will also be a part of if you use the link provided here) and I'm not on my own looking through a ton of different books or websites for help using essential oils.  We have a "secret" Facebook group that has over 1,000 members and everyone shares ideas and "recipes" for common problems that essential oils help with.  This has helped me so much.

If you do want to join and you need help signing up or help with which premium starter kit to choose, you can email me as well and I can help you with the sign up process and the starter kit that is right for you.  But even if you don't want to join my community, if you want to learn about "recipes" that can help with allergies, common colds, bronchitis, feeling run down, insomnia, weight loss support, sore throat, and coughs.  Just send me an email and I can share those with you.

Again, please do not feel you have to buy essential oils only through Young Living.  There are other essential oil companies out there that produce high quality oils as well.  You  just need to find the brand that works best for your needs and budget.

Unwilling Refugee

Valentine's Day would have been fifteen years with Jeff.  We officially decided to become exclusive on Valentine's Day, 2004.  We were married seven years later and he was diagnosed with stage iv lung cancer on his birthday a year an a half after we were married.  He died fourteen months after diagnosis.  I recently read this quote:

“It’s when the drama is over and you face the grey mudflats of the future that the real widowhood begins... You don’t ‘get over’ the man, though you do after a year or two get over the death; but you have to learn to live in another country in which you’re an unwilling refugee.”

- Writer and agony aunt Katharine Whitehorn, who lost her husband in 2003 after 45 years of marriage.

I don't know if I am holding on too tight or not, but I don't think I have gotten over his death, even after five years.  I constantly wonder what our life would be like if he had not died five years ago.  I'm not naive to the fact that a lot can change in five years, people can change, and our relationship would probably have been different, I'm sure we would have experienced our struggles, but I do truly believe that we would have stayed together.  

I do know in my heart that he would not have handled all of the death in my family very well.  Sometimes I honestly believe that it was better for Jeff to have died before Mom got sick.  I think my mother's sickness and subsequent death would have affected him greatly and he would have struggled mightily with that.  

At times, I find it really hard for me to celebrate the milestones in my own life without reminding myself that Jeff is not here with me.  

I know this is my guilt monster.  I keep expecting my guilt monster to go away but maybe it never will.  Maybe my guilt monster will plague me forever and I just need to continue to battle and keep it at bay.

What I do know is that I miss my husband.  I miss my husband and I miss my mother.  I wonder if my mother hadn't gotten sick and died soon after Jeff died, I might be further along in my grief process.  They were both just so important to me that the loss of both of them continues to make me unbearably sad.

Widowed at 34

On December 29th, 2013 my husband died.  With his death, I became a 34 year old widow.

I'm assuming that like all widow's, this was not a title we wanted but we also weren't given a choice.  What we do have a choice about is how we are going to spend the rest of our time now that our partner is gone.

Since Jeff's death, there have been four other deaths in my family.  Five people have died in five years.  That is a lot of loss and a lot of grief.  We hadn't had a death in the family for twenty years until Jeff died.  I would consider us all lucky in that respect.

I'm not going to say that I've used all of my time since his death wisely.  I have made quite a few mistakes.  But it's not the fall that counts, it's how a person picks themselves up and continues the journey.  I have learned a lot of hard lessons, some I didn't think I would be able to recover from, but looking back I've also learned some really good steps to take care of myself because of those lessons.  During this past holiday season and into this sixth year of my husband's death, I'm consciously trying to remember to follow these steps.

These last five years the holidays have been hard for me, mainly because Jeff died right after Christmas.  Before his death, I always loved Christmas.  My family has very strong traditions and because I'm a teacher, I've always had at least two weeks off for the holiday and have been able to truly enjoy it.  My mom and I would spend a couple of full days decorating her house and then we would spend at least two full days baking cookies.  It became a big deal because we would end up backing hundreds and hundreds of cookies.  My dad used to complain that we were out of control.  The year Jeff got sick, I couldn't bake because he was in the hospital right before Christmas and the following year after he was gone, I just was not in the right frame of mind to bake and my mom had to do it on her own.  I pretty much haven't baked Christmas cookies since.  I'm not sure if or when I will again, now that Mom is gone too.

This year, now that Wyoming is here permanently, I've definitely been struggling with all sorts of emotions, most of all, my guilt monster.  I decided to go back and reread my favorite widow blogger, the blogger who got me through the first two years and who I looked up to for her strength and honesty.  Her husband died suddenly when she was 29 and she is now remarried with two children and hasn't written on her blog since 2016.

I am in such a good place in my life (I have a great job, I'm in a loving relationship, I have awesome friends and family I'm close to, I live in a fantastic city) but for some reason I feel the need to punish myself by allowing guilt and sorrow to dull the happy times.

This specific post she wrote has helped me a lot.  Her blog reminds me that it is ok to move forward, to love another, and to be happy, which is something that I've been struggling with a lot since Wyoming has moved in with me.

How many of us talk ourselves into the "truth" that our dead spouses would want us to be happy now, or how many of us have heard others tell us the same thing?  We and others are constantly trying to tell us that it is ok to move forward.  But that emotional tie is so difficult to overcome. 

I am no longer a 34 year old widow, I'm now a 39 year old widow in a relationship with someone I think I could spend the rest of my life with, as long as he doesn't die too.  People give me a hard time when I say something like that, but it's hard to look at things the same way I did before death changed my views.

That's why so many of us call it a "club."  Those who haven't experienced the death of a spouse just don't understand how it irreparably changes your outlook on life in some way.  We are just not the same person we used to be.  The void will always be there and that void has altered us in a way that not everyone can understand.

I am no longer a 34 year old widow.  But five years later I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate the loss of my husband.

They Made a Mistake, She’s Not Coming Home

I received the beautiful urn I purchased for my beloved Bogeys ashes in the mail two days ago.  I was really happy with how it turned out. It was exactly what I had hoped for.  Plus, I had gotten through finals and grade day, which is hard on me because grade day was the day the doctors called to tell me there was nothing more they could do for Jeff. I was feeling pretty good. Bogey would be with Jeff just in time for his five year anniversary.

But about an hour after I opened the package the vet called me.  They told they made a mistake. Even though I paid to have Bogey cremated separately and her ashes returned to me, they cremated her and spread her ashes communally with other dogs somewhere about an hour away.

My Bogey is not coming home to me and I cannot fulfill my promise to Jeff of putting some of Bogey’s ashes with him like he asked me to before he died.

I have been inconsolable these last two days.

I am beyond devastated.

I’ve never asked why me, not when Jeff got sick and died, not when Mom got sick and died, and not when Bogey died.  But this, this mistake, this is making me ask those questions. I wanted my dog back home with me and I wanted to fulfill my wish to my dead husband.

I feel so defeated.

I’ve never felt defeated before so this is a new type of grief for me.  I’ve been trying to figure out why and I think it’s becasue all my sorrow before has been unavoidable tragedy caused by sickness or nature.  Not getting my Bogey back was avoidable and caused by human error that is now irreparable. I didn’t have to feel this pain if somebody had done what they were supposed to do. The pain I feel, and the inability for me to fulfill a promise to my dead husband, is a direct correlation to a person’s incompetence.

This adds to a whole new level of emotions leading up to Christmas and Jeff’s five year anniversary.

What I try to keep telling myself is I did what I was supposed to do. I paid the extra money and requested Bogey’s ashes to be returned to me. I did what I was supposed to do to fulfill Jeff’s wish.

But the reality is, Jeff’s wish and my promise to him will not be fulfilled and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

 The perfect urn that will remain empty.

My beloved Bogey will never come home to me.

Childhood and the Holidays

I remember this overwhelming sense of joy during the holidays when I was a child and into my early adulthood.  As a child, my mother would decorate the entire house for Christmas.  It literally was a wonderland.  I particularly remember she would put these candy garlands up on the door frames and I used to just stare at them and drool.  She also had this little Christmas village she collected and displayed that I loved to sit in front of and create little families and whatnot in my imagination.

As I got into my teens, decorating the house turned into a tradition for my mom and me.  I would help her take everything down from the attic and unpack and unwrap it all.  Then we would spend about a day and a half decorating the entire house.  When I bought my own house, she would come over and help me decorate mine as well, although that would only take us a couple hours, mainly because I was lazy and didn't have nearly as many decorations as she did.  We continued that tradition until she got sick.

My mother also baked around the holidays.  Once I was old enough to help her, somehow the holiday baking morphed into this massive endeavor.  There were staples that we made every year and once she knew I had mastered those on my own, she then started bringing in new recipes.  Some ended up staying in the repertoire and some did not.  At our height, we were probably baking close to a thousand cookies, bars, fudges, and breads in two days.  We would package these confections up in beautiful trays and cellophane and deliver them to our friends and family on either the day before Christmas Eve or Christmas Eve morning.  People always talked about our cookie trays and hoped they would make the list of deliveries.  I baked with my mother until Jeff got sick.

I always looked forward to the holidays and these family traditions.  Once I became a teacher, it was so nice to have at least two weeks off for Christmas.  I knew that I just needed to get through finals week and then I was free, free, free to spend that time with my mother and family.  Once the exhausting holidays were over, I usually still had at least a week to relax and unwind before gearing up for the new semester.

All of that changed once Jeff got sick.  Jeff was diagnosed late October and began radiation and chemotherapy around Thanksgiving.  I did not help my mother bake the year he was diagnosed.  The following year, he went into the hospital December 12th and was in the hospital during finals week, then came home December 22nd, just in time for Christmas.  He died December 29th.  Ever since his diagnosis, things have not been the same for me around the holidays.

Now, instead of looking forward to all of the family traditions and the happiness, I don't feel any joy really.  I still have the stress and exhaustion of finals week.  But instead of the excitement and joy once finals are over, it's more a feeling of gearing up and bracing myself for the emotions.  On top of that, I also need to buck up now that my mom is gone because I'm the one that organizes Christmas and communicates the plans for Christmas with the extended family.

My sister is trying to continue the tradition of holiday baking with her twin daughters on a significantly smaller scale.  She wants me to be involved but it's just too hard and I just get sad, which is not something I want my nieces to witness.  They are children and they deserve to have the same childhood I did, full of excitement and joy, not sadness and loss.

My sister and I also go over to my parents' house to help my dad decorate since Christmas with the family has always been there.  This is also something that I no longer enjoy, since it was something I did with Mom who is now gone.  This and Jeff's death contribute to this overwhelming blanket of sadness that just hangs over me.

But such is life.  I gotta put my big girl panties on and deal with it.

There's a Japanese saying: Shakata ga nai, which means it cannot be helped, nothing can be done about it, it must be endured.

I miss the excitement and happiness around the holidays.

I miss the naivete of never having lost someone close to me because of death.

I miss the simplicity of being a child around the holidays.

I miss my mom and Jeff.

It Is All Right to Move Forward

I've been struggling since my beloved Bogey died.  I started going to therapy again twice a month and have been feeling anxious, especially because I was not there when she died.  I was able to be there when Jeff and my mom both died and I worry that my Bogey felt alone and needed me.

I am also realizing that without a dog in the house, I have so much less responsibility and have more freedom to travel and stay away from the house longer.  I miss my dog so much but I am enjoying the freedom not having a dog provides.  Along with this comes the guilt.  I dreaded the day Bogey would die and I'm having a hard time dealing with the juxtaposition of missing her so very much and enjoying not having the responsibility, which is when the guilt comes.

I am in a pretty good place in my life right now, especially with Wyoming, but for some reason I feel the need to punish myself by allowing guilt and sorrow to dull the happy times.  I understand on an intellectual level what is going on with me, but it is so hard to grapple with the emotions.  I know that a lot of these emotions stem from this specific time of year and the trauma associated with it.  I especially feel guilty around Jeff's anniversary with Wyoming living with me now.

I decided to go back and reread my favorite widow blogger, the blogger who got me through the first two years and who I looked up to for her strength and honesty.  Her husband died suddenly when she was 29 and she is now remarried with two children and hasn't written on her blog since 2016.  Even though she hasn't written in years, I still use her words to help me.

This specific post she wrote has helped me a lot this past week.  Her words remind me that it is all right to move forward, to love another, and to be happy, which is something that I've been struggling with a lot since Wyoming has moved in with me and Bogey died.

I am grateful that there is a community of widows that I may turn to for comfort and advice, even if I've never met them in real life.  That is the beauty of blogging and the widowed community.