There’s so much going on in the world right now I think we all feel like we are going a little mad. Trying to figure out what we are suppose to do to protect our love ones, take care of our children’s education at home and manage our career at the same time. Time to sit and breathe and contemplate seems like a gift that belongs to someone else. But before all this Corona craziness started, I had already been struggling with my emotions, my focus and management of my time.
I am rolling into the five year anniversary of Pat’s death. March comes storming into my life just the same as it did five years ago. March 23 was D day for us. The doctors had given Pat six months to live with the end date being March 23. Therefore, March was a gloomy, dreary, dark month for me in 2015. I was just waiting for the end to come. He was declining quickly at that point and everyday was painful, stressful and I felt like the world was weighing on my shoulders. I hated the pain he was in. I hated the way our lives were at the time. I hated everything about everything. But I loved him dearly. I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want our life together to come to a screeching halt. But I did want the tornado and chaos of Cancer to be over. So it was a confusing, depressing time. We all know how that ended. On March 23 – of all days – Pat had a seizure and this was the beginning of the end for him. He lived in and out of a comatose state 13 more days. And left this earth on April 5.
Five years. I can’t believe it has been five years!
So when March 1, 2020 came around, my subconscious kicked in and a a wave of darkness came over me. I started to struggle with being okay. There was no real reason for it. It just kind of takes over. I started to simply feel sad. After a few days I started having flashbacks. This kind of thing happened a lot during the first year after his death where I would remember certain moments in time: his last breath, the casket closing, dropping the rose into the grave, But this time it is different. The flashbacks are events that have taken place throughout the past five years. Things I have forgotten about as I have tried to push forward and live life. Things like coming to our house when it was under construction and falling to my knees crying in the gravel of what use to be my home. Or moving into the Homemental ( The rental home we lived in) and having to pack all our belongings up and leave our home. Flashes of when I would walk until my legs gave out or sitting at home trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with my life after quitting my job. Strange moments like that.
With each memory that would flash throughout the days, I would feel a rope loop around my heart and soul and begin to pull on them. I felt the pain, the emptiness, the feeling of being lost and alone rise back up into me. Horrible feeling. Horrible because I couldn’t understand where it was coming from or why I was feeling this was. Life is good. Things with the boys are good. Things with Bob are good. I am moving forward. I am living again. But it is still there. The ache. The pain. The emptiness. It’s a struggle I go through every March.
So it is my March madness. Another gift of grief. Something I will live with in memory of Pat. I’m okay with that I guess. My past is a part of me. It made me who I am today. Pat is always with me and our love is always surrounding me. That is where all this comes from….our love. Our love together has opened my heart, my eyes, my life to new experiences, new emotions, new love.
Perhaps I should use this isolation, quarantine we are all in at the time as a time to sit with my emotions and thoughts and truly process them like I have never done before. Maybe if I sit with with them for a while I will be able to see they aren’t a punishment or a burden I am stuck with forever, but rather a simple reminder that I am still alive. I am still here. Still breathing, and making it through things I never imagined I would survive for more than a day without Pat. But I am. I am raising these three boys on my own, I am managing the finances, taking care of the household, building a future for all of us and living again. I have love. I have happiness. I didn’t think any of this would come my way after 2015. But it did. I did it. I’m doing it. And maybe, just maybe that is the lesson of my March madness…I’m not really going mad at all. I’m just riding this wave of life and I should remember to embrace the moments that come my way.
Widow with Wings 