Tag: widow

Happy Mother’s Day

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Mom. The role in my life that has literally kept me going these past 9 months when I felt like giving up. Like staying in bed instead of going to work. Like getting in my car and just driving away…cutting all ties to anything here. Our three kids…created out of love…bits of both of us…have kept me rooted. Kept me fighting. Made me smile. Reminded me that there is good left in this life. I am so incredibly thankful for them.

Being Mom is never an easy task….the past two years have been almost impossibly difficult. Heartbreaking conversations. Heart-shattering moments. Endless worry…so much worry. Not knowing how to help them with their grief….how to make sure they are doing okay. Constantly trying to stay in-tune with them while I’m feeling so out-of-tune with life myself. Recognizing that their grief doesn’t always come out as sadness…often it is anger…or crabbiness…or quietness.

Jason would sometimes leave for a few days to go to conferences for work. I always struggled during those few days…being home alone with the kids. I would joke with him that I wasn’t cut out for single parenting so he better get home soon. Joke was on me I guess.

Jason always made Mother’s Day special. It didn’t matter how young the kids were he would load them up in the car and take them to buy me flowers…and usually come home with balloons too because the kids liked them. Then he would make sure we spent the day doing what I wanted. Usually that meant some sort of Forced Fregien Family Fun…hiking…or going to the arboretum…sometimes we would spend the day in Red Wing relaxing at his Mom and Dad’s.

Our kids paid attention. This year Anna surprised me by coming home for the weekend. Yesterday her and I went down to Red Wing and planted geraniums in his Mom’s planter…just like we would do every year. Anna, Seth, and I went to a movie together last night while Levi was at his girlfriend’s house. This morning they set their alarms to make sure they got up early-ish to have breakfast with me…Anna baked…and got me a beautiful orchid. I had to work this afternoon, but Anna decided to go back to school tomorrow morning so that we could all go out to dinner when I was done with work. We took the dogs to the park to play. Started doing some research for our Portland trip.

It’s days like today that I can take a deep breath and feel reassured that our kids will be okay. Even though I often feel like I am just not enough. I need to remember that Jason is still living in them…through actions that he modeled….through words that he spoke….in their very DNA he is there. I’m not really parenting alone.

Weekend Surprise

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Today I had my weekly appointment with my therapist. It started very similarly to last week. Her asking how my week was and me just talking and crying. I had a few specific things on my mind today that she helped me talk through a little bit. Somehow she’s really good at both validating my feelings and helping me see things from different perspectives and that helps “unwind” me a little bit I think. Jason was really good at doing that for me as well…which I actually didn’t connect until I just wrote that. Maybe that’s why I find her so easy to talk to. There’s just something about her demeanor that reminds me of him.

Anna surprised me today by coming home for Mother’s Day weekend! Tomorrow we are going down to Red Wing to visit with my in-laws. On Sunday I will have time to spend with her in the morning before I go to work and she heads back to school. It is always the best when the kids are all home.

9 Months

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May 4th….while everyone else was talking Star Wars all I could think is 9 months without Jason. I was at work today and happened to look up at the clock at 8:22….and at that moment I was losing him all over again…watching him take his last breath. Those moments that just stick in my head and circle…and circle…and circle…

9 months…how can that be?! How have I even made it this long alone? I have no idea. I don’t know how I’m going to make it the next 9 minutes…9 hours…9 days. I don’t need to hear “oh…but you’re so strong”. I’m not strong at all…I just don’t have any choice. What choice do I have?? Do I feel like I want to live? No. Do I feel like I want to die? Also no. So here I am…just surviving…holding on…hoping that some day I wake up and my first thoughts aren’t “F*ck this life. Do I really need to get out of bed? How am I going to make it through this day? I’m so tired of this. Why didn’t I train my dogs to make me coffee? I really need a hug from Jason. Really. Really. Bad.”

Levi had a tennis match today. Jason’s parents came to watch. At one point my mother-in-law asked me “How are you doing?” And all I could do is look at her and shake my head and I could see all the pain I felt reflected in her eyes. These past two years have taken their toll…and it isn’t getting any easier.

Life goes on. Time heals. He’s in a better place. He’s not suffering anymore. Everything happens for a reason. Yada yada. None of that helps. I just want my husband back. I want my “heaven”.

Numb Little Bug

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Every time I feel like I must have finally hit rock bottom, nope, somehow my mood keeps getting lower. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I sit on the couch every morning talking myself into getting up and going to work. On the way to work I fight to get my “work face” on….the one that says everything is fine to the outside world. Everyday that gets a little harder. I enjoy seeing my friends at work, but by the time the end of the day comes I am just exhausted from all the “people-ing”. I had to step away from my desk today because two couples were standing by my desk talking about someone they know who was just diagnosed with brain cancer. The way they were talking about it, I knew it had to be glioblastoma. Of course, they had no idea their conversation was bothering me and I was about to lose my shit. On the drive home my “work face” falls off and my mood plummets. I get home, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore without my person.

It’s Levi’s tennis season right now, so I’ll go to his matches if I can. I am so proud of how well he is playing…but to say it is hard for me to watch him is an understatement. Most of the time I get teary-eyed because Jason isn’t there to watch. Damn…he would be so proud of Levi right now. Sometimes I wish the boys didn’t like to play tennis, just because watching them is so emotional for me…but then I’m also so glad that they will always have that connection to their Dad. He definitely passed on his love of the sport to them.

Then I get home…probably order something for dinner. I rarely cook anything anymore. Have a drink…or two. Play piano…listen to music…write….wander around the house…doze on the couch as I put off going to bed alone. Going to bed alone sucks…really, really bad. I have to be exhausted before I even try to sleep. I can only sleep on my left side…facing away from Jason’s side of the bed…or on my stomach…again with my face away from his side of the bed. I just can’t face the emptiness on the other side. I sleep better if I can get Linc to sleep in bed with me…but either way it is a lot of waking up and mind-spinning restless nights.

Sometimes I go out with friends…but they aren’t the same friends I went out with before. One of the things I am really struggling with right now is interacting with people my own age. The reminder of what my life should be like right now, with my husband, is extremely difficult. For example, I really like Levi’s girlfriend’s family, but being around them is really, really hard. I get anxiety about it and feel really uncomfortable. I spend a lot of the time feeling like I’m not even in my body and am watching the whole thing from up above myself. It’s had for me to concentrate on conversation and I feel myself closing up and getting really quiet. Going out with younger work friends or my widow friends is easier, but still has it’s difficult moments for sure.

There’s this song by Em Beihold called “Numb Little Bug” that I heard on the radio the other day. A lot of the lyrics of the song resonate very strongly with me…especially the refrain. “Do you ever get a little big tired of life? Like you’re not really happy, but you don’t wanna die. Like you’re hanging by a thread but you gotta survive….gotta survive. Like your body’s in the room but you’re not really there. Like you have empathy inside, but you don’t really care”. Yeah….I feel you Em.

Sometimes I wonder if I am remembering accurately how great Jason was and how happy we were together, but no…he wasn’t perfect…I am far from perfect…but we were perfectly happy together. He could make anything from a rainy Saturday morning to a shitty day at work to having to put our dog to sleep bearable. There wasn’t a pain he was unable to soothe…except for now.

A 10 Week

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This week has been terrible. I had an appointment with my therapist yesterday. She gave me my official diagnosis of “anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorder”. Newsflash…losing Jason effed me all up in my head. Then she asked me how my week was on a scale of 1-10. I told her it was definitely a “10 week” and then proceeded to bawl my eyes out for over 90 minutes while my mouth rambled on and on about all of the “things”. I don’t know what it is about her, but I sit down in that chair and my mouth opens up and the whole river of hurts comes out while she sits there…not really saying anything. Some things definitely need a “safe place” to come out…but I guess that’s the point of therapy.

So much time spent faking it…pushing things down…pretending I’m okay. A couple came in this week to play tennis. I hadn’t seen them in awhile, so I asked them how they had been. The one guy said that his Mom was just diagnosed with Stage 4 uterine cancer so he had been spending a lot of time with her. I said, “Cancer really sucks. I am so sorry. Spend all the time with her that you can” and then I shared with him that Jason had passed away almost 9 months ago from cancer….and he was flabberglasted…had no clue. He said, “but you are always so happy and upbeat when we see you”. Yup. Faking it. All. The. Time. Not like I can wear my true emotions on my sleeve when I’m at work.

I did book a vacation to Portland for the kids and I this summer. We are going to go visit my brother and his family. They moved out there right after Jason passed away. I’m hoping that some fresh scenery and distractions will do us all some good. As much as it hurts we have to keep on making new memories…just the 4 of us.

Today the boys and I played mixed doubles in a pickleball tournament. Seth and I were partners and Levi and his girlfriend were partners. Seth and I had fun together, but failed to win a game. Levi and Svea got third place! It’s not tennis…but still fun!

Two years ago today was the day we first heard the word “glioblastoma”…and now everything is different.

May 12, 2019….a year before diagnosis

Tennis Romance

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Levi and his girlfriend are so freaking adorable I can’t even stand it. I am so proud of him and so happy that he is happy. And then I see the way he loves spending time with her and her parents…who all play tennis…and are a whole family…with a tennis-playing Dad…and damn…that pain is real.

Procrastinating…

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I’m posting today because I’m procrastinating…and I’ll own that. My therapist wants me to do a timeline of my life to bring to our session on Friday. I have the fun bits in there…meeting Jason, our wedding day, kids’ birthdays. It’s the past two years that are hard. I feel like I could fill up pages and pages with last holidays together, last vacation, doctor’s appointments that brought hope, doctor’s appointments that shattered our dreams, surgeries, seizures, hospital stays, etc. Each of those things feels huge and important…and like I can’t leave any of them off. And then I realized I don’t have a single damn thing on my timeline past Aug 4, 2021 at 8:22am…and I decided to take a break and pour myself another glass of wine.

Two years ago at this time is right when I started to feel like something was “off” with Jason. The daily headaches, confusion, trouble working, etc. April 30th, 2020 was the first time I ever heard the word “Glioblastoma”…followed closely by “terminal”. And the past couple of days my prevalent emotion regarding the past two years is “pissed the f* off”. And now you’re all thinking “well, Marie…that’s good because that’s one of the stages of grief”. Well, in my opinion, the “stages of grief” can f* off as well. I feel like my whole life has been a huge lie…just setting me up for colossal heartbreak…a life of loneliness…and constant worry about my kids.

I haven’t posted any music for awhile. Two songs have been on repeat in my playlist these days. One of them is Nate Smith’s “I Don’t Wanna Go to Heaven”. I know the last thing Jason wanted to do was leave us.

The second is a Ben Platt masterpiece called “In Case You Don’t Live Forever”. Piano goals to learn how to play both of these.

Bedroom Paint

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I painted our bedroom yesterday. I’ve had the paint for a few weeks, but then the weekends got busy. I finally had a day yesterday where I could spend the whole day getting it done. I love the way it turned out. Jason and I have always painted our bedroom purple in every house we have lived in. We never got around to it in this house, although we had talked about it. It felt like a little bit of a therapy project for me. Listening to music. Thinking. Trying to use the monotony of the project to calm myself down.

And now today I am sore, tired, and pissed off at the world.

Have a Good Day

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Last week a friend of mine asked me how it makes me feel when someone says, “Have a good day” or “Happy Easter”. Her question was very touching because I don’t think many people think of how simple phrases like that affect someone who is grieving. A “good day”…eh…not likely. It might just suck less than other days. And holidays are worse…because no matter what happens, the pain of the missing loved one is overwhelming. Did I have a nice Easter? Absolutely. I think it was as good as it could be under the circumstances. Did I miss Jason the whole entire day so bad it hurt? Absolutely. But do I think you should stop saying “Have a good day”? No, I think of it as you just wishing I have the best day I can under the circumstances and that you are thinking about me.

For me the hurt is a little better when I am among people who are hurting and missing him too. When I was sitting at Jason’s sister’s yesterday I noticed she has a photo cube sitting on her table and on one of the sides is a picture of her and Jason from Jeremy’s wedding. That made me smile…and get teary…but it was a good teary. One of my fears is that Jason will be forgotten. That no one will want to talk about him and reminisce with me about good memories and happier times. So when I am among people that I feel comfortable talking about him with, it eases my fears a little bit.

If you ever see me and wonder if you should bring up Jason, please do! He is always right in the front of my mind. I might get teary, but that’s okay! As a wise woman once told me “you have to feel it, to heal it”.

Landmine

A powder keg
A landmine
Hair-trigger emotion.

You tiptoe around
Don’t say his name
Avoiding a chain reaction.

And are you relieved
As long as my cheeks are dry?
Inside my scream is deafening.

And I yearn to talk to you-
Cry on your shoulder-
You never ask how I’m feeling.

Do you think that I can just move on?
He may be gone,
But I still wear his band.

And maybe someday I’ll be happy
But that day is not today.
Grief doesn’t follow a plan.

Happy Easter

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We had a really nice day today. Ribs and cheesy potatoes for lunch at Jason’s sister’s house. Usually eating ribs is not my favorite, but Brent always smokes them so perfectly that the meat falls right off the bone…no gross gnawing required…lol. We visited for a little while before heading home so that Anna could head back to school. It was really nice…especially since their cat left me alone…ha! Not a cat person.

The kids humored me with a picture…

I’ve been using an app called Yousician to learn how to play the piano. It has been really fun. I get frustrated sometimes and have to remind myself to be patient…ha! I’m really good with C-G on my right hand…going beyond that takes a lot of brain work right now…but I wanted a new challenge right? I have found that I need to wait until I am by myself to try to play otherwise I will soon get “bumped off the bench” by a kid showing me how it’s done. It’s not fair that those young minds pick things up so much more quickly. I suppose it helps that they already know how to read music and are in band!

I got Anna back off to school and Levi dropped off at his tennis lesson and then visited Jason’s bench for a little bit. The weather was…of course…gross by that time…but it felt good to go there for a little bit and clear my head. Lately it feels like there’s “everything and nothing” going on in my head all at the same time. Like my thoughts are spinning so fast they have all just turned into a foggy blur and I can’t focus on anything.

I hope everyone else had a nice Easter as well.