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bereavement

Write, he Said… The Widow Diaries (Chapter 3)

February 28, 2018 by carol anne Leave a Comment

It’s been 3 months since Chuck passed away. I still can’t bring myself to finish writing out the thank you cards. I wrote out the first 75 in January, but I haven’t been able to touch the mass cards or thank you cards since. I did, however, write him a letter in my journal on Monday night. I cried as I wrote, it was a cleansing cry. I woke up this morning feeling calm and better than I have in a long time so I thought I’d tell you a little about our beginning.

I met Chuck in March 1991, I was still 18 and he was a few months shy of his 20th birthday. I met him at a mutual friend’s house after her 18th birthday party. He came to pick him up his mother, she’d kept my friend’s mother company while we were all out celebrating Jenn’s birthday. I opened the door to him standing on the front step in his black Member’s Only jacket. I loved him on first sight, my heart immediately knew his. I was so smitten I actively pursued him, flirting any time I saw him, stopping by the pizza place where he worked, and eventually I gave him my number and then going to see him when he didn’t use it. I asked him, “Hey, you don’t use a pretty girl’s number?” (brazen hussy, party of 1) If you know me, you know this is so totally like me and so totally not at all like me. He called the next week and we had our first date on June 6th. We saw Soap Dish and had dinner at Friendly’s. We drove there in his 1979 baby blue Buick Regal; I loved that car.  My mother joked, it must be love at first sight if we enjoyed Soap Dish. It was and we did.

Posted in: The Widow Diaries Tagged: bereavement, cancer, death, dying, grief, new widow, newly widowed, relationship s, widow, widowhood

Write, He Said… The Widow Diaries (Chapter 1)

February 10, 2018 by carol anne Leave a Comment

Write, he said. In October of 2010 my late husband, Chuck encouraged me to write about my first cancer diagnosis, he felt it would be good for me to tell my story and to get my thoughts out of my head and onto my blog. Seven years later he died after a far too short battle with an uncommon and aggressive form of kidney cancer.

 

In the seven years and forty-six days since I first walked into the ER and woke up in the ICU I had ten surgeries, 62 radiation treatments, fought cancer twice, and my husband was diagnosed with and died from what we first believed were kidney stones. On October 10, 2010 I couldn’t have imagined (not even in my very worst nightmares) the days that laid ahead for the myself and Chuck. I certainly never imagined Chuck would die just eighteen days after our twentieth wedding anniversary or that I would spend our twentieth anniversary putting together a walker for my dying husband.

 

I never wrote about Chuck’s cancer, because it wasn’t my story to tell and to be perfectly honest it was almost too unreal to wrap my head around. I was sure my brave, strong husband would beat it, that there would be a miracle, that the next treatment would work, and drive his cancer into remission. His first oncologist told us people with Chuck’s condition live three years, Chuck lived one year and two months from the day he was diagnosed. Chuck was already sick and on a clinical trial when at my five-year scans the doctors found that my cancer had come back. It was all too much to believe, it was all too much handle. I never wrote about my second bout with cancer because I didn’t have time to muse about what was happening to me. I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry for myself or be scared, I had to be okay. By the time I had my brain surgery in May the clinical trial Chuck was on had failed, the cancer had grown two to three times in size and spread, he was on a chemo drug that was making him terribly ill. I didn’t write, because I couldn’t write. I refused to believe that Chuck would die. I was delusional and very, very wrong.

 

So, here I am, a widow, living alone for the first time in my life. I am sad, and scared, and lonely; my heart is broken, shattered. My world is in ruins. I’m shocked, and lost. There is a lot of uncertainty these days, and I hate uncertainty. I like definite, sure, and sturdy. I depend on definite and stable. I depended on Chuck, possibly too much. It’s been two months and fifteen days since Chuck passed from this mortal coil. I’ve had good days, bad days, and very, very bad days. I’ve had days when I’ve felt empty, lost, and alone. I’ve had days when I’ve felt accomplished and sure of myself, and I’ve had days when I felt my ability to function, get out of bed, feed myself and the cats, and to behave like a functioning adult somehow indicated that I didn’t love or miss Chuck enough, that somehow, I was dishonoring Chuck’s memory with my ability to be okay, that I was not grieving his loss properly or deeply enough. I questioned my love and devotion to Chuck. Why wasn’t I a basket case? Why was I able to function while other widows in the Facebook group I joined were not? Is my strength a character flaw? Am I in denial? Is there worst yet to come?

 

It’s a rainy Saturday and I’m home alone with nowhere to be and no plans for the next few days so I have time to feel all the feels and the reality of Chuck’s absence is very real. I’m so sad it physically hurts.

 

Write, he said, so here I am seven years and four months since I walked into that ER; seven years since Chuck encouraged me to write to help me deal with my first cancer diagnosis. Truthfully, the first blog helped save my sanity, it gave me something to be accountable to every day. It gave me a way to explain what was happening, it gave me a place to download each day’s data into daily bite-sized bits I could digest and understand. Truthfully, I believe it’s some of my very best writing.

 

So, here I am hurting, confused, and overwhelmed. Write, he said and so I shall; to honor his memory and because it’s really the only thing that makes sense right now. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be as faithful to this as I was the 365 Days of Carol Anne Cancer Diaries because as I’ve learned over the last seven years nothing is certain and nothing is set in stone.

 

~  Carol Anne

 

 

 

Posted in: The Widow Diaries Tagged: bereavement, death, grieving, widow

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