So many days and nights, I look up at ceiling tiles and/or clouds and ask..."why? Mike..why did you have to die? It makes no sense. It's just....wrong. " I get no response from the painted ceilings and fluffy white clouds whether I'm asking it of Michael..or of God. Probably because I have the only answer I'm going to get this side of heaven.
The "God has His reasons". "God knew this was 'best", "I need to Trust"- answers. Not that they're not true. I have no argument with them. But...
But I want...an actual "explanation". A voice from the heavens telling me WHY this was best. Or even better...saying it was a mistake and give Mike back.
You know the adage, Time heals. Hmmph. I don't know. But I will say time does make its mark. I don't know if I will ever truly heal up 100%. I admit though ...time has turned the bloody, raw and oozing mush into dry, cracked ruts on my weary and pieced together heart.
This is a good thing. :) I can tell things are...different. I smile much more often and have times when I honestly do feel joy and ...am happy! Yep....I can be honestly happy now. At times. A lot of the time.
Yet...I really never go a day where the emotions of happy, apathetic, busy, stressed, and the other various emotions that crisscross through my 24 hrs aren't still slammed with spasms of grief and crying when it's least expected. The triggers, as before, remain the smallest things. A song lyric, a road sign, a white, work cargo van, a hammer, a nail, a construction site, a picture, a married couple. The list is endless. I'm really missing Mike's texts/calls and conversations. Wishing back the days when I'd think, "hey, I wonder if Mike can meet me for lunch?"...and so I would text. Or he would be the one to text or a call me. We did this daily. And so my daily way of living is just so messed up...without Mike. I admit I feel very lost in this day to day life that doesn't involve Mike's texts and calls and coming homes and going out and coming backs. I miss being able to punch in some numbers...and TALK to him. About the mundane....how our days were going..or went. About the girls, the finances, the bills, the repairs, the car, the rest of the family, just...everything. Talking and Texting and Phone Calls. And of course...I miss the intimacy. Say goodbye to that. That's a real kick in the pants. (Heavy sigh).
It's so weird and ....wrong...and just...not right. This living of my life in the same place, with the same work, and the same issues but doing it all without Michael's being in each moment of it. Like before. Remove him and the living the life I am living is like having a tire removed from your car. Nothing about it feels normal. Or even enjoyable.
But, time marches on and I do have more joy and happy periods now. It's been 22 months. I was driving yesterday and did what I usually do behind the wheel. Think. Think back. I began comparing how I felt over losing Mike...vs my Dad, vs the miscarriage of my second child, and just...how I had handled the losses of close friends vs various relatives and...even some co-workers of mine who abruptly died in accidents. Each loss is so darn different. .
Deaths of people if I actually "knew" and talked with at times that died unexpectedly when still "young"...made a bigger impact on me. Whereas....even if they were relatives, the impact was less if they were experiencing "expected" deaths over a longer period or were really old. My heart was saddened...but not cut and definitely not scarred.
But...the three deaths that scarred me the most were also felt so darn differently. Why? Well...my chapter in life was different for each...true enough. I had less time depending upon where I was in life...to notice the loss for one thing. Hmmmm.... Last variable (yes I am quite analytical when I am driving down city streets during a rainstorm).... how much I loved them.
Losing my Dad at the age of 21 from an unexpected heart attack when he was only 53....not a good thing. Very loved! I hated being a "half orphan". To me...more than just my Dad had been taken away from my life. The entire role of fathership had been removed. Resentment was the biggest take from that. I nourished my anger at God. Basically gave Him the "talk to the hand"-treatment... for over a year. I reserved hidden resentment... for people. I remember so clearly being a young R.N. and standing at the Nursing Desk charting just as a crowd of crying family members spilled out of a corner room near to where I stood. Their loved one had just died there. Luckily for them....He wasn't my patient. There was the Mom...about 70. The "kids" were all easily in their 40's. I looked at their huddled group and this angry thought just pierced into my brain so intensely! "What are ya'll crying so hard for...YOU had him till you were in your 40s!". I was so irritated. As if they really had no right to the depth of grief they were displaying. Because they'd had their Dad for an extra 20 + years than I had mine. Anger was definitely the defining emotion I carried when I lost my Dad. Not so with Mike. Then again...I was barely 21 when he died. Ready to graduate from college. It was the season of being an "adult" in the "grown-up world". And that is a busy life chapter.
I think about the girls having an almost an identical journey! So weird and so wrong! My Dad died... 6 months before I graduated College...and Mike died 8 months before Katie and Amie graduated from theirs. Boy do I understand how finals and midterms and graduation requirements and all the hustle/bustle of those months crowd out the time that thoughts and realization of the loss can crowd in. But still....they do. Every quiet moment...they'll hit you. Thoughts about things "Dad" wouldn't be there for... marriage, his grandchildren, oh...and that impending college graduation.
Still...it doesn't mean I necessarily have been of much help to the girls in their grief over Mike..or that they are experiencing their personal loss the same way I did with my Dad. First off...neither one is particularly angry at God. Thank goodness. I think their walks with the Lord were so much deeper than mine and much more longstanding (I came to the Lord at 19..they came when they were 5 and 7).
It bums me out that I don't know if I've helped them in bearing their grief for the past 22 months at all. I hope so. But I don't honestly know if...or what impact I've made. Mainly because I've been struggling so hard to get through my own grief.
The baby was actually the easiest grief to bear.....if that can actually be said. It was painful...yet.. "easiest" on the tough-o-meter! I so regret though the way that Mike found out. Do you know there actually are people who thrive/like to be the bearer of bad news! His secretary blurted it out to him. She refused to go get him to the phone ( after I told her the "why" he had to be interrupted and tracked down on the job site so I could talk to him on the phone because I was four hours away visiting my Mom when it happened). So she got him...and told him! But still...aside from that...the memory of how I felt is easily remember. Cause most of it was shock and denial. ... and bargaining. The Doc had given me the option to "wait" and let the labor kick in naturally over the next week or so (the baby had no heartbeat) or have an immediate D&C. I opted for the former. Figuring that it gave God a chance to do a "miracle" and I didn't want a D&C either. One week later...labor. At home. Awful! Then came sadness and crying. But...Life was crowded and busy...I had a toddler. I was working full-time in a busy ICU. We had recently moved and bought a house. After about 3-4 months though...I kinda felt like I was "over it". Maybe because I took great comfort (still do) in knowing that someday I will see him or her in heaven. I have a child in heaven...that I WILL see someday! It's exciting. I love that my Dad has a grandchild there and that Mike has gotten to meet his child too!
And then I got pregnant with Amie and realized then....that I realized I hadn't "truly" finished grieving for the baby I'd lost. I grieved afresh during the first few months of my pregnancy with Amie.
But...here I am...22 months after Mike died. Still so very far from being over or even past it yet. Well...I am moving forward. Just at a very slow pace. Slower than I sometimes think I should be? I'm not mired in my grief. I'm just...not.... done.
Maybe because I loved him beyond all else. I also have a lot of time lately in this current chapter of life I am in...sans girls/sans Mike. Memories keep getting triggered and crowding in to my day to day moments ALL the time. But the emotions I am having...the journey...is not those former "stages" that I (and probably every human being who's ever lost anyone) has heard about. You know...
shock/denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I definitely had gone through them...before. But not now. What I think I experience now...the best description...is layers. Something I didn't really have with any loss before this one.
My emotions now have all these nuances and are all blended together. Depression and Acceptance are intwined along with so many other emotions...alot of pain...lots of regrets...laughter and nostalgia also blend in. The feelings of joy seem very separate though. Spears of joy and happiness come in and...leave..and come...and go....and return again. Kinda like raindrops. I'm grateful that my life rains joy much more often these days. I'm a huge fan of laughter and I can laugh and laugh well. At myself. At the TV. At the dog. I joke with friends and often have wonderful and fun conversations. There I will merrily go...having these happy moments and then... Then comes the song lyric, the white cargo van, the sound of hammering or saws...and I collapse into tears.
I actually had an "epiphany" a few days ago. I suddenly realized something that probably had blocked me from making bigger strides in recovering from the regrets and almost literal "pain" that would hit me these days over losing Mike.
It was after working a 14 hour shift at the hospital. I got into my car and BAM....the realization just hit me. The reason I hated working at the hospital... was due to the depth of pain and hurt triggered whenever I did so. And those were stirred up due to the medical incompetence we either endured or tried to avoid...at the hospitals where I work. Four distinct hospitalizations in four months...with Mike. The memories of arguing (!) with an apathetic ER receptionist that I did too (!) need her to go get me a nurse..NOW! This was after driving 6 hours at 90 - 95 miles/hour to get Mike back to a hospital STAT. (He ended up having a Hemoglobin of 3!!!). Memories of buying all the sani wash for hand washing and marking up boards with the questions /tests to check with the Dr's about ordering. The hospice nightmare. It was hellish...arguing over and over and over again...with the hospice nurses for pain medicine to be brought back to even pre-discharge levels!
In short...it was the acts required in being Mikes "advocate"....and later Amies one year later when she was 5 days in the hospital with Pneumonia...that had left me seriously traumatized in a hidden section of my heart. Being a advocate. In a nutshell...it means making sure your loved one got the right tests/right care/absence of infection and none of the complications that could come " from" the hospital...while "in" the hospital. It's exhausting. And essential.
Being an RN in a variety of hospitals and different settings during the last 37 years...leaves me fully aware of just how lazy some aids and nurses are. It's embarrassing.... but very true. It leaves me fully aware of how hand washing is not always done... or done well. Fully aware that doctors do NOT know everything and some are downright dangerous to have as your doctor. Fully aware that nurses can have their hands tied by doctors who won't do (out of arrogance oftentimes) a treatment, lab test, or prescription simply because it was "suggested" by "a nurse". Fully aware that there are many apathetic nurses and just "not that bright" nurses out there. Fully aware that pain is still seen, despite studies to the contrary, by many nurses and doctors to be defined by "their criteria"...not the patients. And sadly...fully aware that many nurses truly may care but can be so bogged down by a heavy patient load that they're just lucky to get the "tasks" done and have no time to do necessities such as pain meds on a quick level or the niceties (such as ice chips) at all. Sometimes...they don't even do the actual orders you know were ordered. Fair warning to all readers...if a family member says even one time that they'll bathe a patient...I've seen PCT/Aides who will take that and run with it as a green light to NEVER bathe or assist with toileting their loved one again. Some nurses, even if they are lucky enough to get a light shift.... remain lazy because they take it as an opportunity to enjoy a slow night.
All of this creates within me a shame about my profession that also wars with a pride in my profession for when it's "done right". Nursing nowadays, in my opinion, is a mess of which I am "fully" aware of. Not to say...there aren't great nurses and great hospital experiences. And some of the days were good. Some of the nurses were really great. But...Mikes hospitalizations were a mixed bag...each time though. Advocacy...often means staying overnight. The one night I didn't caused Mike a lot of anxiety because the nurses didn't understand the prep for an outpatient PET Scan..and nearly boggled it. Even if I was there....you can not always advocate. Once I fell deeply asleep, truly exhausted, on a cot in his room...Mike, the next morning, told me the night nurse kept dropping the IV tubings and bags on the floor and how he had so wanted me ...to wake UP!."
So there I was, having just gotten into my car and I abruptly burst into tears before I could turn the key to the engine. This realization hit me kinda outa the blue....all those painful memories of arguing, along with all the ones where I failed to get them to give Mike the pain relief needed (though I tried, really really tried! ).... had really done a number on me. The idea sifted into my teary consciousness that it was even faintly ....like PTSD. Amie's hospitalization too... 5 nights at her bedside. The third night ...indifferent nurse, unavailable doctor unwilling to give any medicine until he could find time "to actually see her" (which wasn't for 2 hours)...left Amie slammed with a post lumbar puncture headache that went from 0 to 60 in under 10 seconds. But...because its onset was 3 days after the lumbar puncture neither the nurse nor I figured out the source at first. She just figured Amie was being a "baby". I knew better....but couldn't figure out the reason either...but who cares if I'm not Sherlock on this one...get the damn Dr! Amie remained with a pain level of 20 (on a scale of 1- 10) for over 2 hours before the Doctor (and the indifferent nurse) finally treated it. Hearing her cry out..."Mommy...HELP me!" and having my hands tied by this Dr and nurse who wouldn't give her ANYTHING....was horrible. Even worse was that it was Mikes birthday weekend...one year after he died...which only brought back the memory of watching my Rambo-like husband crawl on the bed toward me reaching out his hand and begging me, "Suzie...HELP me!
I'll start to cry if I spend more than 15 seconds reflecting upon the hospice incompetence with Michael. The arguing...the lack of training by the nurses. Lack of knowledge of proper pain doses when using a CADD pump with a nurse trained in neonatal premie-baby dosages! Memories of digging through my own medicine cabinet for prescriptions that were not longer "on his chart" to try to give hime something that could help or just get him back to the doses he was getting before he left the hospital was a challenge! Mike, dying of cancer with all that pain and now with a gallbladder attack ongoing. That was the reason why hospice was set up....he wasn't a surgical candidate..it was the death knell. The oncologist, Mike and I all knew it. Only hospice seemed to think Mike was to be with them for months...instead of just days. The very last 24 hours of hospice after we finally got the director, vice president and nurses who actually knew what they were doing on board...was good. After this experience with hospice, I can't even begin to imagine what it would've been like for someone without significant medical knowledge.
Maybe.... better? Maybe...that person would've called an ambulance and allowed the hospice nurses to get what they wanted ...which was for mike to just "go to hospice house" where he would die there. Instead of at home which is what he had wanted. I don't know. But I recognized in the car a few days ago that those harrowing experiences that I'd had (with both Mike and Amie) ...had actually left me traumatized to a degree. And I am not yet over it.
Sigh. Blow out air from cheeks. It helps, I think, to see/recognize that about myself. I knew before this that I needed to forgive the hospice nurses and doctors. I knew that months ago. Thought I'd made some inroads on that. But ...obviously...I have more forgiveness to do. I'll have to work on the Florida nurse and Doc forgiveness too...obviously.
I did approach lawyers re: the hospice incompetence about a month ago. But they say no case. The statute of limitations is two years. It is Sept 25th. They say we're too close to the date for them to have adequate preparation. Also, they add that IF a patient is "going to die and is in hospice because they are dying...then the absence of proper (even correct) care or not carrying prescribed and "ordered" pain medications ...really doesn't matter. Nor does the fact this all may create even greater pain and suffering ...due to incompetence. None of this really matters... in the courts eyes. Because the end result...is unchanged. So I guess the best place to work as a nurse or doctor where you won't ever get sued...is hospice. But actually trying to have it acknowledged, through lawyers and the courts, that what they did was wrong...(even though it is fruitless evidently) helps me put it behind me.
But...hospitalizations of loved ones need to not happen...for a long long long long time! Not for anything but a normal baby delivery...decades, please God. I need to recover.
Sigh. Well..... this is a long and meandering post. All that just to explain how I am doing emotionally.
Physically...I'm doing well. I've lost weight. I work out with... weights. ;). And I definitely feel better and less stiff than I did before Mike even got sick. I think it's because of the stretching, exercising and organic only eating I've been doing.
Spiritually....I'm getting a much closer relationship with Jesus. It's odd. I've always felt closest to the Holy Spirit....second up was God, the Father. I love the triune nature of God. But while I've always recognized the sacrifice Jesus gave that allows me access to the other two...I somehow never really sought Jesus out as much as I did the Holy Spirit and God. THAT has changed. I am very keenly aware of my need for Jesus. And very grateful to have a deeper and closer relationship with Him through all of this.
I am not 100% though...because I have a fear/hesitation when songs come up in church about "surrendering all" and such. Because I'm so aware ...that when I tell God HE can have ALL of me...it's not just "my" body..."my" life. It's the people ...in my life...that ARE my life. So it means I am telling Him He can have....them. I surrender all...means I am ready, as Abraham was long ago when he was willing to sacrifice Issac when God asked him to....t to have the girls die (IF that was God's will) and (this is the kicker)...that I will say...yep..you can have them, their lives in heaven and it's okay with me IF that's what YOU want God. But it won't be. I am not ready for that.
So....I love the Lord. Love my God. But I have this streak of uncertainty still (call it fear) that He yet might ask more from me than just Mike. I honestly don't care about "me" dying (I don't think at least). And I can get along fine (not that I'd be loving it but I could be fine as a bag lady..) if He wants my house, car, finances etc. But.... not the girls. I'm not ready for that. And I wonder... how bad is it that I am not in a place in my walk with Him that "that" is not okay?
Hmmmm. A major spiritually philosophical question I am not going to deal with right now.
Anyways...for this moment in time, I think I could use some joy raindrops. So I will head outside to a beautiful blue skied day...and run an errand and stop REMEMBERING. That is another great coping mechanism :).
PS...I need followers so if you do read my blogs..can you mark that you follow it? I'm trying to see if I can this out to a larger audience Thanks for checking "follow". <3
