A broken heart

I was lying in bed last night reading and notice my heart pounding pounding pounding pounding. Loud, hard and fast. Not a good thing. Immediately took medication I take nightly.

As I'm feeling my heart continue to pound and race, I am struck with the undeniable fact I am alone. Totally alone. Completely alone.  What to do? Go to the ER immediately? Wait to see if the pill works? How long do I wait? There is no one to debate with. Except myself.

Quickly I decide to head out. It is so easy to fall into the 'Going to ER' mode, in the middle of the night, on a weekend. Its like a worn comfortable sweater. Its reassuring. Its calming. Its familiar. Its normal even. Gather a few overnight items, grab my large briefcase, computer, charging cord, magazine and book and I'm ready. I mean you never know.

Driving to the hospital in the dark is strangely comforting. Can't count the number of times I've done this. Although never alone. But in the dark that does not seem to matter. How many times had we driven these roads, sitting side by side, each in our own worlds, holding hands?

Its like I'm in suspended animation when I enter through the big sliding doors and describe my racing heart. They order an "immediate" EKG and I wait. And wait and wait. Think about what I'll tell the nurse in triage. "What brought you in tonight?" A broken heart.

I am trying hard to stay connected with myself and yet the past ER visits are flooding in. The nurse comments, "Oh you haven't been here before." Of course I have! Numerous times. "Your birthday?" I can spout Robert's much easier than I can remember mine. "Medications?" Have Robert's list down pat. Mine? Haven't a clue.

See the form with the empty fields that she is slowly filling. A blank form? I am so used to seeing Rob's overflowing form. And it hits me hard. This is all about me. This is one of those "It is all about me moments." Not quite what I had had in mind for an "All About Me Moment".

After tests and blood work I am told my heart is fine. No evidence in Western medicine of a broken heart. Their equipment doesn't detect the hole in my heart.

Daze

There does not seem to be any differentiation between weekdays and weekends. The days just run together. Everyday is a day. Just a day. Another day. What day is it?

I do the same things day in day out, weekday and weekend. Its repetitive and feels empty. I punctuate the sameness with dinner with friends. Phone appointments. Horse play dates. Anything that necessitates my making an entry into iCal, and connecting with someone.

I check my phone calendar repeatedly and I am comforted seeing dots. Looking at the calendar and not seeing dots is terrifying. Then someone will call and a dot is added.

Don't remember it being like this. The daily routine was comforting. The rhythm of life. But now its busy work intended to fill the hole in my life, the hole in my heart.

I remember there used to be markers in the week. Alternating Wednesdays and every Friday were spent at the cancer center. Strange to say but this was together time. Life fit into this schedule. But this weekly structure is now gone.

Roller Coaster

The roller coaster took a steep plunge yesterday. Don't even remember what started the tears and sobs. Oh yes I do. Was in the supermarket and remembered I wanted to pick up a loaf of bread. And that thought lead to the bread isle and the brand I used to buy for Rob. And the tears started welling up in my eyes.

The little things are piling up. Using the red Nikon camera he got me. Seeing his keys. Wearing his watch. Doing the garbage. Walking through the garage. Doing laundry. Coming across cards he sent me. Changing a light bulb in the basement. Buying kleenex. Opening the refrigerator. Sitting in a chair. Talking on the phone.

Maybe its from stopping all the busy work yesterday. Sitting still trying to breath and meditate. Of course I sat on Rob's side of the couch. He used to sit here and meditate—I hoped it would help me.

So yes to achieving some peace, but it also awakened the grief I've only allowed out for short intervals.

Last night I got into bed early, crying and sobbing. One of my cats joined me. Purring as loudly as I was sobbing. He was as inconsolable in his need for love as I was in my expression of grief. He just had to be held. And have his tummy rubbed, something Rob taught him. He repeatedly butted his head against my face, wiping away my tears with his fur.

Silence

I listen to the silence of the house. The furnace goes on, so the silence is not quite as all enveloping. I listen to the silence of the house and hear a cat's claws click on the wood floors. I listen to the silence of the house and hear water dripping from a leaky faucet. I listen to the silence of the house and hear my heart beat.

I sit and listen to the silence of the house and my cat jumps into my lap and purrs. Beyond the purr there is growing silence. The furnace has shut off, the faucet tightened. My heart still beats.

I hear the sound of a car driving by outside. A bird chirps. I hear leaves rustling in the wind. A branch taps at the window. A hairy woodpecker drills the side of the house. My cat still purrs. My heart still beats.

I remember as a child being so afraid of the silence of the house. I try and understand that fear. For now there is solace in the silence of the house.

The business of grief

"Grief is a process unique to each individual. No one can tell you how long and in what manner you should grieve. However....." begins a letter from a Bereavement Services & Program Development Center.

I have had it with the "howevers". Grief counseling has made grief a profession. A business. There is a process, an agenda, an all knowing knowledge. A road map, a plan and it is set. With markers, and dates, and warnings. The idea of the individual seems to have been forgotten.

Their language. Semantics. Definitions. Interpretations. There are phases, stages, curves and wheels. And they fit you into them. Nice and tidy. Where is the individual experience?

I'm not doing well with the rules, guidelines and warnings I'm encountering in talking with various grief experts. Wait at least three months before participating in a group. Anniversaries are looming events you have to watch out for. You think you are doing fine now? Just wait 'til 3 months, then six months, a year, two years. These are big milestones. Think you have reached rock bottom? Well you haven't.

What happens if an individual has milestones that come at 2-1/2 months and 5 months? Or 4 months 1 week? What if you don't adhere to observing anniversaries and live day by day, moment by moment. I refuse to be stuffed into their pigeon holes.

I'm sure they have their empirical data to support what they say. But data is data. And to create a structure there are the highs and lows that are tossed out. The individuals.

Physics has shown that in observation of particles, the particles perform as the observer expects! Think about that. Individuality is lost, and you fulfill their predictions.

The latest last straw was when I described what I'm going through as a roller coaster. And a professional grief counselor corrected me that it is not a roller coaster! And she went on to describe what it looks like. Her interpretation. No doubt from years of experience. But NOT mine.

Excuse me, whose grief are we talking about? I don't know what I'm experiencing? I don't know how to describe how I feel?!?!?!!?

Mechanical aptitude

A friend invited me to help her go shopping with her 2-year-old grandson. He jumped right into his specially built car seat. The harness contraption looked like a parachute harness, only miniaturized. Hooks, latches, buttons so small I had to put on my reading glasses to figure it out.

Now I do consider myself mechanically inclined. Just haven't practiced much. Or maybe I've only practiced mechanical prowess on medical equipment recently.

Fortunately the two-year-old had the shoulder part of the kiddie seat harness done pat. The lower restraint part? Red button that does nothing when you press on it. My friend tells me she and her husband spent a half hour the other night and still don't know how to get it to release. Then I spy an arrow. It is not a press on red button, its a push down red button. I am so proud of myself.

The kitchen disposal didn't take kindly to my putting pitted olives down it. Thought pitted meant there were no pits. There were pits. Either way it jammed. I flipped the wall switch a couple of times (or more). Just in case it would jump start. Opened the cabinet doors to see if there was anything obvious. Like what? Not sure.

There on the wall of the cabinet was an Allen wrench. I know what an Allen wrench is. Grab it out of it's wall bracket. Now what? Usually I'd just ask Robert. Not an option. It has to go somewhere, it has its very own wall clip! Can't see any obvious places. Email my brother. Get a long explanation back but see the words, "on the bottom". And lo and behold the special Allen wrench fits. I turn it. And the disposal starts right up!

Also saw the words "unplug from wall." I spent more time trying to figure out where the disposal was plugged in than it actually took to fix. This is because it was wired into the wall.

To compensate for today not only being a Sunday, but also the end of Daylight Savings Time with a whole additional never ending hour, I decide I'll clean the house. A couple of weeks ago I traded Rob's treadmill for a working vacuum cleaner. A whole other story.

The upright vacuum has been standing quietly in the corner. I've been admiring the ingenious industrial design with all sorts of attachments cleverly integrated. Each piece has its own specific allocated place with clips and hooks.

I uncoil the electric cord, plug it in, and spend the next 5 minutes looking for the on/off switch. Creative design. The tilt release is easy to find and away we go.

Only it is not picking up dirt, dust or cat hair. Another time I'd have just called to Robert. Okay, I've read about this. I'm on my own, need to be resourceful. And have a back up plan—buy a new vacuum in a box with lots of pictures and directions. Or I suppose I could Google the make and model and hope for lots of pictures and directions. I decide to forge ahead unaided.

I turn it on and off a few times, now that I know where the switch is, hoping it will fix itself. Nope. Resort to pushing buttons and levers and manage to release the canister. And then the hose disconnects and dumps someone else's dirt all over the vacuum, my floor and me.

When I try and put the hose back into its slot, notice that there is a clump of jammed vacuumed stuff (I can think of other words but stuff is the most gender neutral). Duh! I pull it out. Yup, I am keeping my fingers crossed I will be able to vacuum all this back up.

Struggle to figure out how the canister clips back in, and where the hose hooks. And a long straight attachment falls off. But wait, the canister has snapped into place and the machine is working. Sucking up all its own dirt and all of mine. I am so proud of my resourcefulness. My mechanical aptitude. I fixed the vacuum!

As we (the vacuum and I) roll down the hall, other attachments start to fall off. It is vacuuming up the dust and dirt and cat hairs. Just leaving in our wake various tools that I have yet to ascertain their specific allocated spaces.

Time

Time is mine. It is all mine. Not anyone else's. I don't share time or my time or your time or their time with anyone. It is my time.

Not sharing time is terrifying. I'm not accountable to anyone. I can stay out as long as I want. I don't have anyone home waiting for me. I'm alone. I'm adrift. I'm unanchored.

Where before there was time now there is a hole. I peer into it and wonder how I am going to manage to get through the next minute, hour, day. Time stretches out interminably before me. It is all mine. And I frantically make dates and appointments and schedule friends and activities.

Sundays are the hardest. On Sunday time is so elastic it just stretches out and out and out. The hands on the clock do not seem to move no matter how busy keep myself.The digital clocks don't change either.

There used to be boundaries on time. "I'll only be gone for two hours (or 10 minutes)." Now they are gone. "I'm going out and will be back by twelve". Tethers. Gone. "Come with me, it will only be 15 minutes." Together no more.

"My time" used to be when I went to the barn to play with my horses. But there was always an awareness in the back of my mind that Robert was home. I'd play and have fun with horses and friends, but there was always a clock ticking.

Is this what widowhood is about? Is this what losing my other half means? When "my time" used to be over I'd always call, "I'm on my way home. Do we need anything?" Not any more. Now the time is all mine.