Invisible

 Is being invisible a gift or a curse?

I know it’s been awhile.  I’ve stayed off of social media (closed my account) and tried to just decompress a bit and sit with the sadness or happiness of the day instead of allowing social media into my life to redirect my attention. But here we are; back at the holiday season.  

A month ago I would have told you I was doing okay.  Everything was tolerable and while I still think about my son every single day I didn’t feel like I couldn’t go to work or function.  Then, a couple of weeks ago Loki (our baby (cat)) got sick and suddenly died.  The vet doesn’t know what caused his issues.  Losing my best friend really hit hard.  I realized that night that he was the one that I went to.  He was always outside for me to talk to when humans didn’t notice my hurt or I just couldn’t talk to them.  He got me through those awful days when we lost our son.  He kept me company every time I was outside; following me around when I gardened or sitting on the side of the pool when it was only me swimming.  He was my person!

And with the holidays drawing in fast I’m starting to feel like I did last year which I didn’t think I would.  I have found that most often when I finally get up the nerve to put my pride aside and reach out to someone to talk in my moments of utter pain they’re too busy.  I’m invisible.  Sometimes it means that I can just sneak past you in the grocery store so I don’t have to pretend to be okay and that’s to my benefit.  But sometimes I do want someone to notice that I’m in pain and just need that shoulder.  I don’t have that shoulder.  I can’t find one that will always be there.

I feel very alone.  No one in my entire (extended included) family understands what this feels like and no one wants to acknowledge I’m still deep in grief.  I pretend most of the year, but I just can’t sometimes.  It’s exhausting.  I mean think about it…..just to be productive at work I have to pretend 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 8 hours a day.  That’s a lot of being fake and I was never really good at that.

My son visited in my dream this week.  I hugged him so hard that when I woke up, in the middle of it, I was crying for real and I swear I could still feel my arms around his waist.  It was always his waist because he was too tall to hug otherwise.  I’m a whole foot shorter.  He talked to me, but this time it wasn’t as clear.  The only thing that was was that he told me he was watching me at the grocery store but couldn’t let me know he was there.  These are all I have left of him.  Memories of dreams.  Memories that I have to write down in order not to lose. No pictures to capture.  Just what I can recover from my brain in the early hours of the day while I’m still a little incoherent and foggy.

Losing Loki, dreaming of my son and the holidays coming so quickly are like the perfect storm of emotions that I can’t control or fathom what to do with.  Add that into my mother-in-law being, normal, and hurting me at every turn she can.  You would think after 31 years of her obvious discourse for me (maybe even hate) I would let it go, but she won’t stay out of our lives so she gets to continue to jab.  Invisibility would be nice there, wouldn’t it?

My sweet baby…..Cole take care of this one.  He was pretty great.

You either laugh or cry

 

I’ve been bracing myself for March.  Not just the crazy winds we’ve had but the storms that I have been expecting for many months.  I’ve been cleaning like crazy and doing all of the other crazy OCD tendency type things in preparation. That is just how I deal with stress. 

We’ve been preparing for tomorrow’s special day. The girls came home from college for it and the youngest comes home saying something happened to his ankle at track and he looked it up and seemed to be achilles related.  

I googled as well and then remembered the single tidbit of info they gave us on his birth father and that was that he ruptured his Achilles running track. Such a weird little detail to be the only thing they shared with us. The coach said he would have the school trainer look at it Monday but we decided given the possible family history and the fact that you have to wrap the foot specific for this injury, I took him to the ET.  

They did an X-ray and of course saw no breaks.  I mentioned why I brought him in and they listened. They got an ultrasound in there and there it was. It’s hanging on by maybe one fibrous thread.  He has a ruptured Achilles tendon.  

So he is wrapped and on crutches with an appointment with the orthopedic next Wednesday. Assuming real cast st that point.  I guess our year of all this crap started 3/24/24 when we lost our oldest and had no plans on letting us end it quietly.  

All if have left in me is to laugh!

Understanding more

 Every day. 

Last year today someone I knew,  not well, had a son who died in an accident.  I posted the obligatory hugs and I’m sorry when she posted on Facebook and thought about her off and on for a week or so.  

Then my son died 4 weeks later.  Many many people did the same thing I supposed.  Hugs, I’m sorry flooded my feed and they quickly moved on with their lives even going as far as to happily ask how things are going when they bumped into us shortly after forgetting for a little bit what we had been through.  It’s such a luxury to forget.  It’s such a blessing to never feel this. 

This pain that wanes.  This pain that goes away from time to time but comes back with a vengeance making you jealous of everyone around you that has never felt like this.  This pain that makes you want to go back into time or move forward years hoping it feels a lot better but knowing it wouldn’t.  This pain that makes you analyze every relationship you have and if it’s still worth your time any longer.  This pain that truly let you know who your real friends and family are.  In our family blood never made anyone family so just because you are related by blood if you don’t treat us like family then you don’t get to be treated like family.  

She and I have become pretty good friends over the past year   Understand what only she and I can commiserate on.  We agreed to have lunch sometime between the dates for our boys. The plan is to come over tomorrow on our day off and I’ll make is a lunch sometime between we can talk and possibly cry in peace. I’m looking forward to more than just our usually late night messages to each other.  But I know it will be rough on her since her week is now.  

Dates

 We’ve taken a step back. With grief in your life you re-evaluate everything. Especially relationships. We’re working on us. We’ve been married 30 years and we been been through too much. It’s all taken a toll. We got a daily devotional for couples that helps us pray with each other and think about each other more purposely. 

It’s worth a try.  If you want to know the link I’ll share.

Small changes

 

Between menopause and grief I’m battling something daily.  And they both affect your mood. Before all of my procedures I had decided to exercise more consistently.  During the cooler months I’m bad about putting on flannels and camping on the couch so I was doing really well. Then in recovery I got accustomed to that all over again. 

I inched back into it two months after the first surgery and have been reading about health more. I’m trying to be better about eating protein and getting steps in in addition to come strength. Though I’m sure anyone who really works out, like two of my kids do, it’s pretty lightweight.  But I’m focused on consistency while working myself up a little at a time. I’m only doing 6-7000 steps per day right now and trying to find healthy snacks to eat more frequently. 

These blueberry muffins are, well, a little flat but really good. I tweaked the recipe because it called for 1/2 cup of sugar and that just negated any of the healthiness of the recipe. I did re-add maybe a tablespoon of sugar and now it tastes like blackberry pie pound cake.  So good!  I’ve been trying to eat Greek yogurt for more protein and calcium but the only flavor I like is lemon meringue pie and only one Walmart sells it and it’s 45 minutes away. Super bummer.  Hopefully I’ll see it working in a couple of months but I feel it for now.  I feel less stressed and more relaxed every night.  I’ll take that small win.

Here’s the recipe if you want to try the muffins. 

• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce 
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain whole milk cottage cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup fresh blueberries, tossed in flour

Preheat oven to 375°.  I just mix all of the ingredients together and bake in silicone muffin pan for 25-30 minutes. 

Hopeful

 

I’m not quite to peace, happiness or joy yet but I’m starting to feel glimpses of hopefulness.  But this was not without changes and prayer. 

We’ve been doing couples devotionals and as I said before I’ve been praying for myself a lot.  My prayers usually are for everyone else but lately it’s mostly been me. If I’m not well I can’t be there for the others.  I’m definitely realizing this. Or rather realized this.  I’ve been trying to eat better, exercise consistently and destress so I can sleep better.  

Songs like these help me.  I’ve found hope in God.  I struggle too still.  I will NEVER understand and may never believe that all things are for a reason and that God has a plan. Maybe He does but I can’t believe it included taking my son.  Maybe that was human choices that brought that on and His plan is for my healing?  I don’t know but right now that’s all I can think. 

It’s really easy to be a devout Christian and say the sorts of things people have said to me.  But unless you’ve been hurt and shook to your core like this you don’t get to tell people or make others think their belief is right.  Most often those of us that go through this sort of trauma lose our faith, at least at some point in time. Or maybe it waivers some.  It’s part of the journey to process the what and why of the events.  Trying to make sense of something that can’t possibly.  

If you know someone who lost a child, regardless of how, just be there for them. Don’t judge how they’re handling their journey.  Instead help them by bringing them a meal or send them a note talking about their child or go visit and just hang out and let them talk or sit in silence with you months down the road.  Remember just because you moved on a week or a month after they lost their child they will never be able to move on and the coming weeks and months after are almost harder when it really settles in to reality. 

New year

 

After a really rough year down to the bitter end the new year has come. I ended the year not only struggling with our first holidays without a vital person in my life but had lipoma removal surgery on my back and right before that started healing had another basal cell cancer removed on my front.  I’m finally able to do Pilates again.  

That makes me sound like a health nut. I’m not.  Between grief and menopause (7 months) I found that Pilates makes me feel better.  It was helping the arthritis in my hand from my scooter accident a few years ago as just my well being.  It really does bring my stress level down so when I couldn’t do it during the holidays because of all of my incisions I think it amplified everything. I had no outlet at all. But I also spent a lot of that time with extra prayer.

Because that season is supposed to be a time of joy and for the life of me I couldn’t find any I prayed. I prayed for peace, joy and happiness.  I’m realizing how different those three things are. Since the new year I haven’t had a breakdown.  I’ve been functioning in acceptance….for now.  I know that while I’m doing okay at the moment it could change on a dime.  I’ve learned the steps of grief aren’t a straight line through each point.  They’re a jumbled mess of repeating the steps and zigzagging through.  Im learning to accept this. 

I’ve had people ask me if I take anything for the anxiety and while I have some mood pills from Amazon that helped that first week I’ve chosen not to take any in the past few months. I’ve chosen to really feel all of the grief.  I’ve chosen to get through it and feel it as I do. I feel like this might be what’s best for me after I spent the summer ignoring grief and hiding from it.  That did NOT work.  I’ve also learned that if you’re not here to help me and stand by me but call yourself friend or family then I can’t have you in my life right now.  I will not spend my time catering to others when I’m just trying to get through and will not explain myself.  I’m still trying to be a good person but give me some room here.  

If you’re out there struggling with the first year or years with loss then give yourself some grace. Give yourself permission to extend the grace to yourself that you would extend to someone you love just the same.