When Death Haunts

Hey Babe,

Guess what?! It’s my 2 year faceversary!!  Can you believe it?! I made it to two years!!  Last year I got balloons for my 1 year faceversary, I wonder if they sent me balloons this year!  I was sick today--runny nose, sore throat, and congestion, so I slept most of the day and didn’t go into the office.  The illness is probably a byproduct of China travel, weird weather, and of course, how can I forget, my husband dying!  You know, I don’t talk a lot about how you dying has affected me physically, but it really has!! I talk a lot about my emotions and feelings but I talk very little about how my body feels, but it’s definitely taken a toll.  I’ve been sick a lot more lately, probably all the stress and anxiety building up which makes my nights restless and sleepless. At some point, it all catches up and affects the physical body.

The first few weeks after you passed, everything was foggy and surreal.  I felt completely dazed, confused, and disoriented; like I was trapped in some terrible alternate universe, Earth 2, and I didn’t know how to escape.  Even though everything around me appeared the same and normal, I felt like my world had flipped upside down and there was this gaping hole and immense pain in my heart that no amount of band aid could cover or heal.  I felt completely dazed, confused, and disoriented; like I was standing still or moving in slow motion while the world was spinning at top speed around me. It was like I was standing still on the tracks of a Nascar race, and before I could flinch or catch a breath, the racecars were lapping around me, over and over again.  At nights, I would generally cry myself to sleep, wondering if I could actually run out of tears at the rate I was going and what did I do to deserve this cruel and harsh punishment from the universe. In the mornings, I would wake up abruptly, startled, and gasping for air like I had finally broken free from the riptide that had pulled me under.  Sometimes, I wake up confused and not sure if you dying was just a really bad nightmare of if it actually happened. Other times, I would wake up and wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive. I was always tired, and I didn’t have a lot of energy to do anything but lay in bed and cry in disbelief, shock, and terror. I was scared of everything, just leaving our bedroom was hard.  I could barely speak anything coherent, and eating, who can eat when your husband just died. I don’t think people realize that when you don’t even know if you can ever breathe again that eating would be the last last thing on your mind. I remember eating lunch with a coworker after you passed, and she was talking about how she lost 8 pounds in a month from a raw food diet, I wanted to say, “Oh wow, that’s awesome.  I lost the same amount of weight in the same amount of time when my husband died because I couldn’t hold down any food. I call it the widow’s diet; it beats all the yoga and spin class I’ve taken!” But of course, I refrained, I’m sure it wouldn’t have gone over well.

I’m glad I had a village that dropped their lives to come support me because I wouldn’t have made it without their love and support, especially with caring for the animals.  Speaking of the babies, Your death has hit Pebbles the most. (Well, she was your favorite, so it’s not surprising. She has you wrapped around her little paws. You would get jealous whenever she slept with our friends when we had overnight visitors staying with us that you would call her in the middle of the night and make her come sleep with us, and when she wouldn’t come, you would feel so hurt and betrayed.  I never had to worry about Bam Bam because he never slept with anyone but me!!  He was completely loyal unlike Pebbles. 😂😆) Pebbles laid in bed with me the entire time, and she grieved when I grieved. She never left my side. Even my dad asked why she was so sad. I said, “Daddy, her Daddy just died, what do you think?!”  He was so taken by her pain and grief that he was showering her with attention and kept telling her how much he loved her.  Sasha wasn’t herself either.  She wasn’t friendly and didn’t want to be bothered, this is the kitty that is usually the first to greet anybody that walks through the door. But then again, I couldn’t tell if she was really grieving or if she didn’t get her eye drops regularly so the kitty glaucoma was making her down. (You know, you never help me with giving her the eye drops. Whenever she came to you for love and affection, I would asked you to hold her so I could give her the drops without having to chase her around the house.  But over time, she stopped coming to you for love and affection, so you finally told to me, “SY, you are making me betray her trust, I will not do it anymore.”  So, you start to make amends with her so she would regain your trust while I was left chasing her around the house giving her eye drops on my own 4 times a day.  I even remember a time when she went to YA for attention while we were eating dinner, and you were so jealous that you stopped talking in mid-sentence and made her stop and you said to YA, “I don’t know why she’s bothering you like that.  She doesn’t do that to anyone but me. That’s our thing!!”  I don’t even think you would get that jealous if someone was trying to talk to me.) Well, as for the rest of the babies, I’m sure they miss you, but you were kind of mean to them (whatever, so what if they’re mama’s boys!! Well, except for Biscuit, the oddball, black sheep in the family. She never let you touch her and you always resented her for it since you were the one who saved her life!! She only lets me pet her, and she usually sat or slept next to me when she wanted love and affection, but she would never go near you or let you touch her.  One night when she came to sit next to me and was demand attention, a little while before you passed, you looked at her with disgust and said, “I resent her. I was the one who saved her life, and she won’t even let me touch her.”  I laughed at you because you felt so unloved and betrayed by her.  I don’t think Biscuit ever let you touch her in the 9 or 10 years we’ve had her!!), so I’m sure they’re like, “Yay!! The tyrant is gone, let’s take advantage of mommy like we normally do!!”

Anyways, I’ve derailed a bit (yeah, what’s new?!).  Back to how your death as affected me physically.  Eventually, the daze and fog lifted after I started moving with life again, mainly when I went back to work.  Some days, I would feel okay while other days, I was just a complete mess. I wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed or go to work.  I would wake up crying and in complete distress. I would have to pull out the widow’s card and call in “widow” to work. Eventually, after a few weeks of settling into work, I eventually became a ‘high functioning widow.”  I refused to talk about my pain and grief at work and when coworkers asked how I was doing, I would brush them off and wouldn’t open up about anything, so eventually they stopped asking and work became a grief-free zone. I started to find solace in work since it was the only place where I felt normal and nobody asked questions like “Oh shit?!  WTF, your husband died?! How are you doing?! How are you managing?! How are you even working?!” Honestly, I have no clue what my coworkers are thinking. They’re probably thinking, “Is she really okay? But, she seems okay, so she must be okay, right?! I mean, if she wasn’t okay, how can she even be functioning like she is?!”  In order to be “okay” at work, I’ve had to learn how to shut-off my pain and grief so I could be a ‘high functioning widow,’ which meant I stopped processing my pain and grief (it’s not like I can turn the pain and grief on and off whenever I wanted, no matter how great I was at compartmentalizing).  Then I started binge watching sad and highly emotional TV shows and movies to make myself cry because I needed a good cry but I couldn’t. Eventually, the bottling and turning off the pain and grief caught up in the form of anxiety, apathy, loss of appetite, and restless sleep. So, that’s where we are right now, I lay awake at night feeling restless and not sure if I slept or laid awake all night. Since I’ve found out your cause of death, I’ve started waking up abruptly and gasping for air again in the mornings, and the haze and fog has started to surround me again. I feel like I’m starting this grief process all over again. The questions, shock, terror, and disbelief have all come back to haunt me again, except they’re hitting me harder the second time.  

I used to think I was at the at the fork between hope and acceptance, but now I feel like grief has hit the reset button and I’m back at the beginning where the world is spinning around me and I’m standing still and scared of everything.  I get into my car and I’m scared I will die in a car accident. I sleep and I’m afraid I won’t wake up. Today, I was afraid I would die from a runny nose and sore throat, I mean you died over a slightly swollen leg and mild chest pain and shortness of breath, so anything can happen.  All I can think about are the many ways I can die for no apparent reason and how nobody would know I would be dead for days. I remember after your step-mom passed, you had a hard time sleeping since you were probably having vivid dreams about her like I had of you after you passed. But it got so bad that you became afraid to sleep at nights, and this was many many months after she passed.  You wouldn’t sleep and would watch TV all night because you didn’t want to have the nightmares--not even sure how you functioned and went to work everyday. I asked many times what was haunting you in your dreams that you couldn’t sleep. You wouldn’t tell me until one day you said, “Do you really want to know why I can’t sleep at night?” I said, “Yeah!”  You said, “I dream that I die and you die.”  I never told you this, but I also had the same intuitions of you dying, so I didn’t think anything of it because I had the same fears. But it wasn’t when I was sleeping, it’s usually when I’m driving home from work. The fear would paralyze me to the point where I’m in tears driving home, but I always thought it was normal since you were such a big part of life, kinda like how parents have fears about something happening to their kids.  It started after we got married, so I figured it was probably normal?  But now, I wonder if they were really premonitions since you actually did die, and maybe your dreams of me dying were premontions also. Maybe I will die young like you, and the universe took you first because it knows that you wouldn’t survive losing me (your dad and YA agreed with me on this one) and also someone has to tell our story before we both go and I would be the better candidate than you!! 😛😬

Yes Babe, I know, I really laid it bare today!!  (Just in case I die tomorrow, I want it all out!!  and bottom line, I need to sleep but I can't if I'm constantly haunted by death...so I'm hoping getting it out of my system will help lessen my fear!!)  Anyways, I've also come to the conclusion that the best way to die if you are in love is at the same time so nobody has to go through this pain and agony of losing the love of their life because it REALLY SUCKS BIG TIME!! 😭😫😭😫

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