Anger Phase

WARNING: This blog post deals with graphic and raw emotions surrounding grief. If you are upset or offended by emotional displays or strong language, leave now.

It is Sat-ur-day. That's right. This is Ur day to sit. Says so on the label. I've been up since 6:30 more or less. Clock kept going off, I kept hitting the snooze until around 7 a.m. Actually I woke before the clock and dozed off until it sounded. I can't sleep anymore. Before Jerry died, I could spend half a day in bed lazing around. I loved it. Now, it is as if I not going to be allowed to enjoy sleep and rest again.

I've had two cups of coffee since then and done pretty much what the day demands. I have no interest in life at the moment... truly. Those who know me know this is not normal.

Am I better today? You know, everyone says (and I've repeated it before), "It will get better." "You will get better." I get really tired of it. I suppose they are tired of my grief by now. Most people were by the sixth week. You can tell. People stop talking to you. They don't call. They don't send cards or letter. Does anyone do that anymore? Probably not so it doesn't really count. Oddly, even people who used to email me don't any more. So, I've been cleaning my contact list, my email list, and my Facebook. To be a bit dark, they are dead weights.

You do not get over this, folks. You learn to breath underwater or you drown. If people are uncomfortable with what they read here, that's good. I hope someone gets so uncomfortable that the next spouse you run into or the next parent or next sibling you meet who has lost someone in death you will reach out and wrap them in your arms and tell them how very much you care and want to be there for them. And I hope you will mean it in six months, a year, or two years. If you can't do that, then walk away and never, ever speak to them again. They don't need you giving them anymore grief.

As a point, name the people you know that have lost a spouse or child to death. Now, at which point did you begin to think, I mean really think they should be better? How many of you made statement like these: "I just don't see why she's still carrying on this way." "He needs to move on." "She really needs to get over it." "Her husband died a year ago and she still gets upset? What a drama queen!" "He has other children...." "She can get married again...." "How long are they going to grieve?"

My bet is that those thoughts or similar ones, even if not put into words, have passed through everyone's mind after six months. I don't care how kind, considerate, compassionate you are, you've thought those kinds of things about someone you know who has suffered a loss by death. You were wrong.

I told a friend last night that I am cursed with an over abundance of conscience. I also have a memory that won't turn lose of trauma. I relive events years after they have happened. I had a traumatic childhood and so I suspect that turned on a switch that can't be turned off. I am predisposed to bouts of severe depression as a result of trauma. The last day of my husbands life are engraved in living color on my memory, right down to the smile he gave me as he shoveled the snow that probably killed him. Watching my husband die in my bed is not going away. My failures that led to that are not going away. All of it is in perpetual rerun. I'm not going to get over it. Those who think this way need to get over it.

I believe I've reached the anger phase everyone always talks about. I'm angry. Angry at God for the injustice I perceive this to be. Yea, yea, yea, I know he's God and we can't call him unjust. Actually, he will probably be less annoyed at me than you are. I don't know that he doesn't think the same thing about Jerry's death. I was unjust in so many ways. So many things I could have done differently had I not been so self absorbed and selfish and miserable with the way life had turned for us. It was ALL about ME. I forgot Jerry in the end and what he was going through. He'd been sick so long that I just got used to it and failed to notice the serious changes that were occurring.

We forgot each other. We sort of lived in the same house. Our work hours were not the same anymore and we seldom got to be together as a couple anymore, just talking and going places together. Our children were constantly after us for something. The "I need" syndrome. We loved doing things for them but financially, they were breaking us. After all these months finding receipts he stashed and remembering events, I realized he was giving a whole paycheck away every month "for the kids" "for Sarah". My God, he shouldn't even have BEEN working! How selfish we all were! We pushed him to work and he worked himself to death. In the last seven months I have realized that had we shut off the money anything but OUR living expenses he would not have had to work for the last two years! We could have managed on my income and his pension.

No, no, no, no! I could not have saved him from heart failure. I'm not God. I do realize my limitations. But I am a realist. His life could have been prolonged had I paid attention. His life could have been happier and more meaningful had I paid attention. I could have had good memories of our last days together! I DID NOT pay attention.

Do not patronize me by saying I couldn't know. I know MY failure. I know what I did, did not do, ignored, over looked, and simply remained blind to. And it is MY nature to admit when I failed. It is MY nature to regret being an ass. It is MY nature to wish, fervently, with every shred of my being that I could roll back the clock two years and start over at that point knowing what I know so that I can be a better person. It is MY nature to feel remorse and guilt and sorry for my behavior. I did not, do not want to be that selfish. And it is far to late.

Thank God for a conscience.

I'm angry at people who have done the same to me. They've looked the other way because they are uncomfortable, don't know what to say, don't know how to act, or the just did not give a damn to start with and were only pretending because it was their duty. You need to get over it. Life was not designed for your comfort. You weren't put here to make YOU feel better. I'm not the last person you will meet like this.

So, yes, I am at the anger phase.

In the first days of this I had so many people who helped with the funeral and feeding my huge family and for that I am truly grateful. But in six weeks, every person I spoke with disappeared. I've had superficial conversations when we "bump" into one another, you know the ones, "Hi. How are you. Good to see you." That's it. I've sat in my home for seven months and of all the people I know here, three have called my house three times. I see no one and I hear from no one... unless I go to church where I get that lovely little greeting. My blood relatives call daily and weekly.

Alice and I talk via chat frequently. Her sister died almost two years ago. My co-worker, one of the best friends I've ever had, has lunch with me EVERY DAY unless we have other obligations that prevent it. Her son died in September. These two women and I understand each other. We know you need, desperately need, human contact and companionship at this point more than you need food.

Do you know the salvation the internet has been? That's crazy! I have been blessed by the people who have reached out without regard to their own comfort level.

Does anyone know that some nights I sit and read my blogs comments and cry because someone, someone actually said something that made me think they cared what I was living in, someone wanted to make it better? They can't but they extend that hand. Maybe 100 words but certainly more than a front door greeting. It doesn't take much to be human.

No one knows who sent me the books in the mail on grief that have been so very helpful. I don't even know but I know they came from someone I've never met on my Multiply contact list who knew that was the only way they could help me. And honestly, they have.

My blog started years ago as a fun, carefree way to explore my writing and get acquainted with interesting people. It has more than met that expectation. I love the people I've met on my Multiply blog. But with Jerry's death, it has also become a vehicle to expose this reality I am living for the hell it is and that most people never realize it is. That I never realized it could be. It is a vehicle to put on "paper" what I can't put into words.

If I said these things to some people, they'd be pretty annoyed. Some who read this will be offended. It is unfortunate if someone is made uncomfortable by this. You will just have to get over it.

Maybe you'll be better by morning. But if you aren't, well, I guess it isn't MY problem.

Yes, I'd have to say I'm at the anger phase.