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needing to be alone
I have been reading here lately alot of people talking about how they just want to be left alone. I have also read of their issues doing that because of children to care for or family and friends preventing that alone time because they think it harmful. Well Im here to tell you how theraputic it has been for me to do just that. From the time Tom, my husband was diagnosed with metastisized melanoma on April 21, 2011 until he died July 1st, life was a whirlwind of pain, confusion, suffering, fear, and frantic love. I stayed with him ALL the time. If he was at home I was with him. When he was hospitalized I sat beside his bed holding his hand, sleeping when he slept but never ever not touching him because he needed me there. The only time I left him was a couple times a week I would sneak off to the bedroom in the morning for a couple hours while our daughter and granddaughter hung out with him for breakfast. But the morning he died, I stayed in the paliative room with him for a few hours until it was time for his body to be taken away, then I came home, took my little dogs and locked myself in our bedroom for a full 24 hours. I cried, I punched pillows, I screamed into the pillow and I cried myself to sleep many times. I needed to just be alone with MY grief. I had given everything to everyone else for two months and I had nothing left to give anyone. I had held myself together to hold my husband, kids and grandkids together. But I couldnt do that any longer. After that first day I had to come out and deal with arrangements, bills, etc. Toms Celebration Of Life was held on July 11th. On July 12th I sent my daughter and her kids home. They had been living here for most of the 2 months prior and my daughters health was not good. She needed to go home and take care of herself and be with her husband and children. (her daughter is 20, son 16, son 13) and I needed to be alone. So for the past 2 months I stayed home 90 percent of the time. Dealt with all the financials, but mainly, just curled up in a corner and licked my wounds so to speak. Today is the 2 month anniversary of Toms passing and I dont feel great, but I am beginning the process of thinking about my life now, without Tom in it. It is not the life I want. It is not the life I ever for a minute thought I would have, but it is life. I can rationally see now how what happened with Tom was a blessing, not a cruel joke by God. For a long time I had blamed the doctors for not finding Toms cancer had spread and treated it earlier. Now I can accept that if they had found it earlier, he would still have died this summer but the years leading up to this summer would have been full of surgeries, chemo, illness, pain, worry, fear, hospitals, and doctors. Instead it was full of living, working, hiking, playing, loving. For three years from the time the original melanoma was removed from his leg until April, we lived! And for a man as full of life as he was that truly was a blessing. So...... there is something to be said for time alone to process and grieve without having anything else to deal with. I will never be as good or as happy as I was with my first and only love, and I will love him more than words as long as I live, but I can and will be ok.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Cynthia Horacek on
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Dear Anna -
Good for you. Good for you for doing what you felt you needed to do, and for doing it. So many people don't understand what we are going through, and that when you lose the love of your life, you don't just "snap out of it" on a schedule. There is no schedule for grief, and it just seems to come like a big wave and drag you back to sea when you least need it to. There've been many times I, too, just needed that alone time, but now, it's been 9 months, and I'm getting a little bit tired of the quiet and the being alone in this house. My husband's cancer was different, and he also had Crohn's Disease for all of the time we were married - almost 32 years - but I am so grateful for our time together, and the wonderful girls he helped me raise; and what a great father and husband he was, and what a wonderful marriage we had. I guess I'm trying to say, good for you for being honest and taking care of yourself and doing what you need to do. I wish you strength and healing. Take care.
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Permalink Reply by Tiffany on
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you are very strong and after reading what you had to say made me think of everything that happend with my husband. he had cancer for two years and the last year was awfall. it was way worse than words can explain. the treatments and the transplants. it was hard to deal with. my husband died at home with me. and i layed in bed with him for two hours until they got here to take him away. I still love my husband and i always will but i am ok with it to a point. so i know what you are saying. october with be one year. and it will get better with more time.
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Dear Tiffany -
Thank you. I've been having a very hard time lately. My youngest daughter's wedding was last Saturday, and she was married in my mom and dad's backyard, and my husband and I were also married there. And not having him to walk her down the aisle I think really triggered me. The week leading up the wedding I was determined to focus only on her and the wedding, but there was so much drama in my family, it made it hard. Then when she and her husband left to go back to NY, it was much harder for me than it has been in the past when she's gone back. I think I cried all day yesterday. I tried to distract myself, but nothing worked, and I just gave into it and let go. I'm so sorry your husband suffered so long, and so sorry for you that you had to go through it for so long. I know it will get better, for all of us, but grief seems to have it's own time table. Thank you again for your thoughts.
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Dear Cynthia,
thank you for your thoughts aswell. I know what you mean about the trigering thing. when i hear one of our songs it makes me cry and when my kids do somthing new it makes me cry. I have a three year old and a two year old. they look just like him to. anyways, that will happen for awhile. atleast it has for me and still does. my brother pasted away two years ago and his wife still has moments like that. everyone tells me that it gets better with time, but i dont think it does i think it just get to that point where you kinda run out of tears. i wanted to be alone for a while after Robert my husband died and then i didnt want to be alone, i wanted to spend all the time i could with everyone bc i thought everyone was goning to die. in four years my daughter and my brother and my husband all got taken from me. well anyways sorry for taking up ur time but thank you again.
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Tiffany -
You're not taking up my time. I seem to have a lot of it lately, anyway. I can't imagine losing my husband when my children were small; I don't know how I would have coped. At least now they're grown up and on their own, and I don't really have to worry about them. Hang in there; I know it gets better with time but we have to work though it. I just want that "better" time to come already!
Take care
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