Grief at 17 Months...

First of all let me apologize for my lack of blogging. Will you all forgive me? I have been reading blogs and commenting, but, not doing all that much writing on my own. For that I'm sorry and I promise I will get back to my regular blogging schedule soon! I don't usually go this long between posts and I just realized that is is only the second post for 2010! What the heck is up with that??!! Well, before I get to the 'meat' of this post I'm going to tell you. (and I think you may all forgive me based on my reason for not writing more) Stick with me, this one might get long! :)

On New Years Eve my cousin called me at the party I was at and asked me to send her a picture of me because she had a 'dating prospect' for me. Reluctantly, I sent her a picture, I just wasn't sure if I wanted to do the whole blind date thing again, after the last one didn't work out so hot. She sent me a picture of him and I will admit he was cute. Well, the next day I received a text from "this guy". After talking we realized we had a lot in common and decided to meet that night for dinner. We instantly hit it off and ended up going out after we were done with dinner. Well my friends that was two weeks ago! We have spent almost every night with each other since that first date! We've had a great time getting to know each other and we have an even better time spending time together. For now, that's all I'm going to tell you about him. I know it's probably silly and a little mean of me to leave you all hanging. I have so much that I want to share with you about him. However, in a very silly way I feel if I tell you too much too soon it will jinx it and my friends....I don't want that to happen!! So for now please be patient, when the time comes I will fill you all in more. But also know that the last two weeks have been very great two weeks and the smile has once again returned to my face and it feels really really good!

Now for the meat of this post~Grief at 17 Months:

This coming Monday will mark the 17 month anniversary of Shawn's death. I can not believe that February will be a year and a half. It almost doesn't seem real to me. I mean in many many ways it does, but then again it almost doesn't. Does that make any sense at all? I still remember every single detail of the day Shawn died, I mean everything! But now just five days until the 17 month so much of my life now is so drastically different from when it was the morning Shawn died. Very few aspects of my life are the same.

Grief at 17 months is extremely different than it was early on. The grief is still there, and I'm sure it will always be there. I guess I've just learned to deal with it in a different way. I no longer cry at a drop of a hat. I don't cry when people talk about Shawn. I no longer cry or get a lump in my throat when I talk about Shawn, or when I talk about how he died. I now find that I like talking about Shawn. I like being able to tell his story to people that do not know about him or what happened. Do I still have hard days and hard moments? Well yes, more hard moments than days. However, I've also come to learn and understand that those moments will always be with me. I don't think you can go through the death of a spouse, your closest companion in life and no continue to be effected by it from time to time during the remainder of your life.

In the first months after Shawn died people told me that as time moved on the pain would get easier to deal with. Every time somebody told me that I wanted to smack them upside the face! I didn't understand how people could tell me that, how did they, or how could they know it would get easier? Unless a person had walked in my shoes as a grieving wife I did not believe them. I thought it was unfair that they were even telling me that! It wasn't until I met Sarah at the one year mark of her husband's death did I start to believe that things would get easier. The following is a response to the first email that Sarah sent me the night before we met:
"I CAN tell you that it does get better. But, if I am to be truly honest w/you . . . and I would be nothing else . . . than I also must tell you that the 'better' comes at the end of a very long, dark, lonely road. I wish I could tell you it is different - but it is not. It is a journey that I have made with much love and support around me, with my faith girding me up, with my children drawn close . . . and yet, the loneliness and anguish were never removed by any of the above. At one year, I feel hope and strength and joy returning. I know that Chad would be proud and that he IS my biggest cheerleader from the sidelines of life. I know that he sees and knows and is cheering us on. I see him sometimes . . .and now I smile. Police cars drive by and they don't send me into a tailspin. But, I could not have said the same at two, or six, or even nine months."

It was the next day when I met Sarah that I first felt a little sliver of hope return to my heart. At a year after Chad's death she was happy and smiling and that made me feel good and gave me hope. At 17 months after Shawn's death I can now honestly say I believe and have lived the words in Sarah's email. She was right, the joy, happiness and smiles have started to return to my life. However, they did come after the long dark and lonely journey that Sarah told me about. I had great family and friends around me this entire time and could never have gotten this far without them. At the same time, there were moments that I have never felt so alone even with all the love and support around me. I now know that those moments were part of the entire grief process and something that I needed to go through on my own. I'm here first hand to tell you that as time moves forward the immediate pain starts to become less and less. There will always an ache and emptiness in my heart, the hurt from missing Shawn and missing the life that the two of us created together. There will always be the moments of grief that reach out and grab you. However, like Sarah, I see Shawn or signs given to me by Shawn and now I can look at these signs and smile or laugh instead of cry. I can now watch college football for and love every second of watching the game, instead of watching the game with tears in my eyes and then ending up in a puddle of tears after the game was over. But, I too could not have said the same at two, or six, or even nine months. Grief and grieving takes time, it is a journey and a long long process at 17 months the joy is returning and I'm believing more and more all the time that I will be okay!

At 17 months into this long process of grief a few other things are starting to change as well. Before Christmas I was cleaning my room and I was dusting around some items in my room that belong to Shawn. I dusted the large crystal framed wedding photo that I have sitting on my bed side table. I then dusted the shelf that holds Shawn's necklace, Oakley sunglasses, his reading glasses, a YSU football helmet and the award that I received for him. I set this area up in my room just for Shawn. Well, actually it was more for myself, than for anything. It was a place I could go and just sit and look at his things and feel peace and remember the memories by looking at those "things". Anyhow, as I was dusting I had a odd feeling wash over me. Actually it was more of a thought that Shawn would be pissed right off that his $350 Oakley sunglasses were covered in dust. At first I didn't really think much of it. However, the other day I was back in my room and found myself looking over at our wedding picture on my night stand and at the shelf. It occurred to me that it was time for the glasses to go back into their cases and for our wedding picture and the glasses to be placed in the dresser that houses several other of Shawn's items. All of a sudden it dawned on me that it was almost harder to see those items every single day, and to be reminded of my old life. Don't get me wrong, I loved and still love looking at our wedding pictures, I love going to the shelf and seeing Shawn's glasses laying there. However, during the last few months I have come to realize that I don't need to see these items every day to actually remember the memories. When Shawn first died I needed to have these objects out and around me. I had this over whelming fear that if I put them away and if they weren't out where I could constantly see them I was going to forget and that scared the hell out of me. Now, at 17 months, I know that these objects don't need to be out for me to see every day. I now know that the memories that I made with Shawn are in my heart, and will be there forever and ever and nobody can take them from me. I know that the memories that I have will live on with me in my heart and in my mind. So as of tonight, the wedding picture and glasses are tucked away safely in the dresser drawer with other items of Shawn's. They are there if I need them or want them as are a few other items of Shawn's. Don't get me wrong, I do still have items of Shawn's up around my room, but not just like how they were.

At 17 months I have realized that Shawn was right. For years and years in our marriage he told me that I was stronger than I ever gave myself credit for. I never believed him, how can you believe that you are a strong person when you rely so heavily on one person for everything in your life. Shawn was my rock...there is no other way to put it...he was my everything. I didn't need to be strong, because he was always there for me. Since Shawn's death I have realized that I'm a much stronger person that I ever thought imaginable. I'm still Jenny and I'm still me, but there are for sure things about my personality and about the way I now live my life. I am a much stronger person than I ever thought possible. I have learned a lot about ME in the last 17 months. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish that Shawn was still here with me, but at the end of every night I thank him for blessing me with this strength that he always told me I had, but I failed to see. At the end of the night I thank him for instilling that strength in me, because with out the strength that Shawn gave me during our 12 year relationship I can honestly tell you I would not have made it through the last 17 months. I truly believe Shawn was in my life to teach me one of the greatest lessons about myself, a lesson that I was unwilling to see on my own.

The journey of grief is different for every person and every person grieves in a different way, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is MY journey through grief and MY feelings 17 months into the journey, a journey that I NEVER wanted or asked to walk through, but the journey that is now my life, a journey that I will continue to walk every single day. On August 18, 2008 I truly thought that my life was over, I felt that there was nothing left, then I lost our baby and I really felt like I had nothing left. I felt like I would never be able to feel love or happiness ever again. However, at 17 months I'm looking at things in a different light, a light that I don't know if you can see or understand unless you have walked in my shoes. But now, at this moment in time as I write this post I'm beginning to wonder if on August 18, 2008 at 11:37 a.m, the day and moment in time that I will always HATE and will always be etched it my mind was more of a start or a new beginning to my life than an end to it. It was sure something I didn't realize then. At 17 months I'm happy, joy is coming back to me and I know that I will now be okay, and those are feelings I surely was not feeling on the day of Shawn's death. These are feelings that have started to return after a long dark and lonely time, but I'm so grateful and blessed that they are coming back to me. I am at 17 months looking more and more ahead to my future and what it has in store for me than I ever have before!