Widowed Six Months

My heart is broken; it’s not mending, hurts. Miss my Honey, so badly. No amount of trying gets me past this pain. My head is out on sympathy strike, won’t work beyond basics. Tear ducts operating at full capacity again.

As a kid in New Orleans, I heard an adult say, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!” The ever ready bunny of “we can make it better” is down.  

Losing my constant companion, best buddy, lover was bad enough, but living alone for the first time in my life just put the f’ing cherry on top. My best friend from childhood, Darlene, died adding a new layer of sadness.

My dream of helping the island dogs has amounted to shit. At every turn the problem is bigger, more difficult, tamper resistant, overwhelming. I’m not one to give up.

At this point people want me to buck up and get on with it. Need distance from friends and family who feel disappointed that I’m not doing better. I can’t change how I feel to please them or myself. Trying harder, as someone suggested, caused a backlash of sorrow and more tears. I’m so miserable I could scream, actually I did earlier in the day.

Energetically it’s difficult to be with someone in this stage of mourning. People expend energy being up, positive about the day, working towards a goal. To be with a profoundly sad person drains your charge. You must love that person to hang with them under the circumstances.

Not loving me enough to want to know how I feel somehow gives license to people to lecture me on how I should think or feel. Tolerance for enduring same is at seriously low ebb. If you gave a rat’s ass about me, you’d want to know how I feel, but you window dress and paint your way through the encounter by pontificating. I’m so in awe. Yes, tell me how to feel; I’ll get started with that right away. No, I couldn’t have figured it out without you.

So you haven’t a clue as to what to say if you can’t say what the dead spouse would want or what the widow should do. Sorry for your loss and then zip it. The people whose comments I value most have said, “Sorry for your loss. He was a cool guy.” Or he was a good man. A positive little comment about who he was to them comforts me more than any gas bag crap.

 I apologize for being so blunt, but my fur’s been rubbed the wrong way for a while, I’m miserable beyond measure. My street dogs moved. I need a change.

No, kidding, what a boo-hoo baby! Cathartic, yes, it was.