Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

I had a plan. I almost always have a plan, I'm a planner. I called it my 15 year plan but really it was more like a 20 year plan. Basically over the span of that time we would have four kids. I would be a stay at home mommy and take care of them and then when the last one was in 1st or 2nd grade I would get a job again.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. See how well that plan worked out. Let me refresh your memory, I only have one kid, my husband apart from being my soul mate was our money maker, then he died. Technically I have no income. Don't worry were ok we have social security and stuff but it's not income. It's not a job. I never for sure knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had some ideas, an archaeologist, a wedding planner, but nothing for sure. I was secure in the idea that Dan would take care of me. Dan knew what he wanted to be before I even meet him. I think he always knew what he wanted to do. Basically he wanted to save the world. Practically he was going to d

My brother in law wrote a post on face book "2016 worst year ever"  I, mostly joking, commented "who died"  He replied "Carrie Fisher". O. I hadn't heard yet.  He was also referring to the slew of 80's stars who have up and died this year. George Michael, David Bowie, Gene Wilder, Prince, just to name a few. My mother in law was slightly offended, to her 2015 was the worst year ever. 2015 is when her son died. I wholeheartedly agree with her. 2015 is when my soul mate died, there is no worse year then that. There is no comparing that to anything. Of course thats not what my brother in law intended, 2015 broke his heart too. He was just saying 2016 also sucked. Well yes, but here I may offend people, mostly because I am a selfish selfish human being. I am not affected by Carrie Fisher's death. Or any other icon that died this year. Don't get me wrong I am a child of the 80's I grew up watching Star Wars just like you. Possibly more s

I barely remember last Christmas. I was in a total fog. I remember a few key moments like in a dream. I remember my sister gave me a very significant gift that had me burst into tears. I remember opening presents with Baby girl and NOT bursting into tears. That about does it. Two weeks ago I was feeling like this Christmas wouldn't necessarily be better this year but that my brain wasn't quite so foggy and my head would be clearer. I would totally remember this Christmas. I was actually quite proud of myself for how well I handled Thanksgiving and Dan's birthday and was expecting to be able to handle Christmas. Well I handled it, just not how I expected. On Thursday night I said "huh I think I'm getting a cold" On Friday morning my head was so stuffed up I could hardly think. I had a massive head cold. I was miserable. I laid on the couch and napped off and on. Friday night we had a Christmas party to go to. We went but I was so miserable I hardly talked t

I saw a meme just now. Just now being 3 in the morning when i'm scrolling face book because I can't sleep. I go through phases where I randomly wake up at 3 am. It's a grief thing I guess, lots of grieving people do that I hear. But i'm getting off topic.  I wanted to share  the meme but I thought it might bother some people so hey lets blog about it instead so even more people can hear about it.  This is the meme: Now I tend to have a thing against minion meme's but that is a whole other story. I loved the sentiment in this one. Yup I just said I loved the sentiment behind hitting someone in the face with a rock.  Specifically my dead husband. It just seems so appropriate to me. If I could hit you in the face with a rock Dan  then you would know how much I miss you. Really though that is just a teeny tiny sample of how much I miss you. To have any affect at all to how it feels I would have to drop giant boulders on your head. You know like the ones in Jerusal

It’s morning. I’m running late already. My biggest pet peeve is being late. Dan used to make me late for things because he procrastinated. Really he was the worst procrastinator I've ever known. I think baby girl is following his footsteps in this. Now I’m late for things because my husband is dead and I can’t get my act together and I cant get my kid together either.  So really it’s still his fault. I walk into the kitchen. My mother in law is crying.  I don't have time for this today. I have to keep it together today. I have lots to do today, I'm telling myself as I ask out loud “Are you alright”  “I’m just having a bad morning” she says through tears. My father in law notices and walks over to her and asks why as he's hugging her. My husband doesn't hug me anymore “I know why... cause Dan’s still dead” I say causally as I grab a class from the cupboard. Cause thats what I do now I guess, causally talk about my husband being dead, like it's an everyday thing

My grandpa hated watching war movies, he hated watching movies where people died. He hated talking about his time in WWII. He never wanted to go, he was drafted. Marching with 11 other men one day they were shot at. He's the only one who survived. I always thought WWII was so fascinating and wished he would tell me about it. I thought it was fascinating because I wasn't there. I didn't see the real thing. You know how when there's a car accident everyone slows down and looks. I don't anymore I don't want to know. I cringe when I hear an ambulance or see one go by. I just scrolled past a picture of someones husband on facebook, He was in a hospital bed, I didn't want to know why. I joined this online group specifically for people who's loved ones have died of a siezure. I read about two posts and haven't gone back. They talk about seizures way too much on there for me. I went to the grocery store the other day and there was an ambulance parked on

I went to therapy last week. Fun times at therapy I tell you what. We were discussing what a hard time baby girl was having lately and then we got on the topic of discipline and my therapist asked "So how do you discipline baby girl?" Uhhhhhhhhhh Crappppppp. Uhhhhhhhhh Crappppppppp. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. did I say crap yet. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh Crappppppppp. Well since your my therapist and you here to help me I'm gonna tell you the truth. The truth I didn't actually realize until you just asked me this question. "uhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't think I've actually disciplined her at all since Dan died"  uhhhhhhhhhhh apparently that was 23 months ago. uhhhhhhhhh apparently I haven't disciplined my child in almost two years.  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. What a fantastic revelation. Yup Yup Yup. Uhhhhhhhh I guess I have a defense. My husband died.Pretty much everything went out the window when that happened. We are just trying to hold it together, discipline i

Yesterday was that time of the month again. It usually puts me out of sorts for about three days.  Every month I dread these days. Yesterday was 23 months since Dan died. 1 month short of two years. How can he have been gone for that long already? It still doesn't seem real. Last night we had our support group. We did a candle lighting for our loved ones and each told a story about them. True to form Baby girl choose not to participate. But I did, my story wasn't really a story but more like a trait of Dans. I talked about how he never wore a coat. He hated wearing coats. I don't really know why. But I said how it would be freezing and I would have a giant warm coat on and Dan wouldn't have any coat on at all, how he and baby girl would go play in the snow and it was only about ten minutes before both of them had thrown their coats off.  And then I started crying, because I was talking about my husband not wearing a coat. It was one of my big pet peeves about him, I

Santa is bringing me new clothes for Christmas. Also a few other things. Santa started bringing me presents again last year after Dan died. Before that Dan always bought me Christmas presents. Before that I was a child and Santa brought me presents. Santa usually stops bringing you presents when you become a grown up. At least thats what we told Baby girl when she asked once. If you have a family it's ok though because your family will get you presents. Your spouse will buy you something and ideally take your child out to buy you something also. At least thats what we did. Dan was great at buying me presents. For one he always went overboard getting me several things. Furthermore he never ever bought me something I didn't love. He had very good taste. He even bought me clothes from time to time. They always fit too. Two years ago at Christmas he bought me some perfume. It was the perfume that I wore in high school. The perfume that I had on when he fell in love with me. The p

                                                                                                             Dan playing in the snow 2002 I could imagine us today. Today was a snow day, a big storm coming in around noon. (big for the northwest, this ain't Minnesota, our snowstorms are different). I could imagine you getting up around 5 am. Me mumbling in my sleep asking what you were doing. "I'm gonna go in early so I can get home before the snow hits and play in the snow with baby girl" "No just stay home all day and come back to bed" I would tell him. "I gotta go Jennifer, I'm in charge" He would kiss me on the head and I would hear him lock the front door behind him. I would lay in our cozy bed and drift off to sleep until I heard our toddler crying to get up. I would grumble about it being too early and go get our rosy cheeked baby who was happy to see momma. Baby girl would walk into the nursery rubbing her eyes. "High my baby" s

I feel like I haven't written as much as I usually do lately. It may be a relief to some of you then you don't have to try to keep up. I have been utterly exhausted since Thanksgiving break. By the end of the day, (which is the only time I have to write) I have actually been going to sleep. Baby girl has been needing some extra attention lately and it is exhausting for me. You see right now baby girl is mad at the world. Right now she is full of anger and rage. Why is my nine year old full of rage it's simple and so so complicated. Simple: her dad died almost two years ago and she misses him. Complicated: everything else. That one little fact makes every single thing harder, makes every single day harder. She doesn't know that is whats making life so hard and that makes it even harder. I have said before that Baby girl has what I call "grief tantrums."  A giant tantrum like you would see a two or a three year old have. Crying, screaming, kicking, throwing

Yesterday was Dan's birthday. He would be 38 if he were still alive. I don't know what that makes him since hes not. For 5 months hes two years older then me instead of one and I would tease him about how much older he is then me. How he's an old man now.  How I'm so young compared to him. I mean 38 is practically 40 I would have said. We might as well just say your 40 old man.  We didn't do any of that. He's not here to tease about growing old with me, or before me. Last year for his birthday I was still in a fog. (I might still be now, I really don't know). The entire family went out to dinner at his favorite restaurant Red Lobster. 25 people. The biggest birthday party Dan ever had and he wasn't even there. Then we sent him balloons with messages on them and did fire works. Dan was never really big on birthdays, A total introvert he hated parties and big crowds. Usually for his birthday we would send baby girl to grandmas and have a date day. See

You missed a field trip today. This would have been one you would have gone on. You would have loved it. You missed Baby girl silently crying on the bus because her feelings got hurt.  You missed me crying with her because I can't fix hurt feelings. You missed a parade. Baby girl jumping all around because she was so excited. You missed "fraudulent activity" on our bank account. If you were here I probably would have just assumed it was you buying me Christmas presents. I would have been shocked that you didn't procrastinate this year. But since I'm the only one using our bank account now it couldn't have been you. You missed laughing at me not being able to push a wheel burrow full of gravel. You missed Thanksgiving You missed tree decorating You missed bedtime for the 687th time in a row You missed the cat ripping up your moms plants You missed us moving You missed going up to play in the snow You missed munchki

I was one month old when Mt. St Helens erupted. I don’t remember it any other way. But my parents do. My parents have a jar of ash they collected off their car the next day. They lived about 2 and a half hours away and they could see the explosion from their yard. All growing up we had pictures of the mountain exploding lining our hallways. A tribute to an extraordinary event. It is one of those days you talk about what you were doing the moment it happened because you remember. I don’t remember, I was too young. Baby girl was seven when her daddy died. When her life exploded. It’s older then a month but my biggest fear is that it is not old enough to remember what it was like before. That she will say I don’t remember what life looked like before. We have an urn of ashes. Our halls are lined with pictures of the life before. A tribute to an extraordinary event. Will they mean anything to her? Or will she just listen to me talk about it. A life she doesn’t remember because she was

We spent Thanksgiving with family as most people do. Wednesday night we had thanksgiving with my family. Thursday we had Thanksgiving with Dans family. This has been our tradition for many years now. Last year at both family gatherings I spent time in the bathroom crying. This year I didn't do that. An outsider might say that that makes this Thanksgiving better then the last. That's not necessarily true. Not better, just different, perhaps better at controlling crying. In truth we really had a wonderful thanksgiving with both families. As always there was the weird non presence of Dan. It didn't belong at thanksgiving, Dan belonged at thanksgiving not his missing hole. However it is always good to be with family. Baby girl especially had a great time. She was surrounded by one of her favorite people groups: UNCLES. Baby girl loves her uncles, they kinda love her too. She spent two days of being picked up and spun around and tickled and chased and and pulled through the

I look in the mirror and I feel tired. I look tired too but I emanate a feeling of constant tired. Like an aura surrounding me. An aura of tiredness. That’s all that’s left. The joy is gone. The light in my eyes is gone. That “red headed spark” I was known to have has vanished. My magic is gone. All that’s left is tired. I get up every morning and my mother in law asks if I slept well because I look so tired. I slept as well as I always do now, which isn’t well at all. I’m just always tired. I see my friends and they say I look tired, that I’m working too hard. Yes, I’m working twice as hard now, no ten times as hard, you have to account for the grief not just simply the missing person. I go to therapy and she tells me I look tired, she tells me to practice self care, I try, I’m still tired. No amount of rest, or sleep, or fancy massages is going to cure my tiredness. I see lines on my face, my cheeks are hollow, even though I’ve lost no physical weight. It’s just sank off my cheeks

Baby girl and I both had bad days. Nothing drastic, I was just having a very sad missing my husband day and baby girl didn't have a good time at her play date. Part of me thinks it was for the same reason I was having a sad day. That she knows even though she doesn't know. Part of me thinks being 9 just sucks. Exactly two years ago today is when my life started to change. I didn't realize it then, I was oblivious to it in fact. I had no clue that in 6 short weeks my soul mate would die in an instant. The thought never crossed my mind. Two years ago today Dan had a few seizures, The doctors switched his medication. Six weeks later he died of a siezure. Like most of them it started in the middle of the night. The Sunday before Thanksgiving 2014. We were asleep and I woke up to the bed shaking. Dan had had a siezure. It was so short by the time I turned the light on and sat up it was over. He rolled over and started snoring. I shook his arm and he tried to shove me away. H

So I have this house I bought in September. It needs a lot of fixing, so I'm fixing it before we move in. It is extremely frustrating. It turns out I can't do as much of it by myself as I thought I could. Frustrating. The stuff I can do by myself isn't very much fun by myself. Frustrating. Like my whole entire life now, everything is without Dan. I am trying to make a home without Dan. FRUSTRATING. I am one of the lucky ones. I have an amazing support system of family and friends who want to help me. I know a lot of people don't have that.  I even have some that are quite skilled in house remodel. The problem is they all have lives. They have families. They have jobs. They have better things to do then fix my house even though they do want to help me. It's ok. I get it. Dan was the type of person who didn't let his job go away after he got home. He had the type of job that couldn't go away when he got home. Dan was in charge of a facility for mentall

I never really loved cooking. I never really minded it, but I didn't love it. It was just what you did to get food. If you did it good the food then tasted good. Win Win. I did love baking, because that food always tasted good. I would say I'm an average cook. I can make some things really really well and I make some things really really bad. Spending hours every day preparing food was never really my thing. Dan was an ok cook. He could cook and did often but he liked to experiment with food. He liked to put weird combinations together and see how they came out. If they came out good, then great we would eat it. If it came out bad he would eat it anyway because he was one of those guys that would eat anything. I would eat a bowl of cereal. So I never loved night when he experimented because you never knew what you were gonna get. (some people might say that one of the few things baby girl gets from me is that hating change stuff. But that is another story) As I've said a

I never in my wildest crazy weird alternate dimension dreams imagined this would be me. First of all as I've said a million times, this was never supposed to happen. This isn't my life. I am not a single parent. I am not a 36 year old widow. Dan and I were forever, we always knew we would be together forever. We talked about dying but it was always when we were done with life, 95 or 100. We would cash in our life insurance and go on a crazy adventure. We would die together, flying an airplane, or going bungee jumping or swimming with sharks. Whatever it was it would be big and it would be together. Second, I still hold that I am not a writer. Dan was the writer in this family. Dan was an amazing writer. If you don't believe me there are links to his writing in the upper right of this page, read them and then you will understand what I mean. Yet here I am being a single mother. Here I am being a 36 year old widow. As much as I don't want to be here, here I am. In a