I Would Not Have Chosen This





Most people can imagine (or they think they can imagine, but really have no clue until it happens to them,) what grief is like during the first couple of months. They think it's crying non stop, and being unable to go out in public. Many people have told me,

"If that happened to me, I would just lie in bed all day," or "I could never do that, I don't know how you do it."  But what I know is that each person handles life differently. Typically, though, my response to those statements are,

"No you wouldn't, you have kids to take care of," and "Yes you could; you wouldn't have a choice."

People have also told me I have "handled this so well."  Every time I hear that, I laugh loudly in my head. Many times I laugh loudly out loud. Your tact tends to go out the window in grief.  "Handled" what, exactly? My husband dying? My soulmate dying? My grief? My child's grief at the loss of the best father in the world?  My response has always been that I HAVE NO CHOICE. I have no choice in any of it. I certainly did not have a choice in Dan dying. If I had, clearly I wouldn't have chosen it, or anything that has happened since.

This is what did happen:

Dan died. Yes, I wanted to stay in bed all day. Yes, I wanted to shut my door to the world. But this little seven year old girl, with her daddy's eyes and her daddy's smirk, wants me. Not Grandma, not Auntie. Me. She needs me. She just lost her daddy; she can't lose her mommy too. So I got out of bed.

It's that simple and that insanely hard at the same time. Baby Girl needs me every day. I have to get up. I don't have a choice. The getting up is hard. It takes more mental and physical energy to get up than most people can possibly fathom. I have to make myself do it, but I don't have a choice.

So that's what I did. I got up and I took care of Baby Girl as well as I could, which was about 10% of what it was before, but I poured all my being into making that 10% happen. And we hung on. We went around in a fog, and we hung on. We did regular life things simply because I didn't know what else to do. We went to barbecues and camping trips, play dates and coffee with friends. Every single second I thought about Dan, I miss Dan. I am really bad at reading Baby Girl's mind, but I'm sure she misses him too.

Eighteen months later, that is largely still what we do. I am better at not crying; I even smile when I talk about him. I still take care of Baby Girl at less than my former capacity, and it still takes everything I have to do it. It takes every bit of energy I can muster, but I do it. We do it.

We have help. Lots of help. Our family and close friends are phenomenal. They have taken such good care of us. I go to a therapist; she told me to write this blog. Baby Girl goes to a therapist. I got medication for depression and anxiety. Hey did you know having your husband die can make you depressed and anxious? Go figure.

I stopped worrying about small things. I never bring food to parties anymore, it doesn't matter. I don't go to things I don't want to, just because I feel like I should. They don't matter. I let my kid eat candy and chocolate, sometimes even for breakfast.  Life isn't as foggy but it is definitely still hazy and some days the fog is so thick I can't see. Some days I can't think straight. There are no words to describe how much my soul misses him.  I still think about Dan every second. I still miss him every second. It still physically hurts that hes gone. (In case you don't now grief is extremely physical). But we carry on.

We have no choice.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle


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