Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

I have this picture in my wallet. I only keep two pictures in my wallet now. (gone are the days of wallet pictures) One is of Dan and I on our wedding day. The other one is of Dan and Baby girl when she was three months old. Last time we went to grief support group the kids were supposed to bring a picture of the parent that died to hang on the wall. Baby girl being anti anything grief related did not want to participate. I was going to make her but then I forgot. So afterwards the leader was telling baby girl how she could bring a picture next time and how she would sure love to see a picture of her daddy. So I said well I have this picture in my wallet we can show you. Baby girl likes this picture because it has her favorite stuffed animal in it. The leader saw the picture and said "o my look how happy your daddy is, I bet he loved being your dad" Baby girl just smiled. So then I was telling this story to my therapist and I showed her the picture and she said ...

You know you've had a long day when you are disgustingly dirty and you are still debating whether it's worth it to take a shower or if your too tired and should just go to bed all gross. The shower won but it was seriously close. So what did I do to get so dirty? What happened? Nothing happened, everything happened. It was just another day being a widow. I have been working for weeks on painting these set of hutches I want to use for an entertainment center in our new house. Well I finally finished them. Then I wanted to put them together to see how they looked and to get them out of the way. Hey guess what? One person can't really lift a hutch top by themselves. I knew this. But I am so dam sick of asking people for help for every stupid thing, Of trying to figure out who to call and who would be willing to help me. Of arranging a time when they can do so. It is seriously a five second job (i know I just talked about this, but it's still heavy on my mind). Two...

I had a dream about Dan the other night. That's two dreams of him in one month. Thats a record. This dream was different though. It was a dream, but it didn't feel like a dream. It felt very real. Dan was leaning over me talking into my ear as I slept. His voice was perfectly his, I could feel his body standing over me. I would know his body anywhere, even without seeing it.  I woke up, startled. For half a second I looked for Dan. I turned my head to where he was standing fully expecting him to be there. That took half a second, then I remembered he was gone. Dan was dead, I was alone, he's not here it's just a dream. What was he saying you ask? "Don't worry Jennifer, I got this." UGGGGGGGG DAN. No you don't. You don't have anything, you died. Not even you can fix dying, or you would have by now. I would love to know what it is exactly that you got. Me? Baby girl? We are beyond lost without you. Unfortunately for me I don't really believe ...

We did this big family thing this weekend. It's called going to the pumpkin patch. People tend to do that with their families. Dan was a huge introvert and didn't like doing stuff with a lot of people. I am (or rather was, grief has changed that some) a huge extrovert and always think 'the more the merrier' So much so that sometimes Dan had to actually say "no don't invite people I want to spend time with just my family." The pumpkin patch was one of those things. The pumpkin patch was just the three of us and we always had a great time.  Then, like with everything else all of a sudden he wasn't there anymore, he was gone, dead.  Last year I said "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh family I can't go to the pumpkin patch alone I need help, you must come" and they did and we had a great time. This year I causally said "hey who wants to go to the pumpkin patch" ..........silence...........  One sister came with me and Baby girl. When w...

I voted today. Again I say this is not a political post. This is a grief post. Our state rocks and we can vote by mail. So I did. Now I know this is 2016 and all but I still think there are certain jobs in a marriage that are husband jobs and wife jobs. There just are. They can be anything however, but jobs that are that particular spouses. For instance Dan hated doing the laundry. Laundry was my job, I didn't mind laundry so I did it. The only time I remember Dan ever doing laundry was when I was pregnant and on bed rest. I hated cleaning the bathroom, with a passion. Dan always cleaned the bathroom, I swear I didn't clean the bathroom for 15 years. I've done it a few times since he died out of shear necessity but our bathroom is seriously neglected without him looking out for it. I paid the bills, that was my job, every month I payed the bills. This brings me to a confession. A very big confession. A confession that I am sure will offend some people... I've never ...

I have fake nails on from baby sisters wedding still. They are very pretty, but not very conducive to fixing up houses you just bought that need tons of work. I have been working on my house a lot. It's starting to get frustrating. I can't do it all by myself. I just can't. I can do a lot by myself, but it's lonely and boring, and hard. Somethings I just can't do by myself. I need help. Now for the record I am one of the lucky ones with the greatest support system of family and friends you could ever want in a crisis like the sudden death of your husband. Truly they are phenomenal. But they are not the same. Hard as they try and I know they do, and I greatly appreciate it, they are not the same as having your husband around. It's always the little things that get you. Dan was by no means a handy man. Dan was what one would call an intellectual. Extremely smart, couldn't fix a dam thing. Baby girl is more of a handy man then he was. Sometimes he would pr...

Wow my titles are very original. I'll work on that. I had a dream about Dan the other day. I don't dream hardly ever, Well, I guess I should say I don't hardly ever remember my dreams. I guess you always dream. This is only about the 4th dream of Dan I've had since he died. 4 dreams in 21 months of missing him more then is describable. I'm certain I had more dreams about him when he was alive. The other night when I dreamt about him it was a sequence of three dreams. They were all mostly the same. I was at a big giant party. All my family and Dan's family were there, siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. All our friends were there. Every one we had ever known, high school friends, college friends, church friends, work friends. There were 300 people at least. It was a big room with lots of windows and the sun shinning in. In the first dream, I was just standing around talking to people when everybody started clapping and cheering. I looked and Dan was co...

Today has been one of those days where I just can't focus on anything. Like anything. I walk into a room and don't know why. I go to grab stuff and forget what it was. I don't remember what I was doing. I work on something for ten minutes and then start a new project, and then ten minutes later I start a new one. I feel like I can't even focus while writing this. We are moving (in case you haven't heard) our new house is a fixer and so we are fixing before we move in. My brother in law is helping me by doing most of the carpentry work. I wander around the house and say " ya I want to do this" and then a minute later just stop that train of thought and find a new one. here's an example: "See that hole in the wall, that needs to be patched, o we need to sand the floors, but wait what color are we going to pant the bathroom." I's like I can't have a complete thought. You may say "Ya I hear you, everyone has days like that from tim...

My feet are cold. They get cold a lot, I guess I have bad circulation or something. It used to be when they were cold I would put them on Dan's feet or legs to warm them up. Usually he would give a little jump and say "get your freezing feet off me" but then when I would try to pull them away he would pull them back and warm them up for me. See he really didn't mind, he just had to pretend he did to put on a show.  He would always bring me socks before I would ask for them or even say I was cold, he would just hand them to me and say "Jennifer put some socks on and you won't be cold" Whenever I did say I was cold his first response was always "are you wearing socks" One of my vivid memories the night Dan died is hat my feet were freezing. Colder then they had ever been before, numb like I was standing barefoot in the snow. So cold that in the wake of my husbands death I made my sister go into my room and get me a pair of socks. I actually tho...

I went to therapy today. Today is also the 12th, which means it's now 21 months since Dan died. Also today my mother in law flew to Minnesota to visit family which she does regularly and I do on occasion. I went into therapy and I said "Today's the 12th and my mother in law is flying to Minnesota and I know it is completely irrational but I'm afraid her plane is going to crash because bad things happen on the 12th." and my therapist said "of course you are, you have PTSD, it makes perfect sense" well that did actually make me feel a little better. You see, I like to consider myself a fairly smart, rational human being. It is impossible to explain the feeling you have when you are afraid of something and you know perfectly well in your head it's not going to happen and you shouldn't be afraid of it and yet you are anyway and you can't stop. I am happy to say my mother in law landed in Minnesota safely. This of course got us talking about Dan...

I don't feel like I have anything very compelling to say today. I miss Dan. Is that compelling enough? So I thought I would read some of his writings. There are so many. Poems, stories, essays, blog posts, academic papers, half written stories he never got finished. One year for my birthday he wrote me a book of poems all about our two cats. In my view he was the greatest writer there ever was. I loved his stories, I don't know anyone that didn't but I know many people who never got to hear them. He wasn't big on making a show of himself or boasting and although he always wanted to publish something, he never got to. I could easily get lost in his stories and until we had baby girl he would tell me a story almost every night. Then he started telling them to her and thus gearing them to her. They were still magnificent stories, his imagination was always going. Today I'm going to share one of his love stories. Or rather a love poem. A poem to me. This i...

So I was telling my best friend about our fun time at the dentist the other day. You can read about it here if you haven't yet. /today-in-grief-9-29-16-20-12 . The synopsis is we went to the dentist and I was totally thrown off guard when the receptionist asked me if Dan's phone number was the best number to reach us at. I fumbled through words and finally left without explaining to the receptionist that my husband was dead. It was very awkward. My best friend being totally awesome saw my predicament and came up with an amazing idea. She said I needed dead husband business cards. We laughed and laughed about how I needed dead husband cards that I could just hand out to people like that and then just walk away with out ever having to say anything. How convenient, I could give them to receptionists, store clerks, people that ask me if my husband can help me unload the car when I get home, moms at school, really they are good for any number of things. I could even give them to...

Baby sister got married on Sunday. AHHHHHHHHHH. It was beautiful. It was in the rain and nobody cared because it was so beautiful. Dan missed it. I went to therapy today and was telling my therapist how I haven't even had time to process Dan missing the wedding because I have been so busy doing "wedding stuff", She asked me if I had blogged about it yet. Of course not, I haven't had time. hmmmmm, she said, Apparently she thinks my blogging helps me process stuff. Which is likely why it's 2 in the morning and I can't sleep. So lets blog about a wedding so I can get back to bed. Baby sister got married, her new husband is just about perfect. The family is still trying to find some sort of flaw and we haven't been able to. They are so in love and so cute together that it's disgusting. I'm told that's how Dan and I were too. The wedding was so beautiful, everything was perfect, except that one thing that is never right, Dan wasn't there. ...

Baby girl did not want to get dressed for school.  Didn’t want to go, wanted to snuggle. I get it, but were going to school. Had to motivate and motivate her to get dressed by saying “come on we can do it’ “its going to be a good day today not like yesterday” “come on lets go” “ya mommy” she says “not like yesterday” In the car I suggest to baby girl that when her tummy hurts (her phrase for anxiety) she could go see the school counselor just to have a nice place to take a break for 10 minutes or so. “no mommy I’m not doing that” Get to school. Take her to class. Teacher approaches me about email I sent her about yesterday. We talk about it in code that I’m pretty certain baby girl can understand and hear even though she is on the other side of the room. She knows we were talking about yesterday. Mom of another student approaches me about blog I wrote about yesterday. Says how she can relate, we talk about it for a few, again sure baby girl knows were talking about her. ...