Grief & moving on take time…  over which we have little control.  Back in December, I wrote a blog about losing my husband suddenly in October… then getting through the holidays and restarting my regular blogs for A Butterfly’s Journey.  I hoped that telling my story as a new widow would help others.  Previously I spoke mostly about the loss of three of my children.  This loss was quite different from those.

The universe had other ideas… today is the sixth month anniversary of Jim’s death… and I finally feel that I am ready to write about it.  There were lots of crazy distractions the universe sent my way.  I am a ‘do-er’, so when I grieve, I make myself take action…  I was determined to finish cleaning out and distributing Jim’s belongings and settling his estate and his affairs by year end, which I did.  But it gave me no time to grieve and let the reality of his loss sink in.

Then a January freeze hit north of Boston along with storms that brought erosion, flooding, car and house problems.  Okay, I now had to shovel when it snowed (Jim had spoiled me)… and I had to remember to bring out the garbage and bring in the mail, etc.  I can live with that.  But the crazy series of events starting this year… what’s up???

In early January, my car blew a tire due to cold, in Boston traffic.  So I waited 2.5 hours for AAA then got to the dealer just in time to replace the ‘donut’ before they closed.  Then, my car wouldn’t start in my insulated garage.  I waited 10.5 hours for AAA staying up overnight, for them to come with flashing lights at 6AM.  They jump-started the battery and I left the car running with the garage door partly open.  Exhausted, I went to bed.  I was just falling asleep when all the fire alarms in the house started blaring — scared me to death!  I ran downstairs, afraid something happened with the running car… tried to disconnect the alarms, no luck.  I called the local Fire Dept to have them walk me through it but they insisted on showing up with 2 fire trucks… lights flashing!  My poor neighbors! The firemen couldn’t see anything wrong either… so I replaced the alarms.

Anyway, a day or two later… I went downstairs to finish a load of laundry and my laundry room looked like something exploded!  I took a photo and texted it to my plumber.  He came the next morning and told me the extreme cold had frozen my main house drain pipe to the city sewer system and I had a sewerage backup into my laundry room!  Seriously??? I paid him to release the ice block & clean up the room, then called insurance who had ServPro basically rip out my entire laundry room, down to the cement floor. I’m in the process of getting it rebuilt. Ouch!

I couldn’t wait for January to be over…. then on the last day… an IRS audit that had been on and off for more than a year raised its ugly head!  The agent (also named Barbara) seemed to have it in for me & I have no idea why.  The random audit had been for 2015 and she’d been making me jump through hoops for horrendous details (like receipts for 20 years of home improvements), then she would disappear for months… three times!  My CPA thought she’d left the IRS and it was over; he said she was the most bazaar IRS agent he’d dealt with in his many years in the business!.  But… at the end of the month, she called and said she could no longer honor the Power of Attorney for Jim because he’d died, that she was expanding the audit to 3 years, was denying several documented deductions, and had added income to Jim’s return (that we already declared and paid taxes on)!

Meanwhile, years earlier, I’d lost the sight in my right eye from a fall.  But now, my eye had no pressure and was shrinking… I was told it would become painful and need to be removed and replaced with a prosthetic.  I’d gotten two opinions and settled on working with an impressive doctor at Mass Eye & Ear.  He gave me the less-invasive option of a prosthetic shell, non-surgical.  So I went to the ocularists  he recommended… had a gel mold made of my eyeball (weird process) and started to use the resulting clear trial shell.  The idea was to build from 1 hour of wear per day to 8 hours per day, then they create and paint a final shell to look like your other eye.  I wore the shell 4 days, increasing time… and got my first migraine headache, plus smaller headaches daily for two weeks.  Back to the doctor, this is not working.  I am now scheduled to have my right eye surgically removed later this month.  It will take 8 weeks to get a final prosthetic.  I’m praying it will all be OK.  It is another loss – first my sight then my eye…  I think I’m supposed to know grief from many angles to help others… hopefully there’s a purpose. 

By now, the reality of Jim’s loss was starting to sink in.  All of the friends and family visits were thinning out, as I’d expected… so I was alone a lot more.  I missed having coffee with Jim in the morning, making him dinner and hanging around together on his day off… doing errands, going to shows, visiting with the kids…  I allowed myself to cry, to sit and think, to meditate on it… but I’m still too hyper and don’t make myself take enough down time.  I had readings with two mediums I trusted and Jim came through but not as fully as I’d hoped.  They told me it is still early for both of us. I love and stay in touch with his 3 adult children and their spouses.  My son and his wife and my now 8-month-old grandson live nearby,  have been excellent support.  That baby is so healing for me!  I’m so grateful.

I try to feel Jim around me.  I know from my older son’s loss that regular meditation helps with that…  with time and practice.  I have no doubt that Jim’s spirit and all of our loved ones’ spirits continue.  I’ve had too many experiences after the loss of my children not to trust that. It helps me… I hope you can believe that and derive comfort from it.  Look for signs, those prove that “love never dies” and neither does our spirit. Heck, they may be messing with me now! 

So, once again, I’m trying to restart my writing.  Initially I will write a series of topics about being a new widow… sometimes sad and sometimes making fun of myself…  to illustrate the crazy up and down grieving and survival process.  One thing I know — I have Jim’s continued love and I will be OK.   I am moving into a new phase of my life…. one that hopefully will be as rewarding as the last.  May you do the same.

Wishing you healing…. hang in there!   XO
            PS  I promise these blogs won’t normally be this long!  :-)