Stories about my spouse and this journey
My assignment is to consider what grieving advice I could give to a friend. Let me tell you there is not one bit of advice I can offer. I feel a multitude of emotions all of them hard to identify. Sometimes sadness comes to the forefront, sometimes it is guilt, sometimes I am numb. Maybe in time I can work through enough to be a help to someone else.
The exercise I have today is to say what I miss the most about my deceased husband. I miss the early years when we had fun and laughter together. We traveled as much as we could. He loved to go out and eat, to go to parties, to help out at the church, to play softball and coach Little League. He was always so proud of me. He was proud when I continued my education and no one was prouder then he was when I passed the CPA exam. He loved my mom and dad and said he would have married me as much for my family as for me. Until the day they died he was so good to my parents and never complained about the time we spent with them or the things we did for them. The dementia made the last years horrible but with him gone I am remembering the good times more than the bad.
After less than three months my husband passed away in the nursing home. Until the very end I thought he would be home again. Taking care of him has been my life for so long how do I learn to take care of me again? I rarely had time to think of what I wanted it was always looking for what he wanted or needed. I go in a store now and I think I don’t need to purchase that now because he is gone, I don’t need to make the weekly trips to Dunkin for him or to the bakery. I have heard of women who take care of men for years and when they die the woman follows soon after. This blog is what I am using to save me.
My husband of 30 years is in a nursing home. They tell me he is close to the end. I should be sad I think but instead I feel relief that I am done with his demands and finally have some peace. I am not lonely even though the house is large and I occupy it with only my little schnauzer. It has been so long since I have not had someone that I need to wait on or respond to that I love this feeling of complete autonomy.