DIARY OF AN UNWILLING WIDOW
May 5, 2014
Day 334
Tired today…soul-weary, too. I’m
missing Paul so much, more than other days. Tomorrow will be the 11 month
mark. Over the weekend I had to deal
with some (more) pretty vicious attacks by a member of Paul’s family. Grief is hard enough without having to deal
with this level of cruelty. But, as an
older friend reminded me on Saturday, “You need
this!” I looked at her in disbelief and
she was quick to assure me that all this is definitely wrong, but God would not
allow it in my life unless it was something I needed to experience. It’s a different way of looking at things, but
I can’t argue with it, even though I would really like to!
Saturday
the men from church are going to re-build our deck. That will be nice. One of these days, I’ll have to find some
furniture for it. I’ve started getting
bids for the new siding, too. My second
one came out today and I should have the figures later this week. I wonder what I will do with myself once all
the work is finally done? I guess I’ll finally start to live like normal,
non-remodeling people do. The siding
will be the last project.
The other night, as he crawled into bed, Sam asked me, “Did Dad only ever
sleep in his underwear?” Not sure where
he was going with this, I replied, “Ye-e-s-s-s…” Immediately, Sam began removing his pj’s,
stripping down to his underwear! Of all the ways I thought he might like to
remember and emulate his dad, this was never one of them!
Ugh, actually. The night Paul died,
I was so inwardly frantic that I didn’t give his lack of clothing a second
thought. But later, I felt kind of
embarrassed that he died in his underwear,
of all things. I suppose it’s better
than dying naked and I’m sure rescue personnel and medical examiners see
everything in their line of work. I
never minded the fact, ever, the Paul was not a pajama person, But after he died, I kind of wished he had
been! When I die, I hope I’m fully
clothed – and coordinated.
***********************
I had two odd, back-to-back dreams, one night after the other last
week. They both dealt with gaining more
children. In the first dream I was given
two new children to adopt, a little black boy and girl. I was completely overwhelmed. I was still widowed in this dream and I was
nearly despairing as to how I would function with more children. But, yet, I still wanted them and I spent the
rest of the dream trying to figure out new names for the children. Odd.
The next night I dreamed that I was also still widowed, but delivering a
baby that had been conceived before Paul’s death. I had told no one that I was pregnant because
the doctors told me something was seriously wrong with the baby and that if it
survived the birth, it would not live long afterwards. Only my mom was there. I had the baby and then the delivery room was
so crowded and noisy that I asked for a private room so I could rock my newborn
daughter until she died. I did that, but
she didn’t die. Instead, I could see her
pinking up and then I realized she already had teeth and she began talking to
me. I brought her to my mom and told her
what was happening and she suggested I name the baby, “Rose” and then I added “Patricia”
for a middle name, which is my mom’s name.
 |
| Father's Day 2012 - and what a crazy one it was! Now, the memories of the insanity of that day makes me smile because it ended up being the last Father's Day. |
These dreams really stayed with me.
I know whenever I’d share my weird dreams with Paul, he’d usually ask me
what I had eaten before I went to bed the night before! But I think these particular dreams are open
for interpretation. I suspect the first
one has to do with my current situation in life. I’m overwhelmed, overworked, and not quite
sure how I’m going to do everything that needs to be done. But yet, I don’t want to give up anything
I’ve been given. I still want to figure
out how to do it all, keeping what I have.
I wonder if the second one has more to do with Paul’s death. Losing him was a certain, terrible thing,
like giving birth to this baby who wasn’t supposed to live. But maybe this dream was telling me that
surprises await and that things may not always be as awful as I would expect.
Or maybe it was just the tacos I had for supper!
**************************************************
Will and I went to a wedding shower Saturday. Because it was for Nathanael and his fiancee,
I really didn’t think twice about it. In
fact, I even brought food for the shower to help out. If it had been for anyone else, I probably
would have had to think a little bit more before attending. My friend, Vivian, explained it to me a few
weeks ago this way: now that I am widowed, there will be emotional “price tags”
attached to a number of activities. I
will have to decide if the price is worth what I’m willing to pay, emotion-wise. For example, I don’t think I could ever visit
Paul’s parent’s house because of how difficult it
would be for me to be there without him.
Right now, that price is too high to pay.
I discovered that this wedding shower exacted a price out of me, too. It hurt to be there. It hurt to hear talk of weddings and to play
games about love and marriage. I was
surprised by that. But it was still worth it to
me so that I could be there for Nathanael.
I could pay that price. But I was
relieved to leave. I suppose the wedding
will do the same thing to me next month.
However, I have not lost my sense of
humor. Unfortunately, for others, it’s a
rather dark humor. One of the wedding
games was a version of the “Newlywed Game” where couples were asked individually
questions about their marriage that the out-of-the-room spouse then had to come
back and answer correctly. The question,
“What is something your husband used to do, but no longer does?” was
asked. I quipped to
the women at my table, “Breathe!”
***********************************************************
Ellie is still getting around pretty well.
She’s become very adept at pulling herself up to furniture and standing
on her cast. I’m guessing the
orthopedist might frown at that. The
other day I was shocked when she managed to climb the 2X4 ladder Paul built
onto the swing set that leads up to a platform where the kids can play or go
down the slide. That thing has to be
about 6’ off the ground and it’s not an easy climb, even without a cast!
Today, Ellie told me she wanted something that was on a chair across the
room. Without thinking, I asked, “Are
you legs broken?” Oh yeah…
I got
flowers last night – a whole bouquet of beautiful daisies. The older boys went to a SNAG after church
and I took the Littles, went home, picked up my house, got them to bed, and
collapsed on the couch with the tv.
Around 10, the Bigs got home and were chatting with me. Then, Will whipped out this bouquet and
handed it to me. He told me it was for
Mother’s Day, which isn’t for another week, but since we’ll be out of town, he
wanted to get it for me now so I could enjoy it all week. I can’t express how touched I was by
that! These boys have never had to lift
a finger when it came to Mother’s Day.
Paul always bought the presents and the cards, handed them a pen, and all
they had to do was sign their little names.
That was the extent of their Mother’s Day responsibility! So for them to have the forethought to do
this and to be willing to spend their money on me…I am one blessed mama.
Well, this blessed mama is even more tired than what I was when I started
writing. Time to wrap it up and try to
wind down the day. Plus, Ellie has been
informing me for some time that, “I yukky!” and she is. She’s smelling up the house. I had better go rescue everyone from that.
And so, another day draws to a close.
Another day without Paul and another day closer to seeing him
again. Nighttime is a good thing.
Praying with understanding, HUGs
ReplyDelete