Hey Simon,

I have had some interesting months. After that fire, it was discovered that I have clots in both my lungs after ab overnight hospital visit. So started dealing with that. Got laid off. Thanks Covid-19. City went in lockdown, so no friends or family visit. I decided to take little break and focus on me for a bit. Then obviously started to look for job and couldn’t find. Then I had options and ended up taking one of them. I start on Monday and am so anxious about it. I wish you were here, so I could talk to you about it.

It’s weird. I thought people would relate more to being a widow in lockdown days. Sadly not. Now people just focus on their own isolation, not that some of us have been living in a kind of isolation since losing our partners. I’m anxious all the time and unmotivated. I wonder how it would be if you were here. Would we be watching netflix together? playing board games? knocking down home projects? Would you have joined the world in bread baking? All the things, you could’ve been doing, but are not. All those possibilities!!! Sometimes I wonder if you are alive in a parallel world.

2020 was meant to be my year. I was meant to have learned to live ok without you. Your loss was meant to just inside me. Instead, it’s still seeping out of me. I still miss you with each breath. I count the time I have been without you and wonder how long I will stay without you. I wish this would end.

Missing you with breath xx

S

This day last year, we collected your degree. This day this year, I learned Lawrence name comes from Latin, meaning ‘of Laurentum’. And was looking for correct convention to describe colour blind friendliness on a website. There might have a pun or two that I chuckled over and a dad joke that I almost sent to you. Just few of many things I need to tell you.
Just another day where you are missed in most mundane of things. Cryptic crosswords miss you, so do the dad jokes.
In sharing of things that interests you, in sharing of things that interests me, in every random thought, in every planned step, you are being missed, S. Words haven’t been the same since you were taken from me.

Note: posted on FB.

Dear Ms. Sandberg,

Thank you for making me feel like a failure in grief as well. I know that wasn’t your intention and I do appreciate that you really tried being humble this time (Shout out to your research team for finding facts about minority single mothers in US). It just didn’t do it for me. I have spent last five days thinking about it (called crying in Widow terms) and I just seem to get more upset. I’m not saying I hate your book, I’m just saying your advice isn’t really for me.
First of all, I did try imagining the worse. But, as I have no children, I couldn’t be grateful that I still have them. I tried to imagine losing rest of my family, losing my limbs, losing my house, finding out Simon was an alien or had another wife somewhere, but, nope, losing Simon is still the worst (No offence, fam!).
Then, I was jealous that you were able to get to a point where you knew you will be OK. Twenty-three months in, and still nowhere close to that point. In fact, I almost cried in a restaurant the other day when I saw a mid-50s woman, looking a bit sad, having dinner alone with her notes and books. I saw my future and didn’t like it (please note I don’t mind dining alone, I just want the option of Simon being present). It’s scary not been able to imagine a future where you might be happy.
I’m jealous that you were able to go back to work and find solace in it. I struggled with it (being told that I was headed for a break-down didn’t help either). Only after I took 5 months break, I felt like I had moved somewhat forward. But then I moved cities for new work and went backwards (Self-sabotage has always been my specialty).
I am also jealous of your support network. I wish some of my family members would’ve talked to me about it. I feel sad that some of my friends, for one reason or another, just left me. Maybe you are just focusing more on positive experiences. Good on you. I do try to focus on good things as well. I just don’t succeed much.
I agree with you that most people don’t understand loss and it’s important to find/build communities where you can belong. The support I have found from my widows/widowers groups in Facebook has been life-saving (Hey Weirdows!!!). I cherish the friends I have made there.
But I still hate you for being able to articulate your grief and writing a book. Not really!! It’s amazing and inspiring. I can’t even tweet anymore or blog. Though I can now sew a bit and knit a lot. You said not to isolate yourself and I have been trying so hard this year to be more social. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be working that well for me. I do like spending time with my friends, but I am always looking forward to being alone at home with Simon.
And what’s with the forced humour? It’s a book about grief. We can find a book readable even without the jokes. I’m sure reading them wasn’t as cringe-worthy as listening to them on an audio-book.
It was not a bad book. But being a bit of Type-A (just a wee bit), I couldn’t help but compare our journey’s timelines. And I found mine lacking. Control-freak that I am, I really want my grief to behave and let me get on with the things. Sadly, it just doesn’t listen to me. The worse part is that had Simon been here, he would’ve told me to relax and I would’ve (Distracting me and getting me to relax was one of his many talents). Not to mention, I got even more upset that I have all these thoughts on this book and he isn’t around to let me vent.
All in all, I give your book 3 stars our of 5.

Note: posted on FB.

In today’s episode of people too curious about my womb –
Her: any children?
S : No.
Her: Enjoying yourselves, huh?
S wonder if she should be bit rude or blunt and burst this person’s bubble. Then she fake-smiles as most of us usually do.

 

Note: posted on FB

This was an add-on to a facebook post:

# Don’t tell them they should start dating. They might be ready someday or they might never be. It’s all fine.
# Do not assume anything about their childless status. Some of us are grieving our unborn children too.
# Stop saying words like golf-widow/bowling-widow/footy-widow. Your partner is out on an activity. He/She is coming back. Ours isn’t.

579 days, that’s how long I’ve been trying to come to terms with this loss and failing every day. Some days I grieve for the life you’ll never have, but deserved so much. Some days I grieve for future we’ll never share. Then there are days I grieve for the family we were meant to be. Oh Simon, it’s so hard.
How does one ever describe the constant ache? The breath that stays stuck in your chest? Tears that never seem to stop? The guilt of living that never goes away? A simple OK hides so much. At what point are you allowed to give up and just not face the world?

Note: posted on FB

FB Post:

I’ve spent most of my evening talking to a girl who’s still in school, who should be concerned about superficial things, who should be dancing around, but instead she talks about Peter Mac, the fact she can’t have radiation, and other limitations in her life. All because she has cancer in her knee. It was misdiagnosed as Arthritis, so has spread more than it needed to.
I was very good. I talked about treatments, cancer perks, wheelchair perks (she uses mobility scooter at times), the book she’s writing. And not a single tear. Now that shindig has ended and I’m back home, I’m sitting in my car, gathering courage to get inside my empty house (it usually takes half hour), I can’t help but shed tears. How unfair this is! What a terrible disease it is! How it is destroying childhoods, adulthoods, marriages, families! And no one but the sufferers and their families truly understands the impact.
This Christmas maybe include a little gift to one of the Cancer charities? We support ACRF, Cancer Council, and Cure Brain Cancer. Hopefully one day Cancer will just be historical disease.

I posted this on FB:

In the past year, I’ve heard lot of stupid stuff, some was well-meaning, some was just ignorant. I normally keep quiet and try to be all zen about it. But sometimes it just gets too much.

Here’s the thing – Having a bad breakup, getting divorced are not the same as losing your soulmate. Yes, they all are bad things that happened to you and no one should have to go through such things. Not having someone in your life is lot different than not having someone alive. You can’t drunk-dial them. You haven’t split up because things didn’t work out between you two. There’s literally no justification. You are not better off in this situation. There’s no silver-lining. You can’t get drunk with your girlfriends and collectively hate him.
Similarly losing a parent/friend/family member isn’t the same. Yes, It’s awful. I wish it hadn’t happened to you. But try going to bed each night knowing your soulmate isn’t alive anymore. Try getting up in the middle of night to reach for him and realise once again that he is never going to be there. Try waking up every morning and lose him all over again. And this realisation that he isn’t there anymore, it happens multiple times a day and each time your heart just breaks into thousand pieces. You think you’ll learn to live with it. But it’s been a year and it just hurts more. Just don’t compare, your grief doesn’t tell you how my grief is.
Oh and your accidentally killing someone is *definitely* not the same.
“You should start dating” Maybe one day I’ll date again, maybe I won’t. We don’t know that. And telling a grieving person to start dating is kinda hurtful. What I am supposed to do, go to a bar and cry on a stranger’s shoulder because he isn’t Simon?
And same goes for “you are young, you’ll find love again”. I don’t care. I don’t want to find love. I had it. In fact what I had in short time is more than what most people will ever get to experience. Also, what if I was 70? Would you not want me to find love then?
Don’t even get me started on “Are you selling your house?” “You should move to a smaller place” “How are you managing your mortgage?” “Isn’t your house too big for you now?” I’m still trying to understand how my housing situation is anyone’s business. Unless I’m asking for a handout to pay for my mortgage, you do not get to comment on it. I can barely get out of bed and you want me to take big decisions like this? What if I agree house is too big, would you come and chop it in two?
“You have got your whole life ahead of you” Yes, Do I want it though? No. It isn’t the same without Simon. My laughter went with him. I exist now, not live. We were going to get old together. We had plans. Telling me this, doesn’t help me. It just reminds me of what I have lost.
And the best one was today. Someone noticed my new tattoo and asked about it. I mentioned it’s significance and how it connects me to Simon. This person went “but it *is* permanent, you know. It won’t go away.” You know what else is permanent – my husband’s death. I live with that every day and that’s not going away either. If you can’t something nice, just don’t say it.

And I understand that lot of people have no idea that I’m not doing fine. So they get surprised when I say I can’t go to the movies anymore or that I haven’t been sleeping well. “But you are doing so well.” Well, the thing is I like to scream when I am alone and you haven’t noticed that I spend quite a lot of time in bathroom these days. Also, shout out to people who say “why do you need to see a counsellor?” I don’t know. Maybe so I don’t kill myself or maybe so I can make sense of what has happened. In any case, it’s inappropriate to say things like this. People like you propagate Mental Health stigmas.

TLDR; Don’t be a dick and just think about what you say to grieving people.

I posted this on FB for our anniversary last year.

“I see posts about love, posts about how a guy should treat you, posts about successful relationships etc etc. And every time I want to comment, I want to tell these people they are setting the bar too low.
They don’t mention the guy who would wake up early and take the right milk to your favourite coffee shop, so you can have your lactose-free coffee the way you like it. They don’t mention the guy who spent days searching for the right earrings because you mentioned you want the ones the girl is wearing in The Breakfast Club movie. They don’t mention the guy who held you for hours when you cried because his treatment wasn’t working. They don’t tell you that the right guy would listen to your midnight fears and make them go away. They don’t tell you about the guy who was ready to take your last name because fuck the patriarchy, the guy who made his mission to make you laugh hysterically, the guy who added the names from your affair list to his affair list because some guys are just too hot, the guy who read your favourite books so you both could talk about them, the guy who fought til the end because he knew you would be miserable without him.
S, none of these posts measure up to you. You always had to be perfect in everything you did, didn’t you?
Happy anniversary, love. Miss you so much. Being with you was the best thing that ever happened to me.”