Category: Parenting

How to Kill it as a Widow

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Ha! See what I did there? I love a good pun. Is that a pun? I don’t even know.

Either way, recently someone said to me that they admired me, that they didn’t know how I did it and how I have overcome my so called widow-hood. The truth is, well first of all, who doesn’t love being told that you’re admired! That doesn’t suck. But second of all, what choice do I have? And thirdly, you don’t overcome widow-hood. You just have to learn how to live with it, how to live through it and how to be happy while doing it.

I guess I could choose to wallow in self pity. I could choose to focus only on what I have lost. I could choose to live in the past. I could choose unhappiness. Certainly I wouldn’t be judged (yes I would) if that’s the path I chose. But I don’t choose that.

I have 2 children that follow my exact example at all times. They deserve a life of happiness and joy and freedom. Losing their father at such young ages fucking sucks. There are no ifs, ands or buts about that. They didn’t deserve that. But we don’t always get what we deserve. Life deals our hand and it’s how we deal with what we are dealt that matters. (That’s a whole lot of dealing right there!) My point is, they are watching my every move, my every reaction and they are emulating what they see in me. Do I want them to be mopey, woe is me, my life sucks because these circumstances that we had no control over happened to us? Hell to the f-ing no. I am raising men. Strong men. Resilient men. Happy men. And it all starts with me.

Secondly, and I believe this to the depths of my soul, happiness is a choice. And I choose to be happy. Do I have bad days? Undoubtedly. Do I have days where I am mopey and feeling sorry for myself? Obviously. I just texted one of my closest friends in the middle of the night not too long ago complaining of my sadness. These days are bound to happen. Hell, they happen when you haven’t lost your spouse. But on the regular, I choose to be happy. I choose to focus on what I do have rather than what I am missing. I choose to stay in the moment rather than dwell on the past.

I also choose to stop worrying about things beyond my control. Take school for example. Is it ideal for my children to be educated virtually? Fuck no. I am no teacher. I have no patience. Jack will be fine. He’s smart. He’s disciplined. He gets it. Colt, who’s supposed to be starting kindergarten, he’s not going to be so fine. And neither am I. Not because we’re not smart or disciplined, but because it’s all brand new. Everything you need to know in life, you learn in kindergarten. Isn’t that what they say? That’s a lot of damn pressure right there. But at least when Colt’s dumb as a shoe box full of rocks his whole life because his mom taught him kindergarten, it won’t be his fault. He’ll have plenty to divulge to his future therapist about how his mom ruined his life when he was 6 years old because she didn’t know how to teach the alphabet. But all of these things are beyond my control. It is what it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. Therefore, I am not going to waste my time worrying about it. Because I have no control over it.

I can control how we spend our time. I can control who we spend our time with. I can control what I choose to focus on. And we choose to stay busy, we choose to surround ourselves with the people we love, we choose to have fun, we choose to laugh more often than not, we choose to sing out loud and off-key as often as possible, we choose to dance in the kitchen while cooking dinner. We choose to focus on the myriads of good things that we have in our lives. Because that’s the way forward for us. That’s what makes us happy. That’s how we keep on keeping on.

The Art of Moving On (Month 8)

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Dear Jonesie:

If I’m being completely honest here, I almost totally forgot that today was the 12th of the month. In my defense, I fear my brain may be partially melted from overexposure to heat and sun this past weekend. Jack had 2 double headers in 2 days in the brutal, unrelenting heat of southeastern Virginia. Seriously, at one point I put ice cubes in my bra and felt very minimal relief. Also tried some down my back. Not much better. Also forgot to bring the stupid canopy to guard us a bit from the hotter than a billy goat with a blow torch sun so today we just kept moving further and further away from the field to seek shelter and shade in the trees. Hell, towards the end of the game, I wasn’t even watching, which you know is very unlike me. Colt was sort of a trooper. Yesterday he fell asleep for a while, woke up and cried for a while. My mama thought he might was coming down with the Covid, but, thankfully, once I took him to the car and let him sit in the A/C for a while, and eat some Star Wars fruit snacks (what can’t they cure?!), he was back to his nonstop chattering self (seriously, he’s so much like you, it’s ridiculous. It was easier with you because I could just tell you to shut up or walk away or even leave. Can’t so much do any of those things with a 5 year old). Today he handled it much better.

Our oldest boy played great yesterday. He pitched well, he did well at short stop and hit some bombs. Today, not so much. That’s the nature of our boy, though. I’ll defend him a bit and say he was nervous today, playing with a team he only knew a handful of kids on and a coach he had never met until today. Yesterday was also a long day that ended late and today started early. And, again, the heat. So, Tiger Mom here will give him a bit of a pass.

Anyway, back to my fried egg status brain, I was sitting at dinner, it was the boys, my parents and me and we’re just chatting and I randomly half shouted “SHIT, it’s the 12th of the month!!” To which Jack replied so what. To which I then reminded him (well, after counting on 2 hands)  it was the 8 month anniversary of your death. To which he replied “so what? It’s not like it’s been a year.” So, yeah, he’s still 10. Ha!

The truth is, we’ve been super busy. Baseball is in full swing so that consumes a lot of our time. And in between, we are going to the beach, pool, sound. We are sharing meals with friends. We are over using the grill and trying to avoid the stove. We are covered in mosquito bites from staying outdoors way too late. We are dancing by fire pits, we are staying at the beach until dusk, we are laughing and singing and finding joy in as many ways as possible. We are making new friends while still enjoying the old. Colt is fishing as much as he can. Jack is still all about the sports while adding a couple of new favorites – surfing and skimming (he could use some help with both but I’m not quite the person for that job). And I am loving watching them grow and change. Their wings our spreading and it won’t be long before they are ready to take flight (shit’s getting real deep now, you got any waders where you are?!). As corny as it is though, it’s also 100% fact.

As for me, I am in a good place. Sometimes I drink too much. Sometimes I smoke too many cigarettes (sorry but you know how I love a smoke sometimes). I stay up too late and wake too early, never quite getting enough sleep. But I am well. My family is amazing. My friends are incredible. I’m looking forward to the future while also completely embracing where I’m at today. (There I go getting all corny again. WTF is wrong with me?!)

I’m not sure if you want to hear this or not, but, for the most part, we are happy. We were in a dark place for a while, I’m not going to lie. But we can’t stay in that dark place. I think you’d actually be really proud of how we’ve dug our way out. It did get ugly for a while, I’m not going to sugar coat it. And I’m willing to bet my left arm there will be more ugly in the future. That’s ok. We can handle it. Right now, though, we are going to soak up all the happy, sun, friendships and love that we can. Because that is what makes our world go round.

We have found a sense of peace. Maybe it’s acceptance. Maybe we’re just too busy to think about how sad we are supposed to be. Maybe it’s a combination of a million different things. Whatever it is, we are happy and enjoying all of life as much as we can. In the words of Creepy Jonathon, it is well with our soul.

Certainly we miss you. Certainly we think and speak of you often. But those assholes were fucking right. Eventually, time heals all (most) wounds. Not to say we’re not still wounded, because we always will be, but the more time goes by, the better we get at going by with it. Because that’s how it has to be.

Love you always,

Poopsie

 

 

Lucky Number 7

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Dear Jonesie:

What can I say? This sucks. You being gone sucks. There’s nothing lucky about the past 7 months. And unfortunately, your death has been trumped by the whole entire world turning into a steaming pile of donkey shit. It’s also raining again. I wish I had kept a log of the number of days it has rained since you died. I’m not saying you have something to do with it (yes I am) but it sure has been a ridiculous amount of rain. It’s kind of like our grief – we get glimpses of sunshine and then the sky opens up again.

Jack just yesterday declared 2020 the worst year of his entire life. Which is really saying something because I didn’t know it could get worse than 2019, you know, the year we lost you for the rest of our lives. But this new normal is anything but normal. It sure would be easier, in ways, if you were here with us. But then it would also be awful because following rules wasn’t really your jam. And it is my jam, mostly, so a lot of arguments would have been had I imagine. But it doesn’t really matter what I imagine because you’re not here and therefore, we’ll never know.

After weeks, maybe months, hell if I can keep track of it, we have finally re-emerged (I may have turned our kids into recluses for a bit of time. Sorry about that). Spending time with our friends and family. A semblance of baseball is back in our lives, which is really delighting Jack, not so much Colt. We spend as much time outdoors as possible (when you’re not reminding us to still be sad via down pouring rain). Just so you know, the rain is no longer working for the boys (so why don’t you go ahead and ease up). They get excited because they get to have an inside pajama day filled with movies, video games and laziness.

I often wonder what Jack and Colt remember about you. They don’t talk about you much. When I ask them, they don’t have much to say. And I don’t say that to be mean. It’s just incredible, the mind of a child, the strength of a child. Especially our children. Maybe all children. I don’t know, I only know ours. But Colt no longer pees not the floor (thank the maker), he never breaks down anymore crying for his dad. He’s happy. He’s funny. He’s sweet. He’s remarkable. He’s becoming quite the fish slayer. He finally got to go on the boat with Uncle G this week and loved every second of it, as he usually did when the boat was ours. He said he had a trout on his line but the fish bit his bait in half. But that’s all he needed. It brought him so much joy just feeling the tug and trying to reel it in. They went cruising, too, just like you and I always liked to do, and absolutely loved it. Our little waterman.

Jack is like a little man. He takes care of me. He’s the one consoling me when I’m having my moments. But he never has moments of his own. He’s so mature. And understanding. And compassionate. Is he happy? I think so, but he’s in that phase of life where hormones are taking over so there’s a little more discontent and a lot more attitude. He tries to help me parent Colt constantly, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, drives me insane. Baseball seems to be going well, but I don’t know for sure, because I can’t always watch, which, you know me, I absolutely hate because crazy baseball mom. It’s good though, he needs some space away from me to do what he loves without the pressure of thinking I’m disappointed. Which how could I ever be disappointed but we know how his innocent and sensitive heart works. What I do know is how happy it is making him, which is absolutely what he needs in this self-declared worst year of his life.

As for me, I’m still a mess. Mistakes should be my middle name because I seem to be making them constantly. The loneliness can be all consuming which has led to latching on to ridiculous and inappropriate things, which then of course leads to let down, which is the last thing I need. You’d think I’d learn. But I’m only human, and a bit of a broken human at that. You would think, after all this time, things would start being better. And from the outside looking in, they are. But deep down, I’m just as broken today as the day we found out you had terminal cancer with 8-12 months to live.

I miss you. I know it’s repetitive but it’s true. We should be arguing about travel ball and how expensive it is. We should be teaching Colt about fishing and boating and how to swim and arguing because your expectations are too high and mine are too low. We should be arguing because the governor won’t let us open Turf’s Up and we’re really starting to stress about the future of our business and money and what it will look if and when we can reopen. All of these things would be more favorable than life without you. But we didn’t get a choice. And it is what it is.

I’m down 30 pounds, which is a huge accomplishment. Unfortunately, I need to lose about 20 more to still be just a little chubby. Ha! I’m thinking of getting a new tattoo – not of the one you hoped for – your face on my left breast with your tongue reaching, well you know, but, as weird as it is, I want a reminder, not that I ever really need reminding, of you, of us, of our life, our love and our hate. We’ll see.

Bogey is still brown and grumpy and groany. Her tumors continue to grow but Nattie has brought some life back into her. Nattie, for all my bitching and moaning and wanting to give her away for a while, (to be fair, you had just died and taking care of a puppy while going through all that was about one of the more overwhelming challenges I’ve taken on, which sounds ridiculous but true) she is the sweetest, most loving little girl on earth. She is finally potty trained, she sucks at walking on a leash and she loves us something strong.

I hate that I never dream of you. I hate that I never see your face anymore. They say your loved ones come back to you in your dreams, but I guess you’re wherever you are, living your best life. You always were out of sight, out of mind! I guess I kind of forgot.

I love you. I miss you.

Until next time,

Poopsie

Life is for the Living

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If you are wondering if I just quoted Harry Potter, you would be absolutely right! I’m a nerd that way! But, like, a cool nerd!

I got a little mopey the last few weeks. I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t my best couple of weeks for many reasons. I won’t go into all of those reasons, but I’ll just say it was raining, I felt alone, I was attempting to mend a broken heart, and I just didn’t feel like doing anything. I shut out the people I love. I shut out family. I shut out friends. I shut out the world.

But also, while drowning in my own self induced misery, some really fucking awesome things happened. Jack tried out for a travel baseball team out of state and was offered a position on the spot. Ash, if he had a grave, would be rolling in it, as we always said that Jack didn’t need to play travel sports until maybe his teenage years. That was, however, before the whole world shut down including all youth sports.

Now, I’m going to justify our reason for joining the travel team just a bit (especially so Ash can hear it and stop with all the dramatic theoretic grave rolling). Firstly, I did not realize how depressed my 10 year old son was until I saw him happy again. Read that again. I did not realize how DEPRESSED MY 10 YEAR OLD SON WAS until I saw him happy again. Call me daft, call me blind, call me selfish. I could be considered all of those things. But the boys and I have been trudging along, thinking we’re doing the best we can. I took Jack to one baseball practice and he turned into an entirely different child. A child that I had not seen in quite some time. He was laughing, he was telling hilarious jokes, he was engaging in conversation with me. All things that I didn’t realize were missing until they returned. My sweet, happy child had come back. With one baseball practice that lasted no longer than 2 hours. 

Secondly, so far in his short 10 years, Jack has an aptitude, enthusiasm, love and talent for sports, especially baseball. And he has gotten to the age where we (we as in his family – me, PawPaw and Uncle G) cannot teach him anymore. He’s at the age where there’s nothing he doesn’t know, nothing he can’t do and absolutely nothing we can teach him, We’ve reached the preteen, prepubescent, pre “holy shit will mama survive this” stage of life. We can no longer help him due to excessive attitude, eye rolling and heavy sighing (lest we backhand him multiple times a day, which, I’m told, is frowned upon). So in the interest of saving all of our relationships (and potentially our lives), it’s best that he seek his baseball counsel elsewhere.

And lastly, (and I’m sorry, but this is going to sound a little braggy here, but if you can’t brag about your kids’ successes and whatnot, what can you brag about?) he deserves it. He deserves to learn from the best. He deserves to play with the best. He also deserves to work hard and earn his spot, earn his position, earn his right to be with that team, especially given that the current dream is to play Duke Baseball in 8 years. 

We didn’t say yes right away, though. I left it 100% up to him (which is very unlike me, I tend to lean a little more towards the Tiger Mom side of momming so kudos to me!!). Jack has a lazy side, and with everything we’ve been through, it would not have surprised me at all if he had chosen no. Instead, he made a list (very Ash like in nature). He made a list of the pros. He had a list of the cons. He weighed them heavily. And he said yes. So our lives are about to get a little crazier, but in the best possible way. Because we’ll be living.

I finally re-emerged with family and friends. We’ve gone to the beach, we’ve had cocktails, the boys have played (outside of course) with friends. We’ve conquered the biggest slip and slide I’ve ever seen. We’ve played our own games of baseball. Jack and I have started jogging together (much to his dismay) and doing all sorts of other training tools that are necessary for him to play on his new team. And I do every one of them with him. Because it keeps him motivated. Because he likes having a partner. Because we are living.

Colt graduated from preschool. Certainly it looked much different than years past. But it was beautiful. We were surrounded by people that absolutely adore my Mr. Tolt. He received his “degree”, he felt special, he rode around the parking lot with his head sticking out of my sunroof. And we were living.

This next part is not easy to write about but I’m going to write it anyway in the spirit of living. I think I am being flirted with by a hilarious, handsome, tall, perhaps a touch younger than me man. It’s been a long time since I’ve been flirted with so I could be getting it wrong. But, in all honesty, I do hope that I am not wrong. Because I feel like a woman again. I feel desired. I feel beautiful. I feel feminine. And these are things I have not felt in quite some time. And I like it. Because it feels like I’m living again. And life is for the living. And if nothing else, we deserve to live the shit out of whatever life we have left in us. 

 

Strength and the Lack Thereof

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I am strong. That is my daily mantra. I set the intention of having strength every day. And I’m going to brag a bit and say I do a pretty good job on most days.

Enter global pandemic. That strength I’ve been holding so tightly to has sailed away like a ship in the night. You see, in real life, we are constantly on the go between kids, friends, sports, school, eating someplace other than the kitchen, errands and other such things that make our lives an actual life. Put that life on hold, and us recently unfortunately widowed folks are left to actually have to deal with our feelings. So thanks for that, raw bat eater. I’ve got a couple of hand signals for you.

I selfishly took this past Saturday, and aside from working out, did not leave my couch. I let my children play outside, I gave in to too much screen time and too many video games. And I parked my ass on the couch and didn’t really move. Other than to blow my nose because I let myself basically cry all day long. It is not my proudest day in history, nor my strongest day in history. But maybe it was my most necessary day.

I recently complimented myself on not having a day where I laid around and drowned in self pity. I guess I planted the seed in the recesses of my mind. And that seed sprouted and turned into this past Saturday. I watched romantic comedy after romantic comedy, which was quite the idiotic move because do you know what life is not? If you said a romantic comedy, you would be exactly right. But it did unlock feelings that I guess I’ve been holding onto for far too long and I finally let them out.

The problem, you ask, with letting them out? Once they start, I’m not sure how to make them stop. There is so much shit, in the world, in my own personal life, that sucks right now. And if I’m completely honest, I’m having a hard time finding the bright spot. Yes, my children are a bright spot, we have our health and each other and all the other shit you’re supposed to say that you’re grateful for (and I am grateful for it) but I also have all of these other negative feelings and self doubt and pain that are overtaking everything good that I know I have.

And there’s really not anything to be done about it, which would drive Ash crazy. He was always a fixer, not great at the listening and just being there. If there was a problem, yo, he’d come up with several ways to solve it. There’s no distractions to push away the painful feelings. There are no friends to give hugs and love and feed me wine and tell me I’m pretty. (That’s a joke.) It’s just me. And the boys. And the dogs. Trying to pretend like we’re ok.

My poor kids, every night, something makes me cry, generally at the dinner table. My sweet Jack always asks if I’m alright and my sweet Colt always answers she’s just missing daddy. And that is true. I am missing him. But there’s so much more to it than that. So many things, that I, myself, do not understand and do not know how to navigate through.

So, for now, I guess I’ll just let the water works flow. Because what else are you supposed to do when your husband dies and then the world fucking stops?

More of the Same

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How’s everyone? Drowning in misery? Yeah, me too. I guess I have been for quite some time but this somehow feels worse. Probably being totally cut off from society (and other adults) being the culprit. Don’t get me wrong, I love the shit out of my kids, I just wish there was maybe one other adult around to love them with me. Post-widowhood pandemic is not doing great things for my mental state.

Things I’m not doing well in this new phase of life:

  1. Homeschool – I was not made to teach my child. I was especially not made to teach my child math. There has been arguing. There has been tears. We’re doing a little bit better each day, which I guess shows progress, but if we both make it out of this unscathed, well, color me surprised.
  2. Reading – I am reading 5 books at present. That’s not how you’re supposed to do it, but since when do I do things the way you’re supposed to do them. I started It’s Always the Husband while my husband was still alive. And while it held my interest for a while, whenever I did have a chance to read, I chose not to, choosing instead to hold onto my husband. I haven’t been able to pick it back up since he passed away. I stopped (mid-chapter mind you) on page 122. Next up When Children Grieve. This one is a real nail biter guaranteed to put you to sleep just by opening the cover. It should be something I make myself read, and I did for a while, and then I stopped. Next, my mom gave me James Patterson’s The Inn, telling me what a quick and easy read it was. I’m on page 59. There are far too many characters and different stories happening for my current state of ill-performing brain, so I put that one down. Another one that I pick up and put down at random is a story a bit like mine – a young widow with young children, only she lost her husband suddenly, and I knew for a while that I was losing mine. It’s called Confessions of a Mediocre Widow and it’s very relatable and very good, I just have to be in the right frame of mind to read it and currently, I guess, the right frame of mind isn’t hanging around my mind. Moving on. Last but not least, and the one I’m actually making progress on is Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. That’s a lie. She’s not fine at all. Kind of like me, but her story is totally different. I picked it up because the cover literally said it was “Beautifully written and incredibly funny” and while I’m sure it is beautifully written, it has done nothing but invoke feelings of sadness and pity for poor Eleanor. It’s held my interest well enough though, as I’m more than 3/4 of the way through it. And while it has funny moments, I believe it to be a bit of a bold statement claiming it incredibly funny. Me thinks I was duped by that choice of words.
  3. Cleaning. Here I thought we had all this time and I could finally get some much needed cleaning done. Hard pass.
  4. Keeping my shit together. We’ve (my children and I) have been dealt a shitty hand. While we were still allowed to be part of civilization, I think we handled it all pretty well. Take civilization away, enter crazy, angry, weeping us. Apparently our people were holding us together. Take them away, you’re left with sadness from the movie Inside Out. Not really that bad, but we’re crying much more often than we used to, we’re throwing many more tantrums than are acceptable and feeling a deep void that we can no longer fill with all of our loves.
  5. Staying connected. It’s true that deep down, I’m an introvert. I like time to myself. I like the quiet. The more time I spend away from my friends, the easier it seems to not reach out. I fear by the end of this I will turn into some kind of recluse who’s book number has jumped even higher and friend count at an all time low. I won’t really let that happen, but I will deem it a concern.

But, enough of that Debbie Downer crap. On to the good bits! While trying to find a sheet of paper that Colt has not drawn planes, trains and automobiles all over, I came across another list from my Jonesie. Now, they are more of the same things he’s said over and over, but if you know Ash, you know that repeating himself in countless different ways was kind of his jam. It’s another list that he wrote for Jack and while much of it is repetitive, when can we not use a little advice on how to better live our lives, especially now?!

  1. Be open minded.
  2. Be kind.
  3. Be empathetic, compassionate and loving. Accept people. Tell people when you love them. Don’t let moments of greatness pass you by.
  4. Be strong. Don’t be easily influenced by others. Stay true to your values and beliefs. Don’t succumb to peer pressure.
  5. Choose your friends wisely. Stay away from drugs, alcohol, violence and hate. Always choose love.
  6. Set goals and work to achieve them. Start small and work your way up. Stay motivated.
  7. Maintain your hobbies – continue with your love for sports. Explore nature. Read every day (this wasn’t on there but don’t read 5 books at the same time, don’t be like Mama!)
  8. Practice, practice, practice. You wan’t to hone your skills? You have to work at it. Every. Single. Day. Hard work always pays off in the end.

Well, I was always one to argue some of Ash’s points and I will say that we worked our asses off trying to stop the spread of cancer and that one didn’t work. So while hard work may not always pay off, it is always worth trying. Stay strong my friends. We’ll get through this, one painstakingly slow day at a time. Stay connected. Reach out. And always keep an open mind.