What it feels like

[bunrab]

I've lost a parent. It didn't hurt like this, nothing even faintly in the same range. I've never had a child, so I have no idea what it might be like to lose a child - perhaps that pain is greater, I don't know; I don't mean to make light of other people's grief by ignoring that possibility, but I just can't speak to it. But I can tell you what it feels like to lose a spouse.

It feels like having your arm cut off, suddenly, without anesthetic.

Oh, the bleeding can be stopped, and the wound sewn up. But you'll never be the same. And you will always be missing a part of yourself. You might go through some physical rehab, and get a prosthetic, and learn to eat with utensils, and get dressed, and drive - but it's not the same as before, it's far more work, and you are always aware that it's not the same. There might be 2 or 3 people in the world who go on to become famous one-handed piano players - but most people won't, especially if they weren't famous piano players before then. Most of us won't have that opportunity of somehow publicly "redeeming" ourselves from having let this terrible accident happen. You just keep on living with the knowledge that not only are you not what you once were, now you will never be what you once might have had the opportunity to be - because you've lost a part of yourself, part of what made you who you are and gave you the life you had and the potentials that life held.

And even the process of learning to get back to normal  is slow. It takes a LONG time to learn to use a prosthetic arm. Months, a year. Grief seems to be the same. Every single thing you do, you are learning to do alone after you've grown used to doing it with someone - and the sheer number of things we all do in the course of a year, or two, means that the relearning process - and the realization that here's yet another thing to relearn - keeps coming back, and back, and back.

Little things: I am an OK driver, safety conscious, reasonably careful, not inclined to break laws. But right now, I find I have to be super careful, because as I'm driving the car, I'm not seeing the road that's in front of me - I'm seeing the road as I was sitting in the car with Steve, the last time we were on it. Or hearing his comments on a particular building or piece of scenery or a sign. It takes every bit of effort I have to remember that I have to look at the road for myself, and drive it as it is right now, and not get distracted by Steve. I don't dare ride the bike right now - this level of distraction would be unforgivably dangerous on a bike. (Think of trying to learn to ride a motorcycle with a prosthetic arm. How long before you could really trust your control well enough to do that?)

So that's what it feels like.

What can I tell other people so that if something like this happens to you, maybe it's just slightly less painful than what I'm going through? Well, nag your spouse about medical check ups more often. I didn't nag Steve about that - I figured he's a grown-up, he knows what he's supposed to do, he's intelligent, he'll do it sooner or later. So when our family doctor stopped taking Steve's insurance, I would remind him once a year to find a new doctor, or just go ahead and pay cash for an annual checkup. I didn't push it. Maybe if I had, he wouldn't have waited until our doctor started taking his insurance again - a few weeks before the heart attack occurred - to make an appointment. If he had seen a doctor during those two years, maybe this could have been averted. I don't know. What I do know is, if the idea of paying cash for the doctor strikes you as something you can't afford "right now" ask yourself, "Can I afford to have my arm chopped off right now, either?" I'll tell you, the doctor's appointment is a lot less expensive than a heart attack and a hospital bill and a funeral. And it also takes a lot less time than those things. So the answer to "I don't have the time" or "I can't afford it" is, "I can't afford what happens if you don't."

And the paperwork - same thing. Haven't made out wills, don't have a folder with all your important paperwork - copies of birth certificates and social security cards and powers of attorney and deed to the house and title to the car and copies of your insurance policy? The way you should think about it is not, "I don't have time for this right now, or we don't have money for an lawyer right now" - the question is, "Would I rather spend the time and money NOW, or would I rather have to do all this alone, later on, while also planning a funeral?" Because unless you are lucky enough to die simultaneously in a nice fiery car crash or something like that, one of you IS going to die before the other, and that other person IS going to have to do all this stuff. And it won't necessarily be the one you expect, either. We made most of our financial plans based on the assumption that, since I'm the one with congestive heart failure, and Steve's grandfathers lived into their 90's and his father lived into his 90's, that I'd die before Steve. Based on the information we had at the time, that seemed reasonable. But now the unexpected has happened, and I am going to have some interesting times. I'm lucky there's no mortgage on the house, and there's enough in savings to pay the taxes and insurance on it just out of savings for another 30 years, were I to live that long - so I won't be without a roof over my head. But in retrospect, we should have left a little more room for doubt in our planning, not been so convinced we knew how the future was going to play out - because, obviously, it didn't play out that way. And I can guess that for some of you, it's the same - you are absolutely SURE that X won't happen before Y. But guess what? It can, and it does, and it did. Your arm can get chopped off at any time, no matter what other plans you made.

I hope that none of this happens to you - I hope none of the other women on my flist get to see their healthy spouses suddenly have a heart attack on the sofa sitting next to them, and then spend 4 days sitting in a chair in the Coronary Care Unit watching the brain waves on the monitor go flat. Or men watching something happen to their spouses either - that's part of the point; it can happen either way. No matter what you think, we cannot stop death forever, and we can't even predict it very well. And for the one(s) left behind, it hurts like nothing else you've ever known, and you don't get over it rapidly, and you'll never "get over it" completely.

Comments

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

oh darling :/

It's happened to me. No, you don't get over it. Time teaches you to live around it, and the more time you live through the easier it gets to remember the good times first and the loss second. That's as good as it gets.


It was still worth it; in the end that's all that matters, I guess.

Let me know if there's anything I can do, any time.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Oh, and stop telling yourself you could have prevented it, even if you think it's true. I don't know of a quicker way to destroy yourself from the inside and no one that loved you would want that for you.

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

Oh bunrab, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine how awful that must be. Or, I CAN imagine, and what I imagine is horrible, and I know that it must be even worse than that.

Hugs and sympathy and anything else I can send.

[parelle.livejournal.com]

Oh good lord, I'm so very sorry. I appreciate your post about it though -it's the kind of stark reminder which makes me think we should be careful ourselves.

It isn't your fault.

[yramcayenne.livejournal.com]

Back earlier this year, when my husband had his heart attack, we were shocked. With both of his parents dying from heart attacks, he did the doc appointments, the EKGs, the stress tests, etc. We worried more about his hernia. His stress test 3 months before the attack was ok. BUT, then he had a heart attack, was shocked back 2 times, We found out that he had a large 100% blockage (4cm) in the anterior artery and 4 other blockages ranging from 35% to 80%. The tests didn't show. We were lucky.

You and Steve had a very special relationship. You LIVED your lives to the fullest, accomplished things that some of us can only dream of. Treasure the memories.

[nentikobe.livejournal.com]

"If only's" will drown you - and your tears and grief are deep enough. It is a terrible thing and I think of you and hope that you are managing to survive - and perhaps finding one thing to smile about each day.

You and Steve had a relationship that should be emulated by many... and I wish was more the norm. Please take care.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this, as a warning to others.

I am so sorry for your loss. Steve was a good man. But I agree with some of the other commenters that he made his choices, and paid for them. He would not want you to blame yourself.