Grief in Sobriety
This past New Year's Eve was the first time in seven years I didn't spend the holiday crying in a chapel.
Well, that only took several years!
New Year's Eve 2005 my boyfriend, Ruben passed away from liver cancer only two months after being diagnosed at the age of 53. He worked for his company 18 years and they didn't even put up a plaque. Nothing on their website, no acknowledgement that he even existed.
He had been promoted to supervisor also while he was employed there and even continued working after he got sick until he couldn't.
New Year's Eve 2008 my dad died, too. But that's another blog.
Needless to say, I haven't celebrated the holiday since 2004 though many have tried to get me to.
I tried once but couldn't do it. Not only did I not feel like it but I felt guilty.
Of course, everyone said the usual,"They would want you to celebrate/be happy" sentence which only made me feel worse.
I remember as Ruben lay dying in the hospital at Christmas time I ran into an old friend of mine for the first time in years and, as she held her two month old first-born baby which she wasn't even supposed to have in her custody, she said to me: "People die."
That's the most useless thing you can say to someone who is losing a loved one.
That - and this statement which another friend said to me right after Ruben died: "We don't get out of this world alive."
I wanted to punch him in the face.
This guy had lost his mother years ago and I wanted to ask him, "Did someone say that to you after your mom died? Did that help you?"
When Ruben died, I kinda died. Well, if you think kinda is to only shower once a week or so, to stop brushing your teeth so much that you lose most of them and go through two years of dental hell, to stop cleaning your house pretty much, to start hoarding to the point where you can't get in your spare room and you're so obsessed with it that you start seeing things that aren't there when you go out looking for junk, that you have to increase your medication under a doctor's care, that your sleep goes to hell - then, yeah, kinda.
My whole life changed. I looked different, acted totally different, I became a different person. I stopped wearing makeup, stopped caring about how I looked, stopped smiling. What was there to smile about?
And, as the world went on with their celebrations, I raged inside.
I wanted to tell people that cancer doesn't just sometimes kill the person who has the cancer. It often kills the survivors, too.
I would dream about Ruben, talk to him (not in public of course) and watch my dog, who was his buddy, grieve for him, too.
How do you explain to a dog where his friend is?
My dog, Ripley, knew Ruben as "Daddy" so I had to stop using that word around him or Ripley would start looking for him. Ripley was used to Ruben coming by lots of nights after work and now it was nothing but emptiness in the darkness.
My world was over. My life was meaningless. The only things that made my life worth living were my daughter who I saw a few times a year, my pets, and my sister.
But beyond that, every day was nothing but surviving. It was excruciating.
This went on from 2005 until this past New Year's Eve when I told my Higher Power as I drove down the road listening to Led Zeppelin, my all time favorite band that I was ready to let this go.
Maybe it was the fifth medication the doctor had just put me on in addition to the other four I was taking.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it was because it had been seven years and that was the magic number and I had been praying for seven years to be able to let go.
Either way, I had ran out of chapels to go to and I had to get up early to go to work and I was spent.
I had decided to find a creative way to honor Ruben this past New Year's Eve, so though I had attended the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life every year the past seven years and bought him a luminaria, except for this past year because Ripley passed away and I just didn't have the heart to do it - I decided this past year I would do something different.
So, I went home and got out some of Ruben's printed out love letters/emails which I intend to put in a scrapbook but have been resting in a hat box and I tacked up some of them around the house. It may seem crazy or tacky but now, everywhere I look I am reminded of his love for me.
When I reach for a plate in the kitchen cabinet, there's an email telling me how much he loved me and how much I meant to him.
And though even typing the above makes me tear up I am grateful to know that I found a way to remember him without having to cry in a chapel and gather grief brochures.
And grateful I don't have to feel so alone.
I had a dream about Ruben again the other night. But in this dream I was in the same room with him but he didn't see me.
It made me sad when I woke up. But I realize, after having all the dreams I've had about him, good, bad, and indifferent, it's just an affirmation that we are on different planes but it doesn't take away from the love we had.
It's another loss I don't have to drink over.
I almost did many times but it wouldn't have brought him back.
Well, that only took several years!
New Year's Eve 2005 my boyfriend, Ruben passed away from liver cancer only two months after being diagnosed at the age of 53. He worked for his company 18 years and they didn't even put up a plaque. Nothing on their website, no acknowledgement that he even existed.
He had been promoted to supervisor also while he was employed there and even continued working after he got sick until he couldn't.
New Year's Eve 2008 my dad died, too. But that's another blog.
Needless to say, I haven't celebrated the holiday since 2004 though many have tried to get me to.
I tried once but couldn't do it. Not only did I not feel like it but I felt guilty.
Of course, everyone said the usual,"They would want you to celebrate/be happy" sentence which only made me feel worse.
I remember as Ruben lay dying in the hospital at Christmas time I ran into an old friend of mine for the first time in years and, as she held her two month old first-born baby which she wasn't even supposed to have in her custody, she said to me: "People die."
That's the most useless thing you can say to someone who is losing a loved one.
That - and this statement which another friend said to me right after Ruben died: "We don't get out of this world alive."
I wanted to punch him in the face.
This guy had lost his mother years ago and I wanted to ask him, "Did someone say that to you after your mom died? Did that help you?"
When Ruben died, I kinda died. Well, if you think kinda is to only shower once a week or so, to stop brushing your teeth so much that you lose most of them and go through two years of dental hell, to stop cleaning your house pretty much, to start hoarding to the point where you can't get in your spare room and you're so obsessed with it that you start seeing things that aren't there when you go out looking for junk, that you have to increase your medication under a doctor's care, that your sleep goes to hell - then, yeah, kinda.
My whole life changed. I looked different, acted totally different, I became a different person. I stopped wearing makeup, stopped caring about how I looked, stopped smiling. What was there to smile about?
And, as the world went on with their celebrations, I raged inside.
I wanted to tell people that cancer doesn't just sometimes kill the person who has the cancer. It often kills the survivors, too.
I would dream about Ruben, talk to him (not in public of course) and watch my dog, who was his buddy, grieve for him, too.
How do you explain to a dog where his friend is?
My dog, Ripley, knew Ruben as "Daddy" so I had to stop using that word around him or Ripley would start looking for him. Ripley was used to Ruben coming by lots of nights after work and now it was nothing but emptiness in the darkness.
My world was over. My life was meaningless. The only things that made my life worth living were my daughter who I saw a few times a year, my pets, and my sister.
But beyond that, every day was nothing but surviving. It was excruciating.
This went on from 2005 until this past New Year's Eve when I told my Higher Power as I drove down the road listening to Led Zeppelin, my all time favorite band that I was ready to let this go.
Maybe it was the fifth medication the doctor had just put me on in addition to the other four I was taking.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it was because it had been seven years and that was the magic number and I had been praying for seven years to be able to let go.
Either way, I had ran out of chapels to go to and I had to get up early to go to work and I was spent.
I had decided to find a creative way to honor Ruben this past New Year's Eve, so though I had attended the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life every year the past seven years and bought him a luminaria, except for this past year because Ripley passed away and I just didn't have the heart to do it - I decided this past year I would do something different.
So, I went home and got out some of Ruben's printed out love letters/emails which I intend to put in a scrapbook but have been resting in a hat box and I tacked up some of them around the house. It may seem crazy or tacky but now, everywhere I look I am reminded of his love for me.
When I reach for a plate in the kitchen cabinet, there's an email telling me how much he loved me and how much I meant to him.
And though even typing the above makes me tear up I am grateful to know that I found a way to remember him without having to cry in a chapel and gather grief brochures.
And grateful I don't have to feel so alone.
I had a dream about Ruben again the other night. But in this dream I was in the same room with him but he didn't see me.
It made me sad when I woke up. But I realize, after having all the dreams I've had about him, good, bad, and indifferent, it's just an affirmation that we are on different planes but it doesn't take away from the love we had.
It's another loss I don't have to drink over.
I almost did many times but it wouldn't have brought him back.
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