Brave Face

My mask is slipping.  The brave face I've had on for so long.  I guess it was just a matter of time.

Days after Jeff's funeral I decided to make like as normal as possible for the boys.  That meant going right back into our daily scheduled lives.  I wanted to do what was best for them and figure out myself later.  I always do better when I am thinking of others and being a mother just personifies that.

I remember my godmother saying "Don't do it, I know you...you won't cut yourself any slack." And she was right.  I didn't.  I still don't.

I got up everyday when I would have rather stayed in bed.  I got showered and dressed, make the kids breakfast, got their lunches ready and school bags ready.  Got them dressed and out the door and to school.  I did laundry, grocery shopped and generally kept our lives running.  Then every night, after I tucked the boys in bed.  I would fall apart.  I would cry for hours, alone in my room.  I didn't sleep well, I didn't feel well.  It was at night, when the mother was done for the day, when the wife could grieve.

I credit this with getting me through the days.  I could have wrapped myself up in a blanket and not moved which was my preference.  But moving kept me going, kept me grieving, kept my crying.  As the days progressed I cried less but that doesn't mean I grieved less.

I had one of those nights last night.  I got the kids in bed and then proceeded to cry for hours.  I woke up, eyes puffy and circled and feeling like crap.  Grief is relentless.  There just is no end to it.  I can go through my day and run the house and mother the kids but at the end of it?  At the end of the day, I am a young widow who misses her husband.

I can focus on my boys and I worry about how the loss of Jeff will impact them for the rest of their lives.  Now, I've started to wonder how it has impacted me.  At first, I needed to talk to friends.  Now, I can't stand to be on the phone at night.  I want companionship but I just don't have the energy to put my part into it.  Right now I'm a taker and I don't know when I will go back to reciprocating in a friendship.  That has to wear on folks.  It would wear on me.

I know that my years with Jeff has made many positive changes in me.  I don't want to see grief erode those advances away but at the same time I will never be that person again.  The person I was with Jeff.  I don't know this new person.  I don't know if I even like her.  This person wants to hide when I would have confronted, this person cries when I would have fought.  This person has suffered an immeasurable loss.

I think that what I am grieving for now is the loss of self.  The loss of the person I was before Jeff died.  Sounds selfish, right?  I should just be grieving for Jeff.  But it isn't that simple.  The loss of someone like Jeff hits you in so many areas.  It isn't just the physical loss or the emotional loss but the loss of the future the loss of the promise of a life together.  The loss of the wife I was and discovering the widow.

Sincerely,

Jeff's Widow