Emptiness
My brother-in-law passed away a few days ago. He was 52. My great-uncle passed away around the same time. He was 100. Strange about that. One lived his full life, the other only part of it. Both left widows to fend for themselves.
It's a hard road these two widows have a head of them. Most women rely on their husbands for certain things-see a bug, call hubby. Have a nightmare, call hubby. Need a hug, call hubby. Need a new toilet seat...well, you get the idea. But then one day he's gone and there's just you, and you're not ready. You've lost a husband and now emptiness has taken his place. Oh, I'm not talking about the emptiness inside us. I'm talking the emptiness outside of us. It's hard to explain, but I'll try: Let's say you walk into your house when your husband is alive. He doesn't have to be in the room, but you can feel his presence. You know he's there waiting for you. It's like the room is filled with his presence. Even if he's on a business trip, or gone to the store, you can still feel him. It's like the house is waiting for him to return.
But once he's gone. Once he's passed on--well, it's different. You walk into your house and it's empty. The furniture is there. Everything looks normal, but you are alone and you know it. That's how I'm feeling now. I'm sitting alone in my house and every room feels empty. It's a terrible feeling, but it's my life now. I've got to get used to it.
I'm making it. I learned how to kill my own spiders, how to calm my own nightmares. I've learned how to live without the hugs, without the love. I've learned how to be by myself. Still, there's not a day that I don't long to have my old life back, but I'm an independent lady now.
Did you know that Lemon Pledge can keep spiders from making webs where you don't want them? Well, I had to learn that because there is no one to hear me when I call.
It's a hard road these two widows have a head of them. Most women rely on their husbands for certain things-see a bug, call hubby. Have a nightmare, call hubby. Need a hug, call hubby. Need a new toilet seat...well, you get the idea. But then one day he's gone and there's just you, and you're not ready. You've lost a husband and now emptiness has taken his place. Oh, I'm not talking about the emptiness inside us. I'm talking the emptiness outside of us. It's hard to explain, but I'll try: Let's say you walk into your house when your husband is alive. He doesn't have to be in the room, but you can feel his presence. You know he's there waiting for you. It's like the room is filled with his presence. Even if he's on a business trip, or gone to the store, you can still feel him. It's like the house is waiting for him to return.
But once he's gone. Once he's passed on--well, it's different. You walk into your house and it's empty. The furniture is there. Everything looks normal, but you are alone and you know it. That's how I'm feeling now. I'm sitting alone in my house and every room feels empty. It's a terrible feeling, but it's my life now. I've got to get used to it.
I'm making it. I learned how to kill my own spiders, how to calm my own nightmares. I've learned how to live without the hugs, without the love. I've learned how to be by myself. Still, there's not a day that I don't long to have my old life back, but I'm an independent lady now.
Did you know that Lemon Pledge can keep spiders from making webs where you don't want them? Well, I had to learn that because there is no one to hear me when I call.
Replies
Sorry to hear of you BIL and great uncle. They do have a rough road ahead of them and I am sure you will be there to help them along....
I hear you on the empty house....that\'s me too. You are so right with everything being good when you had the presence of your husband around, even if he was not home. This lonliness is totally different now and it does SUCK.!! We will continue to carry on, as what choice do we have?? Little by little we will be able to smile again and start to live again and not just exist.......wishing you some peace in the days ahead.....hugs
Wow, I can so relate. When my husband died during my final week of chemotherapy for the advanced stage colon cancer I had been fighting I felt life simply could not get any worse as the doctors had been honest after surgery that I was in a \'bad way\'. Here I was passing out along with throwing up and so the doctors skipped that final week of treatment as I was now left to drive myself and could not drive and pass out along with throwing up at the same time. Life was crisis but I \'believed\' we as a society had the \'safety net\' of care needed for someone in such crisis - WRONG is what I was, TOTALLY WRONG beyond belief. I faced five years without any income outside of our retirement savings and then I had to fight, REALLY FIGHT, for two years to receive my needed disabled windows benefits. Coping alone left me to develop severe PTSD and it provided \'numbness\', the variety that we have when we visit the dentist and are injected with nova cane to deaden us up to the effects of drilling a tooth where we are left with a fat lip and slobber on ourselves when we try to communicate. For years I had to remain NUMB to survive these horrors. The fight for disabled widow\'s benefits involved have the attorney, David Allen and Associates, I had hired to help me fight try and attempt to harm me through severe exploitation that had I not fired them they would have caused me to locked out of needed benefits in their attempt to manipulate my crisis circumstances to force me to wait another four years as they simply allowed my case to be denied to force it to go to the stage of being sent to the ALJ for review. I could not BELIEVE they were attempting to do this to me and fired them only after I had hired them nine days previous. I then represented myself and did win my case and needed benefits within the following eighteen months but that I was deliberately being severely harmed by lawyers even in my attempt to survive as they sought to exploit me in ways that would have assured my eventual death from becoming homeless and destitute left me it even more trauma on top of that already from the death of my husband combined with severe disability. I faced a nightmare reality without my husband to be there for me and survived each day knowing it may well be my last as I was beyond physically ill and emotionally exhausted. I have finally been referred to a social worker to help but in over a year no help has been given. I am contacted just enough for them to write somewhere in a file that they have in fact contacted me - I suppose that covers their backside should I actually \'kick the bucket\' and no one notices my rotting corpse for months upon months and then \'questions\' are asked as to why I simply was left as dead to cope alone with so ill. The social workers just as those attorneys that sought to use my crisis to their advantage at great harm to me leaves me to knowing about the \'safety net\' I had wrongly assumed we, as a society, provided to those of us disabled, alone and in crisis. What a sad, pathetic \'joke\' it all appears to be but that a real life is in the \'balance\' of this insanity and seek only to hang on to find a quality life to \'live\' once again is what leaves me thankful for the \'numbness\' provided by the PTSD and beyond that I survive moment by moment hanging on to this nightmare reality and claim it as my life, if I am brave enough to claim it at all.
I would hope those widows you mention are well cared for and have a reasonable level of health which allows them to truly \'live\' with their new circumstances as even when life is of good quality to adjust to such a loss as that of the death of our soul mates is so very painful.
Gentle ((hugs)) shared
:-) Patricia
hugs truhal hugs sorry for the losses....hugs
I am sorry for the losses in your life.
I know what you mean about entering the house....
Spiders: Chestnuts. Not the kind you eat. The kind that grow on trees with spikes on the outside. Open them up and place them in your house and you will never see another spider again. It works.
Lemon pledge, wild chestnuts and CATS! Mine corner and hold down the horrid things whilst I get the hand dyson out. Gotcha on the empty house syndrome, just us now rattling around trying to pick up the pieces. My hubby died at 58, some as here a short while some a long while and we who are left wonder why we lost our spouse so soon and so cruelly. I pray for peace for us all. Thank you for an inspiring journal, hugs to you.