Building a new relationship after my wife's death.

The last few days have been pretty good, without the sadness that had been plaguing me. I don’t know if seeing the people last week helped, maybe it did or if it is just another of the repeated cycles I have had before. I expected that Thanksgiving would be hard but so far it seems not to bother me. Will have to wait and see how Deanna does with it tomorrow.

I finally got rid of Jo’s car last Sunday! Problems with the car caused most of the delay and procrastination also a factor. Anyway I traded it Sunday for a Toyota 4Runner 4X4, which I intend to use as a second car, and for ski trips. So far I like it very much.
I hope the airports aren’t too crowded and delayed today when I travel to San Diego!

I did go to Jo Lynn’s grave last night to celebrate her AA birthday with some of her friends. Not to much to say about it really but this email thread that started when my sister wrote to me is probably a good way to summarize.

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Email thread;
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Walt – I’m so glad you and the Chicks had an uplifting time. Sounds like you drew some strength from them…as they say…. what goes around comes around…

Ruthie

From: Walt Johnson [mailto:WaltJ@avtm.com] Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:18 PMTo: R WesterbeckSubject: RE: Thinking of you

Hi,

Thanks for the prayers. It means a lot to me.

It was nice to see the "Chicks" tonight. There were also some other friends from her Wednesday meeting who I know pretty well too. Linda (Jo Lynn's sponsor) said a nice prayer at the cemetery and then a few spoke briefly about their thoughts and feelings. Brief and nice. Then; We discovered that we locked in cemetery! Took a while to track down the watchman to let us out, kind of spooky.

A few of people went to dinner afterward so we had a chance to visit a bit. It was nice. It is always wonderful to see the evidence of how much these people think of Jo and how much she helped so many people in AA. The baby Kayla JoLynn was there also and when I was holding the baby Bunny (the mom) told me that she and Kayla consider Jo to be their guardian angel! (The theology is pretty weak but the feelings and love are very real and strong.) The people who succeed in AA are so good at getting strength from others, shamelessly and enthusiastically. And they say that the memory of Jo Lynn gives them strength even now, Very cool.

So even though I was not to enthusiastic going in, it turned out great and I did enjoy it and I feel better for having gone.

Thank you again.

Love

Walt
-----Original Message-----From: R Westerbeck [mailto:rwesterbeck1@comcast.net]Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 8:18 PMTo: Walt JohnsonSubject: Thinking of you
Hi Walt, just wanted to say hi and let you know you are in my thoughts and prayers especially today. I hope the time with JoLynn’s friends was meaningful and not too hard. It is so great that she had those alcohol free years and that her “Chicks” friends can still draw strength from her and her sobriety.

Take care, and love,

Ruthie

I had a fairly difficult weekend. Thoughts of Jo Lynn often just swept over me. At first it remembering times we enjoyed, football games, dinners, and things like that. Then on Sunday I worked on my financial records (too long neglected) and when I was done there was no one to discuss it with. And I was fairly depressed about that, we always worked together to understand our investments and our financial status, I depended on that and now it is much less interesting to me!

Then Sunday night and Monday, I was unable to stop remembering the last few weeks when she was in the hospital and the day she died. Useless and debilitating to dwell on but sometimes I can’t avoid it. As I said these thoughts just sweep over me as though they come from some source I can’t control, very unpleasant. I wish this phase of the grief would pass but I seem stalled at this point.

The good things go on too, of course. I have my visit to San Diego for Thanksgiving coming up. I leave a week from today. Thanksgiving will have all the kids together and I look forward to that. I look forward with some dread too since holidays were so important to Jo Lynn and she will me so missed by all of us. Jake and I will run in 10K on Thanksgiving morning. It takes us through Balboa Park and finishes downtown near the new San Diego ballpark. I am looking forward to that too.

My plans for Christmas are well gelled now. Including something new; I will visit my sister in Seattle for New Years. I really look forward to that. I enjoy her family very much and I will like seeing them again. But also, it is a first break from my old (our old) routine. I had just assumed that I would go the large the New Years Eve party that Jo and had attended for years. I knew lots of people there and I would have felt very welcome. However when I thought about it I realized that the people there were more Jo’s friends than mine and so it would have caused many of them to ask me about her and to recount stories of times with her. The party would have been fine but it is time that I begin to adjust my life to a different set of activities. So my sister offered and a week or so later I accepted and I am very happy about it.

Tomorrow night some of her AA friends are going to have a “memorial” at her grave, November 17 was her AA birthday. The asked and I agreed to meet them there; I am unsure how well I like this idea. I will have to wait and see. The “memorial” idea is a much bigger deal than I had expected when they first contacted me and it worries me a little. Several of them have called or sent emails encouraging me to be there and since I would like to see them I will go. Last night they told me (via email) that they want to go out to dinner afterward. I may decide to forego that; I’ll have to see.

Deanna told me that Josie’s death confirmed to her how she and Diana are “connected” still. First there are the similarities in their lives and mother’s lives; Both mom’s have the Jo (one Spanish and one English); Both named their daughters’ with similar names, the daughters are the same age; they live on the same street; the moms were same age; they died in the same year; they both died from leukemia.

Josie died last Thursday and Deanna didn’t know about it until Saturday but she said on Thursday she felt tired in the afternoon and went to rest. She dreamed about Jo Lynn in her coffin for the first time! She thought that was significant.

She went on to tell me that she has never thought about the image of her mother in the coffin before and she never thinks about the actual death. Instead she has and keeps the happy memories and those are the memories she thinks about. I am glad about that.

I don’t know if I can ever get to that point or not. Currently every couple of weeks my memories focus on the day she died and I can’t seem to shake it. Even when I stop thinking about that day, the memory of it is just under the surface. Of course I remember good times too but I can’t shake the bad memories either.
I don’t have a plan to get by this I just keep hoping that time will fix it but I am not so confident and I don’t know how long it might take.

More to catch up on.

Last weekend I was with my Mother and Stepfather. My sister Ruth and my brother-in-law Rich were there too, Mom has Alzheimer’s (early or middle stage) along with type II diabetes, and deterioration of the spine; maybe more too. She is better recently due to a new antidepressant, I think. I won’t belabor the whole gruesome tale just to say one thing that affected me.

Mom doesn’t do well managing her diet for the diabetes; in fact, she ignores it completely except to test her blood sugar and complain that the level (any level) is why she is feeling bad at that moment. Anyway, on Sunday morning we were all up and we needed to leave around 10:00 AM me to catch my plane and Ruth to drive home to Seattle. Around eight o’clock we smelled cinnamon rolls cooking in the kitchen! Soon Mom measured her blood sugar and announced that is was 159. (That is high) and that it had been high for several days. I thought this was perhaps an opportunity to get her attention on the diet, so I said; “Mom, if your blood sugar is so high maybe you reconsider eating a cinnamon roll!” She just blew it off. I was furious I went to front porch to get away before I told her off. Ruth saw my anger and told me that if just made her see the futility of it all. What she said was true and right, but I was still furious and just couldn’t shake my anger.

I had 90 minutes while I drove the airport and during that time I figured out why I was so angry about something that I couldn’t control. It was because when Jo Lynn was sick she did everything she could, no matter how hard, how difficult in the hope that the treatments would work. They did of course allow her to live for nearly four years after her first cancer was diagnosed. But the treatments, the surgeries, the difficult life she had would have discouraged most people but she accepted it all. She was just so glad to be alive and even when the leukemia flared to prevent the stem cell transplant she knew the odds were very slim but she trusted God and the doctors. She undertook the treatments and they were terrible but she kept going because she wanted so much to live. If she had thought any other treatment would have been helpful she would have mustered the strength to do it. Her will to live was so strong and her faith was so strong that she was strong enough for what ever the treatment required.

Now I was face with a cranky old woman who won’t even stop eating sugar when she knows it will kill her and makes caring for her even harder for my step Dad, I was angry because it was just not fair, not to anyone. But I am helpless to change my Mother and I was helpless to do anymore for my wife. It all made me angry and it took several days for me to calm down. I am still angry but I have accepted it now and it doesn’t make me crazy anymore. The unfairness of it is still the same, and I don’t like it at all.

I have quite a lot to catch up on….

First. I had my first weekend at home (mostly) in a while. On Saturday morning I found an obituary for Josie Romero. The Romero’s lived across the street from us while the kids were in high school. Her daughter Diana was Deanna’s best friend and was at our house a lot. In fact for years and still to this day she calls me Dad! Her Mom was diagnosed with leukemia last year while Jo Lynn was being treated. She has been in an out of the hospital and remission ever since and she pass away on Thursday. I called Deanna to tell her and she called Diana.

Diana told her that Josie “was ready she was tired of fighting and tired of the struggle, she is at peace.” Deanna said to me; “just like Mom”.

I have never been able to figure out how I feel about that! Was Jo Lynn ready? Was she so tired of the struggle that she saw death as a blessing, as a relief? Her faith was strong and she was certain that she was going to be with her savior so she didn’t fear death. She and talked about the possibility of her dying so I knew she was not afraid for herself. She was concerned for me and for the kids. She wanted to be remembered by the Grand Children. She was particularly concerned about Max who was three and one-half at the time so his memories will be vague. She wanted me to tell him how much she loved him so he would benefit from her love even though she wouldn’t be here to give it directly.

But that day; was she ready? I am not sure. When I arrived at 6:00 AM she was awake and spitting blood, she wasn’t frightened but I was. I called the nurse and she was too. When the Docs arrived they decided immediately to move her to the Pulmonary Intensive Care Unit. The nurses were visibly relieved showing how concerned they were. For the 20 to 30 minutes it took to get the move going things were in frenzy and there was not time to for she and I to talk. When they finally got the gurney moving she asked that they save her room for her and that suggested to me that she didn’t expect that she was so close to death at that point! After she arrived in PICU they put her on the ventilator right away. The tube plus the sedation meant we couldn’t talk then. She was in that state until they looked inside the lungs to see if there was any hope from that time on she was deeply sedated and only live a little while longer.

I have thought about this day often. I would be so relieved to be certain that she was ready. But I am not certain of that. I am not able to explain to myself why it makes a difference but I think it would in I knew for sure. Jo Lynn often talked with Deanna about things that she didn’t want to tell me about her fears and hopes since her first cancer and then into the leukemia too; so perhaps she told Deanna something that gives Deanna that assurance. I have decided not to ask Deanna about it because if she has only assumed it but it works to comfort her then I would not want to shake the feeling she has. By sharing my doubts, I might make Deanna doubt too and that would be cruel.

As I said at the out set Jo didn’t fear death for herself I always knew she was more concerned about me, and kids. But I struggle with what happened on April 1st. I don’t know why and I know it doesn’t matter but I relive that day my mind and always look for something that might make me understand more of how she felt that day. The clue doesn’t come though and I am left with an empty feeling and the impotent feeling that I could not do anything to help her in those last few hours.

I know that this is not very rational but nonetheless, I still think about it and want some resolution for me. I sometimes I wish that Jo Lynn would look down and see my unhappiness and loneliness and tell me something to make me feel OK, I realize that this is not possible but in my day dreams I still want it. I still wonder what she is doing. Today our sermon dealt with Revelations 7: 13-14. [This is the passage where John sees the resurrected and they appear in white robes and the elder explains to John that “These are they who have come out from the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.”] I am sure that she doesn’t look down and see me because my sadness would make her sad and in heaven she will not be sad, She will not have to endure the “great tribulation” (that is our human existence) any longer.

Here existence must be free of the conflicts and pain we here on earth must always endure. She can’t see my sadness, the death of our friend Josie, or the sadness of her friends. If she were to even know about those things she would feel sadness for us and that is not what we are promised. I struggle with this very often. I never reach a resolution. I can’t resolve it I think because my perspective is limited by my experience and my thoughts. It ideas that I get from scripture are there but they are so far outside of my experience that I can’t make them as real as my grief.

So to close with a final illogical thought. I am stuck with a real memory of a real day and a real death and these are facts. My human soul begs for contact with my wife, makes me feel that I need her to help me deal with her own death, some how. Even in my grief, though I know, that she will not, cannot do that for me. So I caught between what my soul demands from her (and of course from God); and what my faith backed with real logic tells me is reality. I feel stuck!