BuiltaLife

Offering hope to those on the path behind me

Category: My Story (Page 17 of 24)

The Isle of Grief

The Isle of Grief – Acknowledge, Accept, Find a way off

06/26/2017 / / 1 Comment

I feel like I have been living on a deserted island….The isle of Grief.

The Isle of Grief

This weekend marked 11 months since my life drastically changed. The first few days are a blur. There were so many things that had to be done immediately. I didn’t even realize the adrenaline that was cursing through my body to be able to make the decisions and get things done.
Friends were there along the way holding my hand and helping any way they could.
Then the funeral came. The numbness from the shock (and inability to sleep) helped me get through the funeral and the reception. So many people offering condolences and holding me up (some quite literally). It was an exhausting day.
Over the next few weeks friends called and texted me just to check in. Some just sending a heart to let me know they were thinking about me (a sweet friend who had gone through a loss of her own suggested that idea to close friends).
So much change was happening in my life I hardly had time to let the grief sink in. Less than a month after my dad and my husband passed away (four days apart), my youngest daughter started her freshman year in college. I also began house hunting and signed a contract to build a new house before a month had passed (yes, people tell you to wait, but believe me when I tell you I had a lot of friends telling me that my situation was different, and it was).

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Kim and J.R.

Another First – Father’s Day without a Father

06/15/2017 / / 2 Comments

I have been a little low this week. At first I thought it was being back from vacation, but that should have worn off already. Then I thought it was because I had my doctor’s appointment yesterday, but that was just a 6-week regularly scheduled check-in – not a big deal.

It wasn’t until this morning when I opened Facebook and saw it:

Don't forget Father's Day

Father’s Day is on Sunday

 

That is when it clicked. Father’s Day. A day to celebrate the men in our lives. Only this year, we don’t have two of them.

This is one of those Firsts that you hear about when people talk about grief.

It is our first Father’s Day without a Father. My first Father’s day in 50 plus years to not be able to talk to my dad and wish him a Happy Father’s day.

The first Father’s day in 22 years (yes, he got a Father’s day gift when I was pregnant with our first daughter) where I will not roll over in the morning and tell my husband before anyone else Happy Father’s Day.

I admit I have gotten better at identifying why I am feeling down, but this one snuck up on me. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because of all of the activity that we have had going on lately.

Since March life has been moving ahead. I closed on my new house and moved, I sold our old house, my oldest graduated from college, we went on a cruise to celebrate graduation and surviving the past year. Next week we are going to look for apartments for my oldest who will now be moving on to graduate school.

All of that in three and a half months is enough for anyone. much less someone who had 2 devastating losses less than a year ago. Sometimes I look at my kids and I amazed at how well they have handled this year.

On Sunday I will hug my girls, tell them how proud I am of them.

In my heart I will wish I was calling my dad one more time to tell him Happy Father’s day….

Happy Father’s Day Dad

…And giving my husband another homemade coupon entitling the bearer to a  trip to Barnes and Noble with his spouse to watch him read every back cover on the Sci-Fi aisle, looking for the perfect next book.

Happy Father’s Day J.R 

I’m on a Pilgrimage, not just a Journey

04/21/2017 / / 0 Comments

I have been struggling lately with writing my story. If you follow along you may have noticed that my posts are sporadic.

While I was looking for inspiration (well, really just browsing Facebook), I came across a blog post aimed at writers and what can be learned from serious writers.

Item #6 (So What?) jumped out at me. It screamed at me actually, and I heard the little voice in my head…

It said “Yeah, Kim, so what? What about your story makes people want to come back for more?”

I have often asked myself will anyone care about the story, or will they just say “So what?”

For any newbies, my story is about my pilgrimage (pilgrimage: any long journey, especially one undertaken as a quest or purpose) along the Stage 4 Breast Cancer road.

And if I am going to call this a pilgrimage then I must ask myself “What is my purpose?”

Obviously, the main purpose is to continue living. But to what end? What is my purpose and am I conveying that purpose through the telling of my story?

I have definitely had my ups and downs. In fact, if I drew it out in map form, there would be hills (probably some mountains) and valleys, and even some level terrain (as level as it can be when you wake up every morning with the knowledge that you have stage 4 cancer).

Like most pilgrimages, my quest has been to seek God. More specifically, to seek a relationship with God that I portray daily by the way I live my life.

Thinking about my journey and looking back over the map I have mentally drawn, I am reminded of the Footprints in the Sand poem.

In finding and trusting my relationship with God, I observed the second set of footprints have many different sizes and the prints don’t look the same along the path. The various sized footprints are actually the prints left by friends and family that have walked with me (and sometimes carried me) on this pilgrimage and have acted as the hands and feet (literally and figuratively) of God.

So if you ask “So What?” I have missed the mark on sharing the grace and love that I have found in putting my trust in God during this journey.

 

 

 

 

Choose Joy Daily

From Grief to Choosing Joy

05/04/2017 / / 0 Comments

It seems I’m seeing more and more posts and books about Grief these days. And not the Charlie Brown “Good Grief” kind.

I purchased Sheryl Sandberg’s recently published book called “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy” Although this is not a book review, so far I give the book two thumbs up. She speaks directly to me. However, I am a person who is still grieving, just like her.

Many Facebook posts I see about grief are titled something along the lines of “Things I wish people understood about losing _______”(you can fill in the blank with parent, child, spouse, even close friend).

Until I was thrown into the depths of grief, none of these books or blog posts would have hit me the way they do now.

While I think it is great to have a dialogue about grief, because keeping it bottled up is not the answer, people are never going to understand the depths of grief until they have found themselves swallowed by it.

It is not something that is easily explained, nor can you set a time limit on it. Someone who has never experienced grief will not understand that the hole in your heart will never be filled again. At some point, scar tissue will form over the hole, but as anyone with a scar will tell you, you will always remember the story of how you got that scar.

Have you ever had a scar that when you touch it the wrong way, or bump into something, your brain gets the pain signal? It is not the same pain signal you may have gotten when you were originally injured, but it is a reminder that the injury was there. The same can be said for grief. Over time, the scar tissue will form, the pain won’t be as intense as the original, but it is still there. And you never know what will be the trigger (like bumping into furniture in the middle of the night, especially after you have just rearranged, grief rearranges things in my path all the time).

Somewhere along the grief journey I discovered Emily McDowell greeting cards (even before they were mentioned in Sheryl’s book).  Her cards are funny and honest. I love them. My personal favorite is:

Funny But Honest

I have been blessed with some amazing friends and family in my life. While they may not understand the depth of my grief, they have been there for me and continue to be there for me when that scar tissue gets bumped and sends the pain signal.

It has been just over 9 months since my father (7/20/16) and my husband (7/24/16) passed away. And while the scar has begun to form over the hole in my heart, the only way that I can carry on is to Choose Joy daily. By choosing joy, I’m helping that scar to form so the hole does not feel like such a void.

More than the end of a chapter – it is a sequel

06/11/2017 / / 0 Comments

It is hard to say it was the final chapter, but in many was it was. May was an emotional month.

It began with closing on the house that my husband, my girls and I shared for almost 11 years. Most of my youngest daughters’ memories are from that house. It was a big part of our life. Now that chapter is closed.

I was raised with a military father, so I have never been emotionally attached to a specific place. I know the memories are about the people, not the place, and that is true for the house we lived in until my husband’s death.

All that being said, it is a strange feeling to be living in a new house my husband will never physically share with me. And the selling of our last house together was more than just the end of a chapter, it was more like the final page in a book.

I keep referring to things as chapters. And while that is true for my personal journey, selling our house was like finishing a book we were writing together. It was a book that I never expected to end so soon. So many chapters left unfinished.

Now I am working on the sequel, and while there are memories of our life together, my husband will never be a main character in the sequel.

The first chapter of the new book began just a little more than a week after I closed on the house when our oldest daughter graduated from college.

It was exciting to see the accomplishment, especially with everything that we have gone through the last year. However, I was sad my husband was not there to celebrate with us. I know he was super proud of her, and would be extremely proud that her next adventure will be attending graduate school at his Alma Mater.

After graduation there were parties and quick trips before the girls and I left for our cruise (YES! I finally went on a cruise). The cruise was a graduation gift for the college graduate, as well as a much-needed escape from everything and everyone (sorry, not sorry).

I had been looking forward to the cruise for months. As the weeks passed and the time drew closer, I was actually beginning to feel a little apprehensive. The excitement was disappearing and I was getting anxious. It finally dawned on me that I was sad to be going on this fun adventure without my husband. For 22 years, my husband promised me we would go on a cruise one day. One day finally came and it was just me and the girls.

 

 

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