You did what with your husband's remains!?!

Those first two days of home hospice were a blessing.  The social worker walked us through what I would have to do after he "transitioned" (more on that later).  And she helped us BOTH talk about what we BOTH needed to decide for my late-husband's, ultimate remains.

Up to that point, we'd been so consumed with his illness and ensuring that his last days were spent in the manner of his choosing that we'd never sat together and discussed what would be to come later.  I remember trying to change the subject when the social worker initially asked, "What will be done with what will be left of him?"  I remember thinking that she had to be the rudest person on the face of the ENTIRE EARTH to ask ME that with him sitting right there. I'd already, secretly, decided that I was going to cremate him. Surely her question had to be some form of disrespect for him or us both. Nope. She was not asking just me.  She was asking us both, and she was correct to do so.  

I'd decided on cremation because I figured I'd one day leave California (we only came here for his job, and I've never really felt at home here). He was a very spiritual person, but not a religious one.  When the social worker raised her very pointed question, I feared he would want something else. It turns out that he didn't.  He wanted to be cremated.  I relaxed until I saw her (I felt at the time) "pushy" nod.  Then, I reluctantly asked if he wanted his ashes to be spread somewhere in particular.  Thankfully, he told us there was nowhere else that he wanted to be, and that he felt the soul was free of the body after "death."  I was very relieved. I did not want to have been deceitful to him.  But, if he'd asked to be spread, I would only spread some of the ashes. I did not want to risk leaving his remains behind and unattended.  

You see, my parents both died (of natural causes) when I was very young.  They ended up being buried in separate cemeteries.  I've never exactly known where.  In all of the decades since their deaths, I know of no one who has gone to tend their graves.  For all that I know (based upon unreasonable stories in the Los Angeles news about grave desecration), they may no longer even be where they were left. I did not want the same thing to happen to my late-husband. 

So, I keep my late-husband's ashes in our home. He's locked in a security closet in my son's man cave.  I used to keep him on the fireplace built-out because his urn was too big to fit on the shelf that I'd originally selected.  Oddly, the presence of his urn seemed to unnerve some people. When some of our friends would visit, they'd peek fearfully at it out of the corners of their eyes.  It was almost comical.

The people were comfortable with him while he was alive.  The people visited him while he was dying.  I'm unclear as to why his urn would make them afraid.  My son and I feel quite comfortable with having him here. (Happily, my son remains untouched by the cemetery's charge.)

Your late-husband and you get to decide what is to be done. It's mostly him, but fully only the two of you.  It may be hard to set limits against others because there may be many, well-meaning loved one who might have different ideas.  If you believe they truly love you and actually do have your best interest at heart, then you (or better yet, your hospice social worker) can lovingly thank them for their care and concerns and explain that you have to do things as you and your husband agreed.  If you think it will help, tell them you don't want to break your word to him.  Afterall, he died believing that you would to see to his wishes as best as you are able.  I have what some might call a "strong" personality.  I'm in a reasonably secure financial position.  It was well within my power to grant my husband's wishes, especially since so many of our family and friends rallied to help.

If your late-husband's wishes are within your power to grant, your soul (and I think his too) will not settle for less than your best, reasonable efforts.  Understand, if it turns out that you cannot manage to fulfill all of his wishes, explain to your late-husband (his spirit will linger) and then do what you can reasonably do. Your late-husband will know that you love him and that you really did wish to do it all as you both surmised.  AND, he also knows that you are only just a mortal, human being. He would not wish harm to his wife and kids for plans that he surely would have changed, had he lived.

I bid you Courage, Strength, and the Loving Resolve to See it Done.

I wish to represent

My late husband had a Cannon EOS-10D.  When he bought it during the year 2000-ish, it was an unbelievably-advanced tech-thingy of its time.  I want to use it to photo his urn for this site.  I went to the Cannon website to get something he called "drivers."  I don't exactly know what they are, but he told me that you have to have them to do photos. I discovered that they now mostly just have stuff about a Cannon EOD 60D.  :-(

OK, I get that the world must move on (But for the record, I sometimes feel that this "moving on" (without my late husband's contribution) is insulting to him (Maybe that's because I relied so heavily upon him. And that part is just me & my son.).) .  However, how can the world get from a 10D to a 60D when "end-game" between my late-husband and his uber-camera is only 3 years?  It's scary-tech insane!!!

 I'm praying that us widows having kids who are young enough to "understand the tech mix" will be fortunate enough that the loving of our kids will result in them loving us back. I work hard for my son.  I willingly pay the emotional and physical sacrifices that it takes in order for me to earn the tuition for his expensive, private school.  (This is instead of sending him to regular (public, no extra-cost to me) school). My late husband wanted our son to continue in private school as long as possible (There are a lot of deadly gangs in the city were we live.). I hope our son understands all when I can no longer "understand." (He can just put me in a  "cool retirement home," or get me a great retirement (possibly like Honda's Asimo robot)).

In the meanwhile, I find myself more and more relying on my son to understand what the crazy tech world has to offer for us both.  (I learned the basics of MS Power Point during Graduate School at The Ohio State University (it was brand spanking new back then).  My son learned all that I learned back then and more in only/barely the fourth grade (they started teaching him while he was between grades in summer camp.)).   According to what I've read, each generation has 150,000 more brain cells than its parental units'.  I say, great!  I just hope the kids use all that for the good of their families (especially, including their widowed mamas (or poppas) !).  :)

Coping Skills That Worked For Me

I will continue to develop the posts on this page.  Please stay with me?  It's not easy.  

In the early days, your brain will be "stunned." Life may seem too much to understand and work with.  I can remember staring blankly into space.  It was hard to rouse myself to do much more than feed my son, and even that was difficult at times.  If possible, "contract your world" for awhile. In the smaller, temporary world, give yourself permission to deal only with things that HVE to be delt with.  Tell yourself that it's okay to put the rest off until you get stronger and clearer (after about a month, the brain will start to come back). 

1.  Put on your husband's clothes and cry whenever you damn well feel like it.

Some well meaning, but misguided, family and friends will tell you not to cry, especially not in front of the children. They might tell you that, "You have to be strong for the children."  However, I believe this is incorrect advice.  All human beings are built with" the crying mechanism."  That must mean that we are ALL meant to cry, especially when situations warrant. Surely the loss of your beloved husband is more than a legitimate enough reason to cry.  (Your husband was your rock.  He understood you and he was the loving sounding-off board who helped you interpret the world.)  Wearing his clothes helps you to smell him and feel his presence *. I would even sometimes cuddle my son while I cried, or while he cried.  My son was only seven when his father died.  He didn't completely understand what was going on, but he understood that losing his dad (his best friend) was an incredibly awful and unfair thing!  When you allow your kids see you crying, you validate their true and legitimate feelings of overwhelming loss.  If you don't truthfully acknowledge the loss of your husband for yourself and for your kids, how are you and they supposed to process it and heal? You cannot hide from grief.  You have to embrace it in order to get better.  If you try to "stuff" your feelings, they will just resurface in another far more destructive form (depression, over-eating, substance abuse, etc).   And don't worry, no matter how hard you cry, it always stops eventually.  Sometimes I would cry so hard that I'd fall asleep when I was done.  My husband died in our living room in a hospice bed.  Some nights, I'd go lay on the floor where the bed was and then cry myself to sleep.  I am in a healthy widow's place.  Thinking about my late husband makes me happy. Sure, I sometimes really miss him, and I often see his death as "unfair," especially considering some of the unworthy who still walk the earth.  However, I rarely feel the need to cry.

My mother died from cancer when I was seven. I remember going with my father to the funeral home just before the wake.  My dad was a war-tested, bad-ass, US Army Colonel (Retired). When he saw my mother's remains, he leaned against the wall and bawled.  In all of my years of living, I have never once doubted the love that my father had for my mom. I believe that memories of my strong, loving father helped me survive and recover from the loss of my husband.

If people try to get you not to cry, here are some tear supporting references that you can show:

http://www.bodyandsoulreconnection.com/go-ahead-have-a-good-cry-its-good-for-you/

http://www.redbookmag.com/health-wellness/advice/benefits-of-crying

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article6999811.ece

http://www.inthedivine.com/blog/2010/04/19/theresas-tips-4-transcendence-why-its-good-to-cry/


http://www.cyquest.com/good_cry.html

http://www.scienceline.org/2006/10/ask-driscoll-tears/


2.  Let someone else make the final arrangements and take your time.

My parents and grandparents were significantly older than would have been typical for their times.  Because of this, I'd had many and varied experiences dealing with suffocating "funerals." I did not want that "closure" for my husband. He was too young and alive for the "old, oppressive fusty."

My husband was in hospice exactly one week to the day from when I brought him home to die.  It was HIS wish to die at home. On the day of his hospital discharge, he told those of us gathered there that he felt it was like Christmas. He'd stoically accepted his prognosis. However, he'd definitely been insistent (for him) in insisting that he die in his home. For some reason, his family fought it (So I fought them & won.).  The hospice social workers gave me detailed instructions regarding whom to call and what to do in the moments after he died. When we lost my husband's pulse that first time, me and few of our beloved friends held hands in a circle around him and lovingly said goodbye.  Later, an attending physician came from the hospice center to sit with our woeful, terrified group.  Afterwards, a hospice nurse came to remove his hardware and a neighborhood  funeral home took his body away.  I was there for my husband's transition. I now believe that transition is what it actually is, not death (as in a complete termination).  My friends oversaw the rest of the process while I sat in the basement clutching my son and watching Spongebob Square Pants.  Those same friends would lovingly executed the logistics of my husband's memorial. When I stalled and procrastinated, they kept me on track, moving me toward what we all knew HAD to be done.

I was in shock and unable to reconcile the situation.  It had happened so quickly that it seemed surreal.  My friends told me that a memorial needed to be planned.  I wondered how things had gotten to the point where a milestone so significant was needed.  Part of me earnestly believed that I need only hold out awhile and then I'd awaken from the nightmare back into my real, regular life.  I cried a lot and stared into space. The first week passed.  I did not wake up.  My friends began to gently prod me. They reminded me that my husband's body was in a  refrigerator at the funeral home down the street. They said that we could not just let him lay there.  I was in denial when I parroted,  that we must do. I felt that if I had to "play along," I may as well make sure that it was all "true" to the kind of man my late-husband was.  In my mind, rejecting a "funeral" was the first step.  The rest I was unsure about.  I figured I'd get a planning book or internet article on memorials. I figured I'd (slowly) work my way through setting his up (I couldn't really focus.  Finding reference was just too much to handle for too long of periods of time).  But no, my friends stepped up and told me they would take care of it (I guess this was because I was spending a lot of time staring into space and only doing a poor to mediocre job of caring myself and my son).  I was so very grateful.  However I felt and still feel that we were too young for something so monumental.

We had a memorial two weeks after his death at his place of work. I'd wanted to have it at the Kenneth Hahn State Park because we'd been married in a State Park of Roses in Columbus, OH.  However, the Los Angeles, California park declined us because too many people wanted to attend. Hundreds came. Surely the amount was a blessing and a sign of how much he meant to world. I believe that it was more fitting to have the memorial at his job.  He loved his work and spent a lot  time there creating and soaking up inspirational, creative atmosphere. 

In the end, all I did was pick my husband's urn, tell our friends my chosen theme (to celebrate his life with the drum music and bright colors that he favored), and I gave them the prayers and poems that I wanted to incorporate.  Our friends spread my selected readings among themselves (and practiced presenting them for the memorial), wrote eulogies and sentiments, found a minister to preside over the service, hired a musician to play the kind of music they knew that he favored, picked food and decorations in his style, etc, etc, etc.  I felt that we were like "children" burying a child.  I was and still am awed by what they'd done.

Had I been left on my own, I like to believe I would have limped through the planning (some how, eventually). But was not alone.  Our friends came and chose to shoulder that painful process for me. I am grateful and I know that my late husband is too. 

http://www2.providence.org/trinitycare/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.parkofroses.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Hahn_State_Recreation_Area

3.  Be gentle with yourself

I am one who needs to know that the sun will come up tomorrow.  I'm fine with having someone else raise it, as long as it gets raised.  When I think there is no one else, I will attempt to do it myself.  After my husband died, I had a sense of anxiety and urgency. I imagined monumental, catastrophic event were to come: earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, the kidnapping of my child, home invasions (you name it, I saw it coming).  The most effective way for me to calm myself, when my husband was not around to give me a helpful reality check, is to act.  The problem was that my mind was scattered in a million directions.  It was like I had been dynamited and I needed to search out and collect my scattered pieces.  Everything was affected.  I had a hard time remembering things.  It was difficult to reason through actual problems because my go-to analyzers (logic, sixth sense, planner) were non-functioning. I spent much of the first week staring blankly.  I was exhausted and tremulous.  The smallest exertion caused me to have to rest.  I even had trouble with basic physical coordination.  I can remember trying to drive to a friend's house and feeling the car weaving and drifting up the 405 freeway (it's a wonder that I did not get pulled over).  It took all of my vastly reduced concentration to keep the car within the narrow, white lines.  Fortunately, most L.A. drivers are pretty good.  Had I happened upon a bad driver, I would not have been able to respond defensively. It was several weeks before I felt secure behind the wheel. 

The hospice social worker visited almost daily for that first week "afterwards." She was also a widow.  It had been several years for her and she'd remarried.  I remember anticipation and dread before her arrivals.  I desperately wanted her to bestow a magic that would make it all better.  I feared she would see me as a weakling who was unable to care for a seven year old son.  In the beginning, he sought comfort through the focused playing of the video game that had been a favorite pastime of his and his dad's. I'd never been much of a video game player. However, to appease my husband, I'd grudgingly learned some of the game's rudiments the year before my husband's illness.  But my heart just wasn't in the HALO war game.  So my husband gave up on me and trained our more enthusiastic son to become his gamer-partner.   After my husband died, my son tried to get me to play HALO with him.  I tried a few times, but could not.  The character motions were dizzying.  I'd have to break and shut my eyes.  My sweet, seven year old would pause the game and gently talk me back to recovery.  After awhile, he came to accept that I was not much good for playing HALO.  However, I was always ready to snuggle in our LazyBoy chair and watch cartoons.  (We still often do that.)

In the end, the magical lesson from my hospice social worker was that my feelings were normal and that I should not punish myself for them.  She got me to see that snuggling in our family's favorite chair while  watching our family's favorite cartoons was actually a big help, for him and me. I came to understand that I should lovingly accept that I was actually doing my very best, at that time, with the understanding that I would do more as I recovered.

The social worker was correct.  I truly AM now able to do quite a bit more.

http://www2.providence.org/trinitycare/Pages/default.aspx

http://halo.xbox.com/en-us

4. Make lists and keep boxes

It was very hard in the beginning to remember things.  I'd know that I'd needed to be in a particular place, but once I got there, I was unable to remember why.  At the times when I'd force myself to leave the house to go to the store, I'd be unable to remember the "urgent item" that  I was supposed to purchase.  It was troubling.  I'd had a good memory before my husband died.  I took the loss as a bad omen.  One of my grandfathers had Alzheimer's disease.  I remember thinking that the shock and trauma of losing my husband may have triggered the disease in me and that I would slip into void that included only me and then die alone after being locked in a nursing home (a human warehouse). The social worker suggested that I start using lists to keep up.  At first, I'd write things down and then lose the papers.  Then I bought a small note pad and kept it in my late-husband's shorts-pockets, which were what I wore back then. To keep up with receipts, insurance claims, and other pending bills, I used a "shoe box" organization system.  I would sort things into boxes (as correctly as possible at the time) and then let them slip from mind mind.  As I got stronger, I'd take out an item or two to address. 

The cancer that killed my husband is called cholangiocarcinoma.  It starts in the liver and bile ducts.  However, it's extremely aggressive and spreads quickly.  By the time it's found, the victim basically has "cancer of the everything."  At this point, there is no chemo or radiation or surgery that's been shown to stop it, or even slow it down.  The diagnosis is a guaranteed death sentence. In my husband's case, he was dead a mere six and a half weeks after they began finding the cancers.

Ten years before my husband's death, he was diagnosed with the precursor disease.  It is called primary sclerosing cholangitis.  At the time, little was known about the disease.  The hepatologists (liver specialists; my late husband went for check-ups every six months) that cared for my late husband told us that if he followed a very healthy life-style, his liver might eventually fail and then he'd need a transplant in about 15-20 years. They were wrong.

By the time my late husband's cancer showed up, the medical literature was saying that the average time from diagnosis to death, from this unholy condition, was 10 years.  It was nearly exactly ten years when he died.

People you may have heard of with cholangiocarcinoma include Walter "Sweetness" Payton of the Chicago Bears Football time.  His widow set up a foundations to help others.  Here is the website:

http://www.payton34.com/


I'm the kind of person who needs to know the "why."  Once I understand, I can begin to "accept and move on."  If I can see no reasonable explanation, I can get "stuck" on a situation.  My mind replays and reanalyzes the problem over and over until it finds and answer.  To that end, I researched the disease.  It was an effective coping strategy for me.  If you are interested, there are some liver links below.

Here are some other links about the liver:
www.liverfoundation.org

nlfindia.com

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/liverdiseases.htmlhttp://www.mayoclinic.com/health/liver-cancer/DS00399

The tech world was my late-husband's realm. He would determine what we needed, obtain it, set it up, and train me for my desired (limited) use. As I move through the set up process, I feel a bit as though I'm fumbling in the dark.

Hello

Hello,

I am a widow.  I've just begun my third year.  My late husband succumbed to cancer in the summer of 2007.  We met during undergraduate school at The Ohio State University. As a 40 something looking back, I'm awed by our naive bravery.  We were together for just over 20 years.  We were together when he died.

I decided to start a blog because when I went looking for survival inspiration I found only books and bereavement counseling.  I'm an active person.  I believe a real-time, dynamic process would have been helpful.  Since I still don't see one out there, I'm putting forth my two cents.