“I am not really dead, Deb!” Roy is speaking to me as he lies on the sofa. I recognize his hairy belly and chest; the rest of his body is not visible, missing as a matter of fact.
“What am I going to tell everyone?” I ask, full of anxiety and fear that my friends will think I told a big lie. “I saw you die!” I reach out to touch him, but cannot quite reach him. I grow frustrated and angry that the doctors misled me into thinking he was dead. I cannot face going to work…
”This is Steve Inskeep, Renee Montange is on assignment…” I am confused as the Morning Edition Host invades my conversation with Roy. I open my eyes waiting for my brain to catch up to the present moment. Ah, yes, the Sonos radio has come on and I have to face another day without Roy.
Today, August 17, marks the four-month Anniversary of Roy’s death; one-third of a year has passed. I am prematurely back into the routine of work and other commitments, still feeling very lost as I try to carve out a new life. Some days I relax and tell myself just let it happen, other days I am frozen filled with free-floating anxiety triggered by the practicalities of life, planning a trip, driving my car in unfamiliar neighborhoods, filling out simple paperwork, and completing work assignments in a timely manner. Seattle is my birth home; I have spent my entire life here except for the years I was away getting education. I have difficulty rationalizing my grief, which seems to manifest mostly as anxiety and forgetfulness. How can I get lost in my home city tucked securely between two mountain ranges a, lake and Elliot Bay?! My grief feels like the mountain ranges have sunk into the water and I have no landmarks to cue me of which direction I am headed.
I learned a new acronym recently, STUG, Sudden Temporary Upsurges of Grief. The other day I had my first big STUG event. Generally my body takes over and puts me to sleep even in the middle of an interesting conversation if I fail to get enough rest. I have given myself permission to acquiesce to sleep even in embarrassing situations like meetings. I can feel my brain jamming like a computer that has too many commands entered at once. My brain just stops processing my eyes shut for a few minutes–a soft reboot. However my eighty-eight year old father had a health crisis last week. I was out of town at a meeting and training. I learned of my father’s illness when my brother picked me up from the airport. Dad had been in the hospital for several days and my family thinking it would be too much for me to handle and that I would come rushing home chose not to tell me. I can respect and understand their decision so I will leave it at that. However, I was left trying to process too much all at once, my father’s illness, the time zone adjustment, a waiting pile of tasks on my desk at work, and the confusion about having a decision taken away from me. In the middle of that difficult day I just broke down into a STUG attack. I cancelled everything including a dinner date with a friend and a dancing lesson. I am learning that grief ignites, anger, fear, sadness, and love. What has been difficult about Roy’s death is the realization that there is not much one can control in life. I did not think that I would be on this journey into widowhood at such a young age. We never made it to the Galapagos or Africa together, trips we had dreamed of taking after our retirement, more loss to process. Roy seemed healthy one minute and dying the next. I do not regret anything or decisions we made. Life is just life. Anyone that has lived one year has an anniversary day laying in wait, the day of death. Most of us do not choose that day. I know somewhere in my emotional library and training as a social worker that I will probably have more STUG attacks on my grief journey. I am prepared for them now and will do my best to accept them as part of the healing.