After guilt comes acceptance

Posted by Sammy on Mar 29th, 2010 | 4 comments

Over the last week I’ve really felt an overwhelming feeling of acceptance. Like I almost don’t feel bad for what happened with Gary. I mean, I feel bad, don’t get me wrong. But almost like I’ve come to some kind of “terms” with it. I guess what has helped me stay so strong these last 3 months is the fact that I somewhat prepared myself for the worst. As a wife of a cancer patient its very realistic to envision the worst. For me the worst was losing Gary, of course that would be the worst. I had a good 7 months before I lost him, envisioning this worst.

I’ll be honest once Gary started chemo, he was not the same Gary that I fell in love with. Chemo changed him, but I adapted. I quickly learned how to adjust what I was doing as to not tick him off. But even though I adapted, I never got my Gary back.

So even though I do miss Gary, I am somewhat at peace with the fact that he is gone. He is no longer suffering, he no longer has to deal with chemo or cancer ever again. Do I miss him? Hell yes! But do I think I need to hide under a rock for the rest of my life like a lonely widow, definitely not. Gary wouldn’t have wanted that for me. I have accepted that he is gone and he won’t be back, but I do know that he’s watching over Mikey and I. He’ll guide us to make the right decisions, that I do believe!

Life Sucks!

Posted by Sammy on Mar 18th, 2010 | 7 comments

Every bit of my life just fucking sucks. I have cried just about ever single night since being back home. Not because its weird being back home. I LOVE being back home. This is OUR home. I feel comfortable here. I find myself crying after Mikey goes to bed. Usually when I’m attempting to wind down. Instead of relaxing (like I should) watching TV after he goes to bed I start going on somewhat of a scavenger hunt around my house. Perusing boxes and drawers. What am I looking for? I’m looking for two things. One is the DVD with the photos of our last family photo session that we took on Mother’s Day last year before Gary started chemo. I have the case the photos came in, but I can’t seem to find where this DVD is. I remember giving it to Gary and where it went after that, beats me. I have no clue. Thankfully I have all of the photos saved on my pc so I can burn a dvd myself, but ya know, its not the same. I want THAT one.

The other thing I’m looking for is this black and white surfing picture of Gary. He actually used it to woo me over 11 years ago I have the picture saved digitally but I’d like the original too. I know its somewhere because at some point I had scanned it in for our wedding but beats me where the hell its gone since then. That was 5 years ago! I know eventually he’ll help me find what I’m looking for but man does it suck when you have your mind set on finding something and your mind in a way is getting in your way from finding it.

In my hunt I came across some cards from Gary. I tore my room up the other night looking for any kind of card from him and couldn’t find a damn one. But tonight I found 3 of them personally from him to me with a beautiful note in each one. Each one just broke my heart, almost like the analogy of pouring salt into an open wound. Yeah that was me. Pouring salt into my open wound, my heart. All of these cards were ones that he wrote me last year between Valentines, oops I meant Hallmark Day, and the last one was for our 5th wedding anniversary. The things he said brought me more tears today than they did the day he wrote them, because those cards he actually wrote from his heart. It wasn’t the cheesy, I love you type message. It was messages like “You are my rock”. Or him thanking me for pushing him to find out what the hell is wrong with him. Or the one line that hurt me the most tonight was him saying how he realized that he has so much to live for and he is going to give this fight all that he’s got because he’s got so many memories to make with us.

So on the eve of Gary being gone for exactly 11 week (yeah it’ll be 11 weeks tomorrow morning at 7:10am), I wanted to say that right now I’m more of a mess than I was 11 weeks ago when I lost him and I’m more alone than I was 11 weeks ago when I lost him. Whereas everyone else’s lives have gone on, mine hasn’t. Mine remains in shambles.

After shock comes guilt

Posted by Sammy on Mar 17th, 2010 | one comment

Or at least it does for me.

I don’t even know where to start with this post. For the past 2.5 months I’ve been somewhat numb. Just “living” what is my new life without Gary. Just getting by. Acting strong to everyone, while even surprising myself at times. That was the shock phase apparently and to me the next stage that has hit is guilt.

Guilt that I wish I would have screamed out to tell Gary that I can’t do this without him while they were performing cpr on him. Maybe just maybe he would have heard my screams and said “Ok I’ll keep fighting”.

Guilt that I left at 12:30am on New Year’s Day even though he wasn’t doing that well to go home and sleep so that I can have energy to spend the next day with him.

Guilt that I didn’t take him to the hospital sooner.

Guilt that I let us attempt to live a normal life after he was done with chemo, even though his immune system wasn’t back to normal.

Guilt that I didn’t tell Gary that I loved him every single day that I was with him.

Guilt that we won’t grow old together.

Guilt in the fact that I get to enjoy seeing our beautiful little MIkey grow up and Gary is missing all of this. How he would have loved hearing half of the things that comes out of Mikey’s mouth now. I get to see how much Mikey’s face lights up when he sees pictures of Gary or how he has this huge grin when I replay Gary’s voicemail greeting. I wish he was here to enjoy this, for us to be our little family again, a wish no one can ever grant me unfortunately. I’d have better luck at winning the lottery at this point.

Oh the guilt, this phase, S-U-C-K-S. I cry in bed every night because of the guilt I feel. People can tell me that I was the best wife and did everything I could. And I know that, but I still feel that guilt. I know its a phase, and I know it’ll pass. I hate everything about this new life of mine. The emptiness I feel is so much more real now than it was 2.5 months ago when I lost Gary, and that is probably why this phase is kicking my ass.

Ambulance Chaser Alert

Posted by Sammy on Mar 10th, 2010 | 2 comments

I thought ambulance-chasing was left to really scumbag lawyers. Never would I think I’d experience ambulance-chasing when it came to the death of my husband. A few days ago I received this envelope with my name very nicely printed on the front. I opened it up wondering who it could have been from. To my surprise it was a letter from a realtor that had found out from the county death records that I’d soon be appointed the executor of Gary’s estate and that they’d be more than happy to talk with me during this “very difficult time”. Ya know just in case I need to sell my house. I mean they want first dibs at the 3% commission before I went to a reputable realtor.

So as a blogger with a good number of readers you just know that I can’t let this go. For every letter that I receive I will be posting their name so that all of my readers can be aware of what SCUMBAGS they are. Anyone who would pray on a grieving widow deserves to burn in H-E-L-L!!!!!!

So the first one to the flames is……

Emergency Home Buyers of Davie, Florida.

They have a website but I’m not going to link to them from my website. But I’ll be more than happy to provide their address and phone number

It’s:

4839 South West 148th Avenue
Suite 358
Davie, Florida 33330
954-931-5601

The next on my flame list is…….

Gerry Sullivan and Associates Realty of Plantation, Florida.

Their phone number is 954-521-6021 and a “wonderful and polite” Mr. Richard Iacino “signed” the letter and was so kind to also provide me with his email address. So here you all go since I’m sure you all want to use his services. It’s JIacino804@aol.com

Feel free to get their contact info and blast them if you’d like. I plan on it……..that’s for sure.

Any other realtors that dare contact me will suffer the same consequences! You’ve messed with the WRONG widow!!!!!!

The story of the old couple

Posted by Sammy on Mar 4th, 2010 | no comments

There was something posted on the widow boards that I frequent the other day about how most of us widows basically feel robbed of growing old with the spouse that we lost. And for some reason that post immediately reminded me of a story that I wanted to share on my blog.

It was 2003 and Gary and I were on our Alaskan cruise (where he proposed). Before we boarded the Sun Princess in Seward we had hit the Helly Hansen store to look for some fleece sweaters because we were seeing a lot of locals wearing Helly Hansen outerwear. Well we both bought fleece jackets, his was a tan color and mine was blue.

Now fast-foward to the cruise. This shouldn’t be a surprise but most people on our ship were MUCH older than us. We didn’t care though. Well if you’ve ever been on a cruise you’d know how many opportunities you get to take photos by the ship photographers. You head down to their studio area and search for your photo amongst hundreds of others on the wall. Definitely can help pass the time when its freezing outside. Well Gary and I would go down to the studio to check out our photos and EVERY time we would we would keep seeing a photo of an older couple wearing the same color jackets like we would wear. I’m talking EVERY SINGLE TIME. We ended up joking about how that older couple was us in 50+ years. I don’t think we ever saw them onboard but we always came across their photo in the studio.

It might not be funny to you, but remembering little stories like that brings a smile to my face. Those that were blessed to know Gary knew how much he loved to bring a smile to someone’s face.

Coming Clean

Posted by Sammy on Mar 3rd, 2010 | 5 comments

I’m not sure how many people know that I feel this way but I think its time to come clean. Really I have nothing to hide and quite honestly, if people are offended by the way that I feel then I’m sorry, try being in my shoes! Try having your entire world turned upside down and then maybe you’d understand why I feel this way.

So I’m coming clean and admitting on MY blog that ever since Gary passed away I’ve been extremely jealous of a lot of people out there.

I’m jealous of couples, whether they are happy or not. What I’d give to just have one more hug, shoot even an argument with Gary, so many people take their significant other for granted and I wish I could be one of those individuals.

I’m jealous of all of those daddies that I see having a blast with their little one. Oh what I’d give to see the smile on Mikey’s face when his daddy walks into the room just one more time. Mikey’s face always lit up when Gary was in the room. He LOVED his daddy, and his daddy LOVED him.

I’m jealous of happy families because mine is in pieces. It’s a constant reminder of what I no longer have, my happy little family.

Oh and the worst and I’m sorry if people don’t understand this one, I’m jealous of pregnant women. It’s not because I’m not happy that they are bringing in a new life into this world, its because Gary and I were supposed to try for baby #2 as soon as he was 6 months past his last chemo, and that never came. To dream about that baby, a sibling for Mikey, that we may never have just breaks my heart. We didn’t advertise this, because really its not worth advertising, but what the hey if I’m coming clean then I’ll come completely clean, but before Gary started chemo we decided to bank his sperm just in case the chemo made him infertile. NEVER in a million years would I think that I’d ever be faced with the decision of using his sperm because he’s not here. Of course I’m in no way ready for THAT type of commitment or decision, but since I’m coming clean, there ya go!

So hate me, bash me, whatever you want with me. It’s how I feel and dammit I’m entitled to it!