RIP the Life I Knew

Death, Dads, and Sand Castles

Kelley Lynn — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:22:18 +0000

Today is hard.

It’s hard because I know better. I know that life is short and often times very unfair. I know people can be taken from you suddenly without any warning whatsoever. I know what its like to stare death in the eyes. To wake up to the shocking news that your husband has died. To be taken to a private hospital room to “see him”, after he is already gone. To have a forever-image in your soul of his puffy arms and neck, lying in a casket. To have no goodbye. No goodnight. No good morning. No chance to breathe or adjust or process.

On days like today, Fathers Day and Mothers Day and all the other difficult “special” days since losing my husband, I long to go back. I want to go back to me and my brother and my dad playing on a Cape Cod beach. My dad swimming with us in the big waves, holding us tight and keeping us safe. My mom hugging us kids by the Christmas tree as we opened our many gifts, or making us a special birthday cake that looked like Winnie the Pooh or Raggedy Ann. Always making us feel special, always making us feel loved.

Me, the neighbor girls, and mom’s homemade birthday cake …

It was a time before I knew what pain or illness or death was. A time where getting some penny candy or riding the go-carts or building a really cool fort with the neighbors, was my biggest goal on a typical summer day. A time where my legs were as skinny as they are in these pictures, and where my dad actually still wore shorts. It was a time where a trip to Johnsons or Kimballs Farm for ice-cream made me the happiest person in the world, and where dad’s steak on the grill, or mom’s homemade spaghetti and meatballs, was about as complicated and awesome as things got. A time where I knew nothing of disappointment or fear or aging. A time where dreams were made out of Legos, and hope sat inside of every badly-made sand-castle.

In many ways, I was lucky. The fact that my first instinct is to go back in time, whenever I’m faced with difficult or tremendously sad days, makes me lucky. Because it means that my childhood was happy and filled with love. It means that I had both of my parents, and that they both loved me, and that nothing earth-shattering or tragic happened during those years to take away my innocence. Not everybody is so lucky.

Mom, me, my brother Dave, Dad

My husband Don was not one of the lucky ones. He was the product of an affair, and his biological father had a family of his own. Don’s mother, who was quite controlling and manipulative, kept Don and his real father apart his entire adolescence. For almost 20 years, my husband thought that he was the son of a terrible man – his “stepfather” – who did nothing but abuse and harm his mother, and who one time, held an infant Don over a high balcony, threatening to let him go unless Don’s mother did whatever ridiculous thing he was demanding at that moment. My husband witnessed countless acts of physical and emotional abuse on the women in his childhood home, and eventually, his mom packed him up from their home in Whittier, California, and they escaped the evil stepfather.

My husband and his very first picture book. His love of animals began early on, because his mom worked 3 jobs as a nurse, and he spent lots of time sitting in hospital waiting rooms, entertaining himself.

Somewhere around his 20th birthday, my husband’s mother decided it would be a good idea to inform Don of who his real father was, and to set up a meeting between them. According to my husband, this meeting was awkward at best, and the man that was his father, although a very nice person with a good heart, did nothing that day or in the years to come to show Don that he wanted to be a part of his life, or that he mattered to him. Never in my life will I understand this, how a grown man felt no need to acknowledge or love his adult son, who only wanted a relationship with his father. They usually spoke about once a year – on Fathers Day. Their conversation was always the same. Don would wish his dad a Happy Fathers Day, his father would ask: “How are you and Kelley doing?”, and then he would make up some excuse as to why he had to get off the phone.

I would spend the next hour consoling the man I loved, trying to answer his painful questions of: Why doesn’t he want to get to know me? Why doesn’t he care? It broke my heart into about ten thousand pieces, each and every year. His father continued to keep Don’s existence a secret within his own family, and so, about one week before our wedding in 2006, when Don’s father passed away, nobody told us. Nobody knew to tell us. Nobody knew there was an us. We found out almost 2 years later, after receiving a letter from a woman in Alabama. The letter read: “My name is Cynthia, and you don’t know me, but I think we share the same father. I’m writing to let you know that our dad died, and to see if you’d like to connect or talk.”

Me, my Bunny, and my Dad

During the year before we got married, I had written some letters, with Don’s permission, to his father, expressing how much it would mean to the both of us if he would be at our New York wedding. (he lived in Florida) Included in the letters were several pictures of me and Don together, happy in our joyous “engagement high”, and loving our life and our future of many promised years. I remember Don calling him just a few days after he proposed to me, excitedly telling him about how he had asked me to marry him under the Rockefeller Center Tree in NYC, and how our wedding was going to be filled with the themes of my love for Christmas. He said: “Well congratulations to you, but New York is just too far of a trip for me right now, so good luck and we’ll talk soon.” Don cried that night into my arms, because there was a tiny part of him that still had that hope, that just maybe, his father would show up for the most important, happiest day of his life.

Instead, his dad carelessly kicked his sand castle over, and hung up that phone one last time without a second thought. That was their last conversation, and a week or so before our wedding, Don’s father died after having a massive heart-attack on his golf-course. A long time later, his daughter Cynthia was going through some old mail and piles of her dad’s things, and she found my letters. She looked at the pictures of Don, who was a spitting-image of his father, and she figured out the rest and then reached out to us with her letter.

Me, Dad, and Don in Boston, 2010

Cynthia and Don kept in touch and spoke on the phone a few times, trying to piece together the puzzle that was the relationship between Don’s mother and their father. It was like trying to solve a mystery, and everyone who had all the clues was already dead. Don never got to meet his half-sister in person, because he died on that July 13th morning, of a massive heart-attack. Just like his father. Except his father had many warnings, and got to live out his life to a ripe, old age. Don was not that lucky. Much later on, after my husband’s death, I found out through a conversation with Cynthia, that their father had heart problems most of his adult life. He had a minor heart-attack in his 40s, a double-bypass in his 60′s, and then the final heart-attack while playing golf, at age 86. He lived a full and mostly healthy life, and he got to enjoy many rounds of golf while retired in beautiful, sunny Florida – the future that my husband pictured many times for us, and spoke of often.

But Don’s father never had the desire or the time to speak to his son on the phone, and he didn’t have the decency to take the 5 minutes to inform Don of his own medical history, and warn him to go get his heart tested and take the necessary precations that one would take when having early heart-disease in their immediate family. So because Don was healthy, active, never used a sick-day from work in his life, and never had any symptoms or warning signs of what was to come – his life ended at age 46, collapsing on a cold, hard floor. As Don himself used to always say, after coming home from a long shift as a paramedic and working on a patient they lost too young, due to sudden and unexpected heart-attacks, “that guy was fucked.”

Dad gives a welcoming toast at our 2006 wedding, as Don, me, and mom look on …..

It is tough to explain to people why Father’s Day always hits me so hard. Maybe it is because my husband and I never got to have children, and so I never got to see what an incredible dad he would have been. On Mother’s Day, I do grieve the loss of me never being a mother or having the family we might have had together – but that’s different. It’s different because at least I’m still alive. I will most likely never be a mother, and I definitely don’t get to raise a family with my husband, but I do get to live. My husband was robbed of that honor. He was robbed of time, and of life. He never got to be somebody’s son, and he never got to be somebody’s dad. And then he died – because his father couldn’t be bothered enough to give him a heads-up. It hurts. It is extremely unfair and it hurts to know that our lives were shattered and stolen from us by death. And every single year on Father’s Day, I still hear my husband’s voice inside my heart, asking: Why doesn’t he care? I can still see the tears collecting in his gorgeous blue eyes, as he looked at me, helpless, like a lost little boy.

My husband did end up having a dad though, a real dad who loved him like a son and who showed him that every single second that he had with him. My dad. For the last 7 years of my husband’s short life, he had the greatest bond with my family. My mom, my brother, and my dad all took him in, and he was one of us, and we loved him. And the relationship between him and my dad, was extra-special, because of the non-relationship Don had with his own father. Nothing made me happier than to see my dad and my husband out in the driveway, working on a car, talking baseball, or just mocking something together.

Laughing. There was always a lot of laughing. They were like buddies, and they really loved each other’s company. My husband called my dad “Pop”, which was just about the cutest thing in the universe. Seeing them together melted my heart, and it made the fact that his own father was never really a presence in his life, just a little bit easier.

On our wedding night, when the reception was over and the parties and hanging out with friends was over, and it was just me and my new husband in our hotel room for the night – he held me very close, looked into my eyes, and started to cry. “What’s wrong, Boo?” I said to him. “Thank you”, he answered. “Thank you for giving me a family.”

Don and my Dad go bowling … on our honeymoon!!!

And so, today is hard. And I know that I am not alone in today being hard. A lot of my friends or family lost their dads long before today, and mine is still alive and well. A lot of people had or have shitty dads, and mine is loving and caring and big-hearted and kind. Some people, a few dear friends of mine, do not have either of their parents alive, and lost them long ago. My friend Frank lost his best friend in the world to suicide, then his parents, and then his sister. I have no idea how he is still breathing – because it is really really hard.

And then there are people, like my best friend since I was a little girl, who have been dealing with the heartbreak of infertility for years now, and so through no fault of their own, they cannot be moms and dads. And of course, I cant forget my widowed friends – the ones that I have met online, or in person, or in endless late – night texts or phone calls, telling each other that it will be okay, or that maybe it won’t. They are hurting today too. The ones, like me, who never got to have children, because their partners died before they could. The ones who did have children, and now they are raising them alone – as only parents – not at all what they had planned. The widows have to play mom and dad, and the widowed men have to play both dad and mom. They have to watch their kid’s go through milestones and moments, for the rest of their lives, without their partners to share the glory, the horrors, the miracles. And so for all of you and all of us – just know that I know that it’s completely unfair, and it’s not right. And all we can do is just breathe. Breathe and feel whatever it is that you need to feel on this very difficult day.

Because it’s hard when you know better. When you know that every kite eventually comes back down, every puppy and kitten eventually goes over the rainbow bridge, and every sand-castle will one day disappear. It might get kicked by someone who doesn’t think much about your feelings. Or, if you are very lucky, it will simply get washed away by the waves, in the ocean that we call life.

Turning the Key

Kelley Lynn — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 04:58:52 +0000

If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

If a really cool thing happens in my life, and nobody is there to share it, does it still make a difference?

I had a really good week. I had the kind of week where lots of little things happened that could turn into bigger things, and that move me forward in my goals and dreams and aspirations. I became a contributing writer for Modern Widows Magazine, where I will write a monthly, humorous grief column. I landed two really cool performance stand-up comedy gigs, both coming up soon. Some of my former stand-up comedy students started a monthly Comedy Meetup, and we had our first meeting Sunday. The blogpiece I wrote about Camp Widow was featured as a link in The Huffington Post, thanks to my widowed friend Tanya Villanueva Tepper, who was kind enough to reference me and my blog inside her own article. All this, and I’m just 3-weeks away from performing at Camp Widow West in San Diego.

It was the kind of week where I should have been happy, where I should have felt excited. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t. The reason for this is simple, yet heartbreaking. Happy things don’t feel so happy anymore when you don’t have your partner to share them with. When you cannot rush home and run through the door and yell: “Boo! Guess what happened? Guess!!!”, and await the delight and proud gleam in his eyes when you tell him. When there is nobody on the other end of the phone who says: “Oh honey, I’m so proud of you. I know how much this meant to you, and now it’s happening!” When there is nobody to lie in bed with, giggling wildly and holding hands, dreaming about your tomorrows. The biggest things feel like nothing, when there is nobody sitting at home who gives a damn.

Hubby and friends hang out and give me flowers after one of my shows

Hubby and my dad stand in support as our cast takes pics after my Adelphi cabaret.

Now, this is the part where you tell me that I have my family, and my friends, and that I have lots of people who care about me. I know this. I’m thankful for this. I cherish this, and I cherish them. But none of them are the first person I want to tell everything to. None of them put me first every second of everyday, no matter what. I am no longer Number One to anybody. I am no longer somebody’s first priority. My husband was my best friend, my number one fan, my biggest supporter in life. Whenever I accomplished something or began to see a dream realized, my favorite part of that happening was sharing it with him and seeing his reaction. Seeing his whole face light up as he watched me perform onstage, or create a script, or write a funny scene for a show. Listening to him tell his friends over the phone about the latest thing his crazy wife was up to in NYC. Running through the crowd outside and into his arms, after doing stand-up, and hearing him whisper into my ear: “You were the best one.”

Today, after his death, when something really good happens, it’s always the same. In the midst of the good thing happening, I’m on a high and feeling great. Then, that high very soon becomes a very depressing low, as I eventually have to face going home alone from wherever I just was. There is nobody waiting to greet me. There are no flowers or cards or shouts of: “Lets go get pancakes and celebrate!” There is only me and my latest accomplishment, which suddenly feels incredibly pointless.

This past Monday, I went to my private grief-counseling session, like always. Now, anyone that follows my writing on a regular basis knows that I have made it no secret how much I love my counselor, Caitlin, and how much these sessions have helped me and continue to help me. That is still true. Im actually the only person on planet earth who loves Mondays.

But lately, I feel a bit like a broken record everytime I go in there. Like an annoying parrot that only knows how to say 3 or 4 things, over and over again: “SQUAWK! I miss Don! SQUAWK! Why does this still hurt so much? SQUAWK! When will the pain start to ease up a bit?” I feel bad for her, having to sit there and listen to my repetitive drivel. It’s like my heart is the needle on that record, and it just keeps skipping. I’m moving forward in my life – in accomplishments and doing things and making changes – but my heart refuses to catch up with the reality that he is really, actually gone forever. It’s just an old record, skipping over that same part of that old, sad song.

Something weird happens somewhere after the first year mark or so from the death. People no longer know what to say to you. They don’t understand why you are still sad, why you’re not over it by now, and they get annoyed and frustrated and nonchalant – and they begin to pretend that everything is normal and that nobody ever died at all. They start to view you with confused and quizzical eyes, like my counselor did on Monday, as if to say: I don’t know how to help you. And when that happens, like it did during my session, or like I imagined it did, I just keep talking nervously – repeating my same stupid pain, over and over again. But while I was doing that, something weird happened. Something that seemed like nothing, but it took me by surprise and held me down like a wave in the ocean, until I could barely breathe or swim or speak. I was blindsided.

She was right in the middle of a sentence, asking me if I had seen the interview with British actress Maggie Smith on last week’s 60 Minutes. Maggie lost her husband of 25 years to heart-disease, in 2008. I hadn’t seen the interview, so when I got home, I looked up the text. Maggie was talking about what Im talking about right now – the feeling of no longer being somebody’s number one. She very casually, correctly, and matter-of-factly stated, that “everything seems a bit pointless” in her life now, because she no longer had her partner to share it with, no longer had someone to come home to at the end of the day.

Caitlin expressed that she was struck by the use of the word ‘pointless”, and I expressed that it was the perfect word to use, and that it didnt surprise me one bit. It is pointless. If I finally ever finish this damn book one day and see it published, or win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Comedy Actress in a Sitcom – what good is it If I have to come home to an empty house and stare at my Award in silence? What the hell good is that? And just as Im reaching the dramatic crescendo in my speech about being alone for the rest of my life, there was a noise. It was a noise I faintly remembered, somewhere deep inside my heart, from a life that was lived long ago. It was the simplest and saddest noise I have ever heard.

A key was turning. A husband was coming home to his wife, who happens to be a counselor, sitting with her pain in the ass client who always goes over her alloted session time that is so graciously offered in her counselor’s home. My eyes shifted fearfully over to that door, and I saw that lock turning, as the door started to open. And as my counselor ran to the door, telling her husband to please give her a few more minutes with this insepid, monotonous widow – my heart went straight to my life and my marriage and my love. Suddenly, her door was my door, and her husband’s keys were my husband’s keys, and he was coming inside from work, like he always did. Suddenly, I was in our bedroom in our New Jersey apartment, and I was typing at our computer desk, and the sound of that key being turned and that doorknob opening, meant that my husband was home and safe. Suddenly, I saw our 2 kitties leap off the bed and run charging to that door, forgetting all about me and attacking every square inch of my husband’s body with affection. Everytime that key turned in that door, I would smile, because it meant that my teammate was home, and everything mattered again.

She came back and sat down, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry so hard, so deep, right there in the middle of her living room. My whole body was shaking, and I felt like I was underwater and tied up. Something about that noise – that key – the sound of marriage, the sound of comfort, the sound of safety. It tore me up and it ate me alive from the inside out. And there I was, sitting in the one place where I should be crying and getting out emotions and making hard discoveries and shaking and being blindsided by keys turning, and for some reason, I just held it in.

I didnt want to make her feel bad just for being married. I didnt want her to feel uneasy in her own home. And besides, I didnt think she would or could possibly understand why the hell a key going into a door would send me into convulsions. Hell, I didnt even really understand it. So instead of crying, I started making jokes and lighthearted comments, saying how I felt badly that she pretty much kicked her husband out of his own home. I talked nervously again, until I ran out of words and could get up and exit with some form of dignity.

There are so many unexpected triggers, that bring on unexpected emotions. They can happen anywhere, anytime, even while sitting in the safe-zone that is your counselor’s couch.

I wish that I had let myself break down. I wish that more people could understand my pain, so that I wouldnt feel weird or strange breaking down. I wish that my counselor could know what it’s like, to feel like everything you do is pointless, so that she might tell me that it’s okay to break down.

But those things are all impossible. You cant understand losing your husband, until you lose your husband. I do not wish that on anyone.

I wish my husband could turn that key, just one more time, and come home to me forever.

My Dreams Were the Color of Your Eyes

Kelley Lynn — Thu, 30 May 2013 06:14:31 +0000

My Dreams Were the Color of Your Eyes. Your eyes that are no longer your eyes. The same eyes that glistened their sky-blue smile at me from across the pillow, in the middle of a sleepless night. The same eyes that batted themselves and pouted at me with such precise rhythm, that I could rarely say no to anything they required from me. The same eyes that I trusted with all of my secrets. With my soul. My life.

My dreams were the color of your eyes. Your eyes that promised me forever on that brisk October day. Your eyes that clutched my heart in that boat, at that moment, when you kissed me first and said, with wind in your voice: “Finally.” Your eyes that looked so smart and adorable behind your glasses everytime you read a medical book or sheet music for your guitar - so piercing and warm inside their own nakedness, when you would take the glasses off. Your eyes that were the bluest eyes I have ever seen, and the most honest. Your eyes that, when I looked in them, spelled the word Husband.

But sleeping is something that we take for granted. Dreams are something that we take for granted. Marriage is something that we take for granted. Love and time and years are something that we take for granted.

Those Eyes ….

Decades. So many couples, so many marriages, that have the privalege, the honor, of spending decades together. We will never know a decade of married life. We will never have that son or daughter that we might have had. There is nobody – not a soul – that I can look at and say: “You get that from your dad. Your eyes look just like his eyes.” I cannot see you in anyone’s eyes, and Im the only person left who cares the most about you. Other people care, but I care most of all. Because I looked in your eyes and I found my heart.

My Dreams Are Not the Color of Your Eyes. They are not even dreams. They are shattered pieces of broken glass, scattered inside my brain, feeding me with migraines and anxiety and nightmares. They are worms that swim in my skin – alligators that bite at my toes and feet as I thrash back and forth in my hot, sweaty bed. There is no such thing as rest anymore. Or sleep. There is only guilt and exhaustion and hurt and pain. There are flashbacks and terror and panic and fear. Everything turns black.

My Dreams Are the Color of Blackness. Of death and grief, of gray and ashes, of urns and caskets. Why do I keep seeing you lying in that casket? Why? Lying there over and over, with your eyes that were not your eyes, because we gave them away to the living. The same eyes that loved my soul, were now just pools of empty sunken circles, in the place where your eyes used to be. And your skin that was not your skin, because we gave that away too, so your arms looked all puffy like sausage, and your hands did not resemble the hands and the fingers that interlocked with mine as we slept side by side in bed, humming ourselves to dream. To sleep. To dream.

Where are your eyes now? A letter from the Organ Donation Center only tells me that your eyes “gave a blind man the gift of sight.” Who is he? Is he kind and funny like you? Does he love animals like you? Does he have a wife that he loves and a life that he loves, like you? Does he dream in the color of your eyes, that are now his eyes? Does his wife feel her heart burst when she looks into your eyes? Do they know that my dreams are now nightmares, and that they lurk in my closet and under my bed, existing without color?

Where is your skin now? Another letter only tells me that several burn victims received the gift of skin-tissue to help repair them and give them new arms and elbows and hands. Who are they? How many people are walking around with your skin on them? Does one of them use his fingers to strum chords on a guitar, like you did? Does their skin get dry and itchy and red, like yours did? Do they use one of their arms to hold out for their wife to grab onto when she is terrified on an airplane, like you did? Do they know or realize what a beautiful person you are? Can they somehow feel it, or carry some of that beauty with them, through your skin? Do their loved ones feel a special electricity, when they brush up against your arm?

Id like to imagine or think or dream, that maybe your skin and your tissue and your eyes and organs and parts, are all pieces of other people’s lives and families. Maybe your skin that is part of somebody’s arm is teaching his kid how to throw a baseball, like you wanted to do with our future son one day. Maybe your cornea that is part of someone’s eyes, looked into his wife’s eyes as she gave birth to their gorgeous daughter, and changed their lives forever.

Maybe none of those things are even remotely true, or possible. Maybe it’s much more simple, and much less grand. Maybe I don’t ever get to see your face again, or look into your eyes, or feel your skin and your touch.

But maybe I get to keep that piece that nobody else gets. Maybe you and I get to share your Soul and your heart, until the end of time and then longer. Much, much longer.

I need to believe that. I need to believe that in order to survive.

My Dreams Are the Color of Your Soul. Your soul that lives inside my heart, and that keeps your eyes Yours, forever.

F**k You, IKEA!

Kelley Lynn — Thu, 16 May 2013 02:08:53 +0000

This past Monday, just two days ago, was exactly 22 months since Don’s sudden death. For most of this time, I have coped with my all-over-the-place emotions and often dark feelings by writing, writing, writing. Whatever I feel, I write. It’s a release. A grief purge. It helps. It hurts like hell to write sometimes, but it also helps. Except that recently, I havent been able to write. The last time I wrote in here was when I returned from Camp Widow. I felt so hopeful and filled with optimism. I felt so loved and understood, after spending a few glorious days surrounded by others who were exactly like me – where I never had to explain. The problem with Camp Widow, though, is that eventually, you have to come back home.

Lately, something strange has happened inside of me. A shift of sorts. All of the pain and all of the hurt and all of the grief and the loss and the heavy, weighted, intense emotion – has disappeared. Kind of the way that my husband disappeared from my life on that horrible, awful day. Except this is much different. My husband is never coming back. These feelings will be back. The sadness and emptyness and the fear will all be back, and I feel them right around the corner. Lurking. Scaring me. But for now – right now – they wait.

The only way I can think of to explain what is happening is that my heart is overwhelmed from too much hurt. 22 months of hurting is incredibly tiring, and, to put it quite bluntly, I just need a break from feeling all this pain. I’d like a month or two paid vacation from being a widow. Can somebody make that happen? About 6 months ago, one of my other widowed friends that I met in the small support group my grief counselor put together, told me that she tries not to think about her fiance – that she just keeps as busy as possible and doesnt like to talk about him or dwell on him too much or for too long. When I asked her why, she said “because it hurts too much.” At the time, I was shocked that anyone would feel that way. I couldn’t imagine not wanting to talk about my loss or my husband or our amazing, short life together. Not talking about him or honoring him felt like a betrayal, like I was pretending he never existed, like society seems to sometimes want for me to do.

But now – now – I get it. Now, that same favorite wedding picture of us that I keep on my nightstand; the one where he is looking at me with such pride and love; the same picture that used to make me feel a sense of calm whenever I walked by it – now, I find myself ignoring it or flipping it over sometimes so I dont have to look at it. Sometimes I try and pretend that Im someone else, and that I never had a husband that I was so in love with, and that I lost forever. Sometimes it’s easier to act as if what I had never really happened. That maybe I imagined it all, and I can just put it away into a box and close the lid forever. Sometimes I cant look at our life together, because it did happen, and now it’s gone, and it will never happen again – and sometimes I need to shut down from having feelings about my wonderful husband, the love of my life – because it hurts too much to remember.

Mom and me at “The Sharing Network” Organ Donor Reception

So that is where I’m at right now, and when you are a writer by nature, like me, it is very foreign to not want to express everything that is inside of you by typing it out furiously for all to read. It feels so odd and so wrong that I no longer want to marinate inside of the hurt and sit with it. Im sick of sitting with it. I want it to go the fuck away. These past few weeks since returning from Camp, I would sit down to write, and nothing would come out. I never think about what Im going to write ahead of time. It just flows out of me, like water from a stream. But now, my mind and my heart and my brain are packed with too many things, and I have no focus. There is too much that has happened. Should I write about what it feels like to be told by your roommate, just 6 months after I moved in, that “we are not a good match”, and that I need to be out in 3 months? Write about how awkward it is to continue to exist in the same space as the person who basically said “you aren’t wanted here anymore” for 2.5 months? The sheer relief and exhaustion and fear of finding a new place and a new roommate and moving out of there with practically nothing of your own, no savings, no furniture, no security? The feelings of rejection and self-doubt that come from someone treating you like you’re not good enough? Maybe I should write about the “crash” feeling of living my reality after returning home from comfortable, safe camp. Or what it was like to attend a reception where Don was honored along with other organ and tissue donors for his gift of life. How my mom and I cried when we heard his name read or saw it printed along “The Wall of Life.” To know that a piece of him lives on, and his name will be there forever on that wall, yet I will never hold him again. There were too many things to write about, and whenever I get overwhelmed, my response is to do nothing. So I did nothing. I didnt write at all. Until now.

Wall of Life. His name is 4th from bottom.

My new roommate and I took a trip to IKEA last weekend so that we could begin the process of furnishing our new apartment. For me, specifically, I was in desperate need of a small computer desk, because up until now, I had been typing with my keyboard and monitor sitting on top of boxes and things. Now, my only memories of the hell that is IKEA, are from the apartment that my best friend Sarah and I shared together in Forest Hills about 14 years ago. I remember we bought, among other things, a tiny end table called “LACK”, and it lived up to it’s name in every sense of the word. We also purchased a small dresser for Sarah’s bedroom, which she was hoping to use to put her clothing and undergarments into. Well, since IKEA specializies in crushing people’s hopes and dreams, the dresser turned out to be about as large as a Weeble Tree House, and I think Sarah was able to fit her nailfile and one sock into the microscopic, horribly designed drawers.

For any of you who have not had the honor of shopping or buying from IKEA – you should know that almost everything you buy there has a sign that reads “some assembly required.” Anotherwords; what you are sent home with is a large cardboard box filled with endless screws, european pieces with names that you’ve never heard uttered or printed anywhere ever in your lifetime (it’s a Swedish company), instructions that have NO WORDS IN THEM but only pictures that involve lots of circles and big X marks drawn through things, stick figures of people with question marks above their heads, and endless arrows that lead to absolutely nowhere. It is a cardboard box filled with confusion and mind-games, that leaves you a baffled, frustrated, manic-depressive mess on your floor, screaming at the universe to please let lightning strike you now, so that you dont have to put this goddamn desk together. It taunts you and it laughs at you and it mocks you with it’s Swedish pieces with names like “divet”, that are supposed to somehow fit into other pieces that they never actually fit into at all.

An actual page from the IKEA “instructions”

So there I was – in my new bedroom – my new roommate away at work for the day – the pieces of my new, tiny corner desk and all it’s assembly parts scattered across my bed – trying to decifer and make sense of these directions. I think it was somewhere around the time that I saw the big square with the X through it, next to the other big circle with the square with an arrow through it, next to the smiling stick figure guy with a cartoonish-looking hammer in his puffy hand - that it really started to hit me. My husband, who was soooooo good at this kind of stuff, will never again be able to do this for me. He will never again take care of the stupid instructions that don’t make sense, or change the oil in my car, or check to see what that noise is in the other room, or find the mouse and get rid of it, or kill the cockroach without pause, or take out the smelly trash, or open the door for me, or hold his umbrella over me or give me his coat to wear when its cold, or make sure Im safe and lock all the doors at night, or send me a text to let me know he arrived at work safely, or hold my hair when Im puking and sick from a reaction to percacet. He would never do any of those things, and so many other things, ever again.

My IKEA desk, in pieces, waiting to be created. Cat not included. (although if he were, youd have to assemble him yourself.)

Of course, I already knew this. I already knew that he wasnt ever coming back. But somehow – sitting there attempting to put together this stupid desk in this stupid new life that was forced upon me because of his stupid death – I really felt it. And suddenly, without warning, the emotional breakdown came. It wasnt the organ donation reception or the moving or the rejection from my ex-roommate or the sheer stress from the past few months of my life that brought me down. No. It was IKEA. It was those damn Swedes and their “do it yourself” furniture that finally did me in.

7 hours later, and with the help of a fellow widowed friend who very sweetly walked me through each step of the idiotic instructions on the phone, my task was complete. I now had a desk. And if anyone reads this and says some shit about how I should feel empowered because I did that all by myself and “Wow! Look at what you can accomplish all alone!” or any of that type of bullshit, please stop yourself right now. Because you just don’t get it. I was 28 when I met Don. I was 35 when I married him, and I was 39 when he died. For all of those years before meeting him, I did everything by myself. I moved out of my parents house when I was 18 years old, and came to NYC to become an actor/performer. So, I have had decades worth of “empowerment”, and by the time Don and I moved in together, I was so grateful and so ready to have this partner, this teammate in life, and to no longer have to do every goddamn thing by myself. Now I had help. Now there were two of us struggling through this mess called life instead of just one. Two of us to pay bills, get groceries, figure out the logistics. And then it was ripped away – just like that – and suddenly, I was back to doing every goddamn thing alone again. Im sorry, but when you have the right person, two is sooooo much better than one. It just is. There are just so many things in life that are so much harder to do alone, and so much easier to do with two of you.

The piece of crap desk that took 7 hours to put together and caused me to have a mental breakdown. Empowered my ass.

Parallel parking. Changing the litter in the litter box. Carrying a large box or other large items up the stairs. Having someone to shut the light off. Sit in the car when you have to double park it in a city or busy neighborhood. Brush the kitties teeth like the vet instructed. Clip their nails. Locate a foreign “thing” that appears on your body in a place where you cant see it. Scratch an itch on your back. Say your vows. Then repeat. It takes two people to look into each other’s eyes and feel love. Two people to make love. Two to dance a foxtrot at your wedding.

And it takes two people to figure out how the fuck to put together a crappy computer desk from IKEA. One to hold up the piece of wood, and one to screw in the weird-plastic-looking-screwy thing. One to decifer the picture instructions, and one to put them into action. One to light the match to set the whole damn thing ablaze when you finally lose your mind, and one to call the police and make it look like arson.

Congratulations IKEA. Because of your unbelievable incompetence and inability to create items or directions that humans with brains can follow, you have forced me to start feeling my feelings again. You have shoved the grief back into my life, much like you shove those divets into the holes that are way too small to fit them. Are you happy now, IKEA? Have you had your little fun with the widow? Good. Glad to hear it. You should know that your desk sucks and it’s a bit wobbly and thats not my fault. It’s your fault, cuz your furniture is questionable and shady on it’s best day. Fuck you.

At least I finally have something to write about.

Hope Comes Alive at “Camp Widow”

Kelley Lynn — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:45:33 +0000

Two women are standing alongside the ocean in front of the Marriott Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They are lingering behind about a hundred or so other widowed people who have started to go back inside – women, men, married, unmarried, engaged, same-sex partners, old, young, international. People of all kinds, from all over, with one very harsh thing in common: the person they intended to spend the rest of their life with is gone. They died.

It is a little after midnight on Saturday, April 20th, and we have just finished a ceremonial “ocean letter release”, where we wrote love notes to our partners, attached them to ribbon and hearts (all biodegredable), and tossed them out to sea. Most have left the beach area by now, but some of us can’t just yet, because the moment is too big and too powerful, and we still aren’t done talking to our husbands. We never will be.

“ORBS” appeared in this cool shot of our ocean-letter-release on the beach

One of these two women happens to be me, and this other woman, maybe about 5 or 10 years older than myself, comes walking up to me with tears in her eyes, and a few glasses of wine in her stomach. It is pitch black outside, and only the stars and the waves washing up on shore act as our light to see one another. “I don’t know who the hell you are, and I don’t really care”, she says to me matter-of-factly. Then she gives me a hug and starts to cry. We stand there together, arm in arm, looking out at the water. There are no other words. No explanations of any kind. There is no need for any of that. Because I already understand. In fact, everyone here understands. Welcome to Camp Widow.

New friends …

Just 21 months ago, in the life where my husband was alive and well and we were happily, joyfully married; I knew nothing of such a place, nor did I care to hear of such a place, quite frankly. But when you wake up in a new world one morning where a freight train dressed up as a massive heart-attack decides to kill your husband for no damn reason, what becomes important to you quickly changes. Writing and comedy have always been coping mechanisms and saviors for me, so I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, and then I wrote some more. I created this blog and started furiously typing out all of the ugly, painful, horrific, and often hilarious truths about what it’s like to lose your husband and the life you knew.

And then, a few months ago, an angel on earth disguised as a woman named Michele Neff Hernandez, found my blog and contacted me. She told me she runs an organization that connects widowed people worldwide, called Soaring Spirits. (www.sslf.org) Through that organization, she also founded and runs this amazing annual event called Camp Widow. She wondered if I would like to be one of the 7 featured writers for their website’s blog called Widow’s Voice, and she invited me to deliver a 75-minute comedy Workshop / Performance on grief and loss, at Camp Widow. Never in a million years did I imagine that saying yes to both of these wild ideas would have such an impact on my life. But then again, who ever imagined I would be widowed at age 39?

Me and Michele …

In a lot of ways, it is almost impossible to describe something like Camp Widow in writing. I could go into all the specifics about workshops and other people’s personal stories of loss and all of that, but I wouldnt ever be able to capture the feeling or the tone or the magic of what went on there, inside this blogpiece. It is one of those things in life that is simply an “experience”, and you really need to be there to understand the impact and the power of its existance. However, if you are a widowed person and you are reading this right now, try to picture the following:

Try to picture a place where complete strangers give you a hug or a smile or a comforting look, because they know where you’ve been, and they’ve walked where you’ve walked. A place that holds a formal and elegant Banquet Dinner Reception for it’s “campers”, and where the D.J. is specifically ordered not to play any slow songs the entire night – ever. A place where you can dance freely and openly and have fun, without worrying about how you look to others, or whether people will think that you must be “over it” or “getting better”, simply because you are out and you have dared to laugh or feel joy again. A place where every single person around you understands how you can go from exhausted to angry to elation – all in the course of one hour. A place where you meet men and women whom you have been talking with for weeks or months or years online, and when you see them in person, you feel that instant connection, that bond that brings you closer. A place where they hand out kleenex before Workshops and Seminars, and where people don’t look the other way or act all awkward when you bust out crying or when you mention your loved ones name. A place where you are no longer the misfit, because everyone is the misfit. Everyone is Rudolph, and you all get to hang out on The Island of Misfit Toys. Throw in 2 full days of wonderful speakers, presenters, Workshops, and Round-Table discussions (like a support-group, but with specified topics such as Sudden Death, Widowed Without Kids, Long-Term Illness, Finances and many other subjects), all held at a gorgeous beachfront Marriott hotel with cockail parties and social events put together just for us; and you’ve got yourself a truly unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

at the formal banquet with new friend Diane, who drove us to South Carolina

None of this would even exist without that Angel I mentioned before – the one named Michele who is walking around earth in a human costume. When her husband Phil went out for his evening bike ride on August 31, 2005, and was hit by a Suburban, her entire world flipped upside down in seconds. Left with their 3 children and a planned future stolen away by death, Michele used her pain and her struggle and her grief to help other people all over the world who were going through something just as lonely and isolating and frightening. She took something that is terrifying on every level, and with it, she created this place of hope and dreams and inspiration. She didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to do a damn thing, if you really think about it. To me, the very idea that she didnt drown or hide inside of her grief, but chose to reach out with it in the most expanding way possible, while still raising a family alone, makes this woman one of the most heroic people I have ever met.

Michele with Raffle Winner / camper at Banquet

At Camp Widow, Michele delivers a Key Note Address to all the campers who traveled from all over the country, and the world, to be at this exciting event. In her speech this past weekend, she quoted from the beautiful poem A Summer Day by Mary Oliver, in asking us all this incredible question:

“Tell me – what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

It is a loaded question, especially when you are grieving the loss of your life-partner, and just trying to regain your footing. And when a non-widowed person tries to deliver me words of inspiration such as this, or tells me how strong I am, or some other cliche or cheesy thing – it just sounds like pointless words. Like the teacher’s voice from all the Charlie Brown specials, where you just heard that noise coming from the phone or loud-speaker: Waah waah wah wah waaa….

Walking the beach …

It is not that I dont appreciate friends and family trying to encourage me or believing in me. I do. I really do. However, when someone who hasn’t been through this stands there and tells you that things will get better or that you will be okay or that you will have joy again, it is very tough to believe them. Because truthfully – they just dont know. They havent walked through the fire, so how can they say how much it burns and when it will stop? They havent felt the torture of nails being pounded into their flesh over and over again, so how can they end the bleeding? They haven’t sat all curled up in their beds, with recurring visions of that horrible, traumatic day – flashing before them on an endless loop, asking themselves why they should bother to get up today and continue on with existing, so how can they possibly know about what it means to lose hope, and how scary and awful that feels?

But this woman. This Angel. This woman with the warm and inviting voice - this woman who said a casual goodbye to her husband and then never saw him again - this woman who somehow found the way to rebuild her life – this woman who created and invented a place for people like me to go, where we can feel wanted and loved and not ashamed or shunned by society or forgotten about, even if only for a weekend – this woman who embodies everything good and everything real – when this woman stands up on a stage and tells a crowd of widowed people that hope matters, or that we can still have an amazing life, even if its not the one we wanted or planned – I believe her. I believe her because she did it herself. I believe her because she is standing there in front of me, and she is made up of all her pain and strength and fear and love and grief, and she continues on. I believe her because her life will always be complicated and wonderful and joyful and tinged with sadness and loss, and because she married again, to a man who not only doesnt feel threatened that she will always love her late husband, but who fully supports her calling to help other widowed people throughout the world. I believe her – simply because she is alive.

For those that have been asking what Camp Widow did for me, or if Im “all better” now that I went there – as Ive said many times, there is simply no such thing as being “better”. There just isnt. However, there is such a thing as recreating your life, while always carrying your partner with you, deep inside of your soul. There is such a thing as finding hope where you thought there was none, and light where you saw only darkness, and tomorrow where you couldn’t see past today. There are new relationships and friendships to explore, and people to love, and things to learn, and beauty to see. And there is the fact that even though today I feel hopeful and inspired – tomorrow I will feel different. And then different once again. That’s just grief. And that’s okay.

And then, of course, there is that lingering and very important question that still needs to be thought about, pondered over, and answered:

What is it I plan to do with my one wild and precious life?

I have no idea. But then again, maybe I do. In a lot of ways, I think I am already doing it.

Soaring Spirits is a non-profit organization helping the widowed worldwide, and celebrating its 5 year anniversary of Camp Widow West (coming up in San Diego, June 28), and 2 year anniversary of Camp Widow East (last weekend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.) If you know anyone who is widowed, please tell them about this magical place where they can begin to live their life again, one tiny moment at a time. Please donate to www.sslf.org , and also check out www.micheleneffhernandez.com. Thank you so much.

What Remains …

Kelley Lynn — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:51:28 +0000

I am not really sure where my husband went off to. He died. Yes. But it never feels that way. It feels as if he were part of some horrible magic trick in some terrible, cheesy Vegas act. One second – here. The next second – gone. POOF! Magic! It feels as though I took a nap, and then woke up and he went missing, never to be seen again. He died while I was asleep. Asleep. Im not sure that I will ever know how to process that. Im not sure that I want to. I am sure that there is no such thing as “closure.”

I am not really sure where I went off to. I’m alive. Yes. But it never feels that way. It feels as if I am part of some horrific magic trick in some awful, cheesy cruiseship act. That same hack trick where they pretend to cut the woman in half, as she lay inside the box. Except it’s not a trick at all. Every second that I’m here, living in this world, I am being severed in half. Over and over and over again. He died while I was asleep, and when I woke up, he was dead. He was already dead. Im not sure that I will ever know how to process that. Im not sure that I want to. I am sure that there is no such thing as “better.”

Where is that girl? That girl that my husband fell in love with. That girl that he believed in. That girl that he kissed for the first time on that NYC ferryboat, when our smiles for each other lit up the nightsky, when our futures were dancing with promise. I once knew that girl who was hopeful and dreamy, quirky and warm, energetic and fun. She laughed with abandon. She loved her birthday. She lived for Christmas, and all things family, and dinner-parties and music and baseball. She had dreams, and after years of heartbreak, she had finally found love. The true, amazing, rare, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love.

But we didnt get the lifetime, and so that girl lost her hope and her dreams. She isnt really much fun anymore. She tries, but she is very tired, because this new life is exhausting and hard and long. Her big brown eyes feel gray and colorless. She feels guilty on her birthday, lonely and empty on Christmas, and baseball games don’t seem to have the same impact without hearing her husband’s ongoing commentary. That girl went to sleep one night, just like any other night. Except it wasn’t. Because on that night, that girl went to sleep, and woke up dead.

Im not really sure where my husband’s remains are, or what remains of my husband. In that gray-looking canister they gave me, all filled with dirt? In the sand and in the water, where I tossed some of him on those meaningful days? In my heart – the way everyone is always telling me? In the universe, the clouds, the air? In the harmonies of a song so beautiful, you can hear your heart skipping? Maybe. But it never feels that way. People will feed you meals made up of the phrase: “He is always with you”, but actually knowing his touch is like trying to hug a butterfly.

Im not really sure where my remains are, or what remains of me. The pieces that were severed, came off little by little, second by second, hurt by mindnumbing hurt. Maybe I lost an arm while running into the ER that morning. Maybe a leg was chopped off when the nurses surrounded me and said “massive heart-attack. He didnt make it.” Maybe my soul disappeared while staring into that casket at my husband’s eyes that were no longer his eyes, or his face that was no longer his face. Perhaps my heart leapt out of my body and fell onto the wet ground, when I got that autopsy report in the mail. When I saw his name on that death certificate. When my 6 foot 4 husband, was handed to me, in a can. Remains.

So what remains of that girl, who died that day, on that day that she woke up? Many things, and nothing at all really. Everything that she was – she is not. Everything that she is – she was not. Her laugh is broken. Her smile is weak. She has no time for petty shit. She feels compassion for those in pain. She feels connected to those who hurt. She feels jealous of those with long lives and long marriages, and angry at the ones who dont ever seem to appreciate what they have. She panics easily, cries effortlessly, and feels deep emotion with abandon. She doesnt sleep enough, she writes too much, and she eats too much. She doesnt know yet how to take care of herself. She doesnt know yet how to care. About life. About being alive. She doesnt understand this new life – this weird future without her husband. This universe where she doesn’t grow old with him or spend decades with him or have children with him or retire with him. She doesnt understand yet, all that there is to understand.

Not yet. Not ever. Not yet.

So much was lost. So much is gone. He is gone. I am gone. Some things stay, but they dont look the same. They arent the same. But they stay anyway. Our love stays. The grief stays. Today stays. All of that stays, and it makes a great big pile of clusterfuck, in the wreckage. The pieces that lie there in that dirt, will somehow form a life. If I keep trying to figure it out, how they all go together, they will mold into my tomorrow. And all of the hope and the loss and the love and the fight and the hurt and the pain and the light – they will crash into one another, if I let them, and they will be the tools that I use to create, whatever the something is that I create.

What remains, is what I create. And what I create, is what remains ….

On Your Mark. Get Set. WHAT?

Kelley Lynn — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:46:43 +0000

When you run a race, you always know ahead of time when you will be finished. There is a pre-determined length in miles or kilometers that you will run. Or walk. Or crawl. 5k. 10k. Half-marathon. Marathon. 100-yard dash. Whatever it is, there is an ending in sight. That ending is real and it’s tangible, and there’s a big sign at the end that says FINISH, and maybe some pretty ribbon to break through as you raise your hands up in victory, and people cheering and saying with delight: “Congratulations! You did it!”

What if someone told you that starting right now, right this second, through no choice of your own, you would have to run in a race that had no finish line? No chance to go out and buy a fancy track-suit. Nobody applauding or even noticing your efforts. No friends holding up signs along the way or handing you water and orange wedges. None of that. Just, from this moment on, your life would be one, long, endless race that leads to nowhere, and there is no Finish Line. None. The race never ends. Well, okay. Let’s not get overdramatic here. The race ends when you die.

Would you ever purposely put yourself into any such kind of ridiculous race? No! Of course you wouldn’t. Nobody would. Youd have to be a crazy person to sign up for such lunacy.

But that’s grief. That’s widowhood. An endless race that leads to nowhere – a race that never ends. And when your husband dies in a flash, with no warning, like mine did – that is exactly what it feels like. From the first second that I was jarred awake by that ringing phone on July 13, 2011, it was a new life of: “GOOD MORNING! YOUR HUSBAND’S DEAD! READY? ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, GO!!!!!!

Me and Don, doing a 5k in NYC, 2010.

It’s been almost 21 months now, and I’m exhausted. Every decision, every turn, every corner, every dilemma or problem or obstacle – these are all things I must face alone now. Without my other half to give his take on the situation. Without his help. And let me tell you – people stopped handing me water and orange wedges long ago. For them, the race was over awhile back. For me, it’s always there. Life is exhausting when you are living it without your teammate.

Something that I keep saying over and over again to my grief counselor, week after week, is this: “Everyone keeps telling me that Im doing really well. That I look ‘better’, or that I seem more ‘alive’, or that Im doing good things and progressing in all the right ways. So if Im doing everything ‘right’, why do I still feel like shit? WHY? Why doesn’t the pain ever lessen? I know it will never go away entirely, but why does it feel just as intense now as it did when it happened? Why doesnt what everyone else SEES, match the way that I actually FEEL? When will I not feel like shit everyday?”

She reminds me that it’s only been a short time – 21 months – and that it will take a very long time before I feel a little bit of release. She reminds me again that the level of pain is equal to the level of love we shared. She tries to comfort me with her words of hope and promise. My logical side understands all of this, and it makes a lot of sense. My heart will never comprehend any of it, and it makes no sense at all.

And so, with no answers about much of anything, and no real reasons why; feeling dehydrated, lethargic, and about to lose my mind; I just keep running. I suck at running. I have terrible feet and my shoes are old. Im overweight and Im breathing hard. I look like a complete jackass. WHERE THE HELL IS THAT FINISH LINE???

But there isn’t one. There never will be. But maybe one day – months or years or a decade from now – there will be more answers than questions.

Maybe one day – my ankles will adjust to the rocks in my shoes – and my knees won’t feel like they are on fire - and the pain won’t be so crushing.

No Finish Line. But another start.

Ready? On your mark. Get set. GO …..

The Box ….

Kelley Lynn — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 03:55:56 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I had to take one of our two adopted kitties, Sammy, to the vet because he has been losing weight, off and on puking, and having digestive issues for months.

So off to the vet I drove. Alone. Just me and my pet carrier and Sammy. We both cried the entire 30 minute drive to Long Island; and both for the same reason. We were scared. “I know, honey”, I said to Sammy as his eyes stared at me through the lines of that caged door. “I wish Boo was here too. Im sorry that Im not him. He would know how to make you feel better. I suck at this.” As I walked my kitty into the vet hospital, everything went wrong immediately. They couldn’t find my name in their system. Why was I there again? Was I married? What was my appointment for? After a million questions and no progress, they made me sit down and fill out “the form.” I took my seat amongst the other zillions of people and their Fluffies and Whiskers and Creampuffs, placed the paperwork atop Sammy’s pet taxi, and started to write.

That’s when I saw it. It jumped out at me as if I were wearing 3-D glasses in a movie theatre. The sight of it made me dizzy and filled me with fear. I forgot how to breathe and I stared blankly at the page as the following words became blurry, then clear, then blurry again:

Check the Appropriate Box: Single – Married – Divorced – Widowed.

My friends in the widowed community had warned me about this moment, and about how awful it was to have to check that box. But I guess I never really paid attention or thought much of it. How hard could it be to simply put a checkmark inside of a box? Compared to all the other shit I’ve been through, making the shape of a checkmark with my pen would be cake. Right? Right? Wrong.

My heart was beating so fast that I kept forgetting where I was. The sound of dogs barking and cats meowing became a migraine as I tried to wrap my brain around these boxes and what they meant. How can my emotions and my raw, complex feelings about this loss possibly fit into a box? The problem was, none of these boxes described my situation at all. None of these boxes told the truth.

Im certainly not single. Being single is a choice. Single people date and live single-people lifestyles and go out on weekends til 2am with other single people, which I have zero desire to do. I was all done being single when I got married. Being single is not a place I want to return to. I am not single.

No matter how many times people try to lump divorce and death of a spouse in the same category, they are two different things entirely, and I am most definitely not divorced. We were so in love. We were just beginning our time together. We were supposed to be that couple that stays together forever, that still holds hands when we are old and gray. We joked about moving to Florida in 30 years and helping each other up the steps to The Golden Corral for the Early Bird Special at 4pm. We were that couple that went out for dinner at restaurants, and found it sad and depressing looking around at other couples who barely spoke a word to one another during their meal. The clinking of their silverware and the tension between their eyes were the only sounds you heard, and we would always promise to never be them and to always discover new reasons to fall back in love with each other. I am not divorced.

Widowed. This is a tough one. Sure, technically, my husband died, and therefore, I’m a widow. But that just can’t be. How is that possible? Widows wear black, or they walk around in mysterious capes and large beige sweaters, looking out windows pensively and petting their 18 cats. Widows let their houses pile up with memories and receipts and old aftershave and things from the life they once had, until, eventually, they are featured on an episode of Hoarders. Widows are old ladies with white in their hair and whiskers above their lip. Widows are on social security, and enjoy shows like Jeopardy and Murder She Wrote. Widows have blankets draped over their favorite chair, and they call them “afghans.” Widows have children, and grandchildren, and sometimes great-great grandchildren, and enough years behind them to count for an actual life with their husbands. Don’t they? Shouldn’t they? I don’t care what you say, you stupid hospital form. I am not a widow.

My cat stares up at me through his sad cage as I focus on the word married. That is what I am. Married. That is how I feel. Those are the vows that I made, that we wrote. We chose not to say “til death do us part”, because we both thought it sounded creepy, like you were inviting death to come knocking. Instead, we coined the phrase “Until Forever” into our vows. Now he lies dead and here I sit, very much breathing but not quite alive, and I am married. I am married, dammit. Why can’t I still be married?

It wasnt my choice, nor his, to end our union. Even if you’re dead, you can still love, right? Even if you no longer exist, you can still be a husband, right? Can’t you? There is no box to check for when you feel like you’re married and want to be married, because its the only thing tangible that you have left to cling onto. There is no box for when your husband is clearly gone, but you still talk to him every day and you say goodnight to him every night and you say to the thin air: “Ha ha! You’re the last one in bed. You have to shut off the light!” There is no box for when you still put the brown and the red M&M’s aside, cuz he likes those gross colors best. There is no box for taking out your phone 20 months later, on a regulgar basis, to text him with the score of the Yankee game. There is no box that says “It’s not Fair!”, or “What the fuck?”, or “In Denial.”

In this new widowed life that I was pushed into, there are many areas where I know that I will be okay, eventually. I can rebuild a life for myself. I can still have happiness and still feel joy, one day. I can still laugh and I can still have wonderful people in my life who care about me. I can soar in my creativity, and get onstage and teach and write and perform. I can help others and help myself and find new things and new ways to always grow and learn. I can have a fulfilling life ahead. It will hurt like hell and none of it will be easy, but I can do it. However, there is one place of that life where I am stuck. There is one thing that hurts so deeply and in a place so far down, that even when I start to type the words, I begin to sob.

Marriage. The end of our marriage. The very thought makes me shake and almost whimper. The very idea that because you died, we are no longer married. It doesnt seem right. It doesnt make sense. How can I no longer be your wife? How do you begin to accept something so awful? So far, I just cannot accept this, I cannot take it in, and that is where I am stuck. Or loyal. Or crazy. Because even if I cant be with you here on this earth, I would rather keep the title of being married to you, then to even address the concept of breaking that tie or being with anyone else. The reality is, I will probably be alone forever. Right now, I have negative zero desire to find love again, and maybe thats unhealthy, but its just how I feel. I had love. I had you. How on earth do you find that kind of thing twice in a lifetime? I would imagine that you dont, and if I cant have something that special, I dont want anything at all.

When I die, I want to still be your wife. I want to die as your wife. Why cant I have that right? That honor? You got to die being my husband, but I dont get to live being your wife? Why not? Instead of “Widowed”, why cant there be a box that says: “Married – Spouse Deceased.” Why? The hurt that lies inside of my heart at the thought of our marriage being over – it is a hurt that is impossible to describe. It is a hurt that sits dormant, wailing like a child. Seething like a lion. Crying like a widow, who just wants to be your wife.

“Are you ready?” The vet tech looks down at me. Sammy yawns. My hand shakes and quivers. My fingers fall off one by one and my soul dies as I make the unwilling checkmark, next to the “appropriate” box. Widowed.

But Im not ready. Im not ready to be widowed. And to be honest, I dont even know how to begin to start such a thing. I would suppose that it all comes down to acceptance. And if Im being truthful, I can accept that you are gone – maybe. Possibly. Someday. But to accept that I am no longer your wife? That our beautiful marriage dissolves like some pill floating in a glass of water? No. That is not something I can do. I don’t know how.

Is it really so awful to just live inside denial? If I know its denial, and I know Im lying to myself, and I dont care, who am I hurting really? Not myself. Just let me have this one little corner, this tiny box, where we still exist as husband and wife. Where we hold hands and walk along the ocean. Where we watch Yankee games and get to be old people. Where I get to die with the knowledge that I was the one you chose, that you were the one I chose.

Beyond life. Beyond death. Until forever ….

Where is the box for that?

What If I Died and You Lived …

Kelley Lynn — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:51:16 +0000

My husband and I used to play different types of ridiculous “what if” games. Well, I would play them and he would humor me and my insane sense of humor by responding over and over to my absurd “what if” questions. It was so much fun, and I would do this at the most annoying or random times – always out of absolutely nowhere, and always starting the same way; with me saying his pet name in that sing-songy voice, where I would stretch out the word “Boo” to somehow make it two lengthy syllables, served up alongside some innocent, pathetic, puppy-dog eyes….

Walking along the Hudson River by our New Jersey apartment, where, in parts, it was very cliff-like and steep along the roadway …

Me: But, Boo-oooooo???

Him: Yes Boo ….

Me: What if … what if I jumped down this cliff right now, Boo? What if I hurdled my body over this low fence and jumped and slid down all the steep rocks, hitting my head on each one, landing in the grassy knoll?

Him: You would probably die.

Me: But, what if I didnt die? What if I lived through it, but I became severely paralyzed? What if nothing worked except my head? What if I was just a head sitting in a wheelchair? Would you leave me if I was just a head, Boo?

Him: No, Boo. I wouldnt leave you if you were a head. But I might have you commited to a mental institution of some kind, for leaping off a giant cliff for no goddamn reason. In fact, I may have you commited right now. Freak.

A lot of times, we would be in bed, and I would wait until he was just about asleep, and then I would tap him on the shoulder with another “What if” question ….

Me: (tap tap tap) But, Boo-ooooooo???

Him: (grunting awake) Mmmhgjmmzz… what, Boo?

Me: What if I gained lots and lots of weight? Would you divorce me?

Him: Seriously? This is what we’re doing right now?

Me: Like maybe 150 or 200 pounds. What if, Boo? Would you leave me then forever?

Him: (sitting up, eyes still closed) No, Boo. I wouldnt leave you forever. Youre my wife and I love you. Is that the right answer? Can I please go to sleep now?

Me: But what if I was like that lady we saw on TV? The one who was 600 pounds and you couldnt even see her face, and she lived in her bed for 4 years? What if I was her? THEN would you leave me, Boo?

Him: Yes, Boo. THEN I would leave you. (laughing at how dumb this is)

Me: But, that’s mean, Boo. I thought I was your wife …

Him: Yeah, well, at that point, you sort of stop being a wife and become more of a furniture piece. Besides, what are you gonna do about it? Run after me? It would be the easiest divorce in history! Can I PLEASE, for the love of God, go to sleep now?

Now, almost 20 months after his sudden death, I still play the “What if” game, but I play it alone. There is not really much joy in playing this game alone, because now I, much like my husband, have become the unwilling participant. I dont want to play this game, but my mind and my heart and my brain and everything else inside me just goes there. And it is no longer fun, silly “What if” questions. No. It is the kind of “What if” questions that make you sweat, and keep you up all night, and give you nausea …

What if Don never took that second job at Petsmart? What if he had gone to the doctor more? What if his dad gave him the time of day or had a relationship with him, or maybe informed him that heart disease was in the family and that he should get his heart checked out? What if he had stayed in Florida, where his life was more calm and less stressful? What if he never moved to New Jersey at all, to be with me? To marry me? What if he was at his regular job that morning, as an EMS, on an AMBULANCE? What if he had his heart-attack in the ambulance and was treated in time and survived? What if he got that second chance that so many others get? What if he was home with me that day? What If I wasnt asleep when my husband was collapsing on a floor at work? What if he wasnt happy – really happy – when he died? What if he was alone and scared when it happened? What if he wondered where I was? What if he was in pain?

Everyone who has lost someone plays the “what if” game, and everyone else tells us not to. They tell us to stop torturing ourselves. Stop trying to change things that cannot be changed. Stop trying to figure out a riddle that has no answer, a calendar that has no months, a bird that has no wings. Just stop.

The “What if” game comes and goes in my mind and in my heart, and lately, it has quieted some. It has silenced itself for awhile. Why? Not because my mind and my heart are finally leaving me alone and letting me live in peace. No. That would be too simple. Too linear. That would make too much sense, and we all know that the grief monster never makes sense. The game has stopped asking these endless questions about the day of my husband’s death for a much deeper reason: it has a much more probing question in mind …..

What if our roles were reversed? What if I died, and you lived?

It is a question that plagues me. It is a question that brings upon sadness. Guilt. Fear. Confusion. Sacrifice. Love. And, of course, death.

But what if, Boo? What if you had woken up that morning to that new, horrific reality? The reality that I was already gone? What would you have done in the following minutes, hours, days, months? How would you be coping? I know for sure that after the services were said and done, after the friends and the flowers and the dust had settled – you would pack up our kitties and pack up your chair and your guitars and your life – and you would go back to Florida, where you loved it, and pick up right where you left off. You would get your EMS job back in Pinellas County at Sunstar. You would find a nice, but humble apartment that had central-air and tennis courts in the back, like your old one, and you would walk along Clearwater Beach and ride your bike in the paths and just be you.

I know you would always keep in touch with my family – my brother and my parents – and you would all take care of one another as much as you could, and you would check on them, and they would definitely check on you. I think you would handle the pain so much better than I am handling it, Boo. I really think that. You would be devastated, of course, but you would know how to go forward better than I know how to. You know how to let things go, because you had to growing up, and so you would probably find private ways to honor me and remember me, but you would spend your life making the best of your life.

Our families would embrace you. Our friends would embrace you and hold you up and love you. And you would take our photo albums and our wedding things and our letters and our memories, and you would take special care of them. And you would be a much better papa to our kitties than I am a Mama. They put up with me, but it’s so clear that they want you. They want you to be here. I want you to be here.

What if I died and you lived? Its something I think about often. I dont like thinking about it, but it’s there. It lingers. It whispers. It taps on my shoulder, waking me up in the night, right as Im about to fall asleep. Just like I did to you, Boo. All those nights. Those wonderful, married nights.

It’s not that I want to be dead. I don’t. Its just that sometimes, I don’t really want to be alive. And there is a difference. And during those times, I wonder ……

What If I Died and You Lived?

Where You Go

Kelley Lynn — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 21:13:55 +0000

Theres no such thing as Heaven or Hell
To me, these are stories for others to sell
There is no reason
There is no Why
God didn’t take my husband to die.

If it gives you comfort,
then you should believe.
To me, it’s just bullshit they feed the bereaved.

What I feel to be true
and what seems to make sense,
is a bucket of questions
just over the fence.

It’s a mixture of science,
darkness, and stars
Today you’re on Pluto
Tomorrow it’s Mars.

Not that it matters,
because you’re not here.
So everything else
is just highlighted fear.

There is no peace when your other half dies,
only fragments of truth that are riddled with lies.

Where the hell did you go?
Does your spirit rest?
Does it fly all around?
Sit with birds in a nest?

They say that you’re with me
But what does that mean?
Did I make it all up?
That sign? That dream?
When I sensed your presence inside of my scream?

Are you air? Are you wind?
Do you travel by boat?
Do your ears still get cold?
Will you still need a coat?
How do I know
if you’re really around?
Can you whisper or talk
Can you please make a sound?

Theres nothing to touch
no sort of proof
Why is your energy
so damn aloof?

Your funeral screwed with my mind that day
you laid in a casket, your soul far away
your skin red and swollen
your eyes shut and tight
my heart looked away
unable to fight …

That was not you inside of that box
That was not you,
But it was -
Paradox.

How can I ever unsee what I saw?
That image of you.
So black. So raw.
And then you were dust,
they gave me a can,
filled with my husband,
My love. My man.
Now some of you sits here
in my bedstand
Some of you tossed at the beach
in the sand.
None of it means you are here with me
None of it lets me hold your hand.
None of it means I understand
the Death that has become you.

So final. So ugly.
so cruel and unfair
Where the fuck did you go?
I want to know where …..

Where were you last week
on Valentines Day?
Or when 4 year old Brian just wanted to play
When our niece took her first steps that Tuesday
or Monday or Thursday
or Saturday night
or the next time Im scared to death on a flight
or our kitties get sick.
or our taxes aren’t right.

Science says energy never dies
so where is your spirit each time your wife cries?
When the car mechanic is telling me lies …
Are you at “In N Out” for a burger and fries?

Did you finally jump on a plane to L.A.?
or Clearwater Beach
Yankees vs. Rays?
How come I havent felt you for days?
Maybe you’re on the phone with your dad
having that talk
that you never had.
You could be at Publix
getting a sub
or strumming guitar
in a Cape Cod pub.
Petting a puppy,
Saving a cat
Leave it to you to do something like that.

A tennis match
with Andre or Pete.
Steven Tyler is singing,
you jam up a beat.

Bringing my Boo’s ashes to Clearwater Beach

Or maybe you’re with your old EMS partners
Rob, Meg, Maria
Just killin some hours.
Making friends laugh,
Staying up til dawn
talkin ’bout movies
or music with John.

Calling dad “Pop”
eating mom’s apple pie,
playing catch with our brother
out in the night sky.
If energy talked for 3 hours straight,
you’d call up your sister,
be on the phone late.
So many places
your energy goes
and in the end
None of us know.

Well,
maybe you know.
Yes.
Only you know.

So where the hell are you?
Dont you think I should know?
Are you waiting for me
outside in the snow?
Nobody said
it was time to go.

Cape Cod with my brother and Jen

How can I feel
that youre still with me?
Put your name on a rock?
Go outside,
Plant a tree?
Why cant I feel your energy?

In the beginning,
right after you died
I felt you on earth,
it helped me survive.

But lately it’s gone,
and I dont know why,
but Im not giving up,
on where you might fly.

Give me directions
to where you are
Can I G.P.S. it?
Can I drive my car?
Or is it more vague,
like inside of a star?

Maybe it’s selfish
I dont really care
You promised forever,
we never got there.

If you’re gonna be Dead,
it’s not asking a lot,
that your soul stays with me,
It’s all that I got.

Where you go,
I should be.
Where You Go,
Stay with me.