Lost Dreams

As stupid as this sounds, a saying on the inside of a piece of Dove Chocolate with Caramel candy that read: "Live your dreams - Love, Dove" really set me off today. I thought: how can I live my dreams when my dreams have been shattered with the death of Dennis? My dreams were "our" dreams: grow old together and just enjoy life together. He was only 59 when he died (fell short of 60 by about six weeks, but as bad off as his body was at the end, I would not have wanted him to try to last just to reach his birthday. His life would have been hell during that time); I turn 60 on May 1. That's not old, at least not by today's standards. We did have 30 great years together, but we wanted to have a 50th anniversary. I'm not looking forward to the next twenty anniversaries that come along, reminding me that he's not here. Eventually, those anniversaries will bring fond memories, and hopefully the 31st that will come later this year will ignite good memories. It's just that right now, because I was so involved with taking care of him as best I could the past 16 months, it's hard to remember the years before that time.

Even though it was difficult watching him slowly fade away, it brought us even closer together. We knew how much each other loved the other, and he knew that I would be there for him no matter what the situation. I did things I never knew I had the strength to do, especially things in the bathroom when things didn't go as planned. I had bought him a stool for the tub that had rubber feet, but he was still afraid to go in for a shower. One of the last times when he had an "accident" in the bathroom, I ordered him into the shower but told him that I'd be there right with him. I got both of us undressed, got him into the tub and sitting on the stool. Then I went in the by the other door, got the water going and to the right temperature and brought the hose and nozzle down from the wall. He wanted his hair washed first, so I hosed down his head and poured some shampoo into his hand and let him wash his own hair. I rinsed him off, then wet him down and gave him his washcloth and soap. I helped him stand when the time came, had him hold onto the grab bar and I washed his lower body while he held on, followed by me rinsing him off. We got him mostly dried off while still in the tub and I carefully got him back out of the tub. He talked about that shower for a couple weeks, about how much he'd enjoyed it. It had never occurred to me before that I'd be doing this type of activity at our age—when we were older, sure. But not at this time.

I don't know what brought on the latest bout of depression, but I've been missing him so much the past few days that I can hardly stand it. This "new me" is still floundering like the proverbial fish out of water. I've mentioned before that I read a book called On Grief and Grieving and it mentions the five stages of grief (taken from the author's five stages of death), one of which is anger (the other four are denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). I've been getting angry at some pretty petty things lately, so I've been interpreting the anger as one of these five stages, though when they occur, I never correlate them to my grief. One of the statements we read before each session of the grief group I'm doing mentions that you should not compare your grief to someone else's grief. We all experience our grief in our own ways and while we were discussing it, I admitted that it had already happened to me, though not verbally.

I told the group, "I was talking with Dennis's sister Sandie and I had made the statement that I just really missed him. And she said, 'I know, Rick. I miss him so much, too.' And at the time I thought, 'you can't possibly miss him more than I do. At best, you've seen him once a year for the past few years, whereby I've been with him every single day for the past 30 years.' Luckily for me, I didn't verbalize those thoughts." I went on, "After I hung up the phone, I chastised myself for thinking like that, because I remembered that was one of the items mentioned in the book. I felt real bad but was glad that I had actually made myself aware of what I had just done."

Another time, I posted on my Facebook page that watching the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament just wasn't the same this year without my "watching partner" by my side. A couple friends commented, "he's there with you in spirit." And it pissed me off because I didn't care if he was "there in spirit" I wanted him there with me physically like we had been doing for the past 30 years. Once again, I didn't type that as a comment to their comments, but I thought it. I know they meant well but it just hit me wrong at the time. I've got so many emotions pulling me so many ways, I'm surprised I can even function. And please don't tell me "give it time"—I don't want to give it any god damn time. I guess I am angry that he's gone; I never realized it before. I'm not angry at him; how could I be? He certainly didn't ask for the damn disease. But I am angry that I'm left behind, so I hope writing about it will help get it out.

I think I'll stop for now. I've probably pissed enough people off for one day. Onward and upward. And above all else, I still love you dear and always will. No anger there.