"How Can We Help You?"

It has been almost 4 months now since Mike's passing. The number one question I still get asked is, "what can we do to help you?" My response is normally, "I don't know." Well I have been thinking about that a lot lately. How can people help me that really want to help me? I found an answer. PRAY
Pray that my house in Redmond will sell so I don't have to keep making $3000 monthly payments on an empty house. (It is eating my $$$ fast)
Pray that we can find a place for Marie & Chris to move to in Utah. They start school in Salt Lake the first of January.
Pray that Jeffrey will continue to do well in college and be strong.
Pray that I will be able to figure out how to maintain this house and get it ready for winter.
But most IMPORTANT:
PRAY FOR RACHEL. This year has been hard on her. She often feels alone and without friends. This age is tough for a teenage under normal circumstances. Add moving to a new area and school, losing her father, not making friends easily due to shyness, anxiety attacks, etc, and it equals a very unhappy teenager. I talked to her last night about things she could do different to change what is happening around her but we all know how difficult it is to change ourselves. To other people, Mike's passing was a sad moment in their life but for all of us especially Rachel, we re-live it daily. Something is always there to trigger a memory or a future lost occasion. I wish I could give Rachel my outgoing personality, talkative mouth or optimistic outlook but I can't. All I can do is pray for her and give her hope for a brighter future. That is how others can also help us, just pray.

Random Thoughts

I drove some church youth over to Seattle last Saturday. We had a blast, but there were lots of old memories too. We went to our church's Temple in Seattle and it just felt different without Mike being there. A bit lonely and sad, but thanks to my beliefs I know we will see him again someday.

My first college degree was an AA in pre-family counseling. Kind of ironic when I think about it. I have always been better at helping others with their issues then working on my own! Isn't life funny! Anyway, I have dealt with a lot of loss due to death in my life. I had a good friend in high school die in a car accident, I lost three of my grandparents while in my teens. I lost my dad who I was very close to, when I was 22, then both Mike's parents died that same year. Then my grandma that I was named after died at the age of 101 in 2002. I sang at her funeral as well as my dad's. I was able to due this because of my belief of eternal life. It isn't the end to me when someone dies. It is sad, hard, and lonely but that is just for those of us left behind on earth.

I guess what I am thinking is that death is not a new experience to me. I feel like I am on track with handling Mike's death the same way I have handled the deaths of my loved ones in the past. No, the past experiences were not as imtamently as close as a husband, but it is the same grieving process. One professional I talked to said I have a great 'gift and understanding' to process all this the way I do. I am glad I have been blessed to be a positive and obtmistic person.
I haven't had a big emotional breakdown, but I usually don't. I release my tears slowly over a long period of time, little by little. I talk about Mike's passing easily to friends and strangers. It is not hard for me to understand why he thought the way he did when he took his life. I lived with him for 27 years, I knew how he often felt. It saddens me that I wasn't there for him in his darkest hour. The letter he left shows his great love for his family and friends.

You will never find answers in the "what ifs..." so why try to? I don't need those answers. I need to know what to do for my future and the kids future. I live in the present and cherish the past.

So when you look at the big overall picture, I am doing pretty good. The everyday things like, weeding, painting the trim, mowing, figuring out the heater, car problems, paying the bills, etc that Mike used to take care of can be frustrating but that is because I don't like doing them or I dont' understand them. That can be overwhelming but honestly that is an attitude ajustment on my part and a new learning experience. Thank you for all your caring and love. It also is a great strength and help in moving forward with my life.

A Pretty Normal Week!

I think this has been a good week. I got to work at the Middle School Tuesday and that was fun. I sure am thankful for good kids after working around some of those at the Middle school! I really do enjoy working at the school but I also enjoy not working. So substituting is a good alternative. I just wish I would get called more then once a month!

Rachel has been doing good this week. Now that we have figured out that she has anxiety attacks we are addressing them and she is doing better. The school has been great about helping us out and listening to what sets her off and what helps her. Jeffrey just had a week off of school and spent it in Rexburg having fun. Marie is counting down the days for Chris to come home. I think we are at 21 days, YA! And Ethan is crawling everywhere and getting into everything! So things have been somewhat normal this week.

I am excited for our up coming travels. None of us wanted to spend the holidays in the traditional way that we have for years so I am surprising the kids with some trips. Thanks to great friends, we are staying in someones time share in Victoria for Thanksgiving. It will be just Jeffrey, Rachel, Marie, Chris, Ethan and I so it should be fun. Lots to see there. Christmas will only be Jeffrey, Rachel and I. I planned something special but I can't talk about it yet cause they might read it on here! Anyway, it has been nice to have a calm and pretty normal week.

I did have to edge the yard and do some mowing. That kills my back. I don't know how long I will be able to keep up this yard. The yard needs someone who will give it some tender loving care and that someone is not me!!! Well, at least I should sleep good tonight.

Saturday Night Youth Dance

Let me just start by saying I love to dance. Always have and always will. I danced as a youth in dance festivals and then in college and as an adult. I have done everything from swing, ballroom, square dance, clogging and a little hip hop. Having said that, I usually had a great partner that always made me look better then I was! I forget steps real easily, so if you have a good partner, you just follow them.
The other night was a youth dance and I drove kids so I stayed to chaperon. It is so hard to sit there and just listen to music! We have a small youth group with maybe 40 kids at the dance. So if I get out there to dance, I really stand out. Rachel invited me a few times to join them which was fun. Especially when Michael Jackson's Thriller came on and no one new how to do the "thriller walk" but me. Of course when slow songs came on I watched all the youth pair up and it was cute to see them go around in their silly little slow dance circle. That is when I really miss Mike. I loved to dance with Mike. We would travel around the entire floor spinning. Dancing was probably one of the times we looked the happiest. It always made me smile to dance with him. He was so good at ballroom and the swing. I will miss those dances. Every time I hear our favorite dance songs, the memories are wonderful put the present moment is hard.

True Friendship

I have some of the best friends ever. How do you repay such wonderful friends? If I name them all personally, I am sure I will forget someone. You all know who you are. One good friend didn't know how to help, so during the viewing and after the funeral, she stayed close by just handing me new tissues and taking the old ones and she keep giving me water. That meant the world to me. Many of my high school buddies have contacted me and offered true sympathy and concern for our family and it has been amazing. Church friends from years past, youth that I have worked with and families from my old job have all showed amazing concern and support.

My friend of 46 years, flew up to be with me and was shocked at the amount of help I was receiving. I am thankful for a church that really looks after it's people. I had friends and family sit and go through stacks and stacks of papers. Mail that hadn't been opened since 1992! It took days. Mike kept everything. He had two rooms in the house taken up by office space that was packed with stacks of papers. It was a mess to go through. Many friends spent hours going through Mikes business files, taking down wall paper, painting, cleaning, weeding, sorting car equipment, going on dump runs, bringing food and driving loads of stuff to the new house. It is a 2 hour drive that includes a ferry, so it is a big deal.

There were the friends that put us up in their homes and fed us. It took 5 weeks to get everything out of the house and get it ready to put on the market and it was only Mike's stuff from two businesses that was in the house! I had already moved most of our personal stuff to the new house a year earlier.

I had to borrow money from family to pay for all the fixing we had to do to the house. It was absolutely crazy. But through it all I stayed sane because of the tons of support we were given. One family friend even paid for Jeffrey's car to be fixed and get new tires. I am almost speechless when I think of the hours of service and personal sacrifices that people gave for us.
The first two months after Mike's passing were tough financially. No death certificate, no funds. We finally got back to our new home and our church had stocked my cupboards with food. Families arranged to have us over for dinner so we would go out and socialize and not just crawl in a hole like I sometimes wanted to. People let me talk, cry and process.

Now we are doing fine financially and I have some time to think about what I want to do about future work. I still don't think everything has hit me. That will most likely happen this winter when family is all gone and it is just Rachel and I. But I think I will be alright. I have the best friends in the world. They care and I know it. They have helped me smile a lot more.

Too Much To Think About

It was kind of difficult to sit through conference last weekend and hear them talk about families. I feel a bit disjointed. I am now in a group of single adults with children and it is hard to figure out where you fit in. I spent Monday evening at "back to school night" at the high school. Lots of couples were there. Some parents were by themselves, but I felt very alone. It is an amazing responsibility to raise children, but doing it alone is suddenly overwhelming. I don't have all the answers. There are days when I'm not even the grown-up in the house.

I told Rachel that when she turns 16 next year we could double date for her first date. Of course I was joking, but what mortified her was that I would date at all. She doesn't like the idea of me remarrying and having some strange guy be in her wedding pictures posing as her dad. I guess I can understand that, but my life has to go on.

There are so many questions in my head on what I should do. I could stay home for the next few years, get Rachel off to college, then move somewhere far away from here and the memories and then look for work. Or I could go back to school now and work on my secondary education degree so I can substitute teach. Or I could just sit still and wait for a job to open at the high school as a secretary, but then I would feel committed to stay after Rachel left. I have no idea what I want to do and it is a bit scary. Right now I need to just make it through the holidays and then I can worry about it next year.

Getting back to the dating, I guess if I ever want to date again, I should spend some time on making myself a better catch for someone. See I already had a lot of the things I want in a marriage. I know what was missing in my marriage. So now I want both which means I better start worrying about changing myself. I got a lot of work to do! I'm tired and can't think straight. There is just too much to think about. I guess I will deal with it . . . some other time.

Mike's Message to Me - Well some of it...

I find it interesting how judgmental some people can be, but I brush it off and recognize they just don't know all the circumstances of what they are judging. I have mentioned before that Mike left a 5 page letter on his computer for us. It is hard to read because I can see where his thinking is misguided. He said he had been writing the letter in his mind for a long time. I always knew I would out live him, and so did he. In the letter he left, Mike gave me instructions on what to do with everything; what stocks to sell (which luckily I did) and which ones to keep, what property to sell, what to do with his cars and stuff, everything was pretty laid out. And true to Mike's style he had piles all over the living room floor with directions on what to do with each pile and who it should go to. He tired to cover every detail. He even mentioned the fact that the blueberries and strawberries were coming in and not to waste them.

So when someone comes along and judges me as a hard callous wife who just wants to get rid of her husbands stuff, I took the high road and laughed it off. They have no idea of the lists of things Mike left for us. I followed Mike's instructions with one exception, I didn't bury him with the quilt I made him in college. I still need it; too many memories.

The personal messages Mike left for me were a bit harder to handle. It is how he felt, real or not. Here are a few of his words, "Grace, well, we had a few good years and some fun times, but it never was much of a marriage was it? Now you are free! Free of me! I hope you will find someone to spend the rest of your life with who will bring happiness into your life. I recommend you forget I ever existed. I have always loved you even if I wasn't 'in love' with you. You have been my best friend for more then 29 years. I thank you for that. I hope you don't have a funeral for me-I am not worthy of one. Save yourselves the embarrassment."

Obviously he was wrong. He was loved and admired by so many people the funeral was packed. I didn't even see all the people who had signed the guestbook. Even the online guestbook has messages from friends living in different parts of the world. We have no clue the impact we have on the lives around us. Mike was great at making people feel good. His smiles, handshakes, caring nature and absences of guile were truly a gift. Friends had described him for years with the word 'integrity.' It was a lot harder for him to be as loving to his family, but that is true for all of us. We all need to work on treating our family as wonderful as we treat others.

So am I a hard callus wife, no, for once I am doing what he asked of me. I will never forget he existed, but I will try to move on with my life. Holding on to precious memories and making new ones. I will never be, nor do I want to be 'free of him.' In fact, this post was the hardest one to write and caused the most tears. You see in the back of my mind the thought creeps out every now and then that maybe I failed him. The 'what ifs,' that I try to stay away from, are the killer when I am alone with my thoughts...