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Loose Ends – 10/13/16

Originally posted on 10/13/16.

I felt normal for a while. Not that I forgot what was going on but I was feeling a little happy, not so sad. Last week grief found me again and I pushed it back for a while but I can only ignore it for so long. So I write…

Tonight I am grateful for Cathy, who is always there when I need her. Earlier I needed some company and she knew without me even asking. Some days are just unexpectedly bad. And I know I have a long list of people who would be here if needed but a best friend is nice. She knows she doesn’t have to comfort me. She doesn’t agonize over what to say because she knows all I need is her company.

I feel like there are so many loose ends in my life right now. I have no control over a lot of them and some I am just not ready to deal with. I feel better when some are resolved and others don’t go the way I planned. That happened tonight. Things are not going the way I anticipated and it was really hard to hear. I always hate it when people write cryptic things on social media but I really can’t get into specifics right now. Hopefully I will be able to share more soon.

I finalized my will and trust a few weeks ago. This may seem like a strange thing to be happy about but it gives me comfort knowing that everything is spelled out for the girls should anything happen to me. They also took care of the paperwork for the title on the house which is good. The title now lists me as Danell teNyenhuis, an unmarried woman. That’s so bizarre to me. I think I took 18 months to plan my wedding. Such a joyful, happy occasion. And then, almost 24 years later, in an instant, I am unmarried. I guess it is better than saying widowed but it is just so odd to see. I still feel like I’m going to wake up and realize it was all a dream…

Matt is now the official owner of the VW bus. So you may see it around town. For now it’s still parked in my garage but I am happy he is taking it. Patrick loved that bus and he would be happy that his little brother will use it and enjoy it. Matt has already taken the kids

camping several times so they are making lots of new memories.

I finally got the trees trimmed in the backyard so I should be able to spend less time dealing with the pool. So that’s three kind-of-big things resolved and that feels good. Hopefully I will continue to check things off my list and my life will feel a little less chaotic. For now I will continue to write…

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What if we never met? – 10/9/16

This was originally posted on 10/9/16. The picture I have added is all of the teNyenhuis grandkids.

Last night I was completely exhausted from a day of moving my mom and Ernie. I woke up at 5:30 after sleeping maybe 3 hours on Friday night. Last night I should have slept like a log. Of course, as usual, I woke several times during the night. This is kind of my new normal. Just to clarify, this doesn’t mean I wake up crying and in emotional pain. Patrick is always in the back of my mind but the pain seems to be a little better most days. When I was awake last night I started thinking about something that I thought about a LOT at first.

When the pain was the most intense there were times that I prayed for amnesia. I just wanted to not remember. And I considered if it would be better just to go through life kind of happy rather than experiencing the extreme pain of losing Patrick. I’ve been told a lot that “most people” don’t experience the kind of love and happiness I had. What if I didn’t have that? Of course I always shut down this line of thinking because I would not have my two precious daughters if I never met Patrick. And of course I wouldn’t want to erase my time with him. My life was better because of it.

My life was incredibly enriched when I met Patrick. Mom and Pop are the best in-laws anyone could ever have. They truly consider me their child and I am so blessed to be a part of their family. Dan is like a big brother to me. He brought Amy into my life and even though they are far away I cherish our relationship. Gabe was always around during the college years when Patrick was away and he looked out for me. I consider him Camille’s surrogate father for education and I think he’s as proud of her as Patrick would be. Jennifer is a kindred spirit and I love having her in my life.

And Patrick gave me my own little sister, Dina. I love her so much and I understand my sisters wanting to protect me from the pain I’m going through because I wish I could take away Dina’s pain. She was extremely close to Patrick and when she married Jeff he found an outdoorsy buddy. Jeff and Dina were always ready to go fishing, hiking or just drink beer with Patrick!

When I met Matt I think he was 10 years old. So I’ve known him for a big part of his life and Patrick was always proud of him. In many ways he was truly Patrick’s best friend. I’ve always been close to Tina too. Like all of the siblings Matt chose well!

Getting together with the whole family was always a special time. Holidays were always busy but we always agreed which family we would spend time with, BOTH!

And that is just the tip of the iceberg since the family doesn’t end there. There are numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, etc and my life is richer because of all of them. I do still get extremely sad at times and when that happens if I start to wish that someone could just take away my memories I think about all that I would lose with them. I wouldn’t give up the memories or my family. Love you T-9-house family!❤️

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I can do this! – 10/08/16

Originally posted on 10/8/16

Today I drove a 26 foot U-Haul truck. While driving it occurred to me that I would never have done this when Patrick was alive. To be fair, I didn’t have to drive it today. The plan was for Denny to drive it but it made more sense for me to since it needed to be parked at my house tonight. And Denny was hosting our monthly “First Friday” get together so it made more sense for him to get home. He will be driving it to Burrough Valley tomorrow so we can move my mom and Ernie into town. He doesn’t really want to do it either but that’s what brothers are for! Lol
There have been a lot of things I have learned that I never had to do before. I have cleaned the pool filter at least 10 times and I have spent many hours brushing the sides of the pool and skimming leaves off the top. I changed the handle on the toilet. I cleaned Aggie’s ears. I drove the bus. Ok, I didn’t actually drive it but I pulled it out of the garage and back in.

I have also done things that I knew how to do but never had to before. I am now the scooper of dog poop, a job he hated and complained about regularly. And yeah I probably should have done it sooner but I never had to. I do the grocery shopping, occasionally, lol. I still don’t cook much but I’m making an effort to cook more. There are countless other things that I just never had to do but there is no reason why I can’t do them now.
Today I also put registration tags on my car and his bus. I’ve done this before but usually, I just had him do it. He really could do just about anything. And I’m amazed that I’m even able to function without him but I know he is my guardian angel! I think that is why I feel I can do just about anything now. That doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally dissolve into tears if I can’t immediately figure something out. The pool has made me cry several times and I felt pretty helpless when the smoke alarm in the attic needed a new battery (thank you, Denny, for climbing up there to replace it). At the same time, I like it when I can figure things out for myself. I think it makes me feel like I am going to be okay.

We will really miss him tomorrow. He was very strong and would have been a huge help. Plus he would have spent the day joking around with Denny and Tom and made the move a lot more entertaining. And I know he would have driven the U-Haul for us!

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Keeper of memories – 10/3/16

Originally posted on 10/3/16.

As my kids were growing up I loved to share funny stories with my mom. She would always laugh and tell me that I really needed to write them down. I didn’t have a blog back then. I’m sure that I intended to write them down but why would I need to? I was married to a man who could remember everything!

I didn’t realize at first how many memories we lost. I’m not quite sure why but my brain does not always store details. I remember a lot but Patrick could remember obscure things such as lines from movies I had never heard of. Like everything else I think he trained his brain to do this. After college he never truly learned to read for pleasure. I know he enjoyed reading but it had to be something of value. He read the entire bible and when he was finished he decided to read the biographies of each of the presidents. I think he made it to Reagan and then stopped. He decided the biographies were more accurate after time had passed. The more recent ones were usually written by supporters and tended to be sugar coated. Of course I can’t think of any cool facts but he loved to share odd things he had learned such as the president who took calls while on the toilet!

He was also great at telling jokes. I would try to repeat them and they were never quite as funny. A highlight of the Steam Donkey shows was the jokes and banter in between songs, much of it groan worthy! I am so grateful that I have videos of that. Usually I can get through them with a smile.

He had favorite sayings too and we have forgotten some of them. One is that he used to tell us that there were only two rules in this house. Rule 1 is never throw things from the second floor, but we are unsure of Rule 2. Rule 2 could be that Dad is Awesome (which he frequently said) or that Dad is always right. Maybe it was “Dad needs a beer”.

Of course, like anyone, he didn’t remember everything, especially if it was a message his wife was supposed to give him! He would be talking to his mom and she would say, “I’m sure Danell told you ….” and he would tell her, “You know we never talk”. In fairness I would say the same thing!

He had another saying related to irony and I think it was poetic irony but it seems like it was a more obscure term. When he found an example of this type of irony he loved to tell us. Recently I experienced this type of irony and although it was a little sad I could just imagine him laughing at the irony of the situation.

A month or two after Patrick died I charged my old iPhone to see if I had any voice messages from him. There had been none on my current phone. I found one message from 2013. He had been on some sort of weekend adventure and I was gone when he got home. He left me a message to say he was home, he was exhausted and he was going to sleep. He ended it with “I love you”. I tried to save the message and the older phone did not have an option to do that. So, rather than play the message on the old phone and record it with the new, I had the brilliant idea to update the old phone. Of course when the update was complete my messages were gone. I took it to the phone store and they confirmed there was no way to retrieve it. I was sad but honestly I wasn’t going to be devastated about it. At the same time, I was still searching to make sure I didn’t miss any audio or video recordings. Eventually I found the voice memos on my phone. Wouldn’t it be sweet if he had recorded me a message? I found an 18 second message and at first it was very staticky. After a minute I realized I had made the recording. In the middle of the night. When his snoring woke me up! I’m not sure what I had planned to do with it but I never shared it with him. He was sensitive about his snoring and his feelings would have been hurt. I burst into laughter! How ironic! I’m looking for a sweet message and instead find the snoring I had recorded in anger. Now that’s (insert term) irony! 😂<<<<<<
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The Lost Art of Writing – 9/28/16

Originally posted on 9/28/16

I found something else when I was searching in the garage. I found a box of things from high school and college. I am a sentimental person so I save a lot of things like that. The box mostly had certificates and sports award programs. A lot of stuff from my years of Cross Country and Track at Clovis High. There were also writing assignments from high school and college, poems I had written and some free form journaling. What surprised me is that I had forgotten how much I used to write!

In high school I spent a lot of time journaling or writing poems if something was bothering me. I think I continued this at the beginning of college. I met Patrick in the summer of 1986. He was home from UOP for the summer and I was on summer break from Fresno State. We began what would be a 6 year, long-distance relationship. Back then we did not have cell phones or email. Long distance calls could be very expensive and we were broke college students. So we sent each other a LOT of cards and letters!

I am eternally grateful that I have this written history of our early relationship. Right after Patrick died, when I was still in a semi-state of shock, I began reading through these. I would read a few at a time and I was sorting them into two ziplock bags in case the girls ever choose to read them. One bag is labeled PG and the other has a warning as they might not like the content of those.😉 As the shock began to wear off, I had to put them away. Some day I will read the rest but right now it’s just too hard.

As I read through them, it occurred to me that I would have enjoyed reading through them with Patrick. I think it would have been a great way to reconnect and reminisce. I have said this before but I repeat it often. I think one reason relationships fail is because the early days are so exhilarating but it is not like that forever. Your love matures and you become more comfortable with each other. When the “honeymoon” period is over, a relationship becomes something that you have to nurture. You can’t take it for granted. There’s going to be give and take and it’s not going to be as picture perfect as your courtship and honeymoon. We always seemed to find ways to rekindle that but I wish I had thought of the letters.

And the letters were not all hearts and roses either. One letter from Patrick was a heart breaker! He had been dating another girl at UOP and when he initially returned that first year he was torn between the two of us. In the letter, he told me that he loved both of us but was choosing her over me because he didn’t think he was capable of a long-distance relationship. I, of course, knew better and we all know how that ended! I truly had forgotten about this letter but it did not upset me to read it. That was part of our story and after that I was always confident in our relationship.

I know that people have been saying this for decades but I feel that writing is a lost art. We are all bombarded with constant communication. My children interact with their friends way more than I did but much of it consists of short text conversations, Snapchat stories and other social media posts. That doesn’t mean they are not close but when they eventually start having serious relationships (after age 30, lol) I hope that they also take time to record their thoughts and feelings in something more permanent than a text.

I challenge each of you to take the time to send a card or letter to someone you care about. It doesn’t need to be long, just let them know how much they mean to you. As I thought of this last night I wrote each of the girls a letter. And by wrote I mean I typed it in a document on my phone and emailed it to them. I’m a modern mom, right? I told Camille what I was doing and my thoughts behind it all. She said she would refuse to accept it if it wasn’t handwritten. I sent it anyway. I hope she forgives me. If I had waited until I found a card or stationary and then had to actually write it might have taken forever! 😊

The pictures below are pictures of a card Patrick sent me when I moved into our first apartment, shortly before we were married. This pretty much sums up how excited we were to be done with the long-distance relationship! I have so many good memories and I am thankful that I was blessed to be his wife!

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Five Months Later – 9/20/16

Originally posted on 9/21/16

Yesterday marked five months without Patrick. In many ways it feels like yesterday. I find it odd to think about all of the things that have changed. I’ve made little changes such as rearranging things in the kitchen cabinets, moving the wine rack and putting up pictures. I don’t want to erase him from memory but somehow these little changes seem to help.

Grief is a much longer and harder process than I ever imagined. I’m not sure why that is so surprising to me. I have had experience with tragic situations in the past but nothing that I was this close to. And no one talks about it. We just all assume that it is easy to move on, that people adjust to their new reality and the unpleasant grief goes away. So far, that has not been my experience.

Right after Patrick died a friend shared a Facebook group called Widows Hope with me. The first few times I saw posts I almost deleted it because it was SO sad and did NOT make me feel hopeful. “It’s been two years and I still cry every day,” or “It’s been five years but it seems like it was yesterday”. As time went on I did start to see more hopeful posts but I also came to realize that this is a place where people can bare their souls without worrying about upsetting others and sometimes when you are grieving you really need that!

I appreciate everyone’s kind thoughts and comments each time I post something but I don’t want you to always be sad for me. I am not writing this as a cry for help or attention. This is really just my way of healing and hopefully in the process sharing that it is okay to grieve.

I don’t want this to be the end of my story. I have a lot of life ahead of me and I hope that there comes a time when my loss is not the first thing people think of when they see me. I don’t want anyone to forget Patrick or assume that I have but I look forward to a time when the emotions are not so raw and painful.

I love you all! Thank you for helping me on this journey!

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A Day at the Boardwalk – 9/19/16

This was originally posted on 9/19/16.

Yesterday Camille and I were invited to join Linda Crews and kids on a day trip to Santa Cruz. Camille and Julia have been close friends since elementary school and Linda and I are close friends also. We had a great day. We smiled, we laughed and yes, we hunted Pokémon together. I knew there would be hard parts too, Patrick loved Santa Cruz.

When I got home I was very sad and I wanted to write but I felt a little guilty. This blog is so helpful to me but I don’t want it to hurt others. I didn’t want Linda to feel bad that I was sad. She is a good friend though so I knew she would probably understand but I just couldn’t do it.

This morning I woke up and Linda had added some pictures to Facebook and a little comment about missing Craig, who is on a business trip, and it brought it all into perspective for me. Of course it was okay for me to miss Patrick! Linda had a great day too but she still wished Craig could have been there to share it. I don’t want to go through life moping that he is not there every time I do something fun but I need to acknowledge that I do have those feelings. No matter how much fun I have he is still not here when I get back home.

There were memories all day. As we drove over the Pacheco pass I remembered the trip where the darn Ford Pinto broke down at the very top. We had to be towed back to Los Banos and we spent the night at the Cinderella motel. The tow truck driver dropped us off on the other side of 152 but that hotel had no rooms so we had to haul all of our stuff across the street. I’m sure Patrick did most of the hauling. We had planned to go camping with friends and I think we had two ice chests packed with “provisions”, mainly the kind to keep us hydrated. 😉The next day dad came and rescued us.

As we drove into Santa Cruz we passed the hill where Zio Carlo’s beach house was. We stayed there several times and it was always a fun trip. As we walked onto the boardwalk the train was leaving and I remembered the time we took that up into the foothills for the day. Camille rode the carousel and was able to throw a ring in the clown’s mouth. This would have made her dad proud and also brought back memories of the many summers he spent time there with his family.

There were also a few trips with the girls and I have pictures to help remember those. Our more recent vacations were spent in the Pismo and Cayucos areas so those will be harder trips for me. Especially since many of them were anniversary trips. Santa Cruz was a good first trip back to the beach and it will help prepare me for Thanksgiving in Pismo.

There are going to be good days and bad days and I just have to find a way to get through all of them. I hope that it will get easier. I know life will keep moving forward and that’s what I have to do also. But I’m not going to lie, it would be great to wake up and find that this was just a really intense nightmare. And I know most of you would agree. 🙂

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Happily married mother of two 9-17-16

Originally posted on 9/17/16. I’m still working to get everything transferred from my old blog. It’s nice to read the old entries and see that I feel at least a little better now!

I’ve been looking at my social profile descriptions recently. They basically all say the same thing. “I am a happily married mother of two”. I just can’t bring myself to change them. Who would I be then?

One of the hardest parts of losing your spouse is losing part of your identity. I’m not really ready to embrace the term widow but I get annoyed when it is not an option on paperwork because I’m definitely not single. And I may never change my relationship status on Facebook. Widow is just such a sad term and I don’t like doing the sad thing!

I’ve been shredding old paperwork and I got rid of all of “our” address labels. Today I was wondering if I should save some of the paperwork from our early life together. Canceled checks, bank statements, doctors bills, etc. I really have no need for any of these things but it was a really odd feeling to shred them. I did save a few checks so I would have a copy of his signature.

There are a still a lot of things in both of our names. I’ve only changed what I had to. I’m in no rush to change them all. I feel like it’s a step forward each time I do something like that but there is no timeline in getting it all done.

I realize that I’m still the same person I was on April 19th. I will always be Patrick’s wife. And I’m still a mother of two. Unhappily widowed? Tragically widowed? I’ll just leave the happily married part for now.

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Off work again – 9/15/16

Originally posted on 9/15/16

I’m off work again. My counselor and I have been having weekly discussions about my struggles and I just needed a break. Maybe I went back too soon. The thing is I just can’t handle being stressed or feeling like I can’t hold it together all day. Doing a good job is really important to me and if I feel like I’m not it affects my whole outlook.

Here’s the deal, I suffer from depression and anxiety. I’m putting this out there since I know I have an audience. I refuse to sweep it under a rug. For many years I felt that I was less of a person. I questioned why I had trouble in instances that other people could handle. I’ve been on medication at different times and I used to feel that I should try to stop taking it. I had a great life, why did I need anti-depressants?

My sister Dawan finally explained it in a way that made sense. She asked if I would take heart medication if I had a heart condition. I told her of course I would! And she asked why this would be different. What an eye opener! This is a REAL condition that is helped by medication. I no longer try to wean myself off of the medication because I know it DOES help me.

There is still a real stigma attached to mental health issues. And I admit that I was concerned about that when I went out of work again. But right now I just need to find joy in my life and that was hard when I was working. Hopefully I will be able to do a bit of that and get some exercise AND some sleep! I do want to make long term plans and they probably won’t include my current job. I wish that I could just cut the strings now and decide not to go back at all. That is a big decision that I am in no position to make right now. So I am taking some time, weighing my options, hoping I don’t make bad decisions. Nothing about this is easy. I am just grateful that I am surrounded by people who love me and want to help.

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Stages – 9/12/16

Originally posted 9/12/16

I’ve been thinking a lot about the stages of grief. I have experienced most of them but not in a neat orderly fashion. And, I am beginning to suspect that you never really get through any of them.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time I believe now that I was initially in shock. For a LONG time. When I think back on the initial days and weeks I almost feel like I am watching a scene from someone else’s life. I functioned at minimum capacity. I let others help me with the things I could not do. I was in pain but I really had not even begun to FEEL the loss. They say denial is one of the first stages. At the time I thought I was doing pretty good with that stage. I knew he was gone. The funny thing is that my mind is no longer in denial but my heart is. I seem to have these inner arguments with the mind stating the facts and the heart stating that it is JUST. NOT. POSSIBLE. I guess at some point they will come to some sort of agreement but right now my heart is definitely winning. So denial is an ongoing stage.

That day seems to run on an endless loop in my head. I study it and try to comprehend how I got through. If I start to feel happy my mind says “Wait, maybe you haven’t seen this movie?” And then the FACTS are laid out before me and I know he’s really gone. I’m not sharing this for sympathy or pity. I assume that most people who read this are hurting too. I’m sharing because I never imagined grief was like this.

I have experienced some anger. A little at the person who caused this. Mainly indifference to him because I just can’t waste any emotions on him right now. I have also been irrationally angry at Patrick. Why did he have to be so devoted to working out? How could he leave me? I do realize that this was not a choice he made. Mainly I am just mad at the Universe. He was too young to die.

The depression stage comes and goes.
This last week I’ve been very emotional. I have good days and bad days but I really missed him this week. It’s still hard to comprehend going through life without him. I had a very busy weekend and saw a lot of friends and family so that helped pull me back up. And while I was sad I let myself cry often. I think it’s good and I always feel a little better.

I think acceptance is kind of elusive. And really, why would you ever want to accept losing someone you love? Maybe it should be called resignation instead? I guess it is just going to take time to deal with all of the different emotions. I wish there was a shortcut through grief. Unfortunately you have to go through all of it in order to move forward. One step at a time.