It's Hard to Care

Grief affects everything. I am usually very moved by the people around me - caring about their struggles, sympathetic to their worries, wanting to engage in the things going on in the world. But lately it's just so hard to care.

It's hard to care about:

politics

my friend's failed adoption

my mother's very mild health trouble

the stroke risk in the family

my mom's cousin (who is in her 70s) whose husband died this morning

birthdays

my nieces and nephews activities

anything related to someone much older going through anything with their health

It's like I hear these worries and think to myself: G just died. My husband just died. My husband just DIED. My son doesn't have a father. He's 6. I don't have a husband. I'm 35.

Your high blood pressure? Doesn't concern me. You have to take your blood pressure and heart rate every day now because your sister (in her 60s) had a mild stroke from which she fully recovered? Wow. How have you been so healthy for so long that this seems like a big deal? It's ungracious. But it's how I feel.

It makes me feel forgotten. It makes me feel like people don't realize what I've been through. I want to say - didn't you see G's suffering? Do you realize how happy he would've been to have to deal with what you are dealing with? Honestly, I feel angry. Angry! And frustrated. And like people assume that they will be /should be/ can be healthy. Like that's the norm. Like the things that happened to G shouldn't happen to them - but he was 30 to 40 years YOUNGER than them. That's what shouldn't happen. 6 year old boys shouldn't lose their Daddy. Women in their 30s shouldn't hold their husbands hand while he dies in his favorite chair 6 days before Christmas.

What's it like to live life with a spouse who is healthy into their 70s? What's it like to live life with a spouse who is THERE into their 70s?

Because to get to 70, I have to live 35 more years without G. I have to live my entire life span over without my husband. And that feels hard, and unfair, and wrong.

All I can bring myself to care about is getting through the day, taking care of my boy, trying to keep going. Remembering G. Treasuring G. And wrapping my mind around the fact that he is gone.