by Sonya Dawson

Editor's note: While the Grief Train is running, Life has a way of imposing itself... This is a slice in the life of a WSA member whose husband passed away in March 2010, leaving her with a 7-year-old daughter and a 2-month old son.

I  had a rough two weeks. I think the grief train either went around a hairpin turn or down a steep hill. I have been tired. Emotions have run wild. Loneliness has settled in on a new level (and not only for what I had, but also for what I want for my future). Elijah got his first cold in 4 months and I missed a day of work and had to work at home on another to get him back on track with his breathing.

I still can't get Thomas' clothes packed because I keep underestimating the number of boxes I need. I had four extra large U-Haul boxes, then I had six extra large U-Haul boxes, but it appears I am going to need about ten. My precious son has taken to writing on the walls, the ones that don't have washable paint like I used when I painted his room. Every time I think I have all the pencils and crayons out of his reach, he finds another one. Ariana, my eight year-old for some reason has taken to 3 year-old behavior. She started climbing on the furniture and got into the baby powder in her bathroom.

I have wanted to just scream a couple of times. When I didn't want to scream I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep or just cry. I wanted to scream out to Thomas, "How could you leave me like this?" But I didn't because I know the answer. No matter what kind of motivation a person has, it's kind of hard to stick around with bad lungs, a bad heart, bad kidneys and weak bones.  I am amazed he lasted as long as he did.  Then I started getting flooded with memories from my marriage and not the good ones.

My goodness, I have put in a mountain of emotional work to process that relationship. It gave me so much, but stripped me layer by layer to almost nothing at the same time. As my eyes filled with tears on multiple occasions the past couple of weeks, I kept hearing Thomas' voice and/or seeing an image of him saying the same thing over and over. "I didn't mean to hurt you." And it wasn't a memory...I know it wasn't. I know I've spent a great deal of time trying to convince myself of that.

Another dip on the roller coaster I guess. But we are getting back on course.  When my daughter said she had a surprise for me Sunday morning, I wondered what it could be. She said, "You'll get your surprise when the choir sings". I wondered..."Are they finally going to sing that song?" Just about everyday, Ariana would belt out the first two verses of Psalm 91 from the back seat. She said she had to practice for children's choir. It went on for quite a while.

Well, all those days paid off Sunday afternoon. Not only does she know the passage now, but she sang it solo to start the children's choir ministry. On the Sunday the children's choir sings there are generally close to 900 people in the sanctuary.  Every time one of the children leads a song I think about what they must have on the inside to take that microphone and go for that in front of that many people and now it was my daughter. It confirmed a lot about her for me. I also know there was a time when she would not have done that.

We've increased our devotional time and our conversations have centered around our faith, what it does, how it makes our lives better, how God stays inside us and why.  We've done a number of things for focus, self-esteem building and had a lot of conversations about where we are going with our lives and how we are going to have to work together (with me in charge of course).  We've been to hell and back, she and I, to depths Ariana thankfully doesn't fully understand, and Elijah is unaware.  There is emotional work that goes on that no one else sees.  In that moment, I appreciated how far we have come and her father for passing down his singing voice because she certainly did not inherit that from me.

Elijah approached a wall later that afternoon, crayon in hand. I called out: "ELIJAH ALEXANDER!" He ran to me and dropped the crayon at my feet. Will it be the last time he writes on the wall? Not likely, but at least he is possibly beginning to understand now that it's wrong. That's something.

Sunday night I did my final walk through. I folded a load of laundry, helped stray toys find their home, turned the thermostat up to 77, checked the front door and went upstairs. I stopped at Ariana's room. I picked up her comforter, (she'd kicked it off the bed in her sleep), covered her with the top sheet and folded the comforter in half at her feet. Then I settled in next to Elijah after checking his diaper.

The sun came out Monday morning just as I'd hoped it would. Ariana got up and said "good morning" and Elijah woke up, looked at me and just said, "Mom?" Yes, baby, "good morning". Yes, baby, it's mommy. It's time to get back on the train and keep working my way to the engineer's seat.

Further writings from S.J. Dawson can be found on her blog.

In addition to current spousal caregivers, the Well Spouse™ Association has a number of Former Well Spouse members who find the organization helps them deal with the aftermath of having cared on a long-term basis for a spouse or partner with chronic illness and/'or disability.

Image: Casey Sleepin at the Throttle -- courtesy Jon DeKeles, http://www.grblogs.com/index.php/GRBlogsNew?blog=45&paged=5