My wife passed away on 10/05/17.
I suppose in one way, it was not a surprise. We'd been classified as disabled from 2010 and become largely housebound. We'd each been told that our life expectancy wasn't great.
But, life went on. We were pretty much pulled over into the slow lane, but it was just keeping on. We gave up our vehicles, and virtually everything else we could figure out that had any value, in an effort to keep our house. And then lost our house.
Day after slow day, we watched as people pulled away, caught up in the speed of their own lives, and we were left alone with each other and our "fur babies" as our only companions. Hours, days, weeks, and months ticked by with only each other for company (other than my forays on here).
Our children are grown. Hell, one of our grandchildren we've barely met is grown enough to have given us a great grandchild we haven't.
The day in question, I wasn't doing anything. Nothing really important anyway.
A while back, I'd discovered Literotica.com and eventually created the user Acktion and hung out here until we lost the house. In the move I'd lost the email and password for that user name. When I got around to getting back on, I created the user Ewobbit. When we lost electricity and internet for awhile, I couldn't get on here. Just this past July, when I was once again able to think about Literotica.com, I had forgotten Ewobbit's username and password. So, I created a new one.
All three times, I've been much more interested in writing (for some definitions of writing) and publishing my stories (for some definitions of story), but I didn't completely ignore the forums. (Except the GB. Made that mistake once, and that was enough.) Mostly, I hung out in the AH and HT and HTCafe.
That fucking day, I was sitting here typing away on what I was hoping might be a story to submit for Halloween in between cruising the threads while I waited for her to wake up and tell me how she wanted to spend our time. I have absolutely no idea what time she faded away. In my ignorance, I was just happy she was finally able to get some rest as she laid there less than three feet away, on her side so that all she would have had to do was open her eyes to see me sitting here. Her favorite sleep position.
It wasn't until six o'clock that evening I thought she needed to eat something and moved to wake her. Only to find her cold and stiff.
It was the exact nightmare I've had for a long time now. That she would fade away, just like she did, and I wouldn't even realize she was gone, just like I didn't.
Not knowing what else to do, I called the emergency services even though I knew she was long past any help. EMS came and left. The police came and stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Two hours later, they wheeled her body by me.
Her son (my stepson) and his wife came the next morning and stayed with me. Helped me to go through the small place we'd washed up in to collect the clothing that was hers and hers alone. To collect knickknacks and keepsakes I knew she would want them to have. They did all the laundry for me, including the sheets and comforter from the bed. They did all the dishes for me. It was good that they did those two things as, frankly, I really can't find it in me to give a shit about it. My method of dealing with the dishes and laundry would be to throw it all in the fucking garbage and do without.
They left on Sunday.
My elderly father and step-mother came to visit me on Monday for the entire afternoon. They shouldn't even be driving. Neither of them are in good health. But, they wanted to be here for me. I want to appreciate it, but the whole time they were here, I just wanted them to leave.
Until finally they did and I wanted them to come back so I wouldn't be here alone with my pain.
I finally slept more than 1-3 hours today for the first time since I found her. Normally, I'm just sitting here doing nothing. I get on the computer and try to find stuff, but close it again unread. I open a book, but even my favorites I often reread I just close and put back on the shelf. Movies and television shows... I can't. When I try, I look to her to make a comment or to see what she thinks and she isn't there.
A lifetime ago, I studied to be a counselor before I changed my mind and went another direction professionally. As part of it, I learned all about the grieving process and how to help someone grieve.
Or so I thought.
Those classes, those professors, those textbooks; all were so full of shit they should have been a world of brown.
Emptiness? God, I could wish to feel an emptiness inside me. All I feel is cold clawing fingers reaching inside me and shredding and squeezing and shredding and squeezing my heart in an alternating rhythm.
The only person who has ever seen beneath every layer of masks I wear and loved me, not despite but because of what she found there, is gone.
Intellectually, I know the answer is time. I know to get up in the morning to feed the dog and three cats. (Magic, the fourth, passed away in... June?) I know that I take the dog outside and scoop the litter box. I know to repeat the process in the evening before I lay down next to where she left me to try to sleep. Maybe that's enough. It doesn't feel like it.
But, honest to God, beyond that, I am completely at a loss. I don't even know enough to know what I should be thinking about doing that I'm not. I've had to rely on her for so long to tell me what to do when it was something she couldn't take care of herself as my memory and my mind weakened. The only thing like a job or hobby I had was writing stories or cruising the Lit boards. Other than that, my entire life was taking care of the animals, spending time with her, and doing what she told me needed to be done.
Many, many years ago, I was dual-diagnosed as a sex addict with codependency. (and yes, she knew.) Earlier this evening, I found myself trying to search porn and masturbate in an attempt to escape, just for a little while. It didn't work.
Nothing is working. Even the animals which I do love and know she did, which I will live under an overpass to keep rather than give up, have become almost a resentment to me.
I don't want to talk to anybody. But, I don't want to suffer in silence.
I don't want to see anyone. But, I don't want to be alone.
I don't want to do anything. But, I don't want to sit here and do nothing.
I don't know what I want anymore other than five more fucking minutes with her. And I despise myself for being a selfish son of a bitch for wanting her to continue her life of pain she finally left behind and so peacefully and gracefully, just to comfort me.
Someone. Please tell me. How do I find it in me to give a fuck what happens next? Tell me what it is I should even be thinking about that I've forgotten.
I suppose in one way, it was not a surprise. We'd been classified as disabled from 2010 and become largely housebound. We'd each been told that our life expectancy wasn't great.
But, life went on. We were pretty much pulled over into the slow lane, but it was just keeping on. We gave up our vehicles, and virtually everything else we could figure out that had any value, in an effort to keep our house. And then lost our house.
Day after slow day, we watched as people pulled away, caught up in the speed of their own lives, and we were left alone with each other and our "fur babies" as our only companions. Hours, days, weeks, and months ticked by with only each other for company (other than my forays on here).
Our children are grown. Hell, one of our grandchildren we've barely met is grown enough to have given us a great grandchild we haven't.
The day in question, I wasn't doing anything. Nothing really important anyway.
A while back, I'd discovered Literotica.com and eventually created the user Acktion and hung out here until we lost the house. In the move I'd lost the email and password for that user name. When I got around to getting back on, I created the user Ewobbit. When we lost electricity and internet for awhile, I couldn't get on here. Just this past July, when I was once again able to think about Literotica.com, I had forgotten Ewobbit's username and password. So, I created a new one.
All three times, I've been much more interested in writing (for some definitions of writing) and publishing my stories (for some definitions of story), but I didn't completely ignore the forums. (Except the GB. Made that mistake once, and that was enough.) Mostly, I hung out in the AH and HT and HTCafe.
That fucking day, I was sitting here typing away on what I was hoping might be a story to submit for Halloween in between cruising the threads while I waited for her to wake up and tell me how she wanted to spend our time. I have absolutely no idea what time she faded away. In my ignorance, I was just happy she was finally able to get some rest as she laid there less than three feet away, on her side so that all she would have had to do was open her eyes to see me sitting here. Her favorite sleep position.
It wasn't until six o'clock that evening I thought she needed to eat something and moved to wake her. Only to find her cold and stiff.
It was the exact nightmare I've had for a long time now. That she would fade away, just like she did, and I wouldn't even realize she was gone, just like I didn't.
Not knowing what else to do, I called the emergency services even though I knew she was long past any help. EMS came and left. The police came and stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Two hours later, they wheeled her body by me.
Her son (my stepson) and his wife came the next morning and stayed with me. Helped me to go through the small place we'd washed up in to collect the clothing that was hers and hers alone. To collect knickknacks and keepsakes I knew she would want them to have. They did all the laundry for me, including the sheets and comforter from the bed. They did all the dishes for me. It was good that they did those two things as, frankly, I really can't find it in me to give a shit about it. My method of dealing with the dishes and laundry would be to throw it all in the fucking garbage and do without.
They left on Sunday.
My elderly father and step-mother came to visit me on Monday for the entire afternoon. They shouldn't even be driving. Neither of them are in good health. But, they wanted to be here for me. I want to appreciate it, but the whole time they were here, I just wanted them to leave.
Until finally they did and I wanted them to come back so I wouldn't be here alone with my pain.
I finally slept more than 1-3 hours today for the first time since I found her. Normally, I'm just sitting here doing nothing. I get on the computer and try to find stuff, but close it again unread. I open a book, but even my favorites I often reread I just close and put back on the shelf. Movies and television shows... I can't. When I try, I look to her to make a comment or to see what she thinks and she isn't there.
A lifetime ago, I studied to be a counselor before I changed my mind and went another direction professionally. As part of it, I learned all about the grieving process and how to help someone grieve.
Or so I thought.
Those classes, those professors, those textbooks; all were so full of shit they should have been a world of brown.
Emptiness? God, I could wish to feel an emptiness inside me. All I feel is cold clawing fingers reaching inside me and shredding and squeezing and shredding and squeezing my heart in an alternating rhythm.
The only person who has ever seen beneath every layer of masks I wear and loved me, not despite but because of what she found there, is gone.
Intellectually, I know the answer is time. I know to get up in the morning to feed the dog and three cats. (Magic, the fourth, passed away in... June?) I know that I take the dog outside and scoop the litter box. I know to repeat the process in the evening before I lay down next to where she left me to try to sleep. Maybe that's enough. It doesn't feel like it.
But, honest to God, beyond that, I am completely at a loss. I don't even know enough to know what I should be thinking about doing that I'm not. I've had to rely on her for so long to tell me what to do when it was something she couldn't take care of herself as my memory and my mind weakened. The only thing like a job or hobby I had was writing stories or cruising the Lit boards. Other than that, my entire life was taking care of the animals, spending time with her, and doing what she told me needed to be done.
Many, many years ago, I was dual-diagnosed as a sex addict with codependency. (and yes, she knew.) Earlier this evening, I found myself trying to search porn and masturbate in an attempt to escape, just for a little while. It didn't work.
Nothing is working. Even the animals which I do love and know she did, which I will live under an overpass to keep rather than give up, have become almost a resentment to me.
I don't want to talk to anybody. But, I don't want to suffer in silence.
I don't want to see anyone. But, I don't want to be alone.
I don't want to do anything. But, I don't want to sit here and do nothing.
I don't know what I want anymore other than five more fucking minutes with her. And I despise myself for being a selfish son of a bitch for wanting her to continue her life of pain she finally left behind and so peacefully and gracefully, just to comfort me.
Someone. Please tell me. How do I find it in me to give a fuck what happens next? Tell me what it is I should even be thinking about that I've forgotten.