Christmas 2009

My second Christmas without my husband. The first year alone is behind me, the traditional year of mourning. It was also a year of much uncertainty as we struggled to come to terms with what had happened and was happening to my husband.

Christmas was a very quiet Christmas this year. Each family celebrated alone with extended family from the other side or with friends. No big piles of gifts to be opened, no noisy visiting and laughing, no big piles of food to be prepared and devoured - we had brunch at the nursing home, came home for tea and visted with friends over tea and supper and all went home early. This morning we went back to the nursing home for coffee and a late breakfast, my daughter and her family went shopping and I came home to a lazy afternoon reading the paper, listening to music and then reorganizing the camera pictures taken in 2009 and updating the memory card for my husband's digital frame.

After the stresses of the last years, my sense of self is returning. I am now free to reestablish the connections with my own background, to be myself, to "do my own thing" in a way that I haven't had the freedom to do and be for many, many years. I am happy to reclaim the things I grew up taking for granted and have missed. It won't be the same as it was because I am different but I expect it will be better because I don't take it for granted any longer. I always knew I would go back when I had the opportunity, and so did my husband, which he seemed to begrudge me but also envy. Very strange! Why not appreciate and enjoy our differences instead of resenting them? Different is - just different - not necessarily better or worse. We learn more from our differences than from our samenesses, but too many people find differences threatening. Life is always interesting; always something new around the next bend, another new year coming, new experiences, new friends, a new life. My year of mourning has come to an end; it's time to live again.

The Hand of God

Somedays are worse than others. Memories come flooding back and almost overwhelm one with sadness. And then something unexpected happens and you are reminded of the hand of God reaching out to you when you most need it. Yesterday was one year since my husband left. My uncle, my mother's brother and the only uncle I have left, phoned to wish me a Merry Christmas and thank me for the Christmas letter. What a delight to hear his voice.

Today was one year since we buried my husband's sister and admitted him to the hospital. This morning a longtime friend of my husband's family from Alberta phoned to wish us a Merry Christmas and update us on her family news. What a lovely way to start my day. After dinner I went over to visit my husband but as he was absorbed in watching "Miracle on 34th. Street", I went downstairs and was wandering around when the chaplain came along and asked if I would like to go for coffee. She was a former student of my mother's and comes from my church background. Our coffee stretched into an hour as I talked through the difficulties of the last years and I knew it was no coincidence that we met in the hallway at that moment.

This day is almost at an end and I am ready for a new beginning. I have done what I could for my husband and it is time for me to move on and build a life of my own. Visiting the nursing home will still be part of that life but not to the extent that it has been. My life is elsewhere.

Looking Back/ Looking Ahead

Today is the beginning of a new year for me; the beginning of my second year alone. As I look back on our almost 44 years together, some things were good and some things could have been better. I married to keep my family, my husband married because he wanted family and that aspect of our marriage was good except that my husband found it difficult to accept my daughter as his own and she found this very hurtful. He also made it more difficult for me to maintain close contact with my first daughter because she was uncomfortable around him. He no longer stands between us because he is not at home with me.

My husband also married because he wanted his own social life. That turned out to be defined as people from his own background, church and family and tended to exclude people from my background, church and family. For years I maintained those connections alone and now they are what sustain me. My husband's church family is in crisis and his birth family has died except for one sister who dropped us shortly after our marriage.

My husband's family's opposition to his marriage made our life more difficult than it should have been and destroyed the trust that should be part of every marriage. Because he could not trust his mother, sisters and brother, he was also unable to trust his wife and so I never felt sure of him. That was too bad and quite unnecessary but that seemed to be the way that family operated. We also had financial difficulties during the first ten years of our marriage but eventually that also stabilized.

My husband was not one to express his thoughts and wasn't interested in hearing me express mine and so our relationship often left me feeling lonely. He seemed to me critical of many of the things I valued, my ethnic community, my church, my education, my taste in music, even my taste in clothes. Being critical was another trait that his family seemed to embody. Since my mother was a critical person, I was used to it to a certain extent, but also very sensitive to it. Now, my critics are gone and I can be myself, whatever that means.

That's the past and I am glad to be able to put it behind me. I now enjoy long evenings reading, listening to classical music and look forward to travelling in the future. I am reconnecting with friends and family and think life will be better in the new year for me than it has been for many years. The last four years particularly were a bit of an endurance test but I'm still here, and hope to be here for a while yet to enjoy - and just be!

O Christmas Tree

For 44 years my husband and the children decorated the Christmas tree with occasional help from me. This is the first time I have ever decorated my own tree alone and so I had to think about "What did I want?" New concept so I went out and bought new decorations and decorated a tree to my taste. My grandchildren enjoyed looking for all the new decorations and next year, I'll get some more special decorations. Christmas will never be the same again and although I don't look forward to Christmas this year, maybe at some time in the future I will again.

It's a year today since my sister-in-law died and set in motion the series of events that brought an end to my married life and changed life for me forever. My husband has forgotten that it's a year since his favourite sister died; he was more concerned with the fact that he hadn't won a prize in the beard growing contest which was judged at the nursing home today. He also wanted his beard shaved off as quickly as possible because he found it irritating. He no longer remembers one day from another or what date it is. His life is measured by events at the home, coffee social, wine club, church, sing song, bingo, movies, breakfast, dinner, supper, bedtime. He says he is happy and glad to be where he is. I am glad for that. My life doesn't concern him unless I miss his teatime too many times and forget to bring his cookies. His life has taken on a new rhythm. Mine is coming together more slowly but my life's opportunities are broadening instead of narrowing so that takes time to work through. In four days, it will be a year that I have been living alone. In times past, a year of mourning for a loved one was considered appropriate and then you took off the black armband, put away the black clothees and started to wear colour, dance and go out again. We no longer mourn openly because no one wants to be reminded of our grief, but the mourning still goes on inside.

Maybe the new year will be different, and better. This new way of life is becoming more familiar and more comfortable. Day by day, the shadow of the past is lightening and the future seems brighter now.