I’ve spent so much time telling you to shut up, I’m not sure I know how to listen to you anymore. You never have anything good to say, anyway. You are often the source of my depression. You are the reason for those times when my self-esteem takes a dive. You are the cause of all my worries. When I am weak, you rise up to kick me while I’m down. When I am strong, you try to take me down a few pegs. You are the source of almost all of the negativity I ever feel and often cause me great anxiety.

You tell me things like, “you are stupid,” and “you are fat,” and “you are a terrible wife and mother.” You add more and more helpings of worry onto any worry or concern that I might have, be it about my children or my health or my husband. You are incessant. You are persistent. You never stop. Which is why I have learned/am learning to tune you out. Almost nothing good ever comes from listening to you.

There are only a few things that I have ever heard from you that have slightly lifted me up. (It is so much easier to listen to and believe the negative than it is to believe in the positive.) They are that I am a good nurse, that I am good with kids and the elderly and that I am a good writer.

I need to learn to listen to the part of you that is good and right and positive and subdue the part of you that is mean and spiteful and negative. It’s a work in progress.

This is part of a writing challenge at {W}rite-Of-Passage, a community of bloggers who are looking to get back to the writing part of blogging. To join, click the link.

I don’t know what my job description is. The job title is Spouse of a Grieving Child. I’ve never done this job before. I didn’t apply for it. I wasn’t hired for it. I wasn’t trained for it. I have no idea what I am doing. So far, it’s the most difficult job I’ve ever had. It’s painful. It’s confusing. It’s frustrating.

In the days following his father’s death, Jason told me that he didn’t know what to do. He’s the eldest child and he feels like, somehow, he needs to step in and take his father’s place. Or at least take over some of the things that his father did. Things like helping my mother-in-law, Laurel, with jobs around her house. Or helping my nephew, Logan, with his Boy Scout projects. Or driving his sister, Steph, and her daughter, Sabrina, to the airport when they go to Chicago in February.

I feel like I facilitated these opportunities for him. I felt like that was part of my job. I told both Laurel and Steph that Jason needed them to need him. He needed to feel like he was doing something. At least that’s what I thought. I don’t know. I’ve never done this job before. But, I think it makes him feel better to be needed. I think it makes him feel better when he’s busy.

I’d be dishonest, though, if I said that I wasn’t worried. It may be selfish, but I’m worried that I am going to lose my husband. I’m afraid that I am going to lose him to his family and to his grief. I’ll still do it, this job as I see it, because it’s what he needs. I love him and I’ll give him whatever he needs to overcome or live with his grief. I will let go as much as I can without giving up.

I see the pain in his eyes. I hear the pain in his sighs. I don’t know how to take it away. Actually, I know that I can’t. It’s time…time is the only thing that will make it better. I know that he’ll always miss his Dad. All I can do for now is listen. And hold him. And wait. I’m learning. I’m learning to do this job.

This is part of a writing challenge at {W}rite-Of-Passage, a community of bloggers who are looking to get back to the writing part of blogging. To join, click the link.

I had a whole other post written for this challenge. Then something happened. At 12:49 this morning, my father-in-law, Jerry Miller, passed away. He had many health issues, but it was his heart that finally gave out. He had an arrhythmia that required him to have a pacemaker. He had congestive heart failure. New Year’s Eve, he went in to Urgent Care and they sent him to the ER because his pacemaker was repeatedly shocking him. He had to be repeatedly shocked with the defibrillator for the next several days. Probably close to 100 times. During most of those shocks he was conscious and they were very painful. He had been intubated* and extubated**. He had a central and femoral line*** to help with his blood pressure, which was, at one time, non-existent. We would think he was getting better and then, he would turn the other way. Then he would get better and turn back the other way again. The last time, it was a different heart rhythm that they could not shock. They could not get him back. Maybe it was just too much for his heart to take.

Last night, before he died, I saw something on a TV show that said that the best way to honor those we have loved who have gone before us is to live well. My husband and I made a pact at the hospital this morning, after his father passed, that we would honor his Dad by taking care of ourselves better and by living well.

That is my resolution. I will honor my father-in-law and my own Dad by taking care of myself and living well. Life is too damn short. You should feel good while you’re living it.

*Insertion of a tube through the mouth or the nose and into a patient’s lungs to help them breathe. Usually followed with mechanical ventilation which is the use of a machine to breathe for the patient. Commonly referred to as “on life support”.

**To remove a tube from a hollow organ or passageway, often from the airway.

***central venous catheteris a catheter placed into a large vein in the neck (internal jugular vein), chest (subclavian vein) or groin (femoral vein).

This is part of a writing challenge at {W}rite-Of-Passage, a community of bloggers who are looking to get back to the writing part of blogging. To join, click the link.