Then the Anger Hits…….

I spent weeks trying to just be normal. The trip to Colorado helped but what it also did was bring on a stage of grief that I wasn’t quite ready for. The anger. I am not an angry person. If you asked most people I am this quiet laid back fun loving girl. Not angry. Yet I was mad, I played my music loud and it wasn’t the nice loving music. It was angry and fast and while it wasn’t hate music, it was the music of how could you. What I did next was the most common mid life crisis thing anyone can do. I bought a sports car. Actually my dream car, a 2019 Camaro I bought it used but very slightly used. I bought black because Ed never wanted a black car, “too hard to keep clean”. I got both inside and out done in black, and a convertible. I have loved the Camaro for years. So I went and bought one. Let me tell you it was the most fun I had in a long time.

It was also the most dangerous thing I had ever done. Why because suddenly I needed to drive. I would have these anxiety attacks and instead of running, I would drive, and drive fast. In my town there is an old highway that leads to the next town. It is now rarely used and 95 percent of the time it is deserted. When anxiety hit I would drive that highway, at speeds that often reached one twenty plus. One day though I realized that it wasn’t anxiety, it was anger. I was mad as hell. I asked why God chose me, chose my children, my family to lose its most beloved person. I was met with silence and that silence was filled with my anger. I did this for weeks sometimes multiple times per day. I was short with friends, with family, and the anger just seeped into my world. Until one day…..

While sitting in my car one night after driving around for hours, I was checking out Facebook and there low and behold was an article done by a widow. She was telling friends what to expect and others what not to say, and other widows what was normal. What she wrote described me perfectly. It was as if she saw my life and wrote it down. Then it was the end of her writing that got me. She simply said “STOP.” Stop driving fast, stop chasing the feeling of being alive. It’s what I did, when I did dangerous things, it made me feel alive. What I really needed to know is that, doing that was NORMAL. My dear friends, if you have lost your spouse, your other half, it is NORMAL to chase the feeling of being alive. Some say it is because we feel guilty for being here without them. That is not the case with me, the truth is, I felt like I died with him. My identity was jerked right out from underneath me. Please don’t ever assume you know why someone is doing something, just ask them, they need to talk. If they don’t want to right then then keep asking. Just don’t judge them, and STOP telling them what they need to do or how they need to do it. Just give them the space to just be pissed. That is what I needed, space to just be mad as hell. Out there driving, I could be mad as hell without that rage being flung at an innocent person. The scene from “Forest Gump” comes to mind, where Jenny throws rocks at the old house. He stood there and just let her be mad, let her have and deal with her anger. Be Forest people it is that simple, and Forest was right, “sometimes there is just not enough rocks.”

Yet it goes deeper than just space, what I was doing was wrong and selfish, I was putting my life in danger, my kids deserved more than that. It wasn’t wrong for me to be mad, it was wrong to put my life in danger. My children do not deserve to lose both dad and mom. That is what the lady said after she said STOP. She was right. I have not driven like that ever again. I ask you if you are going through this, please STOP. No child or family deserves to have two great losses. Be mad, go out and throw rocks, find a safe way to deal with your anger please. Your life is worth so much more than a quick way to feel alive.

After that night, I focused even more on my running. It is what drove me, out there on the street I could find a way to just release the anger. I also started talking to someone and giving a voice to all the things I was angry about. And that person was able to help me work through that anger. It was yet again another way to grow and become a stronger woman, better mother, and friend. A part of me didn’t want to be angry or even admit that I was. I had to face that, death made me for the first time in my life deal with anger and actually give a voice to it. The old me would have pushed the anger aside and pretend everything was great. I was known for never speaking in anger, and swallowing those feelings. If I did people would tell me I was not acting like myself. Funny how I could control anger but I could not control fear. I now choose to not let either one control me. Do you see what happened? Because of death, I grew as a person. I let it do exactly what God intended it to do, mold me.

When I was in high school art class, we had an entire quarter dedicated to making clay pots. I learned that sometimes clay will crack and if the crack is deep enough you have to take out an entire hunk in order to repair it so that it won’t break once it is placed in the fire. Don’t you see? God saw a crack that just isn’t supposed to be there and as much as it hurt Him and me, he had to take that crack out and fix the pot. I am still being molded, and made into the person God has intended me to be. The why me has finally been answered, because I am strong enough to deal with the loss and still trust that MY GOD is in control and I will still have a beautiful full life, it just isn’t the one I thought I would have. I am watching God move, and he is a good God and I trust him.

Dee