Category: Grief Further Out

This is where I live now, in-between extremes.

A current life because of my past life. And an enthusiasm for it because of despair.

In one version of myself I have a beautiful life.

I have my dream career. I have outpouring support. A fiance who adores me and treats me like a queen. Four amazing children. I have hundreds of quality friends. A beautiful home and a new car. Peace.

I am surrounded by people who allow me to be me and love who I am. I live so intensely. I have never been happier.

But, then there’s this other version of me… where my life is plagued by hardship.

I am working towards my dream career, but I do so while I babysit an addict. I don’t have support, I am often ostracized. My children don’t understand what’s going on. Why are people talking funny? Why is there constant fighting? I have lost contact with many friends, I am too busy keeping tabs on my spouse. I think something bad is going to happen and I cannot shake it. I want a home but everyone is telling me its a bad idea. Our car keeps breaking down, it has no handles on the doors. We cant afford to fix it. Chaos.

I am surrounded by people who think I shouldn’t do anything, go anywhere, be anything. My ideas are shot down. My spouse dies. I have never felt such pain.

These polar opposite situations are both mine. One past, one current. One with addiction, one without. One with death, one without.

So since they are both me, it leaves me feeling split in half constantly. My life changed drastically in an unfathomable way. Then less than a year later, significantly changed again but in an amazing way. The second me is in the past but she still exist in the future. I can’t just rid myself of the hurt, but I do actively face it everyday so it is less.

Regardless of good or bad changes- they were both equally terrifying as it demonstrated yet again I control nothing.

Past me definitely tried to control situations:

I knew it was just my anxiety, Jesse would be fine. Right?…My thoughts of him dying were just worries. Everyone said anyhow.

Wrong. He died. Drastic change.

Then I tried to control current me without even realizing it:

I knew I would rot after his death, I couldn’t even breathe most days. I would never be happy again.

Wrong. I flourished. Drastic change.

With these drastic changes I have become one person with two lives. I still try to control things but these two events are reminders I really don’t control much.

My two lives are completely opposite. One is unhealthy and the other is healthy. They coexist since his death and it does feel weird, I am just getting used to it.

I never thought I would see flowers grow from cement, but they did. The cement and flowers both exist at the same time. They do not cancel each other out.

When I am in grief group and asked “On a scale of 1-10, where are you?”

I can reply “0 and 10” and I am not lying.

I am able to feel intense sadness; then almost immediately bounce back to pure joy. Prior to his passing, I generally just felt one group of emotions at a time (sad ones or happy) but now I can feel intensely sad and happy all within seconds. And you won’t even see my face change. I interchange grief and gratitude frequently.

When I go to widow meetups. I feel so lucky to call these people friends. But then I remember the price I paid to join that club. Very unlucky.

I am so proud of myself for creating one of the only, if not only, active widowed and pregnant support groups. But I had to sacrifice something so large to try and help someone else.

I love my line of work in personal injury and wrongful death (currently paralegal, when I get my license attorney). I literally get to use my pain to advocate for others. I DO know the despair they feel. I actually love that I know it so well, to me that means they will get authentic support and justice. When I advocate for them, in a way I am advocating for past me. When I was early in my grief and confused… disoriented, wishing someone had all the answers. Wishing someone knew what to do for me. It is the most bittersweet of feelings and opportunities. I get to be the guidance I desperately prayed for.

I love that I finally get to travel. My fiance and I took a trip to California. It was perfect. I had never felt the feelings of having no stress- but I did with him on that trip. I woke up every day so thankful to be there, to be able to see the beautiful scenery with my eyes. To live.

And then the wind blew a certain way around me, and my body sunk. And I stared into the valley. How is this fair…. Or even real? How am I standing here having the best damn time of my life… how am I the happiest I have ever been but you are dead? How is that?

That sounds disgusting when I read it back.

Truly.

But I am not happy because Jesse is dead, I am happy because I am alive.

I always heard the phrase “live like you were dying,” and I thought that was an appropriate way to live. But no matter how hard I tried to do that, I can easily say I never got close.

I had days where I felt the sun on me and was thankful to be able to feel it. Days where I saw leaves changing colors on the northern trees and thought they were breathtaking.

But I never had my feet touch the ground while I was mowing the grass and begin to cry. Cry because I was able to experience how they felt in dirt. I was able to touch a lawn mower and push it. I was able to feel desire to do a chore. I was able to physically move in the way I needed.

This gratitude I feel is completely different than how it used to feel, and I want to keep it. I love it.

I wanted to scream and tell people how lucky I am to mow grass. But obviously I would look insane, so I’ll just write it permanently on the internet instead.

But the gratitude is not without the grief. It always catches me with the worst timing. That’s what I mean when I say I can feel on top of the world and drowning in the ocean at the same time.

As I stand there and feel so lucky about whatever menial tasks I was given another day to do, it always directly juxtaposes itself to this ugly leech of a thought I have.

“Jesse is dead.”

“He didn’t get to do anything.”

It whispers to me every second of every minute. That thought is just another blink or breath from my body. It never leaves. It is thick permanent black marker etched in my brain.

“He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

A relentless silent sound.

I often hear we “carry” grief with us forever, but the word carry implies I can put it down. I can’t ever put this down, not even for a second. It’s a permanent extension. It has just become natural.

I experienced the slavery of grief and was able to turn it into the freedom of joy. Some days I am a prisoner and other days I am liberated.

It is an abnormal normality that leaves me feeling ambivalent. I love what it gave me but hate it for what it took away.

For now as I go into a third year of grief, this is how I feel. It changes. It ebbs and flows. What I say today may not make sense or be relevant tomorrow. It does as it pleases.

It doesn’t matter though.

No matter how much cement it lays down the flowers will always find a way to stay.

Credit for photo above: https://viola.bz/plants-that-never-give-up/#google_vignette

Dear Heart Recipient, 

My name is Rochelle and you have my husband Jesse’s heart. 

Jesse and I started dating when I was 18. We were together for 13 years and reside in Florida. In those 13 years prior to his untimely death, we had four children. One of which I was pregnant with when he passed.

Jesse was known for being a good father, above anything else. He had three daughters and one son. His two older girls he treated like princesses. He spent an hour at night tucking them in and would play dolls with them whenever they wanted. With his son, he built STEM projects with him weekly. It is still my son’sfavorite thing to do, but it’s different now. He would have adored his last daughter, I know it. 

It has been difficult without him. It is hard to give that same attention to the children that he gave. It is even harder to see the pain in their faces and know I cannot do anything about it. 

I became a solo mother and widow at 30, this isn’t really how I planned my life. Writing this letter isn’t something I thought I would ever do, yet here I am. 

I figured it is important to tell you whose heart you have. Jesse was a property manager. He loved video games and writing. He loved movies and especially critiquing those films. He was an excellent cook. I suppose you could say he was a jack of all trades. When he did decide to do something, he made sure it was done perfectly. He was also well liked. Everyone loved him and he had no enemies. I know that is often said about people when they pass but it was true for him.

He didn’t have much as in money or material items, but he was always the first to give what he did have away. I remember one time when we were younger spending our last $10 at a Burger King for lunch, he picked up our order, only to instantly walk away from me and give his food to a homeless man outside. He did that all the time. Another time it was his sandals, right off ofhis feet. He really took the phrase “I will give the shirt off my back,” quite literally. 

First it was food, then sandals, then a whole heart. 

When I was asked in the hospital if we should donate his organs, I was reluctant. The truth is, I am on the sad side of this. Agreeing to donate his organs was surprisingly painful. It feels like betrayal. My immediate emotion was no, I had to protect Jesse, I couldn’t let someone do that to him. But within a second, I changed my mind. This wasn’t my choice- it was Jesse’s, and he had made it very clear to me to donate everything he could. So that’s what we did.

The timing was interesting, poetic almost. It was Christmas Eve for us when we walked him back to the operating room. His family was with him and we all cried as he was pulled away from us at 11:50 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Then we had to turn and walk away. I looked at my phone as I exited the hospital in disbelief… 12:00 a.m…. and I said Merry Christmas to you, in my head. 

Luckily, I have a close friend who’s father received a donated heart. She was able to tell me her side of it, as the donee. She told me how it changed her father’s life and that he got a second chance to live, which he does to the fullest. I see his photos and I can see the gratitude and joy for life in his family’s face. I am happy my friend’s father gets to spend more time with her and his grandchildren. 

I am happy for you, that you were able to continue living and do whatever it is that you enjoy to do. 

My hope is that you will respond to this letter. I would love to know who has my husband’s heart. I would love to know about you, but I also understand if you are unable to respond. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this. 

Sincerely, Rochelle

Today you have been dead for one entire year.

I am living this reality but I still don’t really believe it. My brain has tried to convince me I made you up and I magically jumped from being 18 to 31. Any evidence in between isn’t validated by the person who saw me every day.

You have missed out on so much and I often spend a lot of time grieving all of the things you can no longer do. Big and small. So I did my *favorite thing*, and made a list:

1. You missed Chloe’s 11th birthday.
2. You missed Wren’s birth.
3. You missed Oraia’s 9th birthday.
4. You missed Raiden’s 7th birthday.
5. You missed The Office, I know we tried to watch it and didn’t get hooked. But I finally watched it and it’s hilarious. I think you would have loved it.
6. You missed me shoving coffee grounds in your face on Saturdays and telling you to smell them.
7. You missed seeing who came to my rescue when I lost you, I was surprised at who came.
8. You missed seeing who abandoned us, I’m not sure if that’s so surprising.
9. You missed the kids swimming with fish and stingrays. Discovery Cove is such a cool place.
10. The hotel had a lot fun things to do too, like a giant chess set.
11. You missed Raiden having a melt down at Sea World. We stayed for 20 minutes and left. It was crazy. Our child wasn’t happy at a theme park.
12. You missed one of our children’s new medical diagnosis. It sucked to hear. I cried. It sucked dealing with your death and then shortly after being alone and hearing this problem alone.
13. Meki got married. I went up to Georgia and was one of her bridesmaids. It was a nice night.
14. Sarah got married too. It’s crazy I ended up having so much in common with her.
15. You missed us getting a fence. Remember how bad we wanted one? It’s the one I wanted- not the one you wanted, sorry.
16. You didn’t get to see my law school headshots. They came out really nice. I know you would have thought they were so cool.
17. You missed Wren’s first word. It was dada.
18. A bunch of Marvel movies came out, I think you would have liked some, you also would have critiqued them.
19. You missed playing Dungeons and Dragons. Cool stuff came out. I wish I could get it for you.
20. Kim and I set up your desk. You never got to use it. You would have loved it- all of your D&D books, figs, paints, lights, tools. Its so cool. But it just sits there. Empty.
21. You didn’t get to tell us the end of our D&D campaign. We will never know what happened.
22. The kids finally saw mountains.
23. They also explored Savannah and ate at a pirate house.
24. The kids went to an apple orchard in the Carolinas.
25. Biden became president. You don’t care much for politics but you didn’t know the outcome.
26. COVID died down, but then kinda came back.
27. The kids also saw a waterfall.
28. You missed dressing up for Halloween.
29. You missed Thanksgiving, I did all the cooking.
30. You missed New Years. We still got Chinese food but it was really quiet.
31. You missed our annual Summer party.
32. I wish I could tell you that I’m dating Scott. You would never believe it. He is really awesome.
33. I actually broke my phone for once and had to get a new one. So not like me.
34. Your co-worker is really awesome too. Hilarious actually.
35. You cant use Fabuloso on the floors anymore, that was your favorite cleaner.
36. You missed bacon.
37. You missed all of those horrible foods you like. Like gas station chicken wings. Gross.
38. You missed cooking. No more gourmet eggs or whipped coffees. Certainly no more beef Wellington, that one is too hard.
39. You missed sleeping in bed with clean sheets.
40. You missed us getting a bigger, more reliable car.
41. You missed taking the car in to be fixed. That’s not fun, but it doesn’t matter. Life can be very vibrant and you aren’t here for any of it.
42. You missed sitting in a theater.
43. You missed seeing our older children take care of Wren. I was so hurt the other day realizing you never saw Raiden as a big brother.
44. You missed all of Wren’s outfits. I dress her just like I said I would. I put the biggest bows on her head. It is ridiculous.
45. You missed seeing Wren in ads. It never gets old.
46. You missed Kim’s birthday. It was 3 days after you died. I don’t even think she remembered it.
47. You missed your friends. They all miss you. So much. I got so many messages. You were important.
48. Trevor Moore, from Whitest Kids You Know, died. Many deaths Im indifferent to honestly, but that one stung. Another piece of us, gone. That show was great.
49. You missed taking down the Christmas decorations. I left them up almost an entire year.
50. You missed doing Christmas cookies.
51. You missed me writing publicly. I finally did it. I thought I’d write about world topics, religion, politics. You missed that I write about grief and addiction.
52. You missed getting family photos done. They came out nice, but it was weird to do it alone.
53. You missed running. Cardio sucks. But you can’t run. You can’t move. It’s just nothing.
54. You missed joining a gym with me.
55. You missed eating healthy.
56. You missed eating.
57. You missed Wren crawling.
58. You missed Wren eating her first food.
59. You missed Wren.
60. You missed me thanking you for my Christmas gifts. I still haven’t opened the espresso machine but I hope I can soon.
61. You missed me getting the floor tiled. That nasty carpet is gone. It looks so much better and is so much more functional with 4 kids and 4 cats. When the carpet was removed I cried when I realized last second that I’d never see the stain you left in it from your coffee.
62. You missed your nephew being born. You would have been elated. He has so much hair.
63. You missed Chloe going to middle school.
64. You missed all this new music I found. Yes it’s a bunch of indie stuff.
65. You missed watching anime with me. I think you would have liked Re:Zero, or Junitaisen.
66. You missed me returning to my old self and not putting up with bullshit anymore. Honestly it’s one of the positives.
67. You missed me failing a class. Yep I actually failed one finally.
68. You don’t know my new friends, the widows. I have a lot of them. At first I thought I was some unique anomaly but now that I’ve surrounded myself with death its so normal to me. I’m normal.
69. Did you know we were on the receiving end of a charity? Man that doesn’t feel great let me tell you. I’m glad we have them but I always wish I could be on the giving end.
70. I wish you could see how important you were. I think it kills me that your inner voice convinced you that you were worthless. Why did it do that? I wish you could have seen your kids without you. They need you.
71. You missed me getting everything you said I needed, that you couldn’t do. Just basic things. I’m sorry you were right and I hate that for you. I still don’t understand why you, and others like you, could not overcome your sickness.
72. You missed Scott taking care of us. A decent amount of people think it’s disrespectful but I honestly can’t think of a better alternative. You would want that more than anything else.

There’s so much more than this. These are just things I came up with quickly.

Every facet that you are missing that goes unaccounted for. It’s overwhelming at times.

I still do not feel as though this is real. Maybe I will soon.

I don’t have much reflection after a year besides the fact that absolutely nothing matters, in reality. Nothing really matters. But it also matters a ton.

Very confusing to be stuck between two extremes.

But that’s where I live now, in between extremes. I am the happiest I have ever been. I am also the saddest I have ever been. I just carry on through my day like this.

Extremes.

So far today I made it to the gym. I’m writing this on the treadmill. Pretending to be normal.

But I actually feel like I’m wearing a bright neon shirt that says:

“HEY EVERYONE MY HUSBAND DIED TODAY LAST YEAR! YEP TODAYS THE DAY! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT EITHER!!”

But for some reason everyone is blind. So no one can see this shirt but me. But I swear im wearing it. At least that’s how it feels.

I think that’s how it feels.

When people think of a personality disorder I think they think of a moody woman that isn’t stable. That’s what I thought anyway.

That’s only a small portion of them though. A personality disorder is really just an observation that the person isn’t “meeting societal norms.”

They are different, literally. Sometimes this amounts to good qualities, sometimes bad.

So I have one of those. It’s called obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) and it is NOT the same as OCD. OCD is generally something that is created later in life, I’ve had mine since I was born. In fact, a lot of people in my family do whether they want to get help for it or not. Also people with OCD recognize their behavior is off whereas people with OCPD generally do not. I didn’t, until I met Jesse. Jesse helped me a lot with this. I am glad he helped me work through it.

I was pretty upset when I was told by my doctor I had that. Who the fuck wants a personality disorder!?! But Jesse simply said it was more of a superpower than anything else.

So here’s what it is (via iocdf.org)

1. Rigid adherence to rules and regulations.
2. An overwhelming need for order.
3. Unwillingness to yield or give responsibilities to others.
4. A sense of righteousness about the way things “should be done.”

There’s a lot more to it than this, but this is a basic outline to what it is. Listening to the rules doesn’t sound too bad, but it is when you obsess over them and create your own. It’s bad when thats all you think about. Or you work a 20 hour day to meet the requirements of how things should be done and refuse help.

So for me, my sense of righteousness is an obsession with morality and honesty, hence my blogs on killing myself and sleeping with Jesse’s friend… and now my medical diagnoses. To me righteousness means being as candid as possible because that is how people progress. Think about it, anything that has ever changed was because of someone speaking up, not being silent. Because of someone telling the truth even when no one wanted to hear it or agreed. Doing the objectively right thing is something I always obsess over also. Popular and right are not the same. I have learned though that sometimes an objective right is hard to spot.

I do not like, but have had to, let others help me. I prefer to do tasks my way. Catch me on a bad day and I might be upset about how someone folded a towel. Do it perfectly or don’t do it. I don’t delegate many tasks out because I do not trust that it will be done correctly. I only delegate tasks if the person has “proven” to me that they don’t cut corners. So far this leaves my daughter Chloe and my friend Stephanie. Not a long list of trust going on.

Things must be in order. Chaos is horrible. I prefer things to be consistent and pretty much predictable. I want to stick to a schedule. That schedule is usually intense also. When I only had one child, part of our morning routine was to learn words in Mandarin and Spanish. So ridiculous. Who has time for that. Not me.

For the most part, I also like to follow rules. I love rules. This is probably why I love law. There is a caveat to this though, rules do not trump morality for me. At my Catholic law school we are told over and over a law that is not just is no law at all. This is a simplified version of what Thomas Aquinas said and I fully agree. Laws must be just. If they are not just, they should not be laws. So morality trumps listening to every rule, unless it is a just rule.

It is also an obsession with perfectionism and control. Two things I have clearly failed at.

Keeping Jesse alive? Fail.

Keeping Jesse sober? Also fail, but win, but fail, but also win, win, win, win, fail. Oh that’s right, *reminder to self* I do NOT have control over that.

I have applied my principles of morality/perfectionism/etc. to everything in life and it’s very clear if you look at things I’ve done.

Such as:

• Commute to and from my home to my undergrad college (University of Florida) which was an 8 hour round trip twice a week with a small child and pregnant. I did this for 2 years to earn my bachelors.
• After all 4 C-sections (From age 19-31) I have been back on the move, either to work, school, or soccer practice within 4 days of surgery.
• Going to law school with 3 little kids and a husband in an active nasty addiction. Spend countless hours running a house, taking 18 credit hours, and figuring out how to get Jesse sober (more to come on this). All of this and I would still occasionally make the highest score on exams out of all 97ish students.
• Continuing law school 2 weeks after Jesse died, giving birth in the middle of the semester to a fatherless child, and only failing one class.

You get the idea. Sometimes people say to me “Wow that is so impressive, how do you do it?” and I just want to reply “Thanks! It’s personality disorder.” But I also don’t want to scare them so I remain quiet.

My personality doesn’t allow for rest, to me that is imperfect. That’s another reason I am in therapy because being a workaholic doesn’t help anyone (but it also doesn’t kill anyone so stop blaming me for Jesse’s death lol). This standard I only apply to myself, not others. I am actually understanding of others to a fault. This is why I was able to love and live with a bipolar addict for 13 years. He had so much good in there.

Jesse and therapy helped make me a little more balanced, but also it’s inherent. Which means no matter how hard I try those things in my personality just kind of stick even though I try to water them down.

So what does this have to do with grief?

Everything.

Grief has “rules” to get better. These rules give some sort of control over grieving. Sounds good to me.

So I looked up the rules to recovery. The things I needed to do if I had any chance of not rotting away to nothing, and literally did as many as I possibly could. Even if it met it hurt (note: they all hurt). Because for months I woke up every morning questioning why I am still here. I wanted to just stay in bed and not leave it. Not go take care of the kids. Alone. Again. And again. And again for eternity.

Every one had their normal life but mine was fucked. No one saw Jesse enough besides us to hurt 24/7. They could pretend. We couldn’t.

I should have caught on early that I was trying to “win at grief,’ but of course I didn’t. I almost didn’t even publish my website because I knew I’d have spelling errors. I literally just had to say “Fuck it. That’s stupid Rochelle. Just publish it.” You aren’t a perfect person get over yourself.

I am about to do another list, which is a major red flag of OCPD, see the trend here? I am obsessed with list.

How do you objectively “win at grief”? Well first I had to read everything I could get my hands on from self help books to Japanese poetry on death, every article I could find, speak to every widow I could talk to and here’s my list my OCPD came up with:

1. You need support: This doesn’t mean for a day, it means for months with a reassurance of forever. Support is being able to say “Damn this hurts” and people tell you “yes it does I am sorry.” Not diminish or try to make the pain prettier. It also means that the griever needs to also be able to recognize that support looks different from everyone. One of my attorney friends supported me by helping me fill out my BAR application, but she probably wouldn’t have done so hot watching all of my kids and a newborn. My mom isn’t even a widow yet, so she had no advice, but she could help with Wren really well. People can help, it just needs to be in a way that makes sense to them too.
2. Get a good therapist: This one is hard. I luckily had already found mine. But consistent therapy helps figure out what is going on, what has happened, and what may happen. Having a plan and knowing what you are doing is normal is extremely important. My therapist and I are currently discussing how everything could crash at any given moment and what would lead up to it.
3. Read everything: All of my severed relationships only surprised others, they did NOT surprise me. Any grief book essentially tells you how predicatable all of it is. So with that information you should work to be aware and prevent. If no one wants to meet you half way then cut ties.
4. Make yourself do things: I hated this one. My therapist told me I had to do this. I barely would even shower, but he wanted me to go get my nails done? Ugh. No. Luckily I had an awesome friend that didn’t really ask my opinion she just booked a massage for me. I had to go and it helped.
5. Protect your energy: Advice from the same friend. If it’s depleting your mental health get rid of it. There’s no more time to waste. If you feel uncomfortable, sad, angry do your best to pinpoint the cause and eliminate it. Cleanse yourself of bad habits and damaging people.
6. Talk/Write: I see so many widows say “oh my God, so this is weird but…. Is that normal??” I’ve never seen a “no thats not normal” answer. Its kind of like when you see a funny video and you thought you were the only one who did that but it turns out everyone did. So speak up. While we are all unique we are also incredibly the same. Don’t be afraid. Just say it.
7. Let yourself feel things: Be angry. Be sad. Positive vibes only aren’t real and they suck. Sometimes you have to have other emotions. Just don’t take them out on others.
8. Organize your life: All those silly things we hear over and over again like exercise and eat right? Do them. Make a schedule. Plan out family game nights and stick to them (however much of your family isn’t dead, invite them over).
9. Improve everything around you: I’ve always liked doing yard work but now I find “projects” to do outside. Mulch an area, garden, clean the garage out. Inside my house is the same. I do not have a brand new house so there is always something to work on. Improve people around you by helping them if you are able to.
10. Do things you wouldn’t do: I pretty much said fuck it and just came up with more “chores” for myself. One of these was publishing a blog. Another one was making Wren a TikTok and IG account where I focus on her life, travels, outfits. It’s like another hobby and distraction for myself. Also, I figured since I couldn’t give her a dad I may as well give her somewhat of a privileged life. I am trying to so that with all the kids, within reason.
11. Do what you want: Widows are judged no matter what they do. So just go do it. If it makes you happy screw everyone else. You already went through the worst thing.

By giving all these “tips” I am in no way trying to be a grief coach. I’m simply writing out what has helped me thus far. This is the list that my compulsive personality came up with and if I do all these things I might be perfect at grief. (Obviously not true, my mind just thinks I have control over everything).

Grief isn’t linear. So while I am doing better as I write this I could also relapse and be right back at square one. Grief just blows. But since I’ve been doing a little better I figured I’d take the opportunity to talk about my OCPD and how it impacts my grieving.

Oh.

And I figured I’d mention the OCPD because if I have to start getting into the reality of addiction, unhealthy family dynamics, abuse, suppression of traumas and all other things that aren’t too great, I should probably explain my problems first.

Which I don’t mind doing.