Home Sweet Home -- Options For Housing Alternatives

For some reason, people think that becoming a widow and moving go hand-in-hand.  I'm not quite sure why this is, but it's one of the most common questions asked of a newly widowed person.  In fact, someone once joked that maybe realtors and funeral directors network off the same list of people.

I guess the questions, "When are you moving?" or "When are you selling your house?" are asked so often because people may be nervous about what to say around you so they end up blurting out questions like these.  Or maybe the questions are asked because it's hard for them to imagine that someone would voluntarily continue to live in a place they once shared with someone who is now gone.  Either way, newly-widowed persons are usually counseled to wait at least a year before making any life changing decisions, such as housing arrangements, unless financial circumstances dictate for them to do otherwise.

Unfortunately, finances can drastically change after a death in the family.  When a spouse dies and the other person cannot afford to maintain the current housing arrangement it is a double dose of sadness.  When this happens, the person who is already in the throes of trying to deal with the emotional ups and downs of losing a loved one then gets hit again by the reality of their new financial circumstances.  They have no choice but to move from the place they know as home, the place where they lived with the deceased person and shared a life.  Talk about stressed out!

Where to re-locate and live after a spouse's death is a dicey subject because you already feel vulnerable and the future is unknown.  Choosing among the options of independent living, assisted living or continuing care communities is not simple.  If there were only a Guide Book For A Happy Life where you could look up this kind of situation and it would give you the answer.  Wouldn't that be great?

I think it comes down to you deciding to do what you think is best for you and your particular needs.  Depending on your age, whether you work or not, the ages of your children, if you have any, your hobbies and interests, you have a lot of things to think about if you are considering a move.  Other options could include an invitation from your grown children to come live with them, or a move to a senior community to socialize with your age group and take advantage of the additional health and medical resources.  Of course, if it's at all possible, aging in your current place of residence can also be a very desirable goal.


Sibley Hospital/Widowed Persons Outreach Seminar on Options for Housing Alternatives

Presenter: Deborah Rubenstein, MSW, LICSW; Ms. Rubenstein is a clinical worker, attorney and Director of Consultation, Care Management and Couseling Services at IONA Senior Services, a community organization dedicated to supporting people as they experience the challenges and opportunities of aging.  She has over 15 years of experience as a geriatric care manager and psychotherapist working with older adults and their families.

When:  Wednesday, May 18, 2011 @ 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM

Where:  IONA Senior Services, 4125 Albemarle Street, NW, Washington, DC  20016 (one block from the Tenleytown/AU Metro Stop on the Red Line; http://www.iona.org/ or 202-895-9448.

Fee:  No Charge

Contact:  If you are planning to attend, please contact Ken Gordon, President, Widowed Persons Outreach, by email: kengordon@alum.mit.edu

Finding Your New Voice

I'm probably one of the last people to see the Academy-award winning movie, "The King's Speech," in a movie theatre before it goes to DVD, so please bear with me while I applaud this special film and what I learned from it.

This incredible movie tells the true life story of England's King George VI and his unexpected ascension to the throne; all the while desperately working to overcome a painful stutter.  The story works on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin but I think the story itself is so human and would still be powerful even if it were about George the Common Man instead of George the King of England.  You don't have to be royalty to be abused by a nanny, have a bad relationship with your father, or be made fun of constantly by an older brother.  These are just some of the emotional issues that contributed to George's stuttering and they could happen to anyone.

What "The King's Speech" shows us is George's constant courage and the friendship that develops with his extraordinary speech therapist, Lionel Logue.  By building up George's confidence and trust, Logue guides and coaches him until George eventually becomes a more confident public speaker thus finding his voice and leading Britian through a world war.

The idea of finding your voice is what stuck with me after seeing the film.  Finding, discovering or changing your voice at any time in your life is not an easy task but especially after the loss of a loved one.  Don't let the degree of difficulty intimidate you or stop you from trying.  Just as George plugged away at overcoming his stuttering, the work of grieving also needs to be done.  Yes, it is hard and yes, it does hurt but pain is part of the healing process.

Putting it off, trying to tamp it down within yourself or ignoring the pain will only make it worse.  Acknowledge the pain or it will come back to you at some point.  You have to know that eventually you will have to deal with it and resolve it in some fashion.  Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes.

Doctors now conclude that unresolved grief can surface years later as mental health difficulties, headaches, eating disorders or drug and alcohol dependencies.

Essentially, when you become widowed, you too are trying to find a new voice for yourself.  Much of your identity and routine were intertwined with your spouse and it's very hard in the beginning to know where to start.  In my case, I didn't have the luxury of trying to figure out which way to go.  I needed to keep working and I needed to raise my son.  So that was that and those two things took up all of my energy.  Every day was a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and just doing what needed to be done.

But for other widows and widowers whose children are raised and grown, I can see how hard it would be to try and figure out your new voice.  As one newly-widowed woman said, "Even though I was doing the same things as before, such as grocery shopping, everything was different; I was now only shopping for one.  In fact, when I tried to go to the store where my husband and I shopped together, I found that it was too difficult.  I had to change to a different supermarket in order to better care for myself."

Everybody finds different sources of support and you will too.  It could be through writing a journal or writing a letter to the person you loved and just lost.  Grief support groups are another important resource and can also be helpful.  By sharing feelings with others in the group, you learn you are not alone and others are also struggling to rebuild their lives.  You may also find that being with a particular person or people is soothing and helps you feel more connected.

 You will know what works best for you and in time, just like George, will find your new voice.

Two Special People

My thoughts today are filled with two special people whom I love very much.

One of them is in the hospital and is scheduled to have a surgical procedure today.  I wish I could be with her to hold her hand, tell her how special she is and how much she means to me and so many other people.  My prayers are with her as the doctors do their work to make her healthy again.

The other person, my husband, would have turned 80 years old today.  Happy Birthday O!  I know you are  in heaven  and I hope you're having a Boodles martini up with your birthday cake...or maybe it's a plum wine shooter with a creme caramel. . .

To Party Or Not

This year I have had two large parties at my house...and to my surprise, I have enjoyed myself.  One was for a family member who was celebrating a BIG birthday and the other was on New Year's Day for my son and my best friends.  This may not sound like a big deal -- but it is.

With the exception of family events that happened after my husband's death, I haven't been ready to celebrate anything or plan for a party that would take place just to have fun.  In order to give a party, you have to be ready to enjoy yourself and the people you are inviting to the event.  You have to care about what they are going to eat and drink, what music you are going to play and what you're going to wear.  You have to be engaged in life; ready to do the emotional work of moving forward and doing something different by yourself. 

It can be scary but I am finding that it's worth it.

For the past few years, I have been using all of my energy to put one foot in front of the other and deal with the nuts and bolts of life: solving problems, carpooling, paying bills, going to work.  You have a different perspective on things after you have lost a loved one.  Things that you might have thought were the end of the world aren't anymore because you know what the end of the world feels like.  At the same time, things that you previously might have thought were wonderful really aren't that great because you are reminded that your loved one isn't there to share it with you.  So you sortof stay in neutral to protect yourself and just deal with life as it comes at you.

People would visit us and my son's friends would hangout but I didn't really look at what the the house looked like. I wanted it to look just like it did when my husband lived there.  I kept it clean and made sure that everything was pretty much in the same place.  I had no inclination to paint, move anything around or replace anything.  It was just there.

I can't tell you how long this went on but one day I just walked into the house and I knew it was time to change things around.  Not in a drastic way, as in a renovation, but more in the subtle way of knowing that it's okay to paint a room or change a picture or move the furniture.  The feeling was similiar to when we first bought our house and I remember how worthwhile it felt that with each room we cleaned and changed it became more our house and less the previous owners. 

Almost in the same way, I felt that everytime I changed the house from the way that it was when my husband was alive was a change that in some way minimized the memory of him and I didn't want to do that.  It took me awhile to understand that it's okay to make changes to the house.  I slowly came to the realization that I wouldn't have kept it looking the same if he were alive, so I shouldn't feel bad about changing it now that he is no longer living here.

My husband and I used to have a lot of parties when he was alive and I miss that very much.  But I can't go backwards so I choose to embrace the blessings I now have in my life.  It feels good to once again open up the house and welcome family and friends.

Look To This Day

 

 

Look To this Day

By Kalidasa

 Look to this day:

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendour of achievement

Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day;

Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Searching For Memories

The whole world is watching as the Japanese rebuild their lives with quiet diligence.

News reports show incredible pictures of houses ripped from the earth, cars piled on top of each other and even the concrete tsunami walls built for protection have been broken up and easily tossed aside.  And then there is the nuclear issue...The enormity of the human and physical devastation in Japan as a result of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami is difficult to comprehend and just seems endless. 

But one man in particular stands out for me.  I recently read an interview with this Japanese man, who asked to be called by his family name, Kikuchi, and his sentiments immediately struck a chord.  Through his shock, he was saying that we, as a larger human family, really do have so much more in common than we realize.

"My daughter is missing.  She is gone.  I was up in the hills above town and couldn't get to her in time," he said in a Reuters interview.  "I am looking for something that can remind me of her.  There must be something here," Kikuchi said as he continued his search through the broken-up wreckage for any little piece of something that might belong to her or remind him of her.

The primal need to connect to someone loved and lost is an emotion that touches everyone.  No one can take away Kikichu's memories of his young daughter, but his desperate search is for something more.  He wants physical proof of her, something that he can hold, perhaps something she once held, to reassure him that she will not be forgotten.

Sometimes you keep a possession that once belonged to a loved one because of what it evokes.  It's not really about what the object is.  It's about how the loved one used the object and how it reminds you of how much you cared about that person and how much you miss them.

When my Nana died, I wanted the small metal oblong telephone directory she kept by her bed.  To this day it reminds me of her because all the names, addresses and telephone numbers were written in her distinctive handwriting and no one else had anything like it.

When it was closed, the cover had a vertical list of the alphabet on it.  Beside the alphabet was a piece of metal that was shaped like an arrow and it was on a track so you could slide it up and down the alphabet.  Once you picked the letter you wanted, then you pressed a bar at the bottom of the cover and, presto, the directory would open.  It's a precious memory for me.  In my mind, I still see my sweet grandmother in her lavender bedroom picking it up and using it.

I also talked to a young mother I know about this need to connect through a loved one's momentos because her mother died when she was a teenager.  She immediately knew the emotion I was trying to explore and proceeded to tell me a story about how she and her father were cleaning out a closet a few months after her mother's death and they found a raincoat that belonged her mother.

They both thought they had gathered all of her mother's clothes so the raincoat was a total surprise.  She said her father just stared at it and didn't say anything but she immediately grabbed it and wanted to smell it to see if her mother's scent was still on the material.  The best thing, she said, was when she put her hand into the pockets of the raincoat and she found some balled up kleenex.  "I put them in my hands and closed my fingers around them as though I was holding my mom's hands because my mom had held these kleenex at one time and I just felt closer to her."

Let's think of Kikuchi in his time of sorrow and hope that he finds something that belonged to his dear daughter; something he can hold close to his heart. 

Stop All The Clocks. . .

Someone you love has died. 

 

Everything around you, people, conversations, situations, the Earth, even life itself, feels like it has suddenly stopped. 

 

To me, this moment is very similiar to being in a car accident.  After the screeching brakes, the moment of impact, the shattering glass and the crush of metal hitting metal, there is an eery silence; a tingling in your ears. 

Your eyes see but what you see doesn't look real; your ears hear but what is being said doesn't make sense and you can't seem to get your breath and breathe.  Nothing is computing and your brain is shutting down because you can't seem to process what is happening.  You might even feel that you have separated from yourself and are outside of your body watching yourself from afar.

You immediately want to go backwards.  Take me back to an hour ago, take me back a half hour ago, take me back 5 minutes, take me back 1 minute.  I don't care how far you take me back, I don't want to be in the present time.  I remember looking out the window of my house the day after my husband died and I was really surprised to see people walking around and cars traveling up and down the street as if nothing had changed.  Everything outside appeared normal even though it wasn't for me.

That is why the W.H. Auden poem resonates with so many people..."Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone..."  It might be tempting to follow your gut feeling while you are in the midst of new grief but I found myself most comforted when I reached out to people I trusted with my vulnerability.