In my head, I knew that my husband was dead when I approached him in front of the shed. Accepting that reality, however, would take days, months, years.
But this blog is not about the acceptance part…it is about the bargaining. For me, bargaining set in pretty quickly and often. I wanted him back. My head knew this couldn’t happen….it wouldn’t happen…but my heart…my heart…kept trying.
I wouldn’t throw out anything of his and he had a lot of stuff that I didn’t need. I wanted to hold on to all of it. Getting rid of any of it was like getting rid of him….again and again. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to hold on to everything. I was drowning in his stuff. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t him. It was his stuff and it was alright to get rid of what I didn’t need or want to keep. I sometimes still struggle with the getting rid of the “stuff”.
I wanted to believe that if I had done something different, it would have changed the inevitable outcome. Try as I might, reliving the day and trying to change things in my mind about the events would not bring him back. But, boy, did I try.
One particular evening, I was having a few too many drinks and was arguing with him about dying. I “told” him….well, if you are not going to be here with me…I am going to find someone who will. Apparently, I decided to take action that night. I signed up on several dating sites (which ended up being a total disaster). It was like I expected Bob to get jealous and come back to me. Obviously, that did not happen.
Like Teresa, I turned to food often and I now am working on losing the weight I gained during this period. Bargaining is just our way of trying to “correct” the tragedy in our lives that cannot be corrected. It is part of the circular, twisted path of grief that we all must walk through. My hope for you is that you don’t get tied up in this part of the journey and that, if you do, you seek the assistance you need to allow you to move further along.
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May you lean into your bargaining and be aware of it as you journey through your own grief,
Teresa & Jeni
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