There's so much I want to say that I have no idea how I'm going to get it all out. So I guess I'll start with a kind of itemized list.
-My husband died of a "probable myocardial infarction" sometime around the end of May/beginning of June, 2012. I wasn't home at the time and my older son found him, after I'd been unable to reach him for several days.
-The reason I wasn't home was that I was at my younger son's place, (literally at the other end of the country!) having returned his dog to him that my husband and I had been taking care of for a year and a half. (Long story there I'll get into later)
-Said dog was put down in early October after having seriously bitten a person.
-Right now, I'm back at my younger son's, wanting very much to go home. (Much more to say about that, too)
-It's my late husband's birthday today.
I discovered "The Grieving Room" roughly two weeks ago, having come into DK via some action posted in Facebook. I've been reading the comments posted there, but kept missing Mondays, until last night. I discovered then that I was unable to do anything; not start a diary, not post a comment on anything, and I didn't understand why. Upon inquiring of support, I discovered I'd gotten caught in the spam filter. Now, obviously, it's fixed, but I was pretty frustrated last night!
Those who have suffered a recent loss will understand how hard getting through today, my husband's birthday, (having lost him a mere nine months ago) is. A friend of his created a memorial page on Facebook for him, (with my blessing) which I've been pretty much doing all the admin of (more and more so as time has passed) for awhile. I've invited people to an "event" on FB to share memories and thoughts in honor of my husband's birthday, and several have responded.
I must say that one of the great gifts he left me is his incredible networks of friends, both in the dance community (he was an accomplished social and folk dancer and had performed in an amateur Scandinavian folkdance group which performed at area festivals, for nearly 20 years) and in the vintage SAAB auto community (he had been a SAAB mechanic in the '70s, when those cars were new, and provided his expertise online to other SAAB fanatics through Yahoo groups and other association web resources with a nationwide and even international reach).
I have felt truly blessed to have had an ongoing level of support that many do not have available to them. I frankly find this amazing, as I am an introvert myself and my personal circle of friends and family I see as pretty small. But, even with all that, losing him and dealing with the aftermath is tough. I'm looking forward to successive Mondays in the Grieving Room to share and commiserate with those who are also coping with losses.