A few Mother's Day thoughts, and a few tears courtesy of Rowan

Influences

I have been significantly influenced by two mothers during my life: my mom and Rowan's mom (Aimee). My own mom, who will tell you that going to kindergarten saved my life, was an incredible mentor to me growing up. She was also an example of monumental patience. She knew what kind of adults she wanted her children to grow up to be, and she stayed the course of getting us there through our childhoods (despite some SERIOUS setbacks along the way). And like all good mothers, she is still very much a mom to this day, a point so beautifully illustrated to me after Aimee died. I 'wanted my mommy', but I didn't necessarily want to say so. Turns out I didn't have to, as my mom showed up the morning after we arrived home from Florida, and stayed with me for the next five days.

I could not begin to list all of the things I learned from my mom in one place, but if you know me and think I'm even remotely likable, you can thank my mom for that.

Aimee's influence on me was over a much shorter period of time, but still extremely significant. She had rock-solid ideas about how she wanted to parent (and she expected me to agree with her, whether I did or not!), and she held true to her convictions. She also displayed amazing patience - not as much with Rowan, who was and is a great kid, but with me, who was a slow learner as a father. Just a few of the things Aimee taught me about parenting:

• How to interpret different behaviors from children.
• How to effectively redirect undesirable behavior.
• How to effectively use rewards to modify behavior, without turning it into a system of constant and escalating bribery.
• Build a solid relationship with her now, so that she'll be far more likely to listen to what I have to say when she's older and trying to find her own way.
• And perhaps most important in the aftermath of her death, she had shared with me some pointers she learned when she'd gone through a class on helping young children deal with trauma and loss. A couple of times, these tips helped me tremendously with helping Rowan process her feelings, and I still use some of them today.

For many reasons, I owe Aimee a serious debt of gratitude.

The Rowan Effect

Rowan got to me twice today (Mother's Day), once at the beginning, and once at the end.

Normal weekend practice is for me to try and squeeze as much time in bed as possible, so I'm always still in bed when Rowan gets up. As always, she climbed into bed with me this morning to cuddle, then needled at me until I agreed to get up and make breakfast. But just as I started to move, she dropped me with a question out of the blue:

"Daddy, when you're in bed at night, do you get lonely with Mommy gone?"

Immediately I recalled in my mind how I got into this horrible sleep pattern that I have now: staying up til 3-4 am until I simply could not keep my eyes open anymore, because I could not stand going to bed and thinking about Aimee. I missed her terribly all the time, but it was most acute in the still quiet of bedtime. I missed our gentle teasing of each other, the long talks, and the incredible intimacy we shared. It was, in a word, agony.

"I used to miss her a great deal, but it's better now, " I said. "It's like a lot of things in life, sweetheart. It might be hard at first, but after a while-"

"You get used to it," she finished for me, sounding much older than her now five years of age.

"Yes, sweetie, you get used to it."

With that, she turned and went downstairs.

Fast forward to her bedtime. As I was tucking her in, I asked her "Rowan, with all the Mother's Day stuff, have you been thinking about Mommy today?"

"Yeah," she answered. "I've been missing her all day."

"Yeah, me too."

"Hey," she said, handing me one of her laminated photos of Aimee, "Will you make Mommy talk?"

"Sure."

"Mommy!"

Me, as Aimee: "Hi Rowan!"

"Guess how old I am!"

"Are you still 4?"

"Nope, I'm FIVE!"

"Wow, you're getting bigger all the time."

"And Mommy?" Voice much softer now.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I miss you. I wish you could come back and visit sometimes."

"Oh, sweetie, I wish I could do that for you."

Rowan, voice now cracking, "It's just that I miss you so much, and I wish you were still here."

Luckily, she chose this moment to hug the photo, because I couldn't speak. I was choked up, and tears were in my eyes. And once again, I battled against hating the people whose collective negligence led us down this road of pain, especially for the sake of my precious and innocent little girl.

Please, value the mothers in your life, be they your own, the mother of your children, or what have you. Don't just appreciate them or thank them, but really pay attention to the strength and wisdom they share, because you never know when you may need to call upon it in your own life for yourself or those around you.

Girlfriend

So, I've decided to share the news... I am seeing someone.

For now, I plan to protect her privacy by not sharing a lot about her, including her name. For now, let's call her "Sandra". But here's what I will tell you:

It's going well.

Sandra is beautiful, smart, and funny. She is a very warm-hearted person doing speech therapy work in an elementary school. Sandra is fully aware of my situation: of how I lost Aimee, that I write this blog (she doesn't read it), and that I still have very close relationships with Aimee's surviving family members. In fact, she's very supportive of that. We've been together about six months now, and although it's still early, I am cautiously optimistic about where this might go.

I have also started to slowly introduce her and Rowan, with the three of us occasionally doing activities together. That part is really weird, because although I am used to being with her when it's just to two of us, adding Rowan into the dynamic feels like I'm betraying Aimee just a little somehow. Intellectually I know better, but it's still weird.

You see, when we're all together, I sometimes try to imagine a possible future where we're a family. And I see this analogy where our family was a three-piece puzzle, with each person - Aimee, Rowan, and I - were each one of the pieces. Together, our three pieces created an image of our family. Then one of those pieces was suddenly gone, and our family looked a lot different. It took some time, but I was able to reach a point of acceptance of how this new family image appeared. But now if I imagine Sandra's piece fitted in where Aimee's used to be, well now that's a whole new family image, and that one will take some getting used to (if we get to that point).

For now, I am enjoying getting to know her, and beginning to watch her and Rowan get to know each other. It's all a bit surreal, and weird, and fun, and sad, and many other things as well. But one thing I feel very sure about:

Aimee would want this. I have not a second's hesitation about that. Aimee would want us to move on, build new relationships, find love, and round out our beautiful family. Maybe Sandra is that piece, maybe not. But I know I am doing the right thing.

Turbulence

Whenever I have to travel and Rowan doesn't come with me, she goes to stay with grandma. Such was the case for the trip I'm currently on. The night before I left, Donna came by and picked her up. It was a bit of an "off" good-bye for us, as both Rowan and I weren't feeling well. But as she walked across the porch she looked back through the front window and smiled. I blew her a kiss, which she caught on her cheek. Then she blew one back, which I caught on mine. It's one of our little rituals.

Fast forward to the next day. At one point during my flight, we hit some fairly serious turbulence. As a general rule, turbulence does not bother me. I understand the difference between being jostled around by unstable air, and an aircraft being in trouble (although I've thankfully never experienced the latter). But some things are just different now, since Aimee's death. And simple things like turbulence aren't as simple to me anymore.

As the plane bumped around, my mind wandered into decidedly unhelpful territory. What if one of these times it wasn't turbulence, but a real emergency? What if I died in a plane crash? I just kept remembering that last exchange with Rowan through my front window, seeing it over and over again. Would she remember that exchange if I died today? Like I remember waving good-bye to Aimee as she left for her scuba trip?

This wasn't the first time I've had these kinds of thoughts since Aimee's death. I've gotten more - for lack of a better word - paranoid about my safety. Not for my sake, but for Rowan's.

It's unsettling.

If we think about it, we all know just how fragile human life really is. That fact punched me in the face on December 18, 2011. But it's not just Aimee's death. We see it all the time in the news (such as the bombings in Boston this week), stories of people dying in accidents, or storms, or any number of causes. Aimee's accident just brought it home to me in a very personal way. And increasingly over the past 16 months, I've become more wary about my own odds for surviving through Rowan's childhood.

Make no mistake, that is now my number one goal in life - seeing Rowan to adulthood. Seeing her get married and have children would be a nice bonus.

I don't know if this is normal for people who've lost someone suddenly, to have this heightened sense of your own mortality. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of feeling like this.

Back to Florida this week

Although I haven't really spoken/written about all this, there have been some legal implications of the incident that took Aimee's life. While I am still not really at liberty to discuss that part of this situation, I will say that on Friday I have to go back to Miami for a deposition. Now get ready for the understatement of the year:

I am not looking forward to it.

Although I considered going to back to Florida last year, possibly to do something to commemorate the one year anniversary of Aimee's death, I eventually thought better of it. I just have no desire to set foot back in the state of Florida, period. Yet I will be forced to back, and very soon.

I have a mixture of feelings about this trip in general, but the part I may most be dreading is going through that airport again. I remember my two trips through there in December 2011 very clearly:

December 12, 2011. We're exhausted, just having come off a red eye flight from Seattle. But we're also excited. As Donna, Aimee, Rowan and I make our way to baggage claim and then to the rental car counter, we're feeling an odd mixture of crankiness (from lack of real sleep) and anticipation of the week ahead. The weather is sunny and warm, and the whole vacation is ahead of us. As we begin to discuss a plan for getting breakfast, we settle into the joy of knowing it's going to be a fantastic trip...

December 20, 2011. Donna, Rowan, and I retrace our steps from eight days previous in reverse, and in somber silence. The pain is so heavy and thick it sits on us with a tangible weight on our shoulders, and threatens to smother each of us. Aimee's suitcase, filled with her clothes, makeup, jewelry, shampoo, and other personal effects, drags behind me like a case of lead. We see places in the airport that we'd been just eight short days before - the bench at the car rental counter where everyone waited for me to get the car, the escalator where Rowan got scared and blocked it until I came back up - and the huge difference in mood punches me in the stomach. Far worse than that, I can't shake this terrible guilt of leaving Florida without Aimee, like a soldier who's left a fallen comrade behind to be taken by the enemy. I feel like a failure as a husband and a father, even though logic tells me that's not the case. 

Getting through that airport and getting on the plane home was very likely one of the hardest things I've ever done, and it took every ounce of strength I had.

Now I have to go back through it again.

I'm not staying in Florida for long, that's for sure. I fly in on Thursday, my deposition is on Friday, and I fly out again Friday night. I'd sure appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Good news

Recently I found out that Caroline (Aimee's sister-in-law) got some long hoped-for good news. While I'm not at liberty to share what the news is, I can say that all of us are extremely happy for her. And as I reflected on this latest development in her life, I came to a startling realization.

Aimee's sister-in-law
Caroline

It's a miracle she's even here at all.

Her good news is a reminder to me of how close we came to losing two members of our family on December 18 (for those that didn't know, Caroline was also on the boat that day). And there were six other people on the boat as well, including two members of the crew, any of whom might not have lived if things had just even the tiniest bit differently. In fact, another passenger did  almost die, and apparently had to be revived with CPR.

I don't spend a lot of time wondering about the "why" of it all. That's not always for us to know. But Caroline's great news is a reminder that sometimes the "why not" is even more important. Why didn't anyone else on the boat die that day?

As a firm believer in God, I have to believe that Aimee's work here on earth was complete. (I vehemently disagree with His perfect wisdom on this one, but I'm not going to win any arguments against The Almighty.) But for the others on the boat that day, their work here on earth is obviously not done. There is more for them to do, and hopefully their second chance is not lost on them (I know it's not lost on Caroline).

I got my own second chance when I was 17. I was in a horrific car accident that most people didn't even know about. Car was demolished. I crawled out without a scratch, and the driver only had a scrape across his cheek. Due to the specific circumstances of that crash, I most certainly should have died, and a number of laws of physics were broken in order to have the outcome we had. As a dumb teenager, I had no idea how miraculous that was at the time, but I've realized it since then.  And I know that it has helped shape my attitude towards life and my fellow humans. I was kept alive for a reason.

Caroline, my sincere congratulations on your good news. I can't tell you how glad I am you're here to have this moment.

Caroline also has a blog that you ought to check out. She's a far better writer than I am.

Aimee's Missing...

The big news in the Rhoads household this week - Rowan lost her first tooth! She'd been excited about it ever since it first started to wiggle, and on Sunday, in the middle of eating her cereal, it came out (and was immediately swallowed, causing no small amount of consternation on her part). I had to assure her the tooth fairy would still reward her for the tooth, even if it was M.I.A.

Rowan showing off her missing tooth

But this event, like many others, deeply underscores Aimee's absence. Every single time Rowan does something really cool or passes another key milestone in her life, I miss Aimee all the more. "She should be here for this" is the common refrain running through my mind. Aimee would be so proud of all the things Rowan has accomplished in the last 15 months:

• Moving from crib/trundle bed to 'big girl' bed
• Being weaned from using pacifiers
• Finishing her first year of preschool
• Starting ballet classes
• Starting to learn to read and write

And more I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment.

And that's just the beginning. Rowan turns five years old soon. For some reason, that number seems like an especially big deal to me. I wish Aimee was going to be here for it. Next fall she starts Kindergarten. In the next year or so she'll read her first book, learn to ride a bike, and so many, many more things.

Aimee will miss every single one of them. And that is just not fair, for any of us. 

Changes

So, I do have a few more posts in the works, but wanted to let everyone know about an important change I recently made to this blog as it relates to being able to post comments.

When I first started this blog, I made people sign in or register to make comments, but changed it soon after to allow 'anonymous' comments to be posted. The idea was to make it easier for people to post comments to my blog. However, that has started to backfire.

Over the last few months, I have started getting FLOODED with spam comments, all including links to outside web sites (gambling, shopping, etc). I finally got tired of the incessant email notifications and cleanup of comments, so I changed the settings once again to make people have some sort of sign in when they comment.

I know this will prevent some people from being able to (or wanting to) post comments, but I hope you will all forgive me for adding the extra hurdle. It just got to be too much of a pain.

Look for a new post some time this week...

Grief for guys - the toughest stretch...

Note: This post took me MONTHS to write, rewrite, rewrite, etc. I'm finally only somewhat happy with what it expresses. If it seems a bit disjointed, that's why. But I'm tired of working on it, so here it is.

So it's well known that men and women process grief differently. I mean, men and women pretty much do everything differently, right? So what I'm about to relate will probably have some truth ring to it for men (at least, if they're honest), and maybe not so much for women.

For me, the hardest stretch since Aimee died started in about February of last year, roughly 2-3 months after her death. The shock and numbness had worn off. A new routine had kind of settled in, requiring less deliberate thought.

And I got lonely.

I mean, really lonely. "Desperate" is the word that comes to mind.

My response to this was to decide that I wanted to begin dating again. As in right now, if not yesterday. I even joined a dating site to begin meeting people. I didn't care that it had only been 2-3 months. I didn't care that I was still in a lot of pain over Aimee's death. I needed companionship, and I needed it now.

Let's just say, it didn't go very well.

In all, I only ended up meeting two women for coffee, and I didn't see either of them a second time. I quickly realized that being with someone else might make me feel better on the surface, temporarily, but that if I pursued anything more serious, people were probably going to get hurt. I just couldn't do that.

The bottom line is, these experiences did nothing to make me feel better about my loss. It was a horrible few months, and it only got better slowly. I missed Aimee so badly, but her being with me wasn't an option, so I wanted someone, anyone, else. Luckily, I suppose, that really didn't work out. But that doesn't mean I didn't want it to work out. Like I said, I was desperate, and in a lot of pain.

By June, I had begun to feel a little better. I was still terribly lonely, but I was getting more used to living with it. Plus, summer was starting, and more sunshine always improves my mood. I put the idea of dating out of my head for a while, and focused on trying to enjoy the summer and the activities Rowan and I could do now that it wasn't raining so much.

I began this post describing the difference between men and women in grief. I did so because over the last year I've checked out a number of other blogs by those who've lost spouses, and they're all by women. And they pretty much all seemed to have had absolutely zero desire to begin seeing other people during the first year (or even several years). Or at least, I didn't see where any of them talked about it. They did express loneliness, but not a desire to alleviate it by getting back into dating. These women seemed to prefer to stay focused on the grieving process without getting involved in a new relationship, and do so for quite a bit longer. Men? Well, to be blunt, we're weaker and we want another woman in our lives because they'll comfort us and make us feel better. And let's face it, some men can't really take care of themselves or their kids nearly as well as their wives, either. I'm not being critical, it's just a fact in many families.

(Gladly, I take GREAT pride in being able to function at a high level on my own in regards to running the Rhoads household. A partner to help me would be awesome, but I don't need a wife to help me.)

For some of the guys who do move on quickly, it doesn't always necessarily turn out to be a bad thing. I have two good friends who lost their wives, and my mom is friends with another. All three were remarried within a year. And by all accounts, all three seem to be happy and have good marriages with the women they married following their spouse's passing. Before Aimee's death, I might have been a bit surprised that someone might move on so fast. Now, I totally get it. If things had gone a little differently for me, that might have been my road as well.

I am thankful now that it wasn't.

PS. I think this fundamental difference leads women to often be very disapproving of men who do jump right back into dating after losing their spouse. I think they see it as tremendously disrespectful to the late wife. Trust me, it's not our intent. We're just in unbearable pain, and only know one way to address it. I'm not saying we're right or that women are wrong - I'm just explaining the difference.

The end of Missing Aimee?

I started this blog on December 19, 2011, the day after Aimee's tragic death. At first it served two distinct purposes:

1. Share information about what happened and what was happening to anyone who was interested, without me having to repeat myself constantly, and
2. Give me a way to express what I was going through and feeling in a way that was helpful (therapeutic) to me.

As time went on and the readership of the blog seemed to take on a life of its own (over 82,000 page views of this blog to date), I realized I was connecting to people who didn't know Aimee or me, but who were finding something here that they needed. It has been an incredible honor to think I may have somehow helped other people in their dark times with my own pain. And that in itself was wonderfully therapeutic as well.

I haven't shared everything I've wanted to. Legal issues have kept me from writing about certain topics that I would have liked to have covered. Specifically, I wish I could have shared more about what I know and think I know about what happened on December 18 and what led up to it. I'd love to name parties involved, and talk about who I think should be held accountable, and why.

But I can't.

So with about thirteen months having passed since Aimee's death, I'm left with less and less to say that's new, or in my estimation, useful to anyone else. I continue to miss Aimee, sometimes with so much pain that I even now still cry (that has never gotten easier to admit publicly, but I try to keep this blog as honest as I can). Rowan still has, and probably always will have, pain and loss from the death of her mommy. It's a long journey for her, because as she grows and understands her world in different ways, she'll feel her loss in new and ever more painful ways. I believe there will always be a 'primal hole' in her life from now on. Nothing I or anyone else can ever do will fix that. She'll have to learn to live with it.

As for me, my own journey is changing. Dating and 'finding a new mommy' are part of the next phase of my life. I miss being married, and hope to have that magic again someday. And I would love to find someone with whom I can share life's joys and pains, as well as someone who can share in Rowan's accomplishments and milestones. I want someone in Rowan's life as a role model, and with whom we can model a healthy, happy relationship for her so she knows what she should be able to expect/demand when it's her turn.

I suppose I could write about the adventures of dating as a widower with a child. Possibly there might be some use in that for some readers navigating (or thinking about) that way themselves. But it doesn't feel right to me to share that type of stuff, especially as it involves another person. Dating should be private, so I think I'll keep it that way. I could also write about single parenting, but I suspect there are a great many blogs out there that do so already, and probably better than I could.

I do have two more posts I've been working on for a long, long time. They've both been extremely hard to write, and they're still not quite done. The topics are pretty raw, as are the emotions they bring out in me. But I hope to publish them both within the next week or so. After that...

I may continue to add posts from time to time as new information becomes available about events of December 18 that I can share. Or if new feelings, emotions, or other pitfalls come to me that I feel the need to share in this forum. But otherwise, I think the time has nearly come for me to begin to close this chapter.

Stay tuned for my last couple of posts...

Go On

I recently discovered a new TV show: Go On. I'll get to why I bring this up in just a moment.

First, basic info: It's on NBC, Tuesday nights at 9. But of course I don't watch it then. I DVR it, and then watch episodes when I get to them. The main star is Matthew Perry (of "Friends" fame), a cocky sports radio show host who - get this - lost his wife, and he's in a therapy/support group to help him through it. The show is a sitcom, but there are certainly some poignant moments.

And by now you probably have guessed why I've decided to write about it here.

As a sitcom, it's not bad. And clearly their audience is not widowers - that's not a big enough audience to make a prime time sitcom successful. But there are moments, sweet moments, where Ryan (Matthew Perry's character) remembers things or shares things about his wife, and it really resonates with me. There was an episode where he imagines she's there, and he talks with her for just a few moments, and I wished so hard (for not the first time) that I could do that - make Aimee appear in my head and just... talk to her.

The episode I watched tonight showed another member of the group, who'd lost several members of her family, at her teen daughter's birthday party. Someone asks her how she remains so happy, despite all of her loss. I forget already exactly the quote, but it goes something like this, "You can laugh, or you can cry. I choose to laugh." I know how she feels, but I also know how brutally hard it is to make that choice to laugh, especially early on. In fact, it was impossible for quite some time.

Anyway, I think it's a decent show, and I recommend it. And if you've ever lost someone, you might find a few gems thrown in.