Tomorrow I am joining a 6 week support group on healing after the loss of a loved one.
I hope I can relate to the others attending. The Facilitator said I was a young widow so that was interesting.
The best part is that the group meets in Millsboro so I won't have to travel far.
I am also continuing to see Dr. G. She was so kind to attend Jim's memorial service and actually took some great pictures. I started seeing her again last week, mostly for a shoulder to cry on.
 I've been thinking a lot about Jim's and my relationship and how it had changed over the years.
 We started out as a dream, accomplices to fill the hole of loneliness which was in both of our lives. We loved each other so much that the flaws in both of us were not so obvious.
We laughed together, cried together,  traveled together, loved a lot, invested in a home together and never foresaw the future as turning out the way it unfolded.. It was not what I had imagined.
 First,  Lou becoming ill and being diagnosed as terminal was devastating, but what was more shocking to me was Jim's arranging for him to stay here, in our new home to die. I was in Baltimore assisting Jennie with her health issues while Jim had Jody and Prudence re arrange our living room so that hospice could set up a bed in there...What was he thinking?? A fully staffed hospital could barely handle Lou . He had to be restrained in bed, yet Jim thought he and Betty could manage this....and I was not even consulted...all I was told was that Lou was coming home...I thought HIS HOME which was/is less that 1 mile away.
But Jim liked to make things easy on himself without a thought to how it would affect me/us and our relationship. Thank God Lou passed away in the hospital on the day he was to be discharged..
 I have to confess that this episode was the beginning of deep anger on my part which grew to a resentment through the following years.. Jim drank heavily back then, and was at times verbally abusive and occasionally physically.
By the time Betty moved in with us (way too prematurely since she had recovered from her 1st surgery and was fully able to drive, walk the dog etc). I was really steaming. All the work was on me. I cooked, I cleaned  and entertained her while Jim went about his days spending time at the office and with customers.
I had no outlet for my feelings. The people I shared them with ie Jim, his daughters and Jody could not understand why I felt the way I did..."IT's Family", they said and I was a monster for complaining.
 I Rarely if ever saw any of them come to visit her until the month she died and Mikey brought her Sisters down to say Goodbye...Don't you know the girls showed up for the Photo Op...Go figure
Meanwhile  Jim withheld any affection towards me, holding hands,  touching , kissing.....I got nothing. I was becoming a shrew..I just let myself go ...what did it matter anyway...?
 When Betty became terminal Jim abandoned our bed to sleep on a cot in her room. After she passed, we never slept together again.
 Now for the last 5 years I have stayed by his side during his demise...it's been one thing after another..his hard hardheadedness, and lack of responsibility affected his life and his health. I watched him sit by and waste much of Betty's Estate from sheer laziness.
Our relationship became one more of dependence which I know he hated.and I at times I resented, but I was committed to him and tried my best to fill his needs. The Monday Morning Quarterbacks can think what they will but I did the best I could to live up to my post.
Recently I was reminded by none other than Prudence that "This is what we Sanders do, we take care of each other"...and I couldn't help wondering when and where did she ever take care of anyone but herself.
And Big Sister, who knows everything and cannot have a conversation with me without it turning into an interrogation, has clearly never liked me from day one so no love lost there.I overheard her on speakerphone one morning when Jim was up early . I lingered on the steps as she was relaying a litany of my sins to him regarding my care for him. That was really something to hear from a woman whose husband chose to die rather than live with her.
 Those 2 never made our life easier, and what they don't know is that Jim was on to them. He knew who Prudence was...her carelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, Joell, married into a family  which she chose over her own..Jim chose me to share his life and I did.
 The last few months had been smother sailing for us somehow. The wound was finally healing but then the C Dif became the major complaint, and NO Joell...it has nothing to do with cleanliness it is a bacterial infection.
Jim also became more affectionate...leaning over in the car and thanking me for helping him., and kissing me.
He also said he loved me on several occasions, and my heart is breaking now that he is gone and I know I will never see him again...Thank you Jim for sharing the last 20 years with me. I will always love you