Widow Brain and Feelings of Guilt

~~Reflecting on Year One~~

My husband’s death catapulted me into a different world. A world of darkness, heartache, and great uncertainty. We had been married for 22 years and were a team that ran like a well-oiled machine. I’m not saying that our marriage was perfect but, for the most part, it was pretty darn close to it. After losing him, I was lost. I didn’t know what to do. There were so many times I wanted to ask him for his advice. Wanted him to appear and talk to me, maybe in a dream, I don’t know… I felt abandoned and alone.

I thought about him all the time, every second, it seemed. I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t read books anymore, I was lucky if I could read a few sentences or a very short article. Often I had to read something twice or three times before I grasped the content. Remembering things was a problem—and still is. It was almost as if my brain had died along with him. I suppose that’s what they call widow brain, widow fog or griever’s fog. I couldn’t even watch TV for almost a year. Just couldn’t.

All I could do was think about him, going over and over in my mind about what we perhaps could have done differently. What I could have done differently. Should I have went to more doctor appointments with him to hear things for myself? Should I have explored or requested a different kind of treatment? A different treatment facility? Was I a good enough wife? Did I do all I could to help him through radiation and chemotherapy and all the gruesome side effects? Was it my fault somehow that he died?

Of course, it was silly to even think that any of it was my fault and that the outcome could have been changed. It was cancer. Lung cancer. But these questions consumed me for a long time. And even though I was able to function sufficiently in day-to-day life, mostly by faking it and going on autopilot, I wasn’t really living. I was stuck in some kind of foggy nightmare.

Slowly it got better. I started to find little moments of joy in life again and my ability to focus improved. Life is pretty good now and I’m grateful. But my brain just isn’t what it used to be —and I wonder if it ever will.