Everyone grieves over a loss. A loss of a family member, a friend, and even our pets. We all handle grieving differently. Some may yell and scream, some may cry for hours on end or even days. Some may not show any kind of reaction at all. It’s different for everyone. I often wonder how much I will grieve over Clayton. I often wonder if I’m grieving over him right now. I mean all of this could have been prevented if he had taken care of himself years ago. So sometimes I wonder if I am processing his sickness just by knowing what is coming. Each day he gets worse. He is now struggling to breathe. Clayton stated that he feels like the cancer is in his lungs and it could very well be. Now understand that he has not seen a doctor but we are both certain that he has skin cancer and it is starting to be aggressive.
This man has put me through so much. I’ve cried so many tears over the way he speaks to me. He is very harsh when he speaks. When he is trying to teach me anything he is not soft spoken at all. He speaks at me not to me. I hope you all understand what that means. It’s like he is already mad at me before I’ve done anything wrong. He speaks to me like a child who isn’t listening. I don’t respond very well to that. I’m sure that most of us don’t. He makes sure to remind me that I have no common sense just because my idea or the way I do something isn’t the way he thinks or the way he does things. He makes sure to remind me that his ways are the only ways and are correct. If my phone goes off I get twenty questions. Who is it? What do they want? What’s going on? Is it something I need to know about? So I keep my phone silent and respond to messages when he’s not looking. He is now making me feel bad about what I cook for supper. Yet he doesn’t help buy the food or even give me ideas of what he wants to eat. Clayton has and can be very hard on me and it starts to take a toll on me.
A few weeks ago I was doing my morning devotion and unfortunately I did not write down the scripture but God really showed up for me. I know this may sound awful and I don’t mean for it to. But God showed me that I’m not grieving Clayton’s sickness or his death. I have come to terms with that. I’m grieving over my death. Clayton took so much from me! I was always happy and always ready to go places and do things, to help others. But over time he took those things. He never wants to do what I like to do, he doesn’t laugh when I’m joking around with him, he gets mad. I fell into such a depression that I stopped taking care of myself. I was bathing once a week. I had sores on my scalp from not washing my hair. I pushed God away, even yelled at God. It wasn’t until Rose started prek that I started taking care of myself. I didn’t want to embarrass her by going into her school smelling awful and nasty hair. I wanted her to be proud of me. Her starting school was the best thing for me. Since she has been in school I started showering everyday. I was able to get a job which helped me to start taking pride in myself again. I work from home now so no more makeup and my pj’s are my work entire. I still take a shower every morning to wake up.
There is a country song I don’t know the title or who sings it, but he talks about his wife who gets away with murdering him. He looks in the mirror and he doesn’t see the man he used to be. His friends recognizes him but he doesn’t. That song really hit me hard when I heard it. Like I could relate so much to it. I see myself in the mirror but I’m not who I used to be. And in some ways that’s good. I’ve grown a lot in my walk with the Lord. The Lord has shown me so much and our relationship is stronger than it’s ever been. I’m so thankful for that! But in other ways Clayton killed who I used to be. I used to wear makeup everyday, I was happy. I took pride in what I wore and myself in general. I’m just not that person anymore. And I pray and have set a goal that the day will come that I will revive myself! I will have happiness again, I’ll take pride in myself once again. Put on makeup even if I’m not going to town. I had a grandma who got up every morning no matter if she left the house or not and always put on full makeup and was dressed to the nines. She told me that you need to feel good about yourself no matter what.
I don’t have a problem with getting up and getting ready for the day. For me it’s the unnecessary nonsense that Clayton will say to me. Like “I don’t know why you’re getting all dressed up your not going anywhere” or he’ll start about me seeing someone that I’m trying to impress. Just dumb unnecessary nonsense. Instead of encouraging me to feel good about myself. So I have found that I just beat him to the punch. I know what he’ll say or do over certain things and I just want to do things just so I don’t have to hear it. That’s death by Clayton and must call it mental abuse and they are right. We should never have to change who we are for others. They should love us in-spite of our ways. And it’s not like my ways are harmful to me or other. I just want to feel happy again and love not only myself again but life in general. I know that the day is coming. I just have to hold tight to God and His promises.
