widow problems – Running Forward…My Way

Alternate Title: Why the Media is trash.

There was a saying that my late husband used to say- just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should do it.

I tried explaining that to my daughter when she was two when she told me that she can eat play doh. She didn’t agree with that statement.

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I have been noticed a disturbing trend on media.

I have noticed that certain media outlets (I am looking at you @newscentermaine and @WCVB ) have been publishing people’s recovery stories (which is great) but they are showing photos of the people intubated as the featured image.

Now, one of those stories was a grown man and I would assume that he gave consent to use his photo. But…then I come back to…just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should.

The second story featured a child, too young to consent. I usually don’t judge other parents, but I side-eye that. Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should.

My late-husband was hooked up to a ventilator for 5 months.

That is not a writing mistake.

Not 5 days. Not 5 weeks.

5 months.

So before anyone gets all Karen on me, accusing me of being a Karen, I am going to kindly point out that I am sure there is only a very small portion of the population that can fathom what it is like to have a loved one on a ventilator for 5 months.

If you have had a loved one on a ventilator for 5 months and you think I am whining, then feel free to call me out.

I have no pictures of Bryon in that situation. He was a proud man and I know he would have never wanted a picture of himself in that situation, broadcasted on social media.

The only picture I took in the hospital room was this. One of Bryon’s best friends and his girlfriend sent this for his room.

I do wonder about people who do that with their loved ones. What is the purpose of doing that? The only thing I can come up with is for attention? I hope I am wrong because that makes me sad. Maybe education but you can educate without showing your loved one hooked up to a ventilator. Maybe they just want to torture themselves in the years to come? (Seriously, if you took a picture of a loved one hooked up to machines, I’d love to know why. Because I don’t understand.)

I also didn’t take a picture Bryon like that because I was tormented enough with seeing him like that in real time. The image will forever be etched in my memory. So much so that when he was actively dying, I was scared that that was how I was going to remember him.

In the past four years, I have never once thought “I really wish I got a picture of him attached to the ventilator….”

What would I even do with a picture like that? Put it in my blog for shock value and attention?

I will always feel that putting a picture of someone hooked up to a ventilator on a platform that everyone sees to be in poor taste.

Again…just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should.

It is very insensitive to those who have had to witness a loved one in that situation.

I know that the media’s primary job is sensationlize anything that can to instill fear but to post pictures of people in their most vulnerable state for clicks on Facebook just shows a lack of decency.

I did take a moment to tweet both @newscentermaine and @WCVB letting them know it was in poor taste and insensitive to those who may have PTSD from seeing a loved one in that situation.

I got no response. Not even a canned “Thanks for bringing it to our attention.”

Classy.

Yesterday I got new glasses.

When I put on these glasses, I realized that they represented a lot more to me than I expected.

I first got glasses in high school. I was told I needed them for reading. Sometime between high school and college, I lost them and I never worried about it.

Since I like to measure time by presidential administrations, this was during the end of the Clinton administration.

My eyesight never seemed to be a real issue and I didn’t worry about it.

Sometime after my daughter was born (during the late Obama administration), I noticed my vision wasn’t what it used to be. Bryon showed concern and encouraged me to make an appointment with his eye doctor.

I made the appointment with Bryon’s eye doctor. His eye doctor was very nice. I liked him. And I got the glasses that I needed.

I even went to see him when I was sent home for work for conjunctivitis. My work did not require me to see an outside optometrist but Bryon thought it would be a good idea. Turns out I didn’t have conjunctivitis. I just had dry, red eyes that can happen to nursing mothers due to hormonal changes. He gave me some drops.

After Bryon died, I got the notice in the mail that I was due to an eye exam. But I couldn’t make the appointment.

Bryon had been a patient of this eye doctor since he was seven.

I didn’t know if his eye doctor even knew that Bryon died. Bryon’s death had been in the newspapers but I had no clue if he knew and I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell him.

I could handle talking to people that knew Bryon and knew he died and I could talk about Bryon’s death to people who didn’t know him at all. But I couldn’t be the person to tell someone who had known Bryon since he was a kid that he had died.

Besides, it would be hard to do an eye exam if I was messy crying.

So I avoided the eye doctor.

I threw that notice into a pile of papers that I called “shit I will deal with later”.

Things were fine.

And then I lost my glasses and I did not have a spare.

I tried not to worry about them.

I adapted. At least I thought I did.

But I knew the truth.

I knew I couldn’t put it off.

I am 40 and my eyes are not what they used to be.

For a long time after Bryon’s death, I bounced between the state of existing and the state of surviving.

But it’s time for me to start taking care of myself.

So I went to a different eye doctor.

And now I have my glasses.

My daughter approved of them because they are pink.

And now things are clearer.

Maybe a little too clear.

I recently watched an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where the family convinced Marie Barone that she needed glasses. Then she got glasses and she could see so well that she pointed out every physical flaw everyone had.

Well I looked in the mirror and I noticed every tiny flaw on my face.

I think I need a chemical peel. Or, like, 12 chemical peels.

At least a facial.

But now that I am seeing 20/20 again, I realized that this is symbolic of my life. As a transition to the next chapter of my life, things are just so much more clearer now.

Of course, some of that might be the fact that I have spent the last 3 years in deep thought and reflection.

Either way, I am seeing things for what they are.

The “blurriness” of my life has cleared up as I processed what had happened in my life, as I learned to cope with the events, as I realized how I let others projections and attitudes affect me and as I learn how to how I respond to all of these factors.

Now it’s time to look toward the future with a clear vision.

It feels fitting to end this blog post with a quote from one of Bryon’s favorite fictional characters, Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights- “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose”.