Author: tomstroops

When the “Blah” Days Hit

On By tomstroopsIn Alpha Lima Sierra1 Comment
A glass cup filled with dark coffee sitting on a wooden table with soft, natural lighting.

Yesterday, over breakfast, Grant said something that stuck with me.
We were sitting outside, enjoying the cool morning and enjoying our coffee and the breakfast he made on the Blackstone, when he looked at me and said, “Does this make you sad? That you can’t have breakfasts like this with Tom anymore?”

I told him it does, but I also feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Can I tell you I felt that question, man, I just felt it. That quiet ache rolled in under the smell of the sausage, pancakes, and coffee.

He wasn’t wrong with his question. He knew we both felt it.

Moments like that tug at an old thread. The kind that unravels memories you weren’t trying to touch that day. It’s not the deep, chest-crushing grief that knocks you flat. It’s the smaller kind that slips in quietly, turns everything gray, and leaves you feeling…blah. And today, I have had the BLAHs.

People talk about grief like it’s a process with stages and progress. But some days it’s just a loop of missing, remembering, and adjusting to the fact that joy now shares space with absence. And yet, even through that grayness, there was something good about the moment.

Because we could talk about it. Because someone noticed. That part matters more than people realize. So often we feel the sadness but swallow it down because saying it out loud might make it too real. Or we worry that if we admit it, someone will rush in with a fix instead of just sitting in it with us. So we stay quiet. We smile through the ache.

But when someone actually sees it, when they notice without you having to name it, it’s both tender and terrifying. It means you’re seen. And sometimes being seen is the hardest, most healing thing of all. Because we didn’t have to hide the truth that I still miss Tom and he misses his wife, even while we are building something new together.

The comments when I posted about it were kind and incredibly supportive. But the truth is, this isn’t about sadness or moving on. It’s about living honestly in the in-between. It’s about acknowledging that the ache doesn’t mean I’m broken. It just means I loved deeply enough to still feel it.

So yeah, today feels blah.

But maybe “blah” is just the body’s way of saying, I remember.

There Is Strength in Grief

On By tomstroopsIn Alpha Lima SierraLeave a comment

A serene landscape showing a clear blue sky with bright sunlight and fluffy white clouds above lush green foliage and a wet road.

It sounds backward, doesn’t it? Strength in grief. We don’t feel strong when we’re grieving. We feel broken, small, and wildly out of control. But the truth is, it takes real strength to survive grief, to face the emptiness, push through the fog, and keep getting up anyway.

Strength isn’t smiling through the pain. It’s dragging yourself through the day when even breathing feels like work. It’s making peace with the ache, one shaky breath at a time, and finding purpose again when your reason for living is gone.

Yesterday was Tom’s birthday. It was a hard day. I went to a veteran event that morning and powered through, all the while feeling the weight of the date. By lunch, I was home. I stayed in bed the rest of the day. That’s how I recharge. I let the world fade while I sit in the pain and I try to understand it until I can find my footing again.

This morning was different. I woke up ready to move, not forward exactly, but through. I started cleaning, and that meant facing some of Tom’s things. I pulled out his work awards and plaques. They once lined his office walls like medals of honor, but after his medical retirement, they ended up in the back of the closet and out of sight, but never out of heart. I’d tried to go through them before, but grief stopped me cold. Yesterday, I couldn’t even touch them. Today, I could.

I looked at each one, acknowledged his incredible accomplishments, and recognized something I hadn’t before: they were his. Not ours. His. And that’s okay. With Trey’s support, I let them go.

That’s when it hit me and I heard the words in my head, there is strength in grief. Because every time I sit in it, feel it, and move through it, I build a stronger version of myself.

To my fellow widows and widowers: you’re not broken. You’re not powerless. You are proof that love can hurt like hell and still make you stronger. Strength isn’t shiny, it’s tear-streaked, messy, and real and sometimes, it looks like standing in your closet, holding what’s left of a life you loved, and choosing to keep living anyway.

The Highs and the Lows

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This week I experienced both ends of the spectrum: a soaring high and a gut-punch low.

Close-up of a car fuel gauge showing the needle at 'E' (empty), indicating low fuel level.

The Low

The day before an important two-hour drive for a meeting, my car battery died. A dead battery. Something so ordinary, so fixable, and yet I completely unraveled. I lost it in a way that surprised me, and honestly embarrassed me. To say I may have lost my shit is an understatement and I am glad no one was here to see this!

I ended up calling Grant, not because he’s “supposed” to fix my problems, but because I didn’t know what else to do. He dropped everything, showed up with lunch, figured out the issue, and followed me to the store so I could get a new battery. He was steady, kind, and selfless and it overwhelmed me.

I didn’t know what to do with that. Because in my head, that was Tom’s job. Tom was the fixer, the one who handled things like dead batteries and broken appliances and all the little hiccups of life. But Tom died, thanks to ALS. And now I’m here, three years later, still trying to figure out how to carry the weight of all the things.

It’s not that I can’t solve problems. I can. I do. But I’m depleted. My imaginary reserve tank still hasn’t refilled, and it is clearly on EMPTY. The truth is, sometimes even the little things break me wide open, because they remind me of all I’ve lost, and of all the ways my life is different now.

What Grant did that day wasn’t just about the car battery. It was about showing up when I felt small, overwhelmed, and fragile. It was about being seen and helped without judgment. That kindness reached a part of me that’s still grieving, still healing, still learning what it means not to carry everything alone.

The High

The high was meaningful. I achieved an advocacy goal I’ve been working toward for years. It is a win on the ALS veteran and caregiver front that, as it comes to fruition, I will share. It felt like proof that the long nights of research and learning VA Directives, the countless calls and emails were worth it. It wasn’t just achieving an advocacy goal; it was solving veteran/caregiver issues in the moment, knowing that caregivers and veterans don’t have to be scared or afraid of what will happen if their needs can’t be met. I can easily put myself in their shoes, I can instantly remember the fear of going it alone. During my caregiver journey, I just wished that someone would or could help me, but at the time, there was very little help for our ALS veteran community. It is an all-consuming fear. One that you feel for yourself and for your veteran. To think Tom’s livelihood and even his life were balancing on me getting services from the VA, well, it’s one of the reasons I advocate.  During that meeting, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And you know what, I was.

The Reflection

Grief isn’t linear, and the impact of caregiving doesn’t end when the caregiving ends. The exhaustion, the emptiness, the muscle memory of always being “on”—they linger. Sometimes, a dead battery is more than just a dead battery. It’s a reminder of everything that’s missing in my life, and an opportunity for someone else to step in and show me I am not alone.

The lesson I’m trying to take away is this: it’s okay to celebrate the big wins and still fall apart over the little things. It’s okay to ask for help, even when I wish I didn’t need to. And maybe the hardest truth of all—it’s okay to let someone else show up for me, even though no one will ever replace Tom.

Because maybe, just maybe, part of resilience isn’t about always being strong. Perhaps it’s about letting people love you through the moments when you’re at a low in your life.

Aha or gut-punch Moment? Maybe both.

On By tomstroopsIn Alpha Lima Sierra1 Comment

Here I was, minding my own business when Grant, called to chat. I was working through some thought processes with him prior to a meeting I was having later in the day when he asked me a simple question. Which was, “in your own words, why is this important”? I thought about it and started in with a statement I have said many times but stopped and resaid it in a different way. The question was related to why is important for caregivers, in this case, military/veteran caregivers, to get help in the home which the VA allows access to but many VA’s don’t approve. The answer I have given many times includes the idea that having help allows spouses to be spouses. I have always said it that way and it was something I had to grieve before I was a widow-the loss of being Tom’s wife. The version I corrected with Grant went something like this, “When I didn’t have help, I had to be everything Tom needed me to be and could no longer be who I wanted to be”.

I know, right?! That statement hit me hard. I had to stop and repeat it. Wow, when I got off the phone with Grant, I sat down and thought about what I said and why. Something I should tell you is that while I tried hard to move through Tom’s disease and do everything I could for him, so that when it was over, I would not live with regrets, there are still a few. At times, some of Tom’s care required me to turn all the power off to the wife-brain and feelings so the caregiver brain had more juice to do what was needed to be done. When emergencies occurred in the home, I disengaged the caring, loving wife part of me so I could do hard stuff to ensure Tom was okay. I had to perform tasks that, while I am glad I could do them for him, pushed me further away from what a wife would typically do for her husband to what a nurse would do for a patient.

That change in how I emotionally tackled caregiving also changed the way I saw Tom. When we had help and I could slip back into my wife brain, I always saw Tom as this healthy man. In my eyes, he looked as he did before ALS was an everyday word for us. But, when I was the caregiver/nurse to Tom, I could see the changes ALS had made on Tom’s body. He was thinner and towards the end more frail. His eyes no longer twinkled like the once did. These two drastic versions of this man I saw could often happen within the same day or even hour. I was able to switch my emotions off and on like a light switch, and I hated that!

Tom needed me to be strong emotionally for him and that required me to disengage my wife instincts. Tom needed me to fight for him and be his advocate but that required me to step out of my comfort zone and be something I didn’t want to be. I wanted to remain his wife. To stay in this relationship of ours we had created and nurtured for 25+ years. ALS forced me to become someone else for the remaining six years we had with each other. So yes, there are regrets. I have tried to work through so much, but this one area has been hard. I loved being Tom’s wife. I was a great wife. I was made for that role in life as he was made to be my husband. Unfortunately, my role of wife had to change so I could become everything Tom needed me to be. Would I do it all over again? I would because that is what was what he needed and I loved him so much that being who he needed me to be was the most loving thing I could have done for him. Now, I need to love myself in that same way and be who I need to be to ensure I live and love this new version that I am becoming.

All my love,

Lara

Just a Feeling

On By tomstroopsIn Alpha Lima Sierra1 Comment

Typically, when I write, it is the title that pops into my head, and the words flow from that. Tonight, there was no title to start me off, just a feeling. It’s familiar to me, but something I have not felt in a long time. So, why is this feeling so strong now? I don’t recall it being like this last year, but deep down, I know the reason. As much as I post about healing, living again, and finding my happiness, just below the surface, there is still pain, sadness, and grief.

July is not a great month for me. It used to be a month that brought so much excitement. Typically, at the beginning of July, Tom and I would start thinking about how we would celebrate our anniversary at the end of the month. But that changed when Tom died.

Tom’s death and the days leading up to it are marked by such sadness. I know some will read this and will completely understand. They are the loved ones who knew death was coming. For our family, we knew that Tom was locking in. It was confirmed at the beginning of July. That was the line Tom had drawn when he was first diagnosed. He made his wishes known not only by telling me but also by ensuring that those wishes were specifically stated in his medical directives. On July 4, 2022, with me calling out dates and watching his response (one blink for yes, two for no), Tom picked the day he wanted to be removed from life support.

From July 4, 2022, until his death on July 15, 2022, we knew the end was near. Can I tell you how tough it was to wake up every morning for those 11 days and act as if it was just a typical day? Harder than you can imagine. How did Trey and I do it? I can only say it was divine intervention that got us through. We did it for Tom. We did it out of love. We knew we had two choices. Live each day already grieving him, or live each day loving him and enjoying him. Did it stop the thoughts? No. Every morning, I would think, ‘This is the last Monday I will have with my husband, or I only have seven more days to tell him how much I love him.’

This feeling, I can name it now, is grief, and the anxiety that comes with it is the physical manifestation of loss. It is afraid to go to sleep for fear of remembering the hardest parts of the ALS journey. This feeling was my bed fellow. It was with me every night in that first year. Why now? Is it the approaching anniversary of his death? Most likely. What I think might also be going on is that this feeling is here because, as I am approaching the 3rd anniversary of his passing, I am also working to let go of some of the negative feelings surrounding the ALS journey, which are things like guilt and anger. Grief is such a funny thing. We hate it, but at the same time, it becomes a safe space. I no longer want grief to be my safe space. I want to let go of some of this further.

How do I let go of the guilt and anger? I’m not sure; it’s just a feeling that the next part of the journey will require a bit more effort to process