Hey everyone! The first week of February was a crazy week for both of us. We live where we get crazy winds called the Santa Ana winds every winter. These winds get up to 50 miles per hour! The whole house will creak sometimes, and we have to remind ourselves that we’re safe. Well, while we were safe, 2020 is the year our roof was not so fortunate. We woke up to find then shingles from portions of our roof in our pool! Yup! Our roof was literally in our pool. Below we will both share our perspectives on how we handled the unexpected problem together as two strong women living with grief.

Jay Here!

What do you do when you wake up and your mom runs in pacing and saying, “Calm me down, calm me down… Our ROOF is in our POOL!” — all before you even get out of bed?

Well, for once I didn’t check out! Checking out is what I’ve started to call those times when I would mentally shutdown and start functioning off autopilot. I was on autopilot throughout my dad’s entire illness, and for about the first four years after his death. Somewhere around year four and year five, I started to mentally check back into myself and start to feel alive again. Anyways, I didn’t check out when my mom told me the roof was in the pool! This was a huge deal for me! I didn’t celebrate much until after the fact since we still had the crisis of shingles missing from the roof, but still!

Since I was actually coherent, I was able to talk to my mom and calm her down. I even thought to grab my phone when we went outside and take a bunch of pictures of the shingles in our pool, on our deck, and the huge section of roof with no shingles. I was and am so proud that I knew to do that!

Then my mom called our insurance company and they said to google roofers (yes really, they told us to google it! I found that hilarious). My mom had enough to handle, and since I didn’t check out, I was able to start googling roofers. I think I did pretty well in looking at the comments and reviews for the companies with five full stars and choosing companies big enough to serve multiple locations but not too big so that they’re stretched too thin. At the end of today, after calling about six different companies, we ended up choosing one of the roofers I googled!

I’ve also been able to genuinely talk about this with my mom and be active in the decision-making factor of all of this. I can’t help but think of how far we’ve both come when comparing now to the first year after my dad died. The first year, this would have made my mom a sobbing mess and sent her spiraling down in panic and fear. Now she recognized her panic, allowed me to help alleviate some of it, and she knew what to do and handled it herself instead of calling someone for guidance. This was HUGE PROGRESS! I’m SO proud of her!

I’m proud of me too! If this happened in the first year, I would have checked out immediately. I would have comforted my mom subconsciously, but I wouldn’t have been present enough in the moment to actually do anything. I would have just followed my mom’s lead. This time, because I was checked into myself, I was able to be actually there for her! I was able to do helpful tasks and give input on what we did. While the circumstance wasn’t ideal, it felt fantastic to be present in the moment and contribute to the solution of the problem instead of just checking out until everything was fine again.

This whole ordeal with the roof has been a growth experience for me that has also allowed me to evaluate our progress. I’ve learned that acknowledging your progress since the beginning is important. We live in a society where we compare ourselves to other people, but how often do we compare ourselves to our own past in order to appreciate how far we have come in our own journey?

My mom was handling the roof issue like a boss, but through it all she was still mad that she never thought about the roof sooner. I told her to think of her past self. Think of that new widow crying on the ground feeling so lost, hopeless, and heartbroken. Would you criticize her and tell her she should be thinking about the roof and fixing it? No! Current Mom would have compassion for this widow on the ground that doesn’t know about the roof. She would have empathy and not blame this lost little widow. Then I reminded her that she was the widow. Criticizing herself is the same as criticizing that lost little widow who didn’t know about the roof.

We spend so much time looking at what we should have done or what we wish we had known, but that never does anyone any good. All we can do is appreciate that we did the best we could do at the time with the information we had. That’s all anyone can do – act to the best of our abilities with the information we had at the time. And the beauty about being alive is that we are constantly learning new things and adding to our expanse of knowledge! The roof incident taught me how to look back on the past with compassion and empathy, and for that I’m actually kind of grateful for the shingles in our pool. Something a little less drastic that still allowed me to evaluate our progress would have been nice, but hey, I’ll take it!

Shell here!

Wow! The week before the roof, we had a really nice weekend and we took the time to plan out our week. I was actually very happy that we had a successful week planned ahead. Sure, we had quite a few things to take care of, but it all seemed manageable. Both being full time students and trying to live life after loss along with other responsibilities such as the house, bills, our pets and our own well-being; some days seem harder than others. But this week was going to be a good week and we were ready for a successful, well planned out week. Then it happened!

Monday morning, I was taking two of our dogs to the back yard for their morning routine. As glanced over I saw huge black objects laying in the bottom of our pool. I was naturally thinking, “What in the world!!!” As I walked over inspecting, I was shocked to see it was roof shingles, ROOF SHINGLES in our POOL. OH man this in not good! I was afraid to look up, hoping that our roof was fine and it was someone else’s roof in our pool.

You see, during the night we have what is called the Santa Ana winds, or as we locals call it the Devil winds. These winds are wild and crazy, and it feels like your house can fly away. There is always so much damage and trash everywhere. It gets a little crazy. But never, in all the years I have lived here, has there ever been actual damage to my home. Maybe a blown down fence in the past but that was it. Well, as I looked up, I swear I felt shear panic consume me. Why? Because it was MY ROOF IN MY POOL!!! I kept thinking one of my only jobs was to keep a roof over Jay’s head!

My first reaction was to yell for my husband. It’s just natural for some of us to call our significant other. Something happens and we call for our husbands, or at least I always did. Then the panic grew stronger because the realization that my flipping roof was not where it was supposed to be, it was in the POOL, and oh yeah, my husband is dead he is not coming to help me!

I stood there for a moment with shock, fear and sadness all wrapped up in one. Knowing that this roof problem was solely my problem and knowing that I had no idea what to do about a roof torn apart and pieces in my pool! I took a deep breath and I walked inside and went straight to my daughter. After watching our whole family die together, we became very close.

I went to her and said, “Please talk me down, please talk me down, our fricken roof is in our pool and I am a little freaked out!” As she processed what I was saying to her because come on, how are you going to respond when someone says your roof is in the pool? That is not something that is a normal occurrence, so of course it took her a moment to process it. But with the kind heart and with the grace she carries, she walked outside with me and took in the damage that the devil winds had caused to our home.

My favorite part of that moment is when she said, “Hmm. Okay, we got this mom”. In that moment, I took in a deep breath and thought, “Yes darn straight we got this! We have been through hell together; no roof is going to take us out now.” After the assessment and taking pictures, we went and called the insurance company. Then we got dressed and spent the morning fishing roof shingles out of the pool. After that, we googled roofers and made some phone calls for some estimates. Then we drove to our bank to find out about maybe getting a loan process started in case we needed money we currently didn’t have to repair or buy a new roof. It was not an easy day and sure was not the perfect successful week we had planned out. But we handled our business like two strong women who have survived the trenches of deep hell, death, betrayal and abandonment.

Together we worked as a team, made some decisions. At the end of the day, we felt proud of our progress. Sure, it sucks that this happened and maybe I should have thought about the roof in the last five years, but I did not. Grieving and putting our lives back together was on my mind, not a roof.

Maybe this roof incident was also a lesson to show us how far we have come in our grieving process. Five years ago, something like this would have had me in the fetal position sobbing my eyes out with no idea what to do because my husband had just died and left me alone. Now, even though fear and panic arrived, I handled it like a boss. I do have to admit that during parts of this actual day of the roof I did feel angry at my husband and dad for dying. I felt angry that they left me here alone to handle a roof that I had no clue about. The crazy thing is that I have never even noticed people’s roofs before, nor did I care. But the last couple days as I am driving around, I notice my eyes wandering and I am actually looking at people’s roofs! Crazy stuff!

As I am typing this, our roof still is not fixed. Apparently, it takes days or even weeks before all the parties come together and make a final decision on the roof. In the meantime, as my roof is broken but my pool is clean, I have learned to trust the process and be patient. The panic is gone. The fear is gone. Don’t get me wrong, the roof does weigh a little heavy on me, only because I know it needs to be handled and I really am not sure what direction it will be going in. But I know that no matter what decisions are made, my daughter and I have this. I have confidence and belief in our capabilities to work as a team; and even though I was mad at my husband and dad, I know they are looking out for us. Funny how things change. I have learned patience and to trust that no matter what is thrown my way, everything will always be okay.

When my husband was dying, my dear friend would always say to me, “Everything is going to be okay.” I thought she was nuts! Did she not see my dying husband laying in that hospice bed in our living room? He was dying! There was nothing okay in that. Plus, my husband always said to me on his death bed, “My love, don’t worry everything is going to be okay.”

I never understood the two of them and always saying everything was going to be okay. But as I look back at everything we went through and sit here with a broken roof, I now understand that both of them were right. No matter what, everything is always going to be okay as long as you believe it is. So, as I close out our little roof story, I leave you with these words: everything is going to be okay. You just have to believe it and it will happen. It has for me so far. Everything is okay.

JAY AND SHELL’S TIPS

• Calm down!!! We cannot stress this enough. We know it’s easier said than done, but you’ll be better equipped to handle the situation with a clear head.
• Don’t blame yourself. Guilt does nothing to help the situation and it will only make you feel worse.
• If you don’t know what to do, google it!

As always, remember to be kind to yourself!

Aloha and gratitude,

Jay and Shell