You're my Angel...

Struggling is the theme for today...ha, more like the theme for the month, the year even.  But let's focus on today.  

Today is the day before Thanksgiving.  The one day set aside in a whole year of days, that everyone everywhere gathers together to give thanks for family, life, loved ones, and...well you get the picture.  

I am thankful, I am.  I always have been.  I go to bed every night, um...almost every night, and I say thank you for all that I have...all that I am blessed with.  I've always taught my children that we may not have all that we want, but we always have WAY more than we need.

It has been an excruciating year, right from midnight 2013 and it fell off the charts on May 5th. The day the music died, the day my life stopped spinning, the day my heart shattered in a million pieces.  The day my best friend, my love, my husband died...along with a very dear girlfriend.

So yeah, struggling is the theme for today.

I made it out of the grocery store and stood in the pouring rain, arms full of bags.  And I cried.  I slogged to the car and got in saying 'Oh my God David, oh my God.'  I started the car, drove to the light and waited for the color green.  I hit the radio power button and I heard...

Don't know what I'm gonna do about this feeling inside

Yes it's true, loneliness took me for a ride

Without your love I'm nothing but a beggar

Without your love a dog without a bone

What can I do? I'm sleepin' in this bed alone

Come and save me tonight

You're the reason I live

You're the reason I die

You're the reason I give when I break down and cry

Don't need no reason why

Baby, baby, bayayby

You're my angel

Come and save me tonight

You're my angel

Yeah, come and make it alright

You're my angel

Come and save me tonight

I cried harder and then I was done...On to the next moments of my day.

November 21, 2013

It's been a tough bunch of days, I have fallen apart so very often.  I'm clawing my way through but my days have been so heavy lately.

I was driving and devising a plan for the idea of the next act of kindness...and I was wavering. I was telling you who...should I, shouldn't I...and at that precise moment the song Time of your Life came on the radio and I knew you liked my plan.  And so it shall be...

It's something unpredictable, 

but in the end it's right...

I hope you had the time of your life.

November 19, 2013

Every minute of every day.

My brain is on overload, it just won't stop...

I'm shaking my head, blinking, deep breathing and counting letters as fast as I can...nothing is working. 

Your face is burned into my soul and I think of you so very much. 

Saying I miss you sounds foolish to my ears, because what I feel is so much more than that. Truthfully it is like my heart went with you yet I'm still living... even without it...even without you.

I love you my David...I just love you.

November 16, 2013

The celebration continues for my birthday.

I was in Newport at a Vineyard...learning, sipping and laughing with Kristen.  One of the very many things on our new life to do list that never happened.

Today I went by the spot where you proposed, and also the 'palace' that was our one night 'mock' honeymoon. 

I sat and ate with a friend and spoke of you... and all the while inside I was screaming, screaming for you and missing you huge.

I had a great day, maybe you were there...

November 12, 2013

I need you with me babe...I am having a horrible time with visions, they are relentless the last few days.

I can't seem to escape this nightmare.

I miss you.

November 9, 2013

For me...a birthday celebration.

I love you Kate...thank you so much for my David flowers and my Evelyn cheesecake but mostly thanks for you, your friendship...our friendship means everything to me. 

I'm very thankful for you and knowing we share a special bond...you were with me during a very dark moment in time and I will never forget that. 

I'm struggling without you love...it only gets worse.

November 7, 2013

It is my birthday.

For you, today I bought a bouquet of flowers. I then found a woman to give them to...I asked if she would accept them and I told her why and gave her the 'gift card'. I am 'giving' as fast as I can babe...all for you.

I love you and I miss you terribly, but I know you have been with me these past several days because I've seen the signs. 

1:11

A meal for you...a meal for me

November 5, 2013

Before you came to see me for the first time in 27 years, I asked you what your favorite meal was...what you wanted me to cook you your first night there.

Well babe...I think you asked for it again tonight,because I cooked it for myself for the first time since you left.

I sat in your spot on the couch and ate by myself and had a glass of wine...all in your honor. I hope you enjoyed! 

I love you. xoxo

11:11

David John Machado Random Acts of Kindness Month

The month of November has so many reminders that you are not with me, that you are missing from this life I am trying so hard to live.

Towards the end of October it started hitting me hard...each day is a struggle, but this quickly approaching month is going to be full of days that wish to bring me to my knees...days undoubtedly harder than every other.  How do I brace myself for this next wave...the one threatening to pull me under?  How strong do I have to be to open a door and walk through knowing that on the other side the pain is going to be excruciating?  Knowing there is no other alternative but to do this...I have to walk this walk in order to come out beyond these days.  I have no choice but to open this door and go inside the month of November.

I will celebrate, I will focus my pain into something bigger than it...I will love you my David and I will share you with others, that is how I will gather strength for the coming days.  So I devised the following and  posted it on Facebook and I have kept this purpose in my sights...it will be the light at the end of a month long, painful tunnel.

David John Machado Random Acts of Kindness Month

At an early age I learned of random 'acts of kindness' and 'paying it forward' from my parents, they did it Always and they did it in a big way...it is something I have strived to do my whole life.

When my husband first 'witnessed me in the act' he thought it was such a great thing that he became a doer too...it sort of became a friendly competition between us at times...trying to see who had outdone the other.  Nothing makes you feel better than doing for others. 

So, with this in mind, I have decided that I am going to celebrate my beautiful David and his birthday, November 23rd, by doing random acts of kindness in his honor all month and I hope that you will choose to join me.  What better way to memorialize one man's life by simply helping another.   If you wish to participate in this birthday gift giving, I ask that you please copy the words below onto a slip of paper to be presented to the recipient of your kind act...It is my wish that we create a HUGE chain reaction of greatness!  I would LOVE to hear back about the kindness that is being generated in honor of David...I believe he would be very touched.

You have received this random act of kindness

in honor of David John Machado who drowned

off the coast of Gloucester MA on May 5, 2013.

David was a loving, kind and giving man who lived

 for helping others.  So on what would be his 49th 

birthday I hope that we have made you smile and

brightened your day just a little, and our wish is

that you would choose to pay it forward and

present this note along with your 'gift' 

in honor of my husband David.

PEACE

The War Within and Without...

This grief of mine, I've mentioned it so often, but it's just such a phenomenon to me.  

I liken it to a war between the In's and the outs...

I mean, I can feel a certain kind of peace, a calmness or a settling of spirit...I'm not sure what to call it because it is not anything I've ever felt before.  I can differentiate between good moments and bad moments...I know the two, I live in them both.  It's the moments of joy that I seem to

The "In's"...where pain, sorrow, loneliness, confusion and unanswered questions live.  Where the need and wanting of my love David sit.  Where the shattered dreams and stolen moments of our future together reside.  Where the clawing and scratching and biting screams of my broken heart rest... just below the surface.  I am in agony always, it has become second nature at this point.  Tears are always at the ready...they sit at the ready for fall.  It is like a scream that you feel the need to scream yet you don't.  You hold it in.  It is there at the ready, always, but you fight like a warrior to keep it where it is...In.

The "outs"...where pain, sorrow, loneliness, confusion and unanswered questions live.  Where everything that my eyes see floods my heart with hurt...everything.  Every sight, every sip, every taste, every smile, every joke, everything, everything, everything brings home that I am alone in this experience.  That the one person I declared out loud that I wanted to spend the rest of my days with that I would love until I died, is not by my side holding my hand and finding joy in this experience.  It is a hot, heavy, searing pain that won't go away...

The "outs"...where life is still turning, where moments are happening, where birds are singing and the sun is shining.  Where I feel at odds with myself and the universe.  Where I laugh and joke and dance and sing.  Where I feel a happiness in the good...the great, moments.  Where I feel a kind of joy, one that is vastly different from the joys I used to feel but it is my new joy right now.  It is a joy steeped in sadness but that is okay at this point in my journey.  I do all that I do every day with my husband in the forefront of my mind.  When I cook, when I drive, when I laugh a laugh that comes from my heart and the core of who I am...I am doing it all with my David in mind...I am doing it all for my David.

I am cherishing the moment that are good, and the moments that are great.  I am respecting the moments that are hard and bad and painful and I am learning from them.  I am learning how high I've climbed and how far I've come.  I am learning that I am on the right track and I am going to win this race.  I'll probably have tears streaming down my face...but I will win with David in my heart.

The Ride

As I do every day, I check the posts on the Widows bereavement sites I am a member on...there are two of them.  

Some days there is nothing said.  All is calm?  Maybe.  Hopefully.  But I know that it could also mean that today is just too much, today is so very overwhelming that there are no words...oh, they're in there.  The words are in there, flying around our heads slamming against the edges of our minds wanting out...needing out.  But the pain is too great today to let the words come.

Some days one of us, or several of us, has reached out for comfort or advice or just to share a milestone, a thought, a prayer.  And some days there is a new 'recruit', a new member to the club none of us signed up for or ever wanted to be a part of...some days there is just that tentative, bleeding sentence that says something like 'I just lost...I just found this group...thank you for listening'.  And just like that we remember we are not alone even though ALONE is the second strongest feeling we women, we widows, feel.

Today there was a post from a new member to the group, a woman who joined the 'club' only three months ago...She is wondering if any of us has ever gone through what she is going through the last few days...no crying...no living, just existing,  sleeping yet waking exhausted. Working...chores...bed, working...chores...bed...is this a phase she wants to know.  Those of us a little, or a lot further along in the journey know it is not a phase.  It is just another kind of day, or several smooshed together to create a 'phase'.  It is delicate territory.  It is a welcome reprieve, it is a survival technique that our body knows is desperately needed at precisely this moment.  It is a day or a few given to us in order to take a deep breath, get our bearings, readjust.  It is just enough time to grab hold and climb up a little further on our journey, enough time to grab hold before the ride begins again.

It's not a phase, I tell her..."it's just the ride. Not a car ride either. It is what I would think a roller coaster would be like if I had ever been on one...great highs, fast and furious lows with lots of sharp yanks around every corner. On this ride I never know what each day will bring, a high, a low, a rough corner? I open my eyes and try to gauge but can't, I head to the kitchen for coffee almost in fear sometimes...is an arm going to reach out and pull me back down to where I have just worked so hard to climb up from? Am I going to be yanked around a corner I'm not ready for? All I can do is hold on and hold strong. There is a very good reason that at age 47 I have never put myself on a roller coaster, that kind of ride is not for me...yet here I am. Thrust on here by a horrific tragic event that lasted no more than 10 minutes. I have been sentenced to a lifetime of this ride I never wanted and all I can do is hold on, hold strong and learn how to get my feet back on solid ground once again while life spins around me at such a fast and furious pace. I do not believe it to be a phase you are in...I believe it to just be the ride you are on...you are not alone though, all of us here are sitting in the seats next to you, in front of you and behind you, and we say to you hold on tight sister..."

One Half of One Year

I'm sitting here thinking about how much time has passed since that day with shock and amazement.  I usually try not to think about that day too often because I instantly will visualize the events and then I'm destroyed and the tears flow freely as they are right now.  I see and hear those moments always.

I feel like I have walked a lifetime away from then without actually leaving at all.  A lifetime of slogging through wet sand ankle deep, it's so hard but I know I can't just stand there doing nothing so I walk on and on and on...I know I have gone a far distance but each time I look over my shoulder that day is right behind me.  The pain and astonishment and confusion and fear is still within me, I carry it everywhere I go as a tattoo on my soul.  

This grief thing with it's many levels and layers is such a strange phenomenon.  It is kind of like looking into a fogged up mirror after a shower, initially you can't see anything at all but after a little time has passed some of the fog lifts and you think you can almost see an image, then after a little more time more fog lifts and now you are sure you can make out something but it's so unclear your eyes have a hard time focusing.  With each moment of time a little more fog lifts and a little more something is revealed until eventually enough time and enough fog has left and you are staring at your reflection in that mirror...only you don't recognize yourself for the pain of it all.  The face in the mirror, mine, has been beat by the horror of that unimaginable day...it has been beat in a bad most painful way but not defeated. 

I HAVE NOT BEEN DEFEATED.

I am fighting.
I am crying.
I am moving.
I am hurting.
I am climbing.
I am alone.
I am doing.
I am broken.
I am trying.
I am still here....

...I am fighting and I am moving and I am climbing and I am winning.  I will win.

It is slow, it is fragile, it is constant, it is exhausting...physically and mentally, it is life, it is necessary, it is a must.  I owe it to David, I owe it to Evelyn, I owe it to my children and I owe it to myself.  I was the one chosen to stay here, there must be a plan for me and it is my job to become healthy enough to recognize it when it shows up.  I have to do this...I have to fight.

Six months later, six months after...I am feeling stronger, I am not whole, I still cry all the time, I am still broken in a million pieces,  but I have a fire a determination to keep moving forward to be who my husband loved, to be who my friend loved.  I am determined to find a new kind of me. 

I will never be the girl I was on May 4th or all the years before, but I will also never again be the girl I was in the evening hours of May 5th.  That girl, that poor helpless, screaming, soaking wet, shivering girl, she is me but not.  I feel protective of her, my heart is broken for her and I have carried her with me all these miles, all these hours, all these months.  And I will carry her still to a new life, a strong life, a second chance.

One half of one year later I am fighting hard, I am smiling through my tears, I am loving them still and I am missing them always.

Happy November!

PEACE