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