It's been an interesting time. All these months, two years worth of months, and I think I am finally losing my mind...and my will.
I'm not sure what is happening to me, my anxiety level has reached epic heights. I am paralyzed. I am turning inward. I'm losing my words. My brain won't ever stop running. I cry all the time. I can no longer put one foot in front of the other...and I'm scared. All. The. Damn. Time.
I spend all day, every day, alone. Well, except for weekends. Weekends I still manage to drag myself to visit with friends. I don't want to half the time, I have nothing to say. I just can't carry on a conversation with anyone anymore. My friends, they don't know, they wouldn't get it, and why would they? This hasn't happened to them and they have families and jobs and lives. I do not. They know nothing of how I feel, how I am. They don't ask and I don't tell. I am a friend who once had everything they do and now has nothing. I don't talk because they won't understand, can't understand. I just don't fit in this puzzle anymore.
To say that I am lonely is laughable because what I am is a prisoner inside my head and no one can hear me scream. I thought my life had been spared because I was needed here but that was just a stupid lie. The kids don't need me anymore, they are too busy building their own lives, as they should be.
I don't want to play this game anymore.
Facebook Posts to My Husband...
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Sunday, November 23, 2014
50 (or not)
She knew he was awake, the soft sound of his breathing told her so. She opened her eyes and watched him. Arms bent with his hands behind his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling...thinking. Always thinking, sometimes a good thing, other times not. Today though she saw peace on his face, today she was looking at the young boy she fell in love with 33 years ago. Not the 50 year old man he was today...
We made it she thought, we are here...really here. All the hard work and saving has finally paid off. The foregone honeymoon, extravagant gifts, vacations...everything. We wanted to escape to a tropical paradise, just the two of us, and we set the goal as his 50th birthday. A number he had started dreading way back when. "Let's turn that milestone into the best experience you've ever had, let's create a memory that is just for us in a place neither of us has ever been." "Let's take the honeymoon we never had and then you will always have that as your 50th birthday present." And so the plan was set...
I opened my eyes and reality hit, yet again. The sight before me was an empty bed and empty pillows. And cold. Cold all around me, no tropical paradise for this gal. Another milestone faced without you David. "Happy Birthday my lover" I said to no one as a tear rolled down my cheek. "Happy freaking birthday"!
I so had wanted this day to be one of the best of your life, a day for you to carry with you forever. There was so much I always wanted for you, so much I wanted to give you. I'm sorry I will never get that chance and can only hope that while you were here with me I gave you everything you needed. I hope that you knew, really knew just how much I adored you. God how I still do.
Happy would be 50th my love. I hope you are free and happy and spending time with Evelyn, she will have you doing tequila shots and whooping it up. Hug her for me and when you feel her arms around you...know that they are mine.
I love you my husband, my David.
We made it she thought, we are here...really here. All the hard work and saving has finally paid off. The foregone honeymoon, extravagant gifts, vacations...everything. We wanted to escape to a tropical paradise, just the two of us, and we set the goal as his 50th birthday. A number he had started dreading way back when. "Let's turn that milestone into the best experience you've ever had, let's create a memory that is just for us in a place neither of us has ever been." "Let's take the honeymoon we never had and then you will always have that as your 50th birthday present." And so the plan was set...
I opened my eyes and reality hit, yet again. The sight before me was an empty bed and empty pillows. And cold. Cold all around me, no tropical paradise for this gal. Another milestone faced without you David. "Happy Birthday my lover" I said to no one as a tear rolled down my cheek. "Happy freaking birthday"!
I so had wanted this day to be one of the best of your life, a day for you to carry with you forever. There was so much I always wanted for you, so much I wanted to give you. I'm sorry I will never get that chance and can only hope that while you were here with me I gave you everything you needed. I hope that you knew, really knew just how much I adored you. God how I still do.
Happy would be 50th my love. I hope you are free and happy and spending time with Evelyn, she will have you doing tequila shots and whooping it up. Hug her for me and when you feel her arms around you...know that they are mine.
I love you my husband, my David.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
The Death Train
I recently read about the Death Train, you know, the one where the grief stricken stand on the platform waiting and listening to the roar and clanging of the train that will no doubt run them over on the death date anniversary of the one they have loved and lost.
For me it is a series of hours and days and weeks where you feel a clenched fist gripping the throat of your soul. My eyes are closed because to see what is coming is just too much, to know that it will come for me is just too much...there is no more room within these eyes for even one more image of doom. I do not want to stand and wait for this train, I do not want to get on it and ride around year after year after year recalling the worst day of my life.
Instead I want to stretch my head up high, eyes wide shut, and spend every day, painful as it is remembering the love of my life.
I want to honor every day we ever had together.
I want only images of the boy I loved as a child and the man I married when I was all grown up.
I want to always see my David walking down the hall towards me at KP High to pick me up from school, in his skin tight wranglers, his wife beater and his tan work boots unlaced and that look of pure love on his face.
I want the picture of seventeen year old David teaching fifteen year old me to body surf up at Hampton Beach and how horribly I failed but how huge he laughed.
I want all the images from our youth, our childhood memories to step forward. I want EVERYTHING from our life together as grown ups to stand front and center.
I want to NEVER forget the moment we met again after 27 years in a tiny airport in Little Rock. Or when I opened my eyes the next day and saw him laying there looking at me. If love had a look it was what I saw in those eyes in that moment.
It is these things that I need to stand and wait for, to carry me forward year after year after year after year. It is this boat I need to ride on for the rest of my days. I do not want to be on that platform waiting to be run over by a train of death that will bring me nothing but devastation for the rest of my life. I do not want to be one of those people who wait for the anniversary of death. It is not my friend, it is not kind, it is not my David, nor is it my friend Evelyn. They are not on that train, only pain is. They are somewhere out there watching over all of us and they need to be remembered and celebrated for who they were every day to all of us...not for how they left us on that one horrible day.
I know, because it is easy to know this, what I want will not be easy. The pain I hold is very real and very raw. The wound is deep. I will need strength that I do not feel to bring me past this, to make me look the other way. I will need sunshine and wine and the love of my friends. I will need only to close my eyes and see the face of my love, and the face of our girl to bring me back from the brink.
I will do this. I will overcome the death date. I will overcome the bad. I will not allow one bully to wipe away all that was good. I will do this...but not this time. This time I will stand where I stood on that day and I will see what I will see. Head stretched high and eyes wide shut.
For me it is a series of hours and days and weeks where you feel a clenched fist gripping the throat of your soul. My eyes are closed because to see what is coming is just too much, to know that it will come for me is just too much...there is no more room within these eyes for even one more image of doom. I do not want to stand and wait for this train, I do not want to get on it and ride around year after year after year recalling the worst day of my life.
Instead I want to stretch my head up high, eyes wide shut, and spend every day, painful as it is remembering the love of my life.
I want to honor every day we ever had together.
I want only images of the boy I loved as a child and the man I married when I was all grown up.
I want to always see my David walking down the hall towards me at KP High to pick me up from school, in his skin tight wranglers, his wife beater and his tan work boots unlaced and that look of pure love on his face.
I want the picture of seventeen year old David teaching fifteen year old me to body surf up at Hampton Beach and how horribly I failed but how huge he laughed.
I want all the images from our youth, our childhood memories to step forward. I want EVERYTHING from our life together as grown ups to stand front and center.
I want to NEVER forget the moment we met again after 27 years in a tiny airport in Little Rock. Or when I opened my eyes the next day and saw him laying there looking at me. If love had a look it was what I saw in those eyes in that moment.
It is these things that I need to stand and wait for, to carry me forward year after year after year after year. It is this boat I need to ride on for the rest of my days. I do not want to be on that platform waiting to be run over by a train of death that will bring me nothing but devastation for the rest of my life. I do not want to be one of those people who wait for the anniversary of death. It is not my friend, it is not kind, it is not my David, nor is it my friend Evelyn. They are not on that train, only pain is. They are somewhere out there watching over all of us and they need to be remembered and celebrated for who they were every day to all of us...not for how they left us on that one horrible day.
I know, because it is easy to know this, what I want will not be easy. The pain I hold is very real and very raw. The wound is deep. I will need strength that I do not feel to bring me past this, to make me look the other way. I will need sunshine and wine and the love of my friends. I will need only to close my eyes and see the face of my love, and the face of our girl to bring me back from the brink.
I will do this. I will overcome the death date. I will overcome the bad. I will not allow one bully to wipe away all that was good. I will do this...but not this time. This time I will stand where I stood on that day and I will see what I will see. Head stretched high and eyes wide shut.
Friday, January 17, 2014
It is in the simple gestures that courage comes
One thing I have learned over the past many months is that emotions swing minute by minute...moment to moment.
A relatively normal day can change on a dime, without warning and so swiftly it makes your head spin.
A smell.
A sound.
A sight.
A memory.
A song.
A word or two.
And of course the dreaded visions, which comes with all of the things listed above. The damn visions hit me fast and furious at any given moment throughout my day. They make me feel like I am going crazy...ok fine, crazier than I already was. hehe And really any other thing can send me right into the open arms of a vision. My constant reminder of the horror of those moments, of my helplessness, of how I failed, of my mortality, of all that is lost. But too, of the power of love and faith. That in the precise moment I would fall, a power greater than everything could fill me with strength and allow me to hear your final thoughts on this earth. That is something I pray I will never forget. Never.
And so it is, on a day I struggle to be strong, to be positive and step forward one foot in front of the other, a simple gesture falls in my hands.
The mailman brings me a gift from an old friend. A few words of love and encouragement, of friendship and humanity.
And it is in the simple gestures that courage comes.
I am blessed
A relatively normal day can change on a dime, without warning and so swiftly it makes your head spin.
A smell.
A sound.
A sight.
A memory.
A song.
A word or two.
And of course the dreaded visions, which comes with all of the things listed above. The damn visions hit me fast and furious at any given moment throughout my day. They make me feel like I am going crazy...ok fine, crazier than I already was. hehe And really any other thing can send me right into the open arms of a vision. My constant reminder of the horror of those moments, of my helplessness, of how I failed, of my mortality, of all that is lost. But too, of the power of love and faith. That in the precise moment I would fall, a power greater than everything could fill me with strength and allow me to hear your final thoughts on this earth. That is something I pray I will never forget. Never.
And so it is, on a day I struggle to be strong, to be positive and step forward one foot in front of the other, a simple gesture falls in my hands.
The mailman brings me a gift from an old friend. A few words of love and encouragement, of friendship and humanity.
And it is in the simple gestures that courage comes.
I am blessed
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
This kind of loneliness
I found this on a website for widows and thought it was the best explanation I have found so far for the emptiness I feel and loneliness ...
Loneliness is not a surprising by-product of widowhood. I mean, even for the people who have never been through it, it’s a no-brainer. But frankly, I think that lonely is not a strong enough word.
There is a deep silence that comes with losing your spouse. And it doesn't matter if you’re standing in the middle of a crowded room, you will still notice it. It’s the quiet that comes when you don’t have that familiar voice whispering in your ear at a wedding, “Can you believe she wore that? I mean, what was she thinking?” It’s the missing sound of two glasses clinking together on your anniversary. It’s the absence of someone breathing soundly next to you as you go to sleep at night.
Our friends are so good about trying to make sure that we know that we’re not alone. And we know we’re not friendless. We could call up any number of people if we just wanted to hang out. But we are alone. Our marriages were amputated in the prime of our lives and, for some of us, there is no prosthesis.
A lot of us, since our loss, have found comfort in chat rooms and support websites and that has helped relieve the discomfort of the amputation a little. It’s like taking two Motrin after extensive surgery. It eases the throbbing a bit, but when we look down, the limb is still missing.
We've found anonymous support from strangers who don’t know us but are as close as we can come to confiding in people who know exactly what we've been through. We tell these strangers some of the most intimate details of our lives, knowing that out of thousands of people, one person might understand us and, out of thousands of people, no one will be heartless to enough say, “You did what? You’re crazy!” Because, if nothing else, we all have crazy in common.
It’s an anonymous way to just let our widowed freakiness spread its wings and fly. We get support from people who understand what REAL retail therapy is. People who get that a sleepless night with a newborn is one thing while a sleepless night with a dead spouse is a whole other deal. People who understand how guilt, anger, frustration, and sadness all come in a beautifully wrapped package with our names on it, signed “With Love, Widowhood.”
Finding these groups has buffered the fact that, with our spouses gone, most of us have lost the person we would have leaned on when the worst thing we could have possibly imagine happening…happened. It’s almost like we need to roll over in bed and say in utter disbelief to our spouses, “Did you hear that you died? And you were so young!” This would be followed by a hug from them, a pat on the back, and the murmuring of some comforting words while we cried on their shoulders.
But when we roll over, well, our spouses already know that they died. It spoils it a little.
I don’t think that most people, who haven’t experienced loss, truly understand that element of solitude. And that’s the very foundation of what makes us so lonely. The person who cared when something really great or really bad happened is missing. The person who was just as excited and saddened by the milestones of our kids is someplace else (I hope). The person who was just as invested in our lives and the decisions we made is now (again, hopefully) enjoying everlasting comfort while we slug it out down here on our own.
Do you remember the moment that you truly felt the change? I mean, the time when you realized that this was it? When you catapulted from married to involuntarily single? For you, it may not have been a moment. But it was for me. I was leaving Wal-Mart (where so many of my breakdown moments occur) when I noticed that “Wild Hogs” was about to come out on DVD Now, my husband and I had had many failed attempts to go see that movie in the theater, so when I saw that big billboard up at the store, I automatically got excited. I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to get home and tell him it’s finally out!” I think there was an audible thud as reality came crashing down on me standing next to the stale cookies that were on sale.
As most of us feel, I would give anything for just one more day, one more conversation with my husband. I've had dreams about it. We’re just lying in bed and I’m telling him all about what the kids are up to. We both know that he’s gone, but I’m filling him in anyway.
Those are the mornings I wake up and feel the most alone, the most like I’m missing that appendage. And even though there are so many people I could call who would commiserate with me, they’re just not in my head and in my heart living my life.
And does it make sense when I say when I’m feeling this way sometimes I just want to be left alone?
---by Catherine Tidd
Loneliness is not a surprising by-product of widowhood. I mean, even for the people who have never been through it, it’s a no-brainer. But frankly, I think that lonely is not a strong enough word.
There is a deep silence that comes with losing your spouse. And it doesn't matter if you’re standing in the middle of a crowded room, you will still notice it. It’s the quiet that comes when you don’t have that familiar voice whispering in your ear at a wedding, “Can you believe she wore that? I mean, what was she thinking?” It’s the missing sound of two glasses clinking together on your anniversary. It’s the absence of someone breathing soundly next to you as you go to sleep at night.
Our friends are so good about trying to make sure that we know that we’re not alone. And we know we’re not friendless. We could call up any number of people if we just wanted to hang out. But we are alone. Our marriages were amputated in the prime of our lives and, for some of us, there is no prosthesis.
A lot of us, since our loss, have found comfort in chat rooms and support websites and that has helped relieve the discomfort of the amputation a little. It’s like taking two Motrin after extensive surgery. It eases the throbbing a bit, but when we look down, the limb is still missing.
We've found anonymous support from strangers who don’t know us but are as close as we can come to confiding in people who know exactly what we've been through. We tell these strangers some of the most intimate details of our lives, knowing that out of thousands of people, one person might understand us and, out of thousands of people, no one will be heartless to enough say, “You did what? You’re crazy!” Because, if nothing else, we all have crazy in common.
It’s an anonymous way to just let our widowed freakiness spread its wings and fly. We get support from people who understand what REAL retail therapy is. People who get that a sleepless night with a newborn is one thing while a sleepless night with a dead spouse is a whole other deal. People who understand how guilt, anger, frustration, and sadness all come in a beautifully wrapped package with our names on it, signed “With Love, Widowhood.”
Finding these groups has buffered the fact that, with our spouses gone, most of us have lost the person we would have leaned on when the worst thing we could have possibly imagine happening…happened. It’s almost like we need to roll over in bed and say in utter disbelief to our spouses, “Did you hear that you died? And you were so young!” This would be followed by a hug from them, a pat on the back, and the murmuring of some comforting words while we cried on their shoulders.
But when we roll over, well, our spouses already know that they died. It spoils it a little.
I don’t think that most people, who haven’t experienced loss, truly understand that element of solitude. And that’s the very foundation of what makes us so lonely. The person who cared when something really great or really bad happened is missing. The person who was just as excited and saddened by the milestones of our kids is someplace else (I hope). The person who was just as invested in our lives and the decisions we made is now (again, hopefully) enjoying everlasting comfort while we slug it out down here on our own.
Do you remember the moment that you truly felt the change? I mean, the time when you realized that this was it? When you catapulted from married to involuntarily single? For you, it may not have been a moment. But it was for me. I was leaving Wal-Mart (where so many of my breakdown moments occur) when I noticed that “Wild Hogs” was about to come out on DVD Now, my husband and I had had many failed attempts to go see that movie in the theater, so when I saw that big billboard up at the store, I automatically got excited. I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to get home and tell him it’s finally out!” I think there was an audible thud as reality came crashing down on me standing next to the stale cookies that were on sale.
As most of us feel, I would give anything for just one more day, one more conversation with my husband. I've had dreams about it. We’re just lying in bed and I’m telling him all about what the kids are up to. We both know that he’s gone, but I’m filling him in anyway.
Those are the mornings I wake up and feel the most alone, the most like I’m missing that appendage. And even though there are so many people I could call who would commiserate with me, they’re just not in my head and in my heart living my life.
And does it make sense when I say when I’m feeling this way sometimes I just want to be left alone?
---by Catherine Tidd
Saturday, August 24, 2013
To Whom It May Concern
I just wanted to say...I know you are hurting too, I know you lost one or two of your friends on that day, and for that I am sorry. I am sorry for your sadness and the pain you feel, the pain you don't show me. I know this didn't only happen in my world, it happened in yours too and I wish there was something I could do or say that would make you feel better. I recognize that I am not alone in this sorrow...and neither are you...we all have each other. So to EACH and EVERY one of you who relates specifically to this matter...I'm sorry for your loss and I'm sorry for your pain.
PEACE!
PEACE!
Monday, August 5, 2013
The countdown
You were always so big on the countdown...to when you would travel to me, or when I would come to you...the hours the minutes the seconds until we would be in each others arms again. Being separated was always so hard for you, for me, and the countdown just seemed to help. You always did it...right from day one.
I keep a countdown of my own these days, only mine doesn't seem to help with anything, it just is a reminder...a reminder of how long we have been separated, how long it has been since we have been in each others arms. A reminder of how much time has passed since I laughed with, and hugged one of my very best friends, since we toasted to our lives that we were loving so much. It is a reminder of how much time has passed since you and she left, and I stayed. A reminder of how many days I have cried hard tears for you, for Evelyn, for me, for our families...for our kids.
So here it is...Silly, I know, but there it is in terms you can relate to my love.
Life is good, I have always said so. I have worked very hard to always see it that way, no matter what. This circumstance won't change that, cannot change that...I won't let it.
I still feel that life is good. I know that I am a little lost right now, having a very difficult time seeing through to the light but I must do it. I must see the good in everything or ALL of this will have been for nothing. I know there is a reason I was left to walk away.
David, I am so sad and broken. Some days I don't feel like I can even stand up but I do. I do it all and I don't think most people I see would even know how bad off I am right now. I work hard at being 'normal', everyone has enough on their own plates, they don't need to worry about me too. Besides, this is my gig, my experience, my journey. There isn't one single thing anyone could do or say to change it for me. I am the creator of my own life. Only I can choose to lay down and cower from what the universe throws at me...or stand as tall as I can, with my chin held high and tears in my eyes...and dance. And I choose to dance, to love life, to gaze at the beauty of this world that I live in, to stand in awe by the ocean as I have always done. I choose to live for me, for my family, for my friends...I choose to live for you my love and for Evelyn.
I may no longer have the privilege to have you at my side for all of my life, or to gaze into your beautiful beautiful face, or to smell that wondrous scent that is uniquely you, or to lay my hands on you and kiss your perfect mouth. But I have all those moments, from when I was lucky enough to have it all with you, stored safely inside my soul. I go there often and I break down hard when I do... for the loss, for the joy, for the beauty of it all. And when I leave that place and come back to the now, I smile and wipe away the tears, because I know that I was so very very lucky and so very blessed that you loved me so deeply. That you spent so much time looking for me, that you found me, and that we were husband and wife...we were David and Kristen Machado.
Woo Hoo! How freaking lucky am I?
So thank you my David, thank you for finding me, for loving me and for giving me what we had. I hope that where you live you are happy, safe, free and whole again. That you can see me and watch over me and that you know how adored you are. You are a special, special man.
And David...I hope you still dance too.
Peace, love and happiness on this 92nd day.
I keep a countdown of my own these days, only mine doesn't seem to help with anything, it just is a reminder...a reminder of how long we have been separated, how long it has been since we have been in each others arms. A reminder of how much time has passed since I laughed with, and hugged one of my very best friends, since we toasted to our lives that we were loving so much. It is a reminder of how much time has passed since you and she left, and I stayed. A reminder of how many days I have cried hard tears for you, for Evelyn, for me, for our families...for our kids.
So here it is...Silly, I know, but there it is in terms you can relate to my love.
3 months or 13.1 weeks
92 days or 2, 208 hours
132,480 minutes or 7, 948, 800 seconds
Life is good, I have always said so. I have worked very hard to always see it that way, no matter what. This circumstance won't change that, cannot change that...I won't let it.
I still feel that life is good. I know that I am a little lost right now, having a very difficult time seeing through to the light but I must do it. I must see the good in everything or ALL of this will have been for nothing. I know there is a reason I was left to walk away.
David, I am so sad and broken. Some days I don't feel like I can even stand up but I do. I do it all and I don't think most people I see would even know how bad off I am right now. I work hard at being 'normal', everyone has enough on their own plates, they don't need to worry about me too. Besides, this is my gig, my experience, my journey. There isn't one single thing anyone could do or say to change it for me. I am the creator of my own life. Only I can choose to lay down and cower from what the universe throws at me...or stand as tall as I can, with my chin held high and tears in my eyes...and dance. And I choose to dance, to love life, to gaze at the beauty of this world that I live in, to stand in awe by the ocean as I have always done. I choose to live for me, for my family, for my friends...I choose to live for you my love and for Evelyn.
 |
| Ours...2010 |
 |
| Evelyn |
 |
| Best Sisters... |
 |
| Best friends... |
I may no longer have the privilege to have you at my side for all of my life, or to gaze into your beautiful beautiful face, or to smell that wondrous scent that is uniquely you, or to lay my hands on you and kiss your perfect mouth. But I have all those moments, from when I was lucky enough to have it all with you, stored safely inside my soul. I go there often and I break down hard when I do... for the loss, for the joy, for the beauty of it all. And when I leave that place and come back to the now, I smile and wipe away the tears, because I know that I was so very very lucky and so very blessed that you loved me so deeply. That you spent so much time looking for me, that you found me, and that we were husband and wife...we were David and Kristen Machado.
 |
| L O V E |
Woo Hoo! How freaking lucky am I?
So thank you my David, thank you for finding me, for loving me and for giving me what we had. I hope that where you live you are happy, safe, free and whole again. That you can see me and watch over me and that you know how adored you are. You are a special, special man.
And David...I hope you still dance too.
Peace, love and happiness on this 92nd day.
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