Four Fucking Years

It is coming up on four fucking years. I don't know how that can be. I remember when I could barely summon the energy to say one year, two...now, four?

It is painful down here, let me tell ya. And that story is getting fucking old!  I have become the master of disguise, I am the happy, upbeat, bubbly girl at work. Everyone thinks so, everyone says so. What they can't see is the excruciatingly lonely, scarred, sad and scared girl behind the mask. They don't see or know the me that I hide. Who would want to, that shit will bring a person down man. No one wants that. So the lonely piles on.

I don't know how to change, I don't know how to get better. I do all the things I know to do...focus on the positive, let the feelings come, journal, talk about you, keep busy, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive...UGH. Stay fucking positive my ass!!!

Tell me, what is positive about being penniless? What is positive about the prospect of being laid off for several weeks, months without pay?  Where will that put me? God!!! What is positive about being so desperately lonely? What is positive about seeing life around you move forward while I sit alone doing nothing? Always alone. I can't just go out to a bar and stand there asking someone to talk to me, I can't afford to. It's not normal. I couldn't if I even wanted to. These aren't excuses, just reality.

No one knows the depths of what happened. They only know the hard cold facts. And really, that is enough...enough for a lifetime of lifetimes.

What a person doesn't see is the raw, exposed nerves left in ruins when half of you has been ripped away without any warning. Not that warning could have helped much but to have seen it coming may have made a teeny tiny difference. I could have braced myself, grabbed hold of the 'oh shit bar'. You know, the one above the door in a car. The one you grab and say oh shit when the person driving almost hits something. Yeah...you know the one.

To wake up looking into the eyes of your lover, doing what lovers do, running off for a day of sun and fun and friendship...blinking and it's gone. You're gone. She's gone. Only me left standing wondering what the fuck just happened. All of it...just gone. NEVER to be seen again. Love stays intact, but tenderness, touch, expressions, conversations, intimacies, memories, safety, companionship, togetherness, laughter...our laughter. It's all ripped away with a blink. One damn blink. Gone. I was just looking at you, I took your picture...I have it still. That last picture. I blinked and then there was nothing. I heard you call, I couldn't save you. I tried, I tried. I tried. 

And now...it's four years later and the pain is still raw, I've just learned how to not wince. I've learned how to walk through my days with my skin peeled back and not let anyone know I hurt. I've learned to stop myself from screaming at the well intentioned who tell me I'm not alone, I'm never alone. They know not what they say. It's okay. I love them anyway.

I know a girl who just lost her mother and she came to me and said you know what I'm going through because you lost your husband. I told her, No. "No I don't. I have my mother still. I have not had to sit by her side and watch her morph from the mother I know to one dying from cancer. I do not know that kind of pain and I would never pretend to. I do however have a very close personal relationship with grief and I can tell you a little of what will come and how I dealt with the moments that turn into days that turn into weeks. I can tell you to let it all come as it will, how it will wash over you when you least expect it and that all you can do is hold on as best you can until it passes. I can tell you to breathe, and I can tell you to forgive the people that try to do and say the right things. They mean no harm, they are just ignorant to the issue. I can tell you you must let go of the ones that will try to bring you further down and to give yourself permission to say no and to be selfish on your own behalf because now it's just you looking out for you. I can tell you this road will be long and hard and that I will always be available and willing to listen to you talk or cry it out. I can tell you I know grief and it is hard and I understand only this part of what you are going through."  Her situation has brought me back so very far, or maybe, hopefully it has only brought all that forward so at least I don't need to start all over. God, I could never start over from then, I wouldn't make it.

Do you hear my thoughts of wanting to die? Do you hear me when I think I'm just wasting space and time being here still. It's strange, I'm not a mess in the corner of a dark room wanting to kill myself. It's not like that at all. I just can't figure out the point of why I am here. I have no family around me, I am hanging on by a hair financially, I give a whole new meaning to paycheck to paycheck. I don't see a way to make things better for myself...all my trying be damned. I just wonder what the point of going on is. I have no love, I have no life and I'm on the brink of destruction. So why? Can you tell me? Am I wrong? If ever a girl needs her person but her person is gone...and there lies the crux of it all. Loneliness.

So I write, I get it out, I pretend I am writing to you. It doesn't change, but it's out there now. Isn't that what they tell you to do. Yeah...whatever.

So love, do you think I am doing well four years later? 

Define well.

So Long 2016

Hi babe-

I haven't come here to talk to you in a long long time.  October 14 was the last post...

I talk to you, all the time actually. I talk to you in my head, I talk to you through my tears, I talk to you out loud...I figure you must be laughing your butt off at all my talking. Do you hear me when I tell my self to 'please stop talking to yourself'. I do it to the point of ridiculous. They say smart people do it, talk to themselves, I only know that crazy people do it, so what does that make me? I think it's a thin wire I walk on, don't you.  haha

I feel like I'm a huge failure at grief, grieving. I don't think I'm doing it right.  Oh, I know, 'there is no right or wrong way to grieve', but that doesn't change the fact that I feel like I'm doing it wrong.

All the little idiosyncrasies that blossomed out of the ashes of this fucking nightmare never cease to amaze me, and boy do they mess with my head. What the hell is the deal with the phone and making calls that I need...what the hell is that? Huh? I needed to call and find out if my shop could do an oil change, scary I know, but it had to be done. For two days I thought about it to death until I drove myself crazy, day three I gave up, day four I finally called and they were closed due to the holiday. Nice, so instead of a $35. dollar oil change, I paid $72 plus all the crap they talked me into for a grand total of ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS. Really?!?  Dammit, I hate that crap. Oh, I know I needed the air filter and probably the fuel treatment since I have a long commute, but the cost of upkeep on this damn car you had to have is killing me.  See how I did that, went from my fault to yours in one breath.  It's a thin wire, I'm tellin ya.

I've gotten all your signs, thank you. You have no idea (or maybe you do) how much I needed to see just one. It had been so so long since you spoke to me that way, Evelyn too. She talks to me with her name mostly. She is very frequently the name of the main character in the books I read, the free, no ones ever heard of books. The lead is always named Evelyn. It's bizarre.

Am I going to be this way forever David. Am I going to be alone for my forever? Will I ever be normal again? You have no idea how hard it is being me, getting through a day. These holidays have done me in. The get-together's are excruciating. I don't want to do them but I do. For me they are about being a part of something I no longer have. They are about family and I am without mine. Oh, I know I have GiGi, but barely.  For me, the holidays are a HUGE reminder that I am without my parents, without my children, without my husband. The working together to make holidays fun, the music and the cooking and the shopping and the wrapping and the decorating, all of it. It's gone for me. And it's hard. And I'm sad. And I'm lonely. Lonely as hell. And I miss you. God how I miss you David. Damn.

So, you've gotten so pretty awesome company lately, no?!? Down here, we've lost so many amazing actors and singers and protectors and everyone in between. It's gonna be a rockin New Years for you all up there. Enjoy...but keep your hands off Princess Leia man!  haha

I love you, as always. Help me be better, show me the way to do it. Love Evelyn, keep her safe, take good care of her, she died for you. She died for you.

It just dawned on me this very second...that you two were meant to go together. You two wanted to jump out of a plane together, I said not so much. You weren't supposed to come with me that day then I said okay. And in the end you two 'jumped' into the ocean together and were gone. Huh...I wonder...

Anyway, so long.

This is Good

Found this on Soaring Spirits International, written by contributor Stephanie Vendrell:

I'm reposting for those in need, and there are many...Peace to you!


"The more I learn and understand about the grieving process, the more I also clearly see how deeply our culture is uninformed about it and how horribly damaging it can be to some of us already damaged by the loss itself. So be forewarned: this post is a bit of a rant.

I can’t remember ever in my life being taught anything about death other than the undercurrent of panic and fear of dying. We are not taught how to grieve, what feelings can be expected, or how to treat those who are grieving. It’s too bad, and kind of weird, because death happens all the time, everywhere, to everyone. The sad fact is, we have to figure it out ourselves by going through it. We have to search for counseling or support because for some reason our western culture likes to brush it all under the rug. To give a firm, fake smile and a quick pat on the shoulder as if to say, there, there now, everything is fine, get over it already, no one likes a sad mopey. We’d all like to go back to pretending death doesn’t happen, thank you.

So when we find ourselves suddenly members of this most terrible club we don’t quite know where to turn. After the initial brief days or, if you’re lucky, couple of weeks, during which family and friends come together to mourn with you, well, that’s it. Yes thankfully there are exceptions to this, but it has been my experience that for too many people it’s closer to, We’re all going back to our lives so you should too. And when you don’t, you either never hear from them again, or get: what’s wrong with you? You must be not right in the head. You must need medication. You must not understand that we have determined that the time for grieving is over and it’s time to put our blinders on again and paste on the smiles.

And then these uninformed morons either completely ignore you (because who wants a sad widow at a party?) or somewhat ignore you (sure come to the party but don’t you dare mention your dead husband) or even, shockingly, spout some kind of stern lecture about how you are not doing it right. I can’t even believe some people have the gall to do this sort of thing, but they do. Sometimes they try to compare losing your life partner to some other experience of their own. Yes a divorce can be awful. Yes that injury was painful. I get it. We all have our things. But you can’t use that shit to try and tell us we should be over it or don’t have a right to grieve in our own time - and you can’t tell me it’s really comparable. If someone you shared your life and home with hasn’t died you have no idea what you are talking about.

Just because we are participating in the world, just because we are going to work each day, just because we might even have a new relationship or enjoy ourselves at social gatherings does NOT mean we are “over it.” That our grief and sadness is still present should not surprise you. And we have a right to talk about our missing halves. We have a right to say, when asked how we’re doing, that we are feeling sad or missing them, and shouldn’t have to feel guilty about being honest. We have the right to cry and should not have to hide it. We don’t have the obligation to play all nicey-nice to the fake cheery world out there. We shouldn’t have to lie about our grief just to avoid making you feel uncomfortable or awkward. And if you are the kind of person who gets upset when we are sad, or avoids us just in case we might be, then you are no friend at all.

We widows and widowers know by now that we each have our own different timetables and ways to process the loss, which is an ongoing journey no matter how long it’s been. But others out there don’t know how it works. So I’m going to explain it clearly. We ALL are STILL GRIEVING AND ALWAYS WILL. It doesn’t mean we will be crying 24/7. But it means we will have bad moments. It means there are triggers and memories that hurt our hearts. It means sometimes we will be overwhelmed with loneliness even if we are not alone in the room. It means the pain of our loss has left a scar that will ride with us forever.

One day (and this is not a curse, but just a simple fact), unless you die first, it WILL happen to you…unfortunately it seems like this is the bottom line. Unless you are a very good grief therapist you probably will not really get it until then. Because there are no classes on bereavement in high school. Marriage does not require a seminar on what to do if your spouse dies. There are no flyers passed out when we are born that explain what happens when we die or how we will feel when our loved ones go before us. There are no lists of “what not to say” passed out at funerals either. (Maybe there should be.)

That said - there is good information on grief out there for those who make a point of looking for it. So I’m not going to go into all that again here. But I will give one simple piece of advice I learned from my own experience and felt should be put into words somewhere. Maybe some other widowed people out there might be able to use it one day to help the morons along a little.

If someone close to you is sad; if someone you care for is breaking down and clearly having a terrible time of it, just be there. Spare a little of your precious time, please. Hug us. Sit with us. Listen to us. Don’t lecture or try to change the subject to something cheery and unrelated. Don’t say lame open-ended things like let me know if you need anything or you know he is always with you. So many of us are dealing with this alone; just so alone - you may not understand our grief, but you can’t fix it. What we really need is a compassionate friend. We need support in our grief, not guilt for feeling it. So you can agree that it totally sucks. It sucks really, really bad. It’s awful and devastating and I’m so sorry and then hug us again and tell us you love us. And then do it again, and again, and again, until the sobs recede a little. Talk about our lost loved one. Ask questions about them, ask for stories, what we remember. If you knew them, tell some memories of your own. Tell us you understand how life will never be the same without them.

Just be there. It may not be easy (or fun), but it is simple, even though so few people ever take the time. So f***ing busy with their own lives and obsessed with their self-importance and misinformed sense of authority and denial and fake smiles and so strangely uncomfortable with someone else’s feelings.

It’s so sad. So sad that we damaged souls often suffer needless further damage in this often unfeeling and superficial culture. I feel so deeply sorry about it all."

Grief is isolating

I just read that somewhere. 

Grief is isolating.

It so is to! Damn. I have worked so freaking hard from the very beginning of this crazy mixed up journey to 'get out there', 'do', 'live'. Well, ya know what?  It ain't working!!!

Two years and 4 damn months into this shit storm and I'm screaming UNCLE...I'm tapping out. Let me out of this ring now...don't want to be here and I definitely don't want to play this stupid game anymore. I feel like I am the definition of isolated.  Look in the dictionary and there I am pretty as a picture wrapped inside the meaning of the word.  God, could I be any more pathetic?

Where am I?  Where did I go?  Am I coming back? Will I know me when I see me?  Will you?  Ugh!  What the hell man.  Not only do we have to come to terms, whatever that means, with the fact that our spouse has left the building but now we have to figure out where the hell we went? Craap!

All these many many months clawing my way through the muck that my life is and this is where I end up?  Isolated.  Alone.  Again...what the hell man.  Why can I no longer find the words to carry on a conversation, why do I cringe when asked to do something or go somewhere?  Why? 

Is it always going to be like this? Will I ever be able to feel joy again?  Will I laugh again with more than just my voice? Will I be able to do what needs to get done without thinking it to death and making myself crazy.  God, the questions.  The boat loads of questions and not one single answer.

Stick a fork in me because I am done!

The Dream - Jan 9th

I don't dream of you...everyone who knows me, knows that...you knew that.  I never was one to dream of my loves unless they were in the doghouse so to say.  I NEVER dream of you. The few times I have since you left you have come through as loving and supporting and helpful. You came through because I needed to see you.

I got up with the alarm to get GiGi off to school and I found her in a puddle of tears.  Apparently after I went to bed she bleached all the color out of her hair because now she wanted dark green...well, you can imagine how it turned out.  I called the school and said she wouldn't be in today as she was sick.  Not really a lie, she is sick over how badly things went.  LOL  Anyway, I went back to my room and jumped under the covers because it was freezing in here and well, I guess I fell asleep, because I dreamt of you.  

I don't know where I was, I didn't recognize my surroundings.  But I came into a room, well it had a floor and walls but there was no ceiling, anyway, you appeared to be going through a dresser or desk, looking for something.  I just stared at your back noticing that you were wearing the shorts and t-shirt you died in, you didn't know I was there until I whispered your name (in shock) and then you turned around.  You didn't smile, your demeanor was off, you didn't mad, just sort of robotic.  I ran, crying, into your arms and held you in utter desperation, but you held be me as though we had never met, as though it was very uncomfortable for you to have this woman running her hands all over your arms and back and head...hanging on to you for dear life.  I saw that you had no shoes on and I said "I need to see your feet, I miss your feet."   I got a brief glimpse before you pulled me back into a hug...but still no 'life' in you.

I was so confused.  Why are you here? What are you looking for? Why are you not happy to see me? You didn't seem to be speaking to me in words, it was more just a feeling that you were communicating with me, but I still don't know what was going on.  I remember turning my head to the left and seeing through the window a bus full of people.  It was an old hippie bus full of people and you said, without moving your lips, they were all like you and that you had to get back to the bus, you just needed something first.  I don't know if you found what you needed but you headed back to the bus saying you would see me soon.  I don't know how you got back to the bus, I didn't see a door or even you moving, I just sensed you went back to the bus.  I waved at one woman who was looking directly at me but she didn't smile or wave back.  Everyone, including you seemed pleasant but not happy.  No enthusiasm, no emotion, it was as though you all had been ordered to be reserved. 

Then the phone woke me up.

Startled awake, I laid there not answering the phone, I was too stunned by how very very real the dream was.  I had never had a dream like that before in my life and I was freaked out.  I must have dozed off again because I found myself back in the dream only this time the scene was different.  Again there were walls but no roof and everything was a kind of off white beige color just like earlier.  I felt that I was now outside but know that I saw a free standing door a little behind me on my right.  I didn't see anyone at first, but I sensed you were there along with everyone I saw on the bus.  I remember feeling that I just wanted to see you, be with you but I wasn't allowed to.  I sensed that I was only allowed to do or see whatever the little slip of folded paper I was holding said I could do. I had the overall feeling that my strong strong emotions and grief were not welcome here... had to behave in a certain manner.  I remember standing thinking that I didn't understand what was going on at all and how lonely I was for you when suddenly you pulled up in a really nice black Mustang car, a girl walked out of the door to my right saying (without speaking) that she was bored and didn't have anything to do so you said, or didn't, "you can come with me" and she got in the car and you drove off.  My loneliness and longing for you was so intense but I wasn't allowed to be with you.  I was so very confused.

And then the scene changed, suddenly I was seeing the outside of a house, a rustic but modern log style home with a beautiful full length front porch.  I sensed that it was my new house and I was moving in with my parents.  Now I'm inside the house leaning against a counter of this very open concept home talking with my Mom and Dad saying 'well, this is it, our new home...isn't it beautiful?"

Then the phone rang again.

I have no idea what the hell that dream was all about.  It didn't feel like a dream, it felt very real.  I feel I was supposed to learn something from it but I have no idea what, I am as confused as ever.   It was definitely not the warm and fuzzy kind of dream I would hope to have. I've been so weirded out by it I haven't even posted this, it's been sitting in drafts waiting to see if there was anything else I could remember.  Other than I DIDN'T LIKE IT, there's nothing though.

Hmmm...WHAT THE HELL?

A letter to heaven

Dear David, 

I haven't talked to you in so long I figured I would write.  In fact the last words I said to you were
"I love you", not sure if you heard me...but I screamed it loud.

Things sure have changed for us wouldn't you say?  A year and a half has passed since we laid eyes on each other, held hands...kissed.  So much time apart.  And we thought we had fixed that...being away from each other, out of each others lives.  Oh how we were wrong!  

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not really me anymore.  I tried, but she's gone, I think you took her with you.  Who I am now has yet to be determined.  I don't look the same, I don't talk the same, I don't think the same and I don't do the same.  I'm stuck in a black place between the light and the dark, a place between living and not.  I carry on, don't get me wrong.  Our house is clean, our bills are paid,  and our kids are well.  Occasions are observed, functions are attended and our families are appeased.  I've kept up with it all, I've done it all...but not really. My heart isn't in it, as there isn't one to give, I gave it to you a long time ago.  I function now like a robot, I work off of memory.  I don't know for how much longer I can do it though, what little life I have in me is waning.  My will to survive is about spent.

I need you David.  I need you to talk to me and help me fight.  We always talked, remember? We would face whatever there was head on and figure a way through it, together.  I'm alone now, but I still need you.  You calmed me and helped me to 'let go' a little, you were the soft to my hard, the laugh to my smile, the joy to my sorrow.  You were my everything love, and I don't know how to live without you, I don't even want to.

I wonder often where you are and what you are doing. I wonder what you think and what you feel. Are you sad? Happy? Do you feel like me? I hope with all the hope I have that you are well. That you are content and that when you look back on our time together you feel good. I know you wish me the same, and I do, look back and feel good. The rest though I haven't quite mastered, the living is where I have trouble.  I'm in dire straits.

I wanted to tell you though, I love you, and thank you.  Thank you for the life we had. Thank you for loving me the way you did and making me feel like I was the most perfect human being on the planet...for you.  Thank you for bringing me back to me, for showing me I was so much more than a Mom.  Thank you for your laughter and your silly antics and your goofy side.  Thank you for loving my children with your whole heart and for being the Daddy Gillian never had.  She loves you fiercely and hurts for you hard.  Thank you for sharing your boys with me, I love them like my own, I love them enough to let them go and be.  And mostly David...thank you for our story.  It is a treasure among treasures and I will never forget one single moment of it.  Not the part that began when we were children and not when we picked back up as adults.  It is one for the ages I believe and it means the world to me.  You enriched my life in more ways than I could ever express and you taught me about myself.  I have never had anyone love me the way you did, nor will I probably ever again.  I am blessed to have known that if only for a little while.

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing I hope that you will always find me, smile, and remember when...

I love you David John Machado, I love you big.  Please help me to be well again.

How Long?

I threw away your underwear today.  

Your socks too.  

And then I threw up.

I am no better.  All these damn months later, I am no better at all.

In fact, I think I feel worse.  It is a stuck, lost, empty, lonely, broken feeling that has become lodged in the center of my chest.  It allows very little air to pass and I still find myself gasping from time to time.  I'll be watching television or reading and suddenly realize that I can't breathe. It's too much.

You are the first thing I think of when I open my eyes, the last again before they close for the night...and all the minutes in between.  

This pain is consuming me.

It is eating me alive and I don't know how to make it go away.  I laugh, I joke, I do.  I do everything I'm supposed to do but it isn't helping at all. 

How long can I go on like this.  How long can one person live with pain like this.

I threw away your socks and underwear and it damn near killed me.  What the fuck David!  

I found dust all over your bed pillows and I burst out crying and couldn't wipe it off fast enough. Fuck  Fuck Fuck!  

I don't want to do this anymore,  I just don't want to live this way any longer.  It hurts so so bad.  I just want to see you and feel you and smell your skin.  I love you so much David.  How fucked up is that...I'm hopelessly in love with a dead man.  God I need help.  I just need it to all go away.

I don't want to live this life anymore.

Summer is here, right?!?

Well, I believe after Memorial Day we are officially into the start of summer.  The days are holding at mid sixties to mid seventies and the nights have gone down to mid forties but other than that it's just a feeling you get.  The subtle change that comes over the land.  You watch each day as colors get brighter, birds speak louder, even traffic steps it up a notch.  Slowly doors open and heads peek out looking to see if it's safe to come out, safe to leave the comfort and warmth of the place they hid in after such a LONG and WHITE winter.

I've taken to sitting on our porch again, only it just isn't the same alone.  I think I'm so tough and brave for doing it though so there is that.  LOL

I've been sort of but kind of not planning our return trip to Arkansas.  I mean, I know it is coming, I know we will be leaving here for there, but at the same time I'm dreading it.  Stepping out of the drama I've grown accustomed to and into the drama I've become unaccustomed to.  But go we must and go we will.

I haven't seen my family in a year.  It was only two months in that I was with them last, I was in shock and numb then.  They do not know me now.  They do not know how I am.  It will be a 'high alert' three weeks for me.  I do not want to frighten them with the sudden and without warning 'falls' that I have.  They will be expecting to see the me they have always known, they are oblivious to the fact that she no longer exists.  This should be a lot of fun.  HeHe...Ugh.

For the only reason that is important I will do this...my precious boy.  The child that did not ask for any of this.  He is so good and so brave and so loving that I feel my heart crack just thinking of him.  I will do whatever it takes for him and I will be happy for it.  

So I will gather my thoughts, and gather my belongings and head to the Ozark Mountains, to a place that you loved so much, a place you dreamed of living one day.  Not sure if you noticed, but I did every little thing in as subtle a way as possible to deter you from that dream LOL, I lived there already, once, and wasn't really wanting to do it again any time soon.  

You will be with me, with us, as you should be.  Have no fear.

Yes, summer is here again, summer number 2 without you...What a looong strange trip it's been.  Can you hear them singing?  

Splendor in the Grass

"Though nothing can bring back 

the hour of splendor in the

grass, glory in the flower, we

will grieve not; rather find

strength in what remains

behind."

Never Forget

The grief swirls inside like a tornado, pushing, pressing, wanting to get out.  It's been bottled up for so many months because I've refused to let it out.  I've refused to really cry or scream or even utter the words that life is unfair, because I was the one who lived.  I'm the one still breathing, moving, and living life.  I still have my future ahead of me.  If I want it.  But I'm not sure I do...

Because life isn't fair.  I should have died that night.  I might as well have because my life ended even though my heart still beats in my chest, even though every second of every day of every month I breathe air in and I breathe it out.  I move through life, an impostor, someone who shouldn't be here.

I can play normal.  I can laugh and joke and smile, but it's just a mask that I wear for special occasions.  Those moments pulse through my body.  It's not something I can define.  No one knows that that moment stays with me every second of every day.  It's always there, pulsing in the background, reminding me.  Taunting me.  I can never forget what happened...and I was left behind.

Lovely words

My cousin Jennifer sent this to me, it is so very fitting and lovely...

The thing Is 

to love life, to love it even 

when you have no stomach for it 

and everything you’ve held dear 

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, 

your throat filled with the silt of it. 

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat 

thickening the air, heavy as water 

more fit for gills than lungs; 

when grief weights you like your own flesh 

only more of it, an obesity of grief, 

you think, How can a body withstand this? 

Then you hold life like a face 

between your palms, a plain face, 

no charming smile, no violet eyes, 

and you say, yes, I will take you 

I will love you, again.

-Ellen Bass

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

Hello my love

Words are failing me.

For so long I have felt compelled to post to you on facebook.  For so long I have done just that...almost as if it was normal.  Almost as if I were in Arkansas and you were in Rhode Island, like I so often was during our life together.  

Now I'm finding that the words aren't right.  The intention is there, but the words don't mean what I feel.  The words don't come close to describing how I feel.

'I miss you'.  HA.  How ridiculous does that sound?  I miss being able to eat M & M's, I miss watching Friends, I miss my childhood...but miss you?  God, what I'm feeling, the feeling inside me goes so far beyond that and I don't know a word to describe it.

I have become so in tuned to the inside of me, for example...

I can feel my heart.  I can feel exactly where it sits, It feels like a GIGANTIC blob of chewed up bubble gum.  Not fully hardened, but not soft and squishy either...It is sore all the time, it aches like a muscle that has been tormented at the gym.

I can feel my lungs.  They don't seem to work correctly any longer and I find that my breathing is far too shallow.    I have to pay close attention or suddenly I find that I am gasping for air.

My eyes and ears and nose.  I have come to know that they are directly linked to my heart and at any given moment, no matter where I am or what I am doing, a sight, a sound, a smell can send me spiraling downward.  I cannot escape from any of it...it is everywhere...my grief is every which way I turn.

So words like...'I miss you' or 'I love you' are just too foolishly small to describe what I truly am trying to convey. 

I am longing for you...

I am craving you...

I am dieing little by little without you...

I am suffocating for wanting you...

I am breaking into a million little pieces for loving you...

So yeah...I miss you and I love you in a way that can't be communicated well by me

You are adored, you are wished upon, you are longed for and you are cherished.

That's all...

xoxo - Me

August 20th

Gillian has been gone for days now...off visiting with a friend.  I can't tell you how lonely and empty this house is.  How lonely and empty I am.  I'm at such a loss for words, I miss you so so much David.  I miss our life...I miss everything.  I look at your picture and shake my head because I SO don't understand what has happened here.  I am a very lost soul.