Kissed by love

For Christmas Mom and Dad gave me a small pewter wind chime to hang in a window come spring so I can hear you talk to me.  As it is winter I have it hanging on a nail in the door to the living room so I have yet to hear it ring on it's own.

It is of an Angel inside a heart suspended from a flowing ribbon, it is all in pewter and it is engraved.  It says

A GIFT FROM HEAVEN

I am more than a memory

you will feel our love grow

I am forever your angel

Some things you just know.

For today I can share

that in heaven above

God's taken my hand,

I am complete,

I am love.

DAVID

1964-2013

Yesterday I walked by it and said out loud "pretty soon I will move you to a window where you belong, then I will hear you sing."    Yes, I know, it is weird that I talk to inanimate objects...but if I didn't I would have no reason to use my voice most days, and yes, I am that much alone here.

Just now, after vacuuming, I came in here to move the coffee table back where it belongs and as I sat down the wind chime chimed!  I turned to look at it and the little chimes were swaying and singing.  What?!?  I walk past it 50 times a day and never once, in the month it has been hanging there, has it chimed.  NOT ONCE!

Some things you just know...and I know that you just kissed me with love.

I miss you so big baby.  

Thank you

Another number away

Another calendar to take down, one in which you did not live.  Another number away from the one you left from.

I spent 2014 trying to make the world stop spinning but it never did.  I trudged my way through the fog of what was left of 2013 like a slug moving through molasses, only to fall into 2014 feeling like I had the worst bed spins known to man.  I tried putting one foot on the floor to make it stop, but it just never did.  The fog had lifted giving me a clear view of what was ahead and it was then the pain I thought I had known tripled in size.  This clarity was like being struck by lightning all those months before but not feeling, really feeling, the pain until now.

I don't know how I got here, the beginning of 2015, I think I am missing great bunches of time. It is the strangest thing to me that a year full of days have ended yet I feel as though I am tied to the beginning.  I have never known the passing of time to be this way, or maybe that isn't it. Maybe it is just me, obviously. Something is very very wrong with me.  I mean, here I am saying how fast time has moved forward, at the same time I'm saying I have not.  See, I can't even get that right.  Just wow.

I hear so often, "Life is what you make it".  I've always been a happy positive person, a glass half full kind of girl.  And I'm trying still to be that, I am.  I sing and I dance, I laugh and I smile.  I say hello to everyone and do random acts of kindness.  I gather with friends and feel moments of joy.  I collect all those moments as fast and as often as I can but they won't stick.  I don't seem to connect emotionally to any of my joy.  I feel it then it's gone, lickity split.  My heart has been ripped and torn apart, now nothing will stay inside.  So tell me, what life do I make with that? How do I make that glass half full when there is no bottom to the glass?   Hmm?

So this is how it is, jumping into a new calendar, the fog is gone, the world still spins most days and the searing pain follows me everywhere.  I don't know what this year will bring exactly, but I know some big things are ahead.  GiGi will graduate in June and, God willing, start college in September.  For me, well, I'll still be here searching.  Searching for answers, searching for joy, searching for you.  Searching for peace within my soul.

I love you David.  I will always love you.  I hope that you are well, and that you have found the peace in your soul that you could not find here.  Be near me baby...I need you to be near me.

Welcome to 2015!

Isn't it ironic

I was thinking about you today, about both of you. 

I was thinking about how when I was 15 you were both a part of my life at the exact same time, and the everlasting effect each of you made.  Of course you didn't know each other...but I knew both of you, and the outcome of both of those relationships, however big or small, made a lasting mark on my psyche.

I was thinking that my connection to each of you came to an end at the exact same time. Graduating high school ended one and timing ended the other.  I never forgot about either of you though and from time to time your faces would come to my mind.

I was thinking that, fast forward 27 years, once again you both came into my life at the exact same time.  Only this time you would meet and you would form an instant bond...both silly and full of life.  This time the connection would be for life...full of love and laughter and tears.  The friendship we three had was fun and special and priceless made even more so by the reminiscing of long ago shared memories.  How awesome is that.

I was thinking that only 3 short years later our connection would, once again, be broken never ever to happen again...at the exact same time.

How ironic.

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.

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.

78 weeks

I feel like when you died I died too.  The slate of who I was wiped clean.

You didn't come back, either of you

I did.

I'm brand new. Bare naked and alone. An infant new to this world.

An infant without the luxury of having every little need cared for.

An infant without the luxury of gradually growing and adapting to this place I am in.

I am an infant thrown to the wolves...helpless and wailing with the need for protection and care. But none comes.

I have not been given the opportunity to ease into this life.  

I was born here, to this new life, with the weight of the world...with the weight of a parent...with the responsibilities of an adult.

How can an infant be expected to act and function like an adult.  It is impossible to think...

Yet here I am.

A year and a half later and I have grown no further.

The Wild and the Weak...

I have had a very difficult week babe...HA!  Sounds a little foolish coming off the year I have had but still...it's been rough.

The pain and sorrow I have been battling seem to have crept back to the forefront like an army of enemy soldiers.   After waging a year long war, I had managed to push the enemy back behind a line that let me breathe.  I have needed to catch my breath.  But alas, when I wasn't looking the enemy came screaming back in to the front and brought me down to my knees.  I have been left a screaming crying pile of rubble, I have been brought back to start.

Is this my new life?  Will I forever struggle with all that is left in me just to breathe and get up and do?  I'm not sure I will make it then, if this is it.  I'm so tired.  I'm just so tired.  Playing the role of normal takes away everything that was left inside me when I didn't see you come back to the surface,  when I never saw her signal she made it to safety.  In those moments everything I was left me.  I died too.

I have an old friend from high school.  We were best friends for a time.  Over the years, many years, we lost touch.  She thinks of me though, and the sorrow I live, and from time to time she sends me a token of hope and joy.  She extends a gesture of 'life' that has the power to carry me through a few more moments.  That is huge.  When darkness is all around me and there's nowhere left to turn it is these gestures from long ago friends that bring me to light.  It is huge...it is life.  It is an energizing breath.

Today I received this...

Allow

By Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.

Try corralling a lightning bolt,

containing a tornado.  Dam a

stream and it will create a new

channel.  Resist, and the tide

will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry

you to higher ground.  The only

safety lies in letting it all in –

the wild and the weak; fear,

fantasies, failures and success.

When loss rips off the doors of

the heart, or sadness veils your

vision with despair, practice

becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your

known way of being, the whole

world is revealed to your new eyes.

It's in the words, but more importantly it's in the gesture that I find strength.  Some amazing people touch my life.  I am blessed.

I love you David and I miss you in a very big way.

I love you Kathy and your kind heart.  Thank you for the strength of today.

The ambush

AAARGH when will it change...

The ambush out of nowhere.  It's as though some other force sees that I have had a few peaceful moments, some calm hours, and says 'NOPE, can't allow it...BAM, take that bitch!'

I'm tired.

One of these days I will be strong enough to beat this other force down, one of these days clearly isn't now though.  Now it beats me.

A Year That Was Only Yesterday

I'm standing at the edge of time, looking out over the endless sight of water.  

All around me is water and the wind.  I see blue and I see white and that is all.  

It is what I hear that is the thing...I do not see it but I hear it and with the wind I am wrapped in it...the screams.  I am fighting an invisible demon...the screams.  I feel them crawling all over my skin, through my hair and in my head but I do not see them.  Everywhere I only see the sea, I cannot move in any direction for it.   The wind holds me in place as the screams invade my body, invade my soul.  I look everywhere for the two of you but you are gone. 

 And then I wake up...

My eyes open and I can feel my heart beating fast and it is then that I see I am at home in our bed. There is no wind, no sea and no scream.  It was just a dream.  I never dream, I briefly wonder why I just did.  I climb out of bed but reach back to hold on to the edge as my feet hit the floor and reality slams into me like it has every morning for 365 days. It wasn't a dream, it is a reality, it is a memory that no other person on this earth has...only me.  I shake my head as a tear slips down my cheek, I take a deep breath and straighten my spine.  I open the bedroom door and look out, I am in the home that we created together and it is time to face another day.

I move about the house taking care of what needs taking care of.  Our birds, they are sitting on their perches waiting for momma to fill their tub with warm water so they can do their splash down...so cute, and for the next ten minutes the sound of very happy birds playing in the 'hot tub', wet wings flapping fills the house.  On to the coffee.  Empty the filter cup, select flavor, fill filter cup, push brew.  While I wait I clean up any mess left behind by GiGi in her haste to get herself off to school.  Coffee in hand I head into the living room and am greeted by two very cute little critters bouncing around waiting to be let out to play for a few minutes.  I'll sit here and drink my cup of coffee and read for a half an hour, that is as long as I will allow myself to sit idle. Critters away, coffee cup rinsed out I head into the bedroom to make the bed and it hits me. The scent in our room is a trigger, the candles, my perfumes, your colognes all form into a fist that hits me square in the gut and instantly I am bent at the waist from the enormity of it all, crying.  In a minute I will be okay, I wipe the tears and make the bed.  I remember when I got home from my last trip to AR, you surprised me with a bedroom makeover of sorts and you were so proud of your idea to get the wrinkles out of the blankets with the back scratcher...God how I miss your silliness.  Only for you it isn't silly...it's just you.

All these days have been spent in a state of the edge of panic.  That is, I'm in constant awareness that I walk through my days on the edge of a melt down but not quite.  My breathing is very deliberate, I'm always aware of the subtle changes in the slow draw in and the slow push out.  There are moments when it becomes more frenetic and when I notice that,  I shake my head and send the demons that haunt me scattering because at any given moment I can become unhinged.  I am learning to live like this. I am learning to live with the constant presence of the video playing in my head.  I liken it to when I was a kid doing homework with the stereo on, my focus was on the school work but my ear and brain could hear the music and sometimes a song would come that would draw me all the way in and away from the work. Now, I am focused on the day but sometimes the video draws me all the way in and all I can do is ride it out.  I do all this with a mask of 'normal' on my face.  If you were to ask anyone, I think they would say 'she looks great, I think she is doing okay'.  I'm not sure they would be totally wrong, from what I have heard and read, I think I am 'holding up' rather well.  I really am finding joy in the small things, the sun, flowers pushing their way to the surface again, time spent with friends and our children.   It's only on the inside that the sorrow and the broken lives.

Bed made, tears dried, it is now time for me to work out.  For the months of November, December and January I was rendered paralyzed.  I couldn't manage to do anything but the absolute necessities.  The adrenalin of fear and the anesthetization of shock wore off and six months into this dreadful journey I was stopped on a dime.  Unfortunately my poor body took the brunt of this inactivity.  Daily work outs are now a MUST again.  ( lol )  That done I juice, shower, and then sweep, vacuum and mop the floors.  Believe it or not you two are NEVER out of my mind, thoughts of you circle my brain like the ticker tape on the bottom of the t.v. screen, and it was only a matter of time before I would cry again.  Mopping the foyer floor my breathing took off and when I wasn't paying attention the video hit me hard, hanging on to the sideboard I cried in anguish for the third time today.  Hopefully this will be it for today, it is completely and utterly exhausting trying to navigate grief and keep the pain at bay.

Wiping the tears away I make my way upstairs again.  I need to empty the dishwasher and clean the glasses from the sink.  I use your bar glasses pretty regularly, you spent so much time collecting them and you loved them so much.  In the days since you two left I have learned that time is not a healer, some wounds can never be healed in the true sense of the word...it is nothing more than a string of seconds and minutes and hours where you learn to perfect your response time, to perfect your reactions, to perfect the mask that you wear.  It is a period of moments where I am learning how to live with a new self in a new world beginning all the way back from start.  I might be still crying every day but not as often or as long.   Time has not healed me it has only allowed me the opportunity to learn how to live with all that is trapped inside.  I think I am getting better at it.

When you have spent as many hours together as we have, EVERYTHING is a memory.  A sight, a sound, a scent, a word, a look, a room, a friend, a driving route, a food etc.  I mean everything triggers memories.  I remember the very first time I laid eyes on Evelyn since high school, it was at Laurel's house and she had just come from work.  She was wearing a white sleeveless shirt with a big flowery skirt and sandals that were one step above flip flops.  And David at the airport on October 8, 2009.  That memory I cannot visit right now, I am not strong enough for that.  For a year after that day I would bawl every time I remembered my first sight of you...I was so overwhelmed with love and emotion, remember babe?   Now I hear so often "He, they, will always live in your memories, which is true, but true too is, memories only stay alive in the reliving together, in the retelling of that shared experience.  "Hey, remember that time...". Without that the memory only fades away and soon too will die.  I am truly all alone with my memories of you, no one else can share in these with me and that is a hurt all of it's own.  I lost you, I don't want to lose our memories too.  

Ah, what more can I say?  I am learning to live again a stranger in an unfamiliar world.  I wonder Babe, do you still recognize me, for I am clearly not who you left.  Anyway...I put one foot in front of the other even if only going in a circle at this point.  A time will come when I have created a new me and the circle will open and I will step out into a newly created life.  Hopefully I will have all my old memories still intact but too I need to create new ones.  I need to be able to say remember when and hear back 'yeah I do...'.  I am working hard, trying to find the Joy (as Kristen always says) in each new experience and clinging tightly to the family we chose.  We together as a group have shared memories which we talk of often.  And each and every one of them has struggled to come to terms with all of this in their own way.  I think we as a whole have kept each other upright.  They have seen me in my darkest hours,  they have nudged me gently to keep on keeping on.  I love them in a way they couldn't know.

I still feel I will wake up one day and this would all have been a bad bad dream.  I mean how could it not be, we were so damn happy and having such an incredible day...how in all that is real could you and Evelyn have just vanished without warning?  You two, so very much the same person, so young and vibrant and full of life.  Ugh..I know I will never fully recover from this, I will never forget what I saw, I will never stop missing you two and I will love you both desperately until I am in your arms again. 

I pray you two are safe, and happy and at peace.  I hope I have made you proud.  I hope and I hope and I hope that you can feel me and my love for you always.  Please stay together, take care of each other and think of us down here from time to time.  We love you so, I love you so...and I can not wait to see you again.  I wonder if it will be like that magical night in the airport...remember David?

Now I must go do laundry.  Cheers!

Kate

A year ago all of us were off doing our own thing for Cinco De Mayo. 

Kristen was at some function where she had turned her phone off.  Laurel was doing I don't know what.  Kirk was at work.  And you...You were home with the boys and your mother in law making food and preparing to cook on the grill...you had just finished your first Margarita. 

I of course was sitting in a police station soaked with sea water, freezing and in severe shock.  I was waiting...waiting for the word, and when it finally came it was the worst it could be.

"Do you have anyone you can call, any family?" the officer sitting with me asked.

I couldn't think, I didn't know what to do, what to say, and I was shivering so ferociously, I couldn't work my phone.  The officer sitting with me took it from my hands and I said "call Kristen".  

No answer.

I said "call Kate", and he handed me the phone while it was ringing.  Poor Kate, you answered the phone.  Poor Kate.  I don't remember anything said...not one single word.  I think I gave the phone to the officer and he talked to you.  All I know is you answered and you came.  You came for me.

The phone call that would change your world forever.  That drive...two plus hours...how surreal that must have been.  How excruciating.  Poor Kate.

What happened after you finally made it, the walk we walked, what we saw.  Oh my poor Kate. You came for me.  I don't really remember seeing you, seeing your face but I know you were beside me the whole time.  You gave me your chapstick.  Cherry Chapstick.

That day we both saw so much, lost so much...and we broke into a million little pieces. Together.

There are no words for what that day was, no word means enough.  But what I do know is from it a friendship that means everything to me grew big and strong.  I know you were in shock and great pain yourself yet you hid it so you could do for me.  We have a bond born from that shared experience in the hospital for which I am so thankful.

I remember you sitting on my couch some weeks later and you said "well, one good thing has come out of this experience", and when I asked what you answered "us".  I knew you were right but I couldn't fully appreciate it at that point, I was too consumed.  Now though, I couldn't agree more.

You came running when I needed someone most, you kept your composure and your pain to yourself in order to take care of me.  You picked me up and carried me through the toughest of times and I love you so much for it.  I am grateful for you and I appreciate what you did for me.  I know that David is so very thankful that you stepped into a role no one would want, and I know that Evelyn is smiling down at you saying "that's our Kate".  

One year is just days away.  It has been such a hard year for me, for you, for all of us but one good thing came out of this experience...I got you!

I love you my Kateness.

Tree of Life

Picture your life...your home, your work,  your things, your friends, your family, your marriage, your children, etc.  

Now picture your life as a tree.  Each branch representing that whole life...each leaf representing all the shared moments with all those people, all those things.  Each leaf being the connections you have that tie your whole world together, they tell the story of your existence, of your hopes and of your dreams.  Of your past, your present and your future.  They speak of the secrets you have shared with no one other than your One.  They are the meaning of your life.

Now picture this tree being put through a chipper while you watch all the little tiny pieces fly all around, landing with no rhyme or reason.  No special care for this as your life, your loves, your whole world. And when the dust settles you are numb, out of body, bereft...and now you are told you must gather all those little teeny tiny pieces and you must put them all back together as they were, you will do this without direction, and alone,  because the one who was your glue turned to dust.  You must do this now, you must start immediately, you must toil through your pain and tears and screams, you must do this for everyone's sake because they are watching and waiting.

...this is the story of my life, this is the story of my tree.  It is the story of my days, my nights, and my every minute.  It is painstaking work performed by hands that are all thumbs and just when I feel I have gathered some pieces and can begin to put them together the wind will blow and scatter everything putting me back to the beginning.  I trip and I fall and I wail from the sheer exhaustion of the task ahead of me.  But I get up and I try again.  How I put this tree back together will be my legacy.  It is so very important that I get this right.  It is daunting to say the least but I know that all who matter most are watching and waiting.  This I must not fail to do.

Anywhere I would have followed you

Say something, I'm giving up on you. 

I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you. 

Anywhere I would have followed you. 

Say something, I'm giving up on you. 

A bluest sky

From where I sit on the couch, I've moved to your spot, a look to the left affords me a perfectly framed picture of the bluest sky.

A further look up and I see giant billowy white clouds in a hurry to get out of my view, where they are running to I do not know.

A slight look back down again and I am faced with a frame within a frame, it is called 'Friends' and staring back at me are the faces of my girls, my loves, my hearts...minus of course, one.

If I go lower than even that I see a green pine so tall,  but not to be outdone by a now leafless tree that stands four feet above the pine.  

Fifteen feet from the top of that tallest tree there is a giant red/brown ball of leaves that harbors a family of the busiest squirrels.  I believe there are four.

I know this so well because when I am stuck this is where I am and that is what I see.  Some days it's still, some days it moves.  Today it is moving, swiftly to the right.  The picture is always the same yet each day it is different each moment it changes.  

And while I am writing this a Blue Heron flew through,  right to left.

I bring my eyes back in and the room seems so dark, the house so quiet and empty and I remember again that I am alone so I quickly turn back to a bluest sky.

I miss you David, I miss you from way way deep down, my soul misses your soul in a big big way. I just wanted you to know what it is that I see.

XOXO

Thinking, or not...

We are 15 days into the new year and 10 days into month 8.

I sit her shaking my head in order to scatter the visions forming...it happens so often still, it feels like second nature now.  The head shaking that is.

I've been trying to think of what I have learned from all this, but my mind is too noisy to think.  I am not in that place yet, that place of calm reflection, because I can't think of a thing.  I still play what if from time to time and I long for the day when I don't.

I still ask 'what happened?' pretty regularly.  As if actually seeing the moment you fell...the moment Evelyn hit her head would provide me with the peace I am craving.  I know, where my smart resides, that seeing those precise moments would not make a difference.  I would still be asking 'what happened'?  I want reasons, yet I know too that no reason could make up for the fact that you two are gone.  What does matter in my world is that you are gone from my every day.  It is an unbearable thought.  It tears at my soul over and over and over again.

I do know this...I am not me.  I have changed so drastically, I fear you can not recognize me...why you don't come to me with signs anymore.  Why Evelyn has never come to me.  You can not find me.

A lot of death has come to my life in eight short months David.  A lot of hurt lives inside me.

The death of you, the death of me, and the subsequent loss of our life together.  Our dreams, our future, our story that we were still writing.  The death of Evelyn, my dear sweet sister friend, and the friendship we had been building over the past three years.  My Jewels, the sweet little four legged friend who was by my side for twelve long years. There is not a memory in all that time that she is not a part of.  She was with me through all that came at me in those years, she was a good good dog.  Millie is gone too, 17 years of companionship, memories, hikes, rides, puppies...life.  She was a dear dear dog and her loss is hard for many.  And finally my little Fluffy.  HA...who would have thought I could love a rat!  I remember when we got her.  I drove home as if there were a tarantula loose in the car and when I pulled in the driveway you were washing your car...I jumped out and warned you to brace yourself.  But within the hour she had found a place in my heart. I know you thought I was a little loopy!  I know you did!  She would sit on the porch with us enjoying the spring sun and sips of wine.  And on the couch with us at night snuggling under the blanket when it was chilly...she was a dear sweet little critter and I miss her a ton.  Yes, a lot of death has come to my world.

There is still so much work to be done.

Goodbye 2013

In your lifetime there are moments...years in history that will leave a mark forever.  There are those occasions where one can say "I remember exactly where I was when..."

There are so many really,  it would be hard to name them all.  But in my world, in my life I can think of some moments that really stand out clearly, some dates on a calendar that will be forever etched in my mind. Here is just a few... 

January 1986 when the Challenger exploded.  I was on my lunch break and was sitting in my car listening to the live coverage of this momentous occasion on the radio.  I had just taken a bite of food when I heard the announcer trip over his words in utter confusion and then say there had been a horrible accident...I will never forget it.

August 1990 when The Persian Gulf war was announced.  I was 23 and living alone in Florida, I was home from work and sitting on the floor watching the news when the official announcement was mentioned.  I immediately picked up the phone and called my Dad crying...I was petrified.  

August 1997 when Princess Diana died in a car crash.  I was a new, single, mother.  I was lying on the couch watching Friends when the news broke in about Diana.  For some reason it hit me very hard.  Maybe hormones still, I'm not sure, but I cried for a week at the tragic loss of such a sweet and troubled soul.

July 1999 when JFK Juniors plane was lost at sea.  I was unemployed and in the middle of a major move.  I had made the decision to leave New England and head to Arkansas to be near my parents for a little while. My house was partially packed and I had been following the news of this story for days. I was horrified by it.  I had met John, the summer I spent on the compound with RFK's kids.  Again I cried for a week!

September 2001, just days after my son was born, when America was attacked and all hell broke loose in New York.  I was in my own personal hell, I had fled a seriously dangerous marriage and was living with my parents for the time being.  I had just dropped my daughter off at school and decided to stop in for a quick visit for my baby and his father, no sooner had I walked in the door the news broke to live coverage of the happenings in New York.  That moment altered my step in more ways than one.  I will never forget it.

May 2013 when on a clear, crisp, spring day, three people celebrated love, friendship, Cinco De Mayo, and the bright futures ahead.  Futures that would not be...I was right there, I remember it all, I smell it and I hear it...every day.  As far as I have moved, I never left...or it is just following me...I'm not sure which.  The sky was so blue, the air was chill, gulls were singing and ropes on the masts of the boats in the harbor were clanging with the waving of the water.  I smell eggs and toast, I taste cheesecake, champagne tickles my nose and tequila burns my throat.  Laughter fills my head and joy floods my whole body.  I am having so very much fun with two people I love so dearly.  I am on cloud 9...in my element.  This day was for me, the surprises were for me.  It is the day that changed who I am, who I was.  Nothing will ever be the same...I will never be the same.  I will never forget it.  I miss those three people with every fiber of my being.

It sure was a year love...wouldn't you say?  Right from the word go...try as we did it never got too good in the few short months we had.  It was a time of painful discoveries and unwanted troubles.  But it too was a time of renewed hope and new beginnings.  Our future was so bright, we wanted it so much and worked so hard and loved so deep.  I don't know why it was not meant to be for us.  I don't know if I will ever know. 

All of our futures were so bright.  

And with closing the door on 2013 and walking into a new year alone, I do not feel a sense of hope or of new beginnings.  I do not feel I can freely transition to one from the other with so much left unsaid if you will. So much left where it fell.  It's like feng shui, that says 'never leave dishes in the sink overnight...you don't want to start a brand new day with yesterdays mess'. I'm afraid I am starting a brand new year with last years mess still so fresh.

I will walk through that door though, with my head held high.  I will do the hard work and I will fight the good fight for you, for Evelyn and for me.  I will do my very best to walk out of the shadows of this haunting year and create a new future full of memories, beauty and joy.

I love you my David...with all that I am, I love you.  I love you Evelyn my friend, my sister, my confidant.  I cherish our last moments of joy together, of laughter and giggles and secrets.  I will cherish all the moments of your last day on this earth, both of you, as hard as it is, I feel honored.

Goodbye 2013.

If He Were Still Here

Everything I am reading, in order to help myself, talks of our bodies being so injured by our trauma that we have to be so very careful in everything we do, who we see, who we listen to, what we eat, how we work out.  

Because we look the same on the outside...sans a light in our eyes...because we endured no obvious break of bones or of skin we tend to not know that inside our bodies are working at less than, one false move and we are rendered sick or hurt.  Funny, really, to think of...more hurt than we already are? How is that possible?  

Everything I have and am reading talks of turning away from those that do you no good, draw life from you rather than give it, cause pain and anguish rather than calm and strength.  Turn away from the toxic people in your life, it is a must, it is essential to our health...to our journey...to our recovery.  I am reading that now is the time to find a strength that is not clearly felt, and to stand up and cut the ties that are slowly pulling us under.  We can and must do this in order to save ourselves, as there will be no one else to do it for us.  That one person who would have been our strength and guide to do such a thing is forever gone...it is up to us alone to help ourselves.

Well, who doesn't already know this, really?  Right?  Right!  The difference now, the glaring difference is that before, we were whole; before, we were well; before, we could cope; before, we could be indifferent.  Now...we can do, and are, none of that.   Our immune system has been jeopardized by shock and extreme stress, we are susceptible to illness and injury by the mere instance of losing our loved one.  I have known and am reading that undue stress at this time in our lives can be very detrimental, can appear in real physical pain, real physical injury.  I said I have known this, however, I don't believe I have ever actually sustained an injury due to stress. A headache maybe...a rise in blood pressure for sure, but an actual injury I have not had.  Until now!

I have known and felt since the accident that changed my life forever that my coping skills which I had honed to near perfection were nowhere to be found.  I have lost, or nearly so, my coping skills.  Now with but a few words I can feel undue stress immediately take hold in a very physical way.  I find that it torments me for many days and leaves me with physical injury.  Just as though I had worked through a strenuous routine at the gym...I have flushed cheeks, elevated blood pressure, instant headache and strained muscles.  I have had it for 4 days now and so far no amount of pain reliever is helping...well at least no reasonable amount has worked.  

I find that a chord which runs from my left shoulder up the back of my neck to my head is so twisted and in such excruciating misalignment  that I can hardly stand it.  The screams of my body to remove the toxic person from my life is received loud and clear.  But, is this not yet one more instance of stress, is this not an inward attack on me which I so evidently cannot cope with?  Clearly if this act of turning from the toxic was something I was capable of doing then the whole matter would be mute and I would not be in such turmoil, yet again.

Now is the time for self help, however now is the time I am least capable.  Now is the time I reach out for my one person that could ease my pain and calm my soul, that with a look or a touch would quell my anxieties...if he were still here.

If he were still here, ALL of this would be mute.

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

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.

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.

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.

Triggers

I am finding that so many things are triggers...

Opening the medicine cabinet to brush my teeth and seeing 'his' shelf just as he left it...

Opening the curtains in the living room in the morning and catching a glimpse of his car...the car that caused some angst.  I can laugh now at the audacity of it.  HeHe  I was gone on a trip...and a week or so into it I happened to see that he posted on fb 'oh yeah...happy birthday to me' and underneath was a picture of a new, beautiful cranberry colored Volvo.  Well, needless to say I immediately logged off (I was on dial up) and called him..."Hey, what's with the picture of the car?",  from him I hear "It's mine, I bought it, do you like it?",  "Well yeah, it's beautiful, but what do you mean it's yours...don't you think you should have talked to me about it first...how did you pay for it?", "I sold your car...remember I talked to you about it?", uummmm  "NO...YOU SOLD MY CAR?  is this a joke, cuz it's not funny.", "Remember I told you your inspection sticker runs out in December and it needed a new @$%^#, so we would need to decide what to do about it?", uummmm "Yes, I remember, at the end of December we needed a new sticker but before that we needed to replace a break thing-a-ma-jig and that we had over a month to deal with it...from that you heard...sure babe, by all means, sell MY car to get yourself a brand new car, I'll just walk.", "uummm, well, you can have my old one =)."   Like I said...the audacity.  He's VERY lucky he's cute and I'm cool as hell.  lol

Getting in the car and going anywhere...he brought me to Rhode Island, this place was his home, I see it through his eyes as he introduced it to me, everywhere I go...we went, all of it.  I can't seem to drive anywhere without crying.  I do it ever day.

Being in the kitchen.  I am, by nature, a big cook.  I swear he married me for my food.  lol  We spent a lot of time in the kitchen...he would DJ, I would prepare a feast.  We would dance, we would sing.  And that is where he would find me when he came home from work...nurturing a meal I prepared just for him.  Always.  I can hear him enter the foyer downstairs and sniff loud and mumble some giddy little comment, then the tromp up the stairs where he would have his greeting by his biggest fan,  Jewels our chihuahua.  Then he would hit the landing and say 'Hey good lookin...whatcha cookin' and then he would walk up behind me and grab my ass or my...well, you get the picture. ALWAYS.  Every night.  Without fail, this is how it was.  I have not really cooked anything since the day before he died, I have no taste, no desire, no joy in it just now.  I pray this will change.

Our home...I have not changed a thing...all is as he left it when we embarked on our journey that fateful morning in May.  His jacket is hung on the hook.  His crossword is open to the page he left it.  His shorts and T are on the chair at the end of the bed.   Everything looks so normal, looks as it should.   But normal it isn't.  Nothing is normal here anymore.

So so many triggers, and these were just a few.