Despacito

Despacito.

It means slowly. It has been my word of late. It is how I'm trying to see my world right now...slowly. I'm coming back to life in a big and fantastical way and I don't want to miss a thing.

I became aware of the sounds of traffic first, I knew it was morning. This morning. The 5th representing the 4th. I opened my eyes and waited for the fist to hit my gut and the hand on top of my head to push me under...it didn't come. Not this time.

I woke today with love in my heart and laughter on my lips, wrapped in such contentedness. Really. How amazing is that? Do you know? Do you get what a monumental thing that is for me?

These years since you left, since Evelyn left. They have been brutal, and honestly it still is. It still is...but I seem to have left the space I was locked in. The one where the air is so thin it hardly can find it's way to your lungs. Where looking out through my eyes was like looking up through the water when you sit on the bottom of a pool. You know what I mean? I wasn't seeing things in real time, life was moving around me way to fast and I was stuck in this damn space and it was killing me. Slowly. For real.

I think I've turned a corner. It was a process, I felt it happening and it scared me, but I allowed whatever was happening to happen. Getting back to work was the button that started the ignition. I slowly started feeling a shift and I was anxious to see what would come. Something major is happening I think. I feel like the world has slowed enough that it sees me now. I'm not in that invisible bubble I was inside of for so long. Life sees me. People see me and it's a good thing.

I am happy. I am so happy.

It's an odd space at the moment, Inside me is the shadow of the girl I left around the corner, it's standing just off to the side and behind. I'm looking forward but I see this shadow back there just waiting. Maybe it doesn't know it's ok to leave, maybe it isn't ok to leave. I don't know. I have been so many people that I just don't know where they go when they are done with me. I'm not sure if I feel sad to see this one go. The girl I have been since this day 4 years ago...God she was rough. She was a mess. It's painful to think just how fucked up she was. Too though, she carried me through. We did this together, her and I. I let her be whatever she needed to be at any given moment and I think that was good. We allowed anything and everything to wash over us, we'd shake it off and get the fuck back up. I did that. I freaking did that. I did that every damn day. Do you have any idea what that was like, what that felt like. Life is heavy, so very heavy and without gravity it is times infinity. But I've turned a corner, and it is good.

Life isn't the same. It will never be the same. I miss your face, I miss your voice, I miss your smell. I miss you David. I will always miss you and I will always cry for you but you are gone and I can only go forward. I think you orchestrated a meet, and it happened and it is good and I thank you and I love you. Yeah it is good.

Evelyn my friend, are you there? Can you hear me now?  (haha) I miss you and I worry for you. I pray you are at peace. There is still so much work to be done. I need to get right with what happened and I feel that time is nearing. Maybe some day soon. We'll see.  You are with me always Eve, not one single day goes by that you don't flit through my mind. I hope that you are okay. I hope that the most. Some day you will tell me all about it.

Today I was coming to where I last saw you two. I have felt drawn to come and look for you. But the rain, I can't come in the rain, I can't stand there in the rain and cold and look for you. I won't find you, and then I'll just be wet. Wet and cold...that ain't cool man!  I can't come today, maybe tomorrow.

I love you my David. God how I do. I hope you see all that is happening with me. I hope you are proud of the girl you see and I hope you never lose sight of me.  I love you Evelyn, yes I do.

I'm making my way guys...despacito.

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.

The Yearning is Killing Me

“Life will break you.

Nobody can protect you from that,

and living alone won’t either,

for solitude will also break you with its yearning.

You have to love.

You have to feel.

It is the reason you are here on earth.

You are here to risk your heart.

You are here to be swallowed up.

And when it happens that you are broken,

or betrayed, or left, or hurt,

or death brushes near,

let yourself sit by an apple tree

and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps,

wasting their sweetness.

Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

― Louise Erdrich

Did You Hear The News!

The words I longed to say to you for six long years, the words that would let me feel whole and useful and needed and sane, the words that would have meant I was helping us, that I was important once again. The words I so wanted to give you...

I GOT A JOB...only now you aren't here to hear them.

Bittersweet.

Joyous.

Thankful.

Overwhelmed.

Sad.

To name just a few of the emotions slipping through my blood. Weaving their way around the fabric of my being, like an army of ants under my skin, searing a fiery path as they work their way out.

So many emotions that I don't know the words for but I know them by feel, they have been mine for a very long time. They have lived inside of me like a disease, I could trust that I was never alone because I had them...like them or not. I had them. My own personal bullies, picking and tearing and poking at the very thin thread that I hung from for so long.

This is new. This will take time to reach the part of me that can't feel the sun, and make me feel warm and safe again. This will take time for me to believe that I could, maybe, be okay.

But I will get there. I know I will. I know I will.

So yeah, I said those words through a barrage of tears yesterday and I say them to you now. 

I hope you are proud of me. I hope I've made you smile.

I love you David, always and still.

They Are My Comfort

“You let time pass. That’s the cure. You survive the days. You float like a rabid ghost through the weeks. You cry and wallow and lament and scratch your way back up through the months. And then one day you find yourself alone on a bench in the sun and you close your eyes and lean your head back and you realize you’re okay.”

– Cheryl Strayed

Hi my love-

Three years today, it's a disgusting thought, but it's reality. I think back to this day then and I shake my head. I'm able to smile at some of the memories but I have yet to reach a place where remembering is only a good thing. I smile, I do, I even laugh...a lot. I think outwardly I have progressed well. I can dance and sing and laugh like always in spite of being broken on the inside. It's funny how that happens.

I remember you getting all choked up and teary with pride listening to Like Eating Glass...song 4. I just rubbed your forearm and smiled. Even that is gone now...

I remember Evelyn hanging out a window laughing at us because we kept walking right past her when we first arrived. And I remember all her Neck friends kept saying "You have no idea how excited she is that you two are here".  Ugh...shaking my head.

There is so much more that I remember but I can't do it right now, I can feel myself getting pulled down and I just can't right now. I'm so tired of being in that place. It's not a good place, my breathing changes, I feel my heart beating in my throat and hear a ringing in my ears. It's too hard to be there just now. One day I will be able to only smile there, but not now.

What is it like where you are? Do you spend time with Evelyn? Do you miss us? I always wonder these things. I wonder if you two are friends where you are...do you protect and take care of her.  Does she help you too?  The not knowing is hard. The not knowing if you guys are okay. The need to console you and put my arms around you two because of what you experienced...it's crazy. The whole thing is, really. For you two, when it was over it was over. For me and others, it will never really be over. How unfair. How totally and completely un-friggin-fair. Deep sigh.

I just wanted you to know, I'm...okay. Not good, but I am okay. I have put my face to the sun many times and find great peace outdoors. The trees, the birds, the wind, and the scents and the sounds, they are my comfort.

I love you David...still. Don't ever lose sight of me love, please. I will always need you to find me.

I love you Evelyn...always.

Tell Me

I figured if, at any time in this experience, I was able to laugh, smile, feel joy, that eventually those moments would knit themselves together and create a new ground for me to walk on. That the 'new ground' would become the base for me to build a new life upon. 

That is what I figured, but I don't think it has happened that way.  I don't feel it. I'm not living, merely existing.

I still cry going to and from get-togethers, I still shake my head to dislodge the visions, I still struggle with the fact that it even happened...the accident. And worst of all, I honestly don't feel I have truly, fully accepted and mourned the deaths of you and Evelyn. Especially Evelyn. And me, looking my own death in the face, and then not. That what happened really, in all it's horrificness, happened. That what I saw and survived really actually happened. It is still a very real fear that if I 'go there' I will never come back.

I've wondered about my visions, about why they won't stop. And the sounds, the tremendous roar of the ocean, the screams, the wind, and the sputtering and choking...it's all too much. And yet I am thankful that I no longer smell it, because for many months after, I saw, heard and smelled that day.  What I've wondered is, are these sights and sounds in some ways like hands pulling me back to the beginning, insisting that I go frame by frame...moment by moment through it all again in order for it to become absorbed as it should be. I've wondered, but I'm not willing.  Do you think I should?

There are days I think my brain will surely explode with all that is going on in there. I hold my temples often thinking 'how do I make it stop'?  I'm not one for a 'quick fix' pill for anything in life, but I believe if there was one to make the brain train stop, I would swallow it happily.

Do you see me David? I know you probably don't recognize me but I thought maybe the heartstrings let you know it's me.  That under all this rubble the heart that loves you and misses you and longs for you is still there beating it's song meant only for you.

Come find me love, find me once again and tell me what to do.

Tell me how to keep going...

Would Be 51

Happy Birthday my love.

Is that how you say it anymore?  After someone has died...Happy Birthday?!?  Should it be 'Happy Almost Birthday'?  or 'Happy Birthday that Wasn't'? or...oh who the fuck knows, truthfully I think all protocol was flushed down the commode when you took your last breath, the one that whispered loudly 'get out now'.

Your first 'after' birthday I cooked a meal you loved with drinks and dessert included.  Two of the kids were here with me and they just looked at me with pity written all over their faces and pretended it was just another meal and that I hadn't plunged off the deep end. I celebrated alone.

The second 'after' birthday I, along with all your friends and family, was invited to join your mom and sisters at a favorite restaurant of yours. To celebrate with dinner and drinks and shared memories. Boy this was a tough one to face, since you left I don't do well with being in public.  However, I arrived early to find no one else had come except the invitees and they had already finished eating.  Awkward. The smile I had pasted on my face before leaving the house remained as I ordered Margaritas and laughed and cried with your family. The women of your life were in so much pain yet trying to be brave and fake our way through.  Doing what appears to be normal yet felt anything but...

So this third 'after' birthday.  Well, it's just me.  The kids have made themselves scarce in my life.  And your family is no longer mine, we tried, for a good while anyway, but without you we just couldn't keep it up. I am sorry about that and I hope you understand. If they said I need you I would drop everything and run to them, always, for you.  But the rest we let go.

So, yeah, just me here and really, all I can do is talk to you in my head like I do every day and say Happy Day to you. Tell you I love you (again) and that I miss you (still) and wonder where the hell you are.

Happy Birthday my love...I miss you and I love you <3

Hello My Love

It has become cold, having just left summer and entered fall.  Leaves haven't started turning just yet, at least not many have.  Today it is pouring.  Well, actually the past 4 days it has poured water onto the ground. We needed it though.

It all started with the coolest sky I have ever seen...the full super moon solar eclipse.  Did you see it?  I wondered. Do you still see what I see? I remember when I used to travel and you would be here, we talked of how even though we were far apart all we had to do was look up and know that we each were seeing the exact same picture.  Somehow it made the distance seem not so big.  Silly, I guess, but comforting.

I watched for this red moon for hours thinking of the last super moon and how we kept running to the windows to see it and take pictures.  And I recalled the nights we sat on the back porch of our first apartment, all snuggled up under blankets, candles all around. We would stare into the sky talking of how vastly different it was from an Ozark sky.  You would point out the satellite skimming across every so many minutes and I wondered why I NEVER knew of it before you. You taught me that.  And of course, all of this made me miss you terribly once again.  Looking up has a way of making you feel tiny and insignificant.

I've been sick this week, seems I picked up something at Kate's on Sunday. Sitting with her I noticed I was getting more and more stuffed up, I was hoping it was just from a burning candle, but it stayed with me and by Monday night I was down for the count.  Didn't sleep a wink with a screaming raw throat, finally fell asleep around 5am and proceeded to stay asleep for 22 hours. Scared the crap out of me when I woke up two days later.  It made a world of difference though, I'm not tip top but I'm upright and awake!  

Last night I laid here on the couch thinking how crummy I felt and how hungry I was and how I SO did not want to get up and find and cook something but I'm alone, this is my life and this is how it is.  I have no one to look out for me or after me and no one to help me when I need it. There is no one to make me feel safe in this world anymore, you took that away when you left...you took many things with you when you left.  So many things.

I didn't want to get married, do you remember?  I mentioned it during one of our MANY phone conversations before we were ever face to face. I had been through such physical, mental and emotional hell during my 10 years in the Ozarks and I had erected such a fortress around my heart and soul. I had fought so hard for some kind of normal and happy with my two little babies and it worked. I learned to push all feelings and emotions down deep so that all that would show was happy and strong and thriving. My kids needed that from me. I made a good life for us far removed from society, we were happy, we were great in fact, at least as far as the children were concerned. In me though there was a whole world of missing going on. A whole big wide world. 

And then came you.

With one phone conversation you turned my little well built life upside down. In one hour you had managed to crack a brick in the walls I had built. That world of missing, I could hear it in your voice and it brought me to my knees because it reminded me of wanting. Nine months after that first phone call, knowing I didn't want to get married, you asked me anyway. You said 'I lost you once, I can't let that happen ever again'. How could I say no...three months later we were husband and wife. I finally knew what it was to feel safe, to feel cherished, to feel like I had one person in this whole entire world that would be by my side through great moments in life and the tragedies that come too. I felt so so safe knowing that you would be with me in those hard times and I wouldn't have to face them alone. I never dreamed the first tragedy to come for me would be your death and Evelyn's death.  My girlfriend died and you were not there for me to turn to, to help get me through. You couldn't hold me while I cried from the pain.  My husband died and she was not there to offer her always comforting words. To come running without being asked.  All of this happened seven weeks shy of our third year of marriage.  You made me take my walls down, my safety barrier, and then you left me alone.  I no longer feel safe or secure.  I don't even have the kids to distract me...they are grown.  I am on my own now learning to deal with the good the bad and the ugly all by myself. I haven't fully dealt with your death, I have mostly pushed it down deep inside.  And Evelyn, Heh, I almost can't even bear to begin that journey.  Dear God, how could I. If I can't sit in the reality of you drowning before my eyes how the hell am I supposed to sit in it with her.  As for my own near miss, ugh, that is a whole other issue.  And being the only survivor...forget about it.  I know I have only been grieving the loss of you, your absence from me and our life.  I haven't even begun to put into perspective the events of that day.  I'm not sure I will ever be strong enough for that.

Do you think I miss you love? Pouring these stupid thoughts out here like I can put a stamp on it and mail it to you. I suppose just thinking the thoughts gets them to you.  Who really knows.  I love you David, still, always.  You must know that in a head full of 10 words 7 of them are about you, right? Okay then...signing off.

Peace to you

P/S -  Please put your arms around Evelyn and hold her and hug her hard for me.  Tell her I love her so much and I miss her laugh and her face. Tell her I am so sorry we came to see her that day...we never should have gone.

A Good Heart

So I was thinking...

I had a conversation with my son Eric the other day.  He was telling me that he had driven by Grammy & Grampa's mailbox and noticed that Grammy had repainted it and it looked really beautiful.  He had wanted to stop in and tell her but he was in the middle of a 4-wheeler ride with a large group of people from church, so he couldn't, but he would for sure call her and tell her later.  Sweet kid.

After hanging up the phone I thought to myself what a beautiful heart this child has.  I mean really, how many 14 year old boys do you know would pay attention to a design on a mailbox?  Unless of course it was painted like an X-Box controller or something.  HA!  He paid enough attention to be able to bring it up hours later in a conversation.  I can't really even recall what the mailbox looked like before it's new paint job and I was just out there for 2 months. Really sweet kid.

A few nights later we talked again.  He told me all about how school was going and life in general.  His best friend, his dog Sammy, got sprayed by a skunk.  Oh No!!!  Eeeeew.  He said he had opened the front door and Sam just casually walked out and over to inspect this dark spot in the yard and that's when it happened...Blam...lethal doses of yuck filled the air and wrapped itself around poor curious Sam.  UGH  And then the chore to un-stink the stink began.  So so glad I was not there for this part of his life's adventure. 

As conversation was winding down I asked him, as I always do, "Is there anything else you want to talk about, anything else going on?"

Not really he says, then quickly adds, "well there is one kind of bad thing." My gut immediately twists...

"okay, lay it on me" I say.  

He says, "remember when I went on that 4-wheeler ride and I saw Grammy painted her mailbox?"  Yes.  "Well, I forgot to call her and tell her I like it.  I really wanted to tell her because how would she ever know someone liked it, who else will even see it, and who would call and say it's pretty to her?  I feel bad I forgot to call her.  I wanted to make her happy."

I don't say anything.  I can't. My heart has swelled so huge that it cuts off my airway and my words can't make their way out.  Who is this child of mine, this love of my life.  God he is such a good good boy.

Get a grip Kristen, say something.  "Oh honey, that's okay.  Only you know you didn't call, she won't be hurt because she didn't know.  And anyways, after 4 hours riding 4-wheelers in the blistering heat and dust, it's no wonder you didn't remember.  Don't give it another thought.  You are so kind to think of it though."

"Yeah", he says.  Dad's driving me over as soon as we hang up here.  I cut her a big bunch of our Sunflower's and I'm gonna run in real quick and give them to her and tell her the mailbox is beautiful."

"You are?  Right now?" 

"Yup, we're headed into town but I wanted to do this first before I forget again."

I'm stunned.  All I can say is "I love you so very much Eric, you have a really good heart. You are such a nice boy, you are thoughtful and kind and caring of others.  I'm so lucky God gave you to me.  You are about to make Grammy very happy today. Please tell them I say hello and hug them for me, okay?"

"I will mumma, well I need to go so we can get over there and into town before it gets too late."  "Okay handsome, love you and I'll call in a few days.  Be safe! Bye babe." "By mumma."  I hear kissing sounds and then a dial tone.  He always kisses me through the phone. I am so in love with this boy!

I sit thinking about his heart, the one that is planted inside the vehicle that is his body. I know, strange, but since I lost my husband I tend to think things on a much deeper level. I am always saying/thinking my son has a really good heart. But...isn't a heart just an organ?  It pumps blood, and that is all?

It can't be a heart that is good. Right?  Oh, I know, it is good, in the sense of the job it has of keeping the vehicle alive.  Kind of like the roots of a tree. Without them the tree would die.  So if this is true then do we not attach too much emotional significance to the heart? Is it really not just an organ?  No one says "you have a good liver", or kidney or spleen.  Right? Are they not kind of the same thing...all organs that help run the machine that is our body?

What happens then when the heart dies?  If the heart is all that was good in a person, as we so often attribute it, then when that vehicle stops being alive all is lost?  It can't be. That goes against everything we have ever been taught. Right? It does. Whether you agree or not.

It's the soul that is good then, not the heart, right? It is the soul that is the light of our being.  It is the soul that drives the vehicle that is our physical body.  Not the heart. So why do we all say things like...bless his/her heart, he/she has such a good heart, when what we really should do is replace the word heart with soul. Am I right?

And who is it that decided love is the shape of a Valentine's heart?  Is it because to picture love as the venous muscle that it really is would be gross? Is this muscle even really where all emotions live?  No.  I think it's the soul. It has to be. I can't bear to think that when the love of my life died all his feelings and emotions stopped when his heart did.  That would mean...that would mean...no, I can't think it and I can't say it.  It is the soul then.  The soul makes someone good and kind and loving, the soul is where all emotions dwell.  It is the soul that is energy and light which carries on once the heart stops beating so then the heart really is just a muscle. Got it!

We have all just been saying it wrong all our lives.  Bless his heart...he has such a good heart. Maybe so...but the soul is the thing.  The soul is the real deal.

The soul is where it's at.

Losing Ground

I can feel the rungs of this ladder that I'm on, break away with each step. I can feel myself losing ground.

This is not a life...I am not living.  I breathe because my body does not know how not to, but I am not alive. I am just fooling everyone. 

It's been two years.  Two damn years and I cannot get past this feeling of soul sucking sorrow. I am slowly slipping away.

I can tell you the constant visions stopped, so there is that. That peace came at the two year mark. I still see it all, hear it all, but NOTHING like it was, so yeah...there is that.

I miss you love.  All I do is slip around this house like a ghost, a ghost of the person I was before. I still look out the window in the bathroom like I used to do when I knew you would be coming home.  I would watch you pull in and stop to get the mail. You were so damn handsome with your sunglasses on and your work clothes. You never knew I was there with my heart overflowing, did you? I still look but you don't come. Nothing is the same here, now it is silent. There is no love or laughter or joy here. There are no kids here.  It is just me, yet not.

I am a prisoner inside my head.  I am a prisoner inside this hell.  All the trying and crawling and climbing and trying some more have done nothing but distract me to time passing. I am no better and I just feel lonelier.

I miss you love...I miss you.

My Rock, My Wild and Beautiful Tree

Two years...those small words mean nothing to me, other than to count how long I have been crawling, how long I have been lost, how long I have lived inside pain and darkness.  How long I have been fighting without you.  They mean nothing because it still feels like yesterday.  

It is an odd experience, you know...where you poor people died and yet were freed.  Where I and those who loved you were not.  I walk this earth with that day like a ball and chain.  I can not run, I can not hide.  I can only grow accustomed.  But free...never.

I keep a jar on the windowsill, inside are the moments I feel joy.  It hits me every now and again that I have not unscrewed the lid in a while so I make stuff up, I want there to be many moments.  I need there to be many moments.

I miss you both.

Evelyn...I miss your voice, your laugh, your advice.  I miss your face.  I miss your friendship and our talks.  The private moments between just you and me sharing our truths. I miss your crazy.  God how I miss you Eve.  I visit the neck from time to time, I sneak in and then sneak out.  I sit where we sat and I remember the things you told me, the things we said that day.  I remember it all, and I cry.  I cry for you, I cry for me, I cry for your beautiful boy and all the friends you left behind. I cry for your life cut short and your joy being extinguished.  I shake my head then I stand and walk away. I love you sister, my wild and beautiful tree.

My David...The hole inside me grows bigger and I fear that soon I will just collapse inward, never to look out and around again. It scares me huge and I fight it big. every. single. day.  I miss the scent of you. I miss your oh so handsome face. I miss your hands and their touch. I miss your love. I miss being in love. I miss taking care of you. I miss your smile.  I miss your laugh and I miss your voice.  As I write this I feel a little more of me dying. I have yet to reach a place of peace. I have yet to reach life. What I am doing can not be called living, not yet, but I hope some day. I'm working at getting my body stronger then maybe my head will follow.  I love you my sweet man, my rock.  I just so love you.

And still I shake my head in wonder of it all.

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.

When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.

Great souls die and

our reality, bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,

fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold

caves.

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly.  Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed.  They existed.

We can be.  Be and be

better.  For they existed.

- Maya Angelou

Hold onto the Joy

The past few days have been simply beautiful, the sky blue, the air warm and the sounds delightful.  This time of year brings me huge amounts of joy.

It is chilly in the house, so in the moments of down time and I can't stand the cold another minute I have been going outside to read, to warm up. Yesterday I was struck by the sounds of traffic, lawn equipment throughout the neighborhood, birds chirping, dogs barking and the voices of people I can't see from here. I felt JOY, plain and simple. Outside is where I am at my best, soaking in the heat of the sun and the sounds of life.  It was good.

I sat thinking of our many conversations of getting the kids graduated so we could finally move to an ocean paradise and live the rest of our days. The little beach side B & B we wanted to run with a tiki bar right on the sand. The excitement that would build the longer we talked, the plans and ideas that poured out. Yeah...the excitement, we were so ready for this next chapter, we had a ways to go, but we could see the light...

Sitting in the sun, soaking in the warmth, I look around and you are not here. I am alone in my memories and the joy trembles, it becomes blurry. I shake my head to dislodge from the past because I am not ready to visit there for long. It hurts too much. It just hurts too damn bad. I enter alone and I leave alone. Some day I will be able to go all the way in, but today isn't some day.

I once again hear the birds chirping and the dog barking and I reach back for that joy and hold on with all my might. I need this joy dammit!

I miss you my love, I miss you in a way that feels like every bone in my body is breaking from the power of it. 

Oh well, time for me to go back inside to the cold empty home we once shared.

Hi

Hi.

That's all it said. One single word. One single text.

Hi.

My eyes saw so much more than that one little word.  My eyes, connected to my heart, saw a million words unsaid. Tears un-shed. Questions not answered. There are no answers...

My eyes saw 'Help Me!', they saw 'What the fuck?', they saw 'No, please no". 

My eyes saw your boy, our boy, reaching out his hand for help. I saw it, I felt it, because it is something I live with every day.  My entire body screams those words...every. damn. day.  

Help Me! Help does not come.

The message came at 8:43 at night.  I saw it at 10:36, so very many minutes too late. Long, lonely, desperate minutes that boy sat without a response from me.  When my eyes saw that one word, Hi, all I could hear was the shatter of broken glass, my broken heart, shatter some more.  Our boy needed someone and I missed it.  I responded then...he did not. The moment had passed I guess.  I can picture him with head hanging down turning back to life. Help did not come.  Once again I could not help. 

I laid in bed with my phone in my hand until 1 a.m....just in case, then I put it on my nightstand and stared at it for another hour or so...just in case.  And then I woke up and with head hanging down I turned back to life...to one more day.

Hi was all it said but I saw so much more.

Your boy needs you love he needs you big. PLEASE help him.  PLEASE help him.  He needs his Dad.

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

Feeling Crazy

There are so many poems and inspirational sayings on the Internet and so many of those get posted on Facebook.  While I understand they can have meaning for lots of people I tend to stay clear of the majority of them because they seem too rhyme-ey, and trite.  What I feel over the death of my husband and Evelyn is so much deeper and more intense than a cute-sie rhyme.  That being said, I will come across one from time to time that strikes a chord, like this one...

I was supposed to spend the rest 

of my life with you.

And then I realized...you spent the 

rest of your life with me.

I smile because I know that you loved me

till the day you went away.

And will keep loving me...

till the day we're together again.

I never pay attention to who writes them or what website they are from, I just read them and move on.  This one I liked though because we used to say it to each other all the time "I will love you for the rest of your forever".  So, this one I did see who wrote it, and the site it came from...It's from Wake Me Up! Love and The Afterlife...A true story by Lyn Ragan.  I have other books about Love After Loss, I haven't read them yet though...I am so not at that point, but something strong made me go to that website and buy the book.  What? Wait, I am NEVER that impulsive, if I was I would have rooms full of odd crap I saw and had to have.  It is just not like me to do something like that, it is David though, so I did, I bought it on January 5th.  Now that I have the book I surely won't read it. Especially since reading through the website and seeing it is not about love after loss...it is about THE Afterlife, as in spirit world stuff.  It sat in my Kindle for two weeks while I read another book, still confused about the draw to buy it in the first place. 

A few days ago I started the book...It was slow going and I was thinking of quitting it as the first few chapters were pretty amateurish and didn't capture my interest.  It's not until Lyn starts writing of her dreams that I decide to stick with it, I mean, how bad can it be, right?!  It's actually getting interesting. So I'm reading, and I'm reading, and I'm reading and then last night I sit bolt upright in bed.  I felt as though I was hit square in the back of the head and I couldn't catch my breath. The dream sequence I just read about knocked me on my ass.  Did I have the same dream? Not exactly. So why was I so taken by it then, what made me KNOW I was meant to see this, what made me know this is why I was drawn to buy this book...of all books out there. The answer was clear as glass...it is like explanation to the dream that didn't feel like a dream. The one I had four days after I bought the book. Clearly I have lost my freaking mind.  I laid back down and just stared at the ceiling, unable to read further.  My thoughts were rocketing around like a pinball inside of my head and I couldn't keep up.  When I read the words I instinctively knew the meaning behind my dream and it shook me to my core.  I am totally and completely nuts, right? 

All of this new year I have been in a deep state of sorrow.  The knowledge that you will never come back in the physical is trying to break through my carefully built wall of defense.  My sadness that the once so often signs are now few and far between is leaving me lonelier than normal.  Of course I haven't asked for any, and when I do you come, but why haven't you felt to just do them on your own?  Why do I have to be alone until I call you?  I know...'shut up Kristen.' I'm sorry love, sometimes I'm needy I guess.  I just miss you so desperately and need to feel you with me always, it's all I have left.

Anyways what I just read, on page 115 of this book goes like this

 "why are all these people here?"  

 "These are souls waiting to pass over." the voice said

 "...my attention was redirected...to observe my surroundings. There were no walls and I wasn't in a room of sorts.  There wasn't a floor.  There wasn't a ceiling." 

 "There were so many people in line,waiting their turn.  They each had an unusual look about them--a blank stare."

Do you see?  Do you see why I'm freaked out?  Her dream was just like my dream only decorated a little differently...the people in my dream were on a bus as well as the ceiling-less room of sorts, that was also outside because you drove a car in it.  Holy shit, as my thoughts are flowing right now I'm even more freaked and can't even say inside my head what I know to be the meaning.  I have obviously fallen off the deep end.  Crap!

My new found interpretation of my dream from the 9th...

I cry long and deep and hard, still.  I scream, inside my head, that I just want to be with you, I don't want to be here living (barely) this life without you...We had so many plans...You never give me signs anymore and Mr. C being the brightest one is never here anymore.  I sob over a missing bird all the time.  I am a mess.  

So I dream that dream and I don't get it AT ALL.  I read that part of that book and it leads me to believe that you were telling me the only way you know how, that I am where I am supposed to be, it is not my time to be with you in the life you now have.  You live in a world where there are many many souls waiting to be delivered to the other side and you help do that.  I am not meant to be there now, I have family that needs me here, like my aging parents. They will need me more than we needing to be together.  I felt no emotion from you because you can't get through to me because my grief is too big and only when my mind and my heart are calm (when I sleep) can you come through.  That was the part where you didn't seem happy to see me, it's not that you weren't, you just couldn't project through my pain and sorrow.  And the part I didn't write about in my dream post is that when I came out of my room that morning after the dream,  and turned my head to the right I saw through the window Mr. C sitting there eating the seed I had put out the day before, like always.  I am lead to believe that was you verifying that dream was indeed a message from you...I just didn't get it, until now.

That dream and finding the book, as obscure as it is, has put a lot of meaning behind SO many things that have happened to me since you left.  SO many things I have never even told anyone about.  It's incredible really. All the signs of the first several months, the few dreams I have had, the waking hearing lyrics of a song in my head (not just me humming a tune, really hearing as though a radio is on) and so much more.  I tell ya babe, you start to go a little mad with it all.  I am in such a state as never before and all the words in the world can never truly explain what it is like...it's just, it's just unimaginable and unexplainable that's all.  As removed from life and reality as I have felt, everything that has happened only works to push me further away.  It's a lonely lonely world I live in.

Anyways, so am I right?  Or am I nuts?  God I think I'm nuts. It's all so nuts.

Oh well...live another day!

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?

Then there was you

I'm in another low.  Ever since the new calendar was hung on it's nail I seem to have crashed. Will I ever get used to this ride?  I should be used to it after a year and a half, but I'm really not. 

I was driving home from the grocery store on the 1st and suddenly started crying.  I feel so removed from you and the reality of it all slammed into my head, as it does from time to time.  I cried that I haven't had a sign from you in so long and I kept saying 'I need to see you, I need to see you, I just need to see you'.  It's been four or five months since anything really struck me as a message from you.

I pulled into the yard and parked, sat for a minute gathering the strength to carry my purchases up the long flight of stairs, then got out of the car.  The very first thing I noticed was the very distinct call of Mr. C, your bird.  The bird that for me represents a visit from you.  I frantically looked around until I spotted him and I smiled and laughed through my tears.  You came.  You finally came to see me and just mere minutes after I was begging to see you.  

You have no idea how dumbstruck I was.  How do you do that?  I look out the window almost every day looking for Mr. C but he's never here anymore.  He's always been here and suddenly he was just gone.  

And then you came.  Thank you babe, I am so very blessed to have 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!

Merry Christmas

And in the end I couldn't go. 

Instead I woke up early and gathered all the things I had bought to make at Thanksgiving but never did, and started to cook for GiGi and I.  The sun was shining and with no need to hurry and get ready to be somewhere it was relaxing and it was easy.  I cooked all day while GiGi rearranged her bedroom (what a nightmare).  Dust was flying, posters were ripped down and furniture was moved all around.  Now to put it back...ugh!  Swear words were flying, posters were ripped in half when tacks wouldn't stick in the walls and daggers were shot at me any time I asked if she wanted help.  I loved it!  It has been so long since she has been around, what with her 15 hour days.  She quit one job, did you know?  Do you see her?  Yeah, it was too much and she hit that proverbial wall hard.  It's good though, she needs a little down time and I need her home more.  Yeah...it's good.

When we finally sat to eat we both just looked at each other, exhausted,  and said 'this just all feels so wrong, so weird.' And it's true, while I am thankful for so many things, life for me, for us, right now is just 'flavorless'.  We ate in silence, lost in our own heads.  We have not come to terms with our new world.  Time has moved forward far faster than we have.  All we can do is hold on and try our best to keep up.  We think of how we left our family behind to become a new family here, and now that family is gone too.  We are sad and lonely for our loved ones and on a day when families everywhere are huddled close, making memories and breaking bread together it hits us hard just how deeply we feel our losses.  Just how deeply we miss you my love.  We never even finished our plates.

We miss you David, we struggle with life without you in it, but we want you to know that we had a very good day.  We are thankful for our memories and all that we have.  We love you dearly and you will always be with us.  We are so thankful that you were in our lives and that you loved us in such a big way.  

Merry Christmas my love, I hope your day was a great one.

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.