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

One Half of One Year

I'm sitting here thinking about how much time has passed since that day with shock and amazement.  I usually try not to think about that day too often because I instantly will visualize the events and then I'm destroyed and the tears flow freely as they are right now.  I see and hear those moments always.

I feel like I have walked a lifetime away from then without actually leaving at all.  A lifetime of slogging through wet sand ankle deep, it's so hard but I know I can't just stand there doing nothing so I walk on and on and on...I know I have gone a far distance but each time I look over my shoulder that day is right behind me.  The pain and astonishment and confusion and fear is still within me, I carry it everywhere I go as a tattoo on my soul.  

This grief thing with it's many levels and layers is such a strange phenomenon.  It is kind of like looking into a fogged up mirror after a shower, initially you can't see anything at all but after a little time has passed some of the fog lifts and you think you can almost see an image, then after a little more time more fog lifts and now you are sure you can make out something but it's so unclear your eyes have a hard time focusing.  With each moment of time a little more fog lifts and a little more something is revealed until eventually enough time and enough fog has left and you are staring at your reflection in that mirror...only you don't recognize yourself for the pain of it all.  The face in the mirror, mine, has been beat by the horror of that unimaginable day...it has been beat in a bad most painful way but not defeated. 

I HAVE NOT BEEN DEFEATED.

I am fighting.
I am crying.
I am moving.
I am hurting.
I am climbing.
I am alone.
I am doing.
I am broken.
I am trying.
I am still here....

...I am fighting and I am moving and I am climbing and I am winning.  I will win.

It is slow, it is fragile, it is constant, it is exhausting...physically and mentally, it is life, it is necessary, it is a must.  I owe it to David, I owe it to Evelyn, I owe it to my children and I owe it to myself.  I was the one chosen to stay here, there must be a plan for me and it is my job to become healthy enough to recognize it when it shows up.  I have to do this...I have to fight.

Six months later, six months after...I am feeling stronger, I am not whole, I still cry all the time, I am still broken in a million pieces,  but I have a fire a determination to keep moving forward to be who my husband loved, to be who my friend loved.  I am determined to find a new kind of me. 

I will never be the girl I was on May 4th or all the years before, but I will also never again be the girl I was in the evening hours of May 5th.  That girl, that poor helpless, screaming, soaking wet, shivering girl, she is me but not.  I feel protective of her, my heart is broken for her and I have carried her with me all these miles, all these hours, all these months.  And I will carry her still to a new life, a strong life, a second chance.

One half of one year later I am fighting hard, I am smiling through my tears, I am loving them still and I am missing them always.

Happy November!

PEACE