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.

49

I had a birthday.

Another one you were not here for. The third one actually.

I am 49.  An age you never saw for yourself. One age before the big one...50.

You were dreading getting older, you spoke of it often in the months before you died. I could tell you were going to be one of those people who got depressed over the progression of time. You were a sensitive and troubled soul.

You told me often you were going to die young. It wasn't until after the third or so time that I started to take notice for real. For me it was hurtful. Why would you keep telling me such a thing after I just found you again and committed the rest of my life to you. It's not like you were gently trying to warn me of what to expect in the near future.  It was more like 'woe is me...I'm not long for this world'.  Once I yelled at you about it.  Remember?

I had finally had enough of hearing it.  "Would you please stop saying that?  You say it all the time, too much actually. Are you trying to hurt my feelings?  Because that is what you are doing every time you say that.  It would kill me if it happened okay?  So just stop saying it".  Then I left the room and stood at the sink and washed a few glasses.  You came up behind me and hugged me for dear life and said "I'm sorry".  That was it. End of conversation.

And then you did. You freaking fracking frocking did. Just wow.

So now I am 49, which you never were, and I have been dreaming for a week of everyone dying. I never dream but now I am and it's only of death.

Happy Birthday to me!

How Interesting Is That

I wonder what it means when I sit down to write and there are no words in my head to write.  I've got nothing! I'm staring out the window waiting for words to just pour out. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting

Oh, there are words. It's not like there's dust and cobwebs taking up space in my brain, at least I don't think there is.  It's just that if I wrote what comes to mind it would look like this.

David. David. David. Evelyn. Evelyn. David. Dead. Gone. Cry. Cry. Pain. Cry. Tired. Broken. Cry. Tired. David. Evelyn etc. etc. etc.

So you see, how interesting is that?  Not very.  In fact it is kind of pathetic and sad.  Welcome to my world.

It's been 2 1/2 years today.  I don't know how that is even possible...it just happened. Didn't it? It is the most indescribable phenomenon. If I stop and think and count it adds up to what I just said, 2 1/2 years. But just in general, every day time, it was only last month. AT THE VERY MOST.  And each day is just a replay of that one day. It used to overwhelm me and stop me in my tracks. I spent the first year and a half learning how to breathe again because from the moment I climbed out of that 'well' it was different.  My body no longer did it automatically.  I still struggle with that, the breathing thing, from time to time, but I would say I've gotten back to 85/90 percent. 

I still cry just about every time I am in the car.  No idea why, it comes on so suddenly and my heart breaks all over again. There is no escape. Ever.

My scars are real. I see them when I look in a mirror, It's like a road map is looking back at me. I wonder ALL THE TIME what David would think of this me. He used to love me so much and think I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. I look at my reflection and think he wouldn't know me or want me. It's okay, it is what it is.

Anyway...that's all I've got.

You are my person

Hello? 

Are you there? 

I need to talk to you.  You are my person, remember, you told me so.  You said "Until the day you are no longer breathing, I will be your person...I promise."  We were watching my favorite show, Gray's Anatomy, and Meredith told Christina "You are my person" when she put her as emergency contact on a form. 

I turned my head to the right and looked at you, immediately feeling so safe and secure.  There are all these secret fears you have when you are single.  Who will see if I have a melanoma in the places I can't see; what if I choke while eating dinner...who will save me; who will be with me when I am old; how do I know this outfit looks awful on me before I leave the house; what if I have something in my teeth, or worse, in my nose; who will be my emergency contact once my current one, my parents, are gone from here.  Believe me, those are just a few. But with those words, 'I am your person, forever' I felt warm and safe.  Finally!

So, yeah, I'm in need of my person...I hope you are listening.

Mom called and left a cryptic message on the answering machine the other day.

"Hi honey, it's mum. I need you to look up something medical about Dad.  Call me back 

as soon as you get this."

Umm, sure. Okay, do I panic, not panic, what is appropriate here? Mom NEVER calls me, so there is that to consider.

I call immediately, which is actually several hours after she called me.  No answer.  OH. DEAR. GOD.  Now what?  I can't call her cell, she has no idea how to answer it.  When I was just out there her purse started playing a lovely song, so I looked over at her.  She was smiling and looking out the window as I drove us to town.  Still with the music.  

"Um, Mom, are you going to get that?" 

"Get what?" 

"Your phone." 

"What phone?"  

"The one singing a song from your purse." 

"I don't hear anything." 

"That's because it stopped." 

"Oh."  Back she goes to looking out the window...oblivious. 

"Mom?"

"What?"

"You think you should see who just called?"

"When?"

"MOM!  Did you have a stroke or something?  Your cell phone was just ringing...music playing all over the place.  Loud music. Want to check and see who it was, maybe, huh???"

"I was wondering what that pretty music was." as she fishes in a purse that is half the size of her...this takes at least 2 minutes.  Finally finding it she taps it and waits...nothing. Taps it again and waits... nothing.  Now she swipes a finger across the screen like she is conducting a symphony...nothing.   "I don't know how to answer it." as she throws it back inside her bottomless bag.

"Good thing you HAD to have an iPhone." UGH

And Dad doesn't  have a phone.  Well he does, but he doesn't know how to turn it on, and if he could he would never know what to do next.  So yeah, no help there!

Anyway, by 11pm with still no answer I go into a full on panic and put myself to bed.  The only time I'm ever safe from this life is when I'm asleep.

The next morning Mom returns my call(s).  "Dad was in the emergency room."

"WHAT?  WHY?" 

"Oh, he's okay, he's fine.  He was sitting talking on the phone and got this really bad pain in his right hip that went to his groin and eventually down his right leg. The pain got worse and worse as the day went on and he ended up getting severe nausea but never did vomit. He could hardly walk though." "Finally I said to him, let me know now if you think you may need to go to the hospital because I'm going to need time to do my hair and makeup first.  And that's when he said yeah, I think I need to go to the emergency room."  "For Dad to say that, you know it's bad." "But the on call Dr. said he thought it was just his sciatic nerve and gave him a shot and a prescription and sent us home.  The pain is really bad though and he can't lift his right leg, he drags it behind him when he walks...which he can hardly do, I have to help him to the bathroom." "So when can you get here (laughs)?"

See babe?  This is why I need you, you're my person and I need your help.  What the hell do I do now?  I've been dreading the time when my folks aren't able to do for themselves very well and this isn't necessarily that time yet but it has me thinking about that time, you know, when it gets here. You are supposed to be here for this...for me...I can't deal with this crap alone...especially now.  Before you, maybe, after you...most definitely not!  You took ALL my coping skills with you.  I've always been able to pick myself up and dust myself off and carry on after all that I have been through in life...now, I just don't have it in me. This thing with us...it broke me.  Before I would always jump to action and save the day, now I just want to run and hide.  Let someone else handle things.  Problem is, there is no one else.  I am that someone.

Do I move back there?  Did I really go through all that pain and anguish of leaving my family, my son, to come here and start a new life less than 3 years in the making, have that ripped away, my soul ripped out, just to turn around and go back?  I don't think I can. If I go back I fear I will be lost forever.  Other that my people there is NOTHING there, no friends, no prospect of a life...nothing.  How could it be I am supposed to return?  How?  What would I do with Gillian?  Oh God, but they need someone near and there is no one.  There is no one to help them daily or in an emergency.  No one.  I am that someone.

God I wish you were here to help me babe. I need someone to help me so damn bad.

Where the hell are you?????

 

 

Losing the will...

It's been an interesting time. All these months, two years worth of months, and I think I am finally losing my mind...and my will.

I'm not sure what is happening to me, my anxiety level has reached epic heights. I am paralyzed. I am turning inward. I'm losing my words.  My brain won't ever stop running.  I cry all the time.  I can no longer put one foot in front of the other...and I'm scared.  All. The. Damn. Time. 

I spend all day, every day, alone.  Well, except for weekends.  Weekends I still manage to drag myself to visit with friends.  I don't want to half the time, I have nothing to say. I just can't carry on a conversation with anyone anymore.  My friends, they don't know, they wouldn't get it, and why would they? This hasn't happened to them and they have families and jobs and lives.  I do not.  They know nothing of how I feel, how I am.  They don't ask and I don't tell.  I am a friend who once had everything they do and now has nothing.  I don't talk because they won't understand, can't understand. I just don't fit in this puzzle anymore.

To say that I am lonely is laughable because what I am is a prisoner inside my head and no one can hear me scream.  I thought my life had been spared because I was needed here but that was just a stupid lie.  The kids don't need me anymore, they are too busy building their own lives, as they should be.

I don't want to play this game anymore.

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

I cry

It astonishes me how quick I am to cry, how a simple thought can instantly seize my heart and bring it to unbearable pain. Why not take it to a place of happy memories, why does it have to be only to pain?  

Because I speak of crying so often..."I saw this saying, and I cried...I saw this commercial and I cried...", I think people believe that I sit around all day dwelling on the unfortunate events in my life.  That couldn't be further from the truth though...I do everything in my power to NOT think about it.  I try so hard to find the positive, remember the good times, smile through the hurt. But...this grief thing just doesn't work like that. Not for me it doesn't. 

I was driving home from the gym and an older model (antique) car passed and I thought to myself David would love that.  That's all, short, sweet, simple, right?!?  Not for me.  I think it and instantly I hear very loud waves crashing and have a vision of being under water with bubbles rising in front of my face.  Wait...what?  WTF is that, where did that even come from? I frantically shake my head to dislodge the sounds and images but the mood is ruined and tears are flooding my lap.  Again.

It happens ALL the time.  All. The. Time.  It's crazy and scary and exhausting. 

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.

How Long?

I threw away your underwear today.  

Your socks too.  

And then I threw up.

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

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

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

This pain is consuming me.

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

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

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

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

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

I don't want to live this life anymore.

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.

Who is this me?

We are now in the midst of the second summer without you.  Life is so not the same anymore.

In the quiet moments, which they almost all are, I find myself realizing that I feel I no longer belong anywhere.  

For ten and a half years I belonged in AR raising two small children, teaching them how to read and write and do puzzles.  Teaching them about the earth and nature and that life does not exist inside a television set or hidden in electronics...it is outside in the world.  It is in the moments with family and friends.  And so that is where my children and I could be found every single day, rain or shine, snow or sun...outside and with family and with friends.  

Our summers were spent on the river.  I would crawl out of bed at the ass crack of dawn and do all the things that needed doing before packing a giant beach bag full of granola, fruit, drinks, yogurt and sometimes lunch meat, towels, books, water toys and water and dog food. Then, time to wake the kids and start our day.  

Then came you.

You picked me up and carried me twenty seven hundred miles away.  You taught me I was so much more than only a mother, to you I was everything.  I was your girlfriend, your love, your wife.  Our life together was just beginning, it was so brand new.  Now I belonged here. 

I worked so hard learning to balance a new life here while trying to continue to nurture a little life left there.  You worked so hard to let me...to make it possible for me to try.  You worked so hard at learning to share me and be without me.  We worked so hard.  

I never told you, never once, just how difficult all of it was for me.  Leaving my son behind, leaving you behind, it was tearing me apart but I held on as best I could.  Each time I left you was so very painful, but I was learning to live with the feeling of being pulled in two directions.  I was the chew toy in the middle of two dogs wanting dominance.  But still I belonged somewhere.

Now, I don't belong there and I don't belong here, yet here I am.  I don't know who I am anymore. I've no idea what I want or where I want to be.  Recently someone asked me "what do you want?"  and I honestly couldn't answer...what I want I can't have, where I want to be I can not go.

I don't belong anywhere, my path has dead ended, my dreams have died, my love is lost and I am left all alone.  I do not recognize myself at all.

I am so lost.

Graduation Day...June 14, 2014

Oh how I wish you were here, it is such a huge day down here and you should have been here to reap the rewards.

Today your first born graduated High School.  He did it, God bless him, he really did it.

Did you see him babe?  Were you there?  Did you watch as his name was called and he walked so proud across the stage to receive that diploma?  I hope you did, I hope you saw it all and that you reveled in the joy of it.  

Ouch

I am so totally and completely heartbroken.

Summer is here, right?!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

The Death Train

I recently read about the Death Train, you know, the one where the grief stricken stand on the platform waiting and listening to the roar and clanging of the train that will no doubt run them over on the death date anniversary of the one they have loved and lost.  

For me it is a series of hours and days and weeks where you feel a clenched fist gripping the throat of your soul.  My eyes are closed because to see what is coming is just too much, to know that it will come for me is just too much...there is no more room within these eyes for even one more image of doom.  I do not want to stand and wait for this train, I do not want to get on it and ride around year after year after year recalling the worst day of my life.

Instead I want to stretch my head up high, eyes wide shut, and spend every day, painful as it is remembering the love of my life.  

I want to honor every day we ever had together.

I want only images of the boy I loved as a child and the man I married when I was all grown up.

I want to always see my David walking down the hall towards me at KP High to pick me up from school, in his skin tight wranglers, his wife beater and his tan work boots unlaced and that look of pure love on his face.

I want the picture of seventeen year old David teaching fifteen year old me to body surf up at Hampton Beach and how horribly I failed but how huge he laughed.

I want all the images from our youth, our childhood memories to step forward.  I want EVERYTHING from our life together as grown ups to stand front and center.  

I want to NEVER forget the moment we met again after 27 years in a tiny airport in Little Rock. Or when I opened my eyes the next day and saw him laying there looking at me.  If love had a look it was what I saw in those eyes in that moment.  

It is these things that I need to stand and wait for, to carry me forward year after year after year after year.  It is this boat I need to ride on for the rest of my days.  I do not want to be on that platform waiting to be run over by a train of death that will bring me nothing but devastation for the rest of my life.  I do not want to be one of those people who wait for the anniversary of death. It is not my friend, it is not kind, it is not my David, nor is it my friend Evelyn.  They are not on that train, only pain is.  They are somewhere out there watching over all of us and they need to be remembered and celebrated for who they were every day to all of us...not for how they left us on that one horrible day.  

I know, because it is easy to know this, what I want will not be easy.  The pain I hold is very real and very raw.  The wound is deep.  I will need strength that I do not feel to bring me past this, to make me look the other way.  I will need sunshine and wine and the love of my friends.  I will need only to close my eyes and see the face of my love, and the face of our girl to bring me back  from the brink.

I will do this.  I will overcome the death date.  I will overcome the bad.  I will not allow one bully to wipe away all that was good.  I will do this...but not this time.  This time I will stand where I stood on that day and I will see what I will see.  Head stretched high and eyes wide shut.