Waves Rolling In

Perhaps my subconscious knew this was coming and that's why I was dreading New Years Eve.

We got home tonight and Maya wanted to play more...but sans a nap it was past bed time at 8:25 p.m. She was balking and trying to postpone so after giving her the choice to either choose a book to read before bed or just go straight to bed (since she was goofing around) she instead stood in front of her closet and sobbed.

Big, heaving alligator tears.

"I want my daddy to come back."

In the end I was in tears, she was in tears and we both just wanted Chris back. We spent 30 minutes talking about how sad it makes us that he can't be with us. Just when I thought she was okay she turned to me and said "I just want to show daddy all the stuff I got for Christmas." All I could think was, I do too. Keeping my composure when my heart feels broken and I'm watching my 3 1/2 year old's heart aching for her daddy makes me feel like I have been fed through a shredder.

In the end, I know it started in the same way it used to start when Chris was still here. It was a consistent pattern that occurred once a week or so in which she would be mad at me and instead want daddy or want daddy to come home from work. He was certainly the softy around here and I was the one who drew the lines and regulated the rules. She had Chris wrapped around her little finger and they both knew it.

Tonight she was overly tired, still excited about playing with her friends this evening and mad at me. It still does not negate the fact that we are both heart broken and tonight it was raw.

Then, I think I made matters worse when I put on a pair of Chris' lounge pants only to have the dog smell them and get excited. Bad choice. She ran around trying to find Chris. Little does she know, I walk around the house trying to find him too. I look for things he left laying around, papers he wrote on, clothes left unwashed...

In the end. I really have found all that there is to find. Due to the circumstances, my bathroom is undergoing a renovation, my basement/playroom has been completely rearranged and organized which then altered the arrangement of my bedroom. Everything that was left has now been washed, put away or stored. In the end, I try to convince myself it is stuff...not an extension of Chris. However, looking at his favorite baseball hat, touching the coat he always wore, seeing his work boots in the garage make my heart ache for the man who used to fill them.

So, to 2010...I will miss you. With you concluded the memory making with the man I love. I have no idea where 2011 is going to take us but I am positive it is going to be difficult and is going to test us individually and as a family. Don't get me wrong, I know that things will even out and that these episodes, with time, will become fewer and further between. However, the reality is that this is not going to get easier yet.

Like waves rolling in we are swept over then left to recover in the sand until the next wave rolls back through the uneven landscape of our lives. With time, the waves will quit sweeping us off our feet but until then I think I'll put my life jacket on.