Surround Yourself With Love

Literally.

Yesterday was spent attempting to finish up photo books for the kids about their daddy.  I have pictures spanning his lifetime and captions about the events and places.  I want something physical to be left should I not be there to tell them. They are simply snippets and perhaps for me it's for my peace of mind but I wanted each to have their own copy to look at, remember and refer to.  It's a project I started a week after Chris died and have tried to tackle several times without success.  The task was too heavy, the pictures in mass a painful hole in my heart.

Alone in the house yesterday I was going to get a hold on the cleaning and instead thought, today is it.  I'm doing it.  Ha!  Only ha because it took 90 minutes to comb through a box to find a specific picture only to discover it wasn't there.  Despite this set back I finished finding pictures, uploaded them and worked furiously on the book.  It's still not complete, but I'm working!!

At one point I had to stop to get Maya from preschool.  On the way home we chatted about school and I told her about the book I was making.  On the way in I grabbed  two giant stacks of pictures which we had set aside for the slide show at Chris' memorial and Maya asked to see them.  She sat on the living room floor and took out the first stack while I ran upstairs. 

Walking back into the living room, my breath caught and my eyes filled with salty tears as I reminded myself to breathe.

There she was, diligently going about her labor of love.  My gut response was to put them away, but really, this is her love, her journey and though painful for me, it was so sweet and so innocent.    

Maya went through pictures and talked about ones she remembered, asked about others she did not all the while surrounding herself with the memories of a world that seems so far removed.

At one point I asked if she would like to make any drawings to include in our book project of memories she had.  She sadly put her chin down and said "I don't remember much."  I've never heard her say this and sadly, I know it's true.  I do know, however, that once we start talking, memories return about events and places we have been and relief sets in.

Maya spent the next 3 hours drawing pictures then continued for another after dinner and returned to it again this morning.  They started with just her and daddy, went on to a camping trip we took the summer before he died and then they evolved to this alternate world where Riley knows daddy or Pickachu goes shopping with daddy. 

There it is, this other universe in which Chris exists and in which memories are blurred with reality.  {sigh}

 

Good Reads

Today has been occupied by trying to kick this stuff clogging my head and the nighttime cold meds I took last night which make me feel like I'm seriously drugged up.  On top of that, I was perusing Good Reads and general book club websites for a book; it's my month to choose and holy cow, there is pressure!!

I digress...

I have been on and off Good Reads but really simply forget to enter books in...though really I thought I had so maybe I have multiple accounts?  Hmmmpf....

As I stopped onto Good Reads I decided to enter a couple recent books in and one was Good Grief by Lolly Winston.  I rated it and wrote a review then scrolled down to check out other reviews.  Lots of excellent reviews and then the words "As a widow" caught my eye.  Red flag, red flag, Sabrina.  Stop reading.

The woman talked about the impossibility of the woman doing so well at the end of the first year and at the closing of the novel.

I rolled my eyes and then caught myself.

Yes, it was impossible for this reviewer to be in the position to feel as though she was doing "that well at the end of the first year" because this journey, as is life's journey, a personal, individually paced journey.  My thought is, open your heart and your mind to the possibility.  I understand so many view relationships within the first year of a spouse's death as disrespectful to the deceased and irresponsible of the widow or widower.  I wondered if Chris would feel disrespected by my attempt to gage my journey as well as my ability to feel a connection to another person, truly I know he would not.  So much prayer and self contemplation went in to these steps.  So much.....

We all have our own pace in life.  Relationships begun in the first year have many caverns and shadows to explore.  They require patience, understanding, love, and recognition.  The deceased will always have a place in the family.  They will always be a parent to the children and the love they had and their place in the family is imperative to remember.  I'm not sure, however, if it is exclusive to first year relationships; I believe it is significant to all widow relationships.  I suppose I believe care must be taken in a fast paced relationship, as well as in a slow paced journey of self discovery after a spouse's death.  Either journey has it's joys as well as it's caverns.

I'm always bothered by these proclamations because truly, I would never do anything to disrespect Chris, our life, his memory or the lives of his children.

Perhaps she couldn't imagine it, but I can and I love this truth.       

The House

The day Chris died it was a cocoon, a productive cover of wood which made me both claustrophobic and comforted.

To this home I brought both of my babies home to our family.  I had dreams and hopes.  Made memories, too many to hold on to.  Felt confident that this home would be the setting of so many memories, the foundation of my family.

In the course of a single hour this house became a shadow of what I thought it would be.

It's been difficult to say and few have heard me address the issue because of the emotional gravity of the topic.

I was supposed to make a plethora of happy memories here.  I was supposed to one day come to the conclusion we had outgrown the home and needed to move on.  I was supposed to look over the house with a tear in my eye, remembering the happy and looking forward to the future.

I need out.

This house and all it held for me now feels like it holds me hostage.  I love this house but it haunts me.

Tonight I crouched to help Owen potty while half asleep and glanced into the shower to envision Chris and for a moment I wondered what his last moment was like and recalled yelling at him to not leave his children, his head rested on the corner of the bathtub. 

I wander the house, the yard and recall amazing memories.  The bathroom haunts me.  I refused to allow myself to avoid the space. I used it that day.  It took a few weeks to shower there but I did.  I spent hours remodeling the room in order to reclaim the space.  Reclaiming the space did not allow me to reclaim the space in my psyche. 

I find myself replaying the events moment by moment as I shampoo my hair.  I tell myself to stop, it's morbid, it's painful, it's unproductive.  I force myself to remember happy.  I force myself to remember that Chris would have hated that he died in that way...that he died at all.  As I run my brush through my hair with the hot air blowing, I recall his clothes still behind the door, the laundry basket filled with work clothes, standing in the bathtub fully clothed the day after Chris' death trying to remember what had happened the day before, hearing the operator tell me to pull all 240lbs wet lbs of Chris out of the tub and looking incredulously at the phone.

We've been talking about moving.  We won't until fall, should we be able to figure out how to pull it all together.  Like dominos so many things need to come together.  One of them is getting married.  I would rather sell this house but I am upside down in the loan and paying to get out would take up too much of the savings and selling it as a short sale wouldn't allow me to be on a new loan which we need in order to get out of this house. 

I sat on the deck tonight enjoying the light breeze, excited about the work we have been putting into the back yard.  We've removed the back deck cover I have hated since I set foot in this house.  I love it!!  There is finally a breeze on the deck and through the back door.  The large garden has been weeded, matted and barked.  It looks fabulous!  I love the yard.  My kids love the yard.  Can I just live in the yard?  Nobody died in the yard.

At first I was determined to gut it out.  I could do it.  I wouldn't show weakness.  I was going to reclaim it.  I've come to realize no amount of reclaiming, writing, blogging, talking will reclaim the venue of the greatest tragedy of my life.

So what to do? 

I need out.  The replay of events is running my brain ragged.

Dream Interpretation

Yet again I had a dream a few nights ago about Chris yet not about Chris.

My dream begins suddenly in a one bedroom apartment.  I spin slowly in a circle, taking in every inch.  The kitchen filled with cups and plates and boxes of food; the dining room table set with place mats, glasses, plates, silverware; the living room's walls lined with tall white shelves filled with books, boxes, knick knacks.

In my dream I knew it was Chris' apartment though it was like no apartment I have ever seen.

I wander from the living room into the bedroom where the tall shelves continue and a large desk containing a desk top computer is filled with papers and more books and file folders.

I reach up to open a desk cupboard to reveal full shelves of crafting items (ok you can laugh, Chris DID NOT craft so I'm not sure what this was about).  But, I reach up to touch bottles of glue and tubes of glitter.

In my dream I know Chris is dead yet I don't really question why he lives in this apartment nor do I wonder about our kids.  In an odd addition I am accompanied in the apartment by two girls whom I know are my friends but resemble no real life person I am familiar with.

I woke up thinking, huh??

The back story:  I had just started a book called Good Grief by Lolly Winston.  The main character is a widow who has no children and whose husband had died after a battle with cancer and she is a hot mess. 

I finished this book last night and loved, loved, loved it.  It's a book about a woman like me trying to hold her crap together yet realizing she just might not be able to.  Read this book...seriously.  It will be insightful to know this world so intimately either for yourself or for a friend.  If you have not been personally touched by my journey, I guarantee you will be touched by that of another.  Lolly Winston brings Sophia, the widow, to life.  Her pain and laughter were mine.  Sophia feels like a member of my widow community, another of whom I can say I don't know in person yet I know because I can feel her journey in the beating of my heart.

The back story to my back story.  When Chris died I combed through his belongings...his drawers, his clothing, his notebooks, his books, his van... I wanted to find something, anything to prove he had been there, he was real and he was still present.  The reality was that Chris was an extreme minimalist. I could hardly find a scrap of paper with his writing on it.  I felt like he disappeared and all that was left was a closet of clothes, walls filled with pictures and a toothbrush.  I would cry big heaving sobs, asking out loud, "Where the fuck are you Chris?"  It was like he vanished in a puff of smoke in a magic act.  An illusion.  Only it was real. 

This dream was me remembering the pain of reaching and longing for that.

It's at moments like this I realize how evident and close the pain and sadness of the loss truly is.  I still look around and wonder to myself where he went.  To dust he returned. 

Last night I sat watching Owen eating popcorn and watching a movie dressed in his pajamas and Lightening McQueen slippers and I marveled at who he is becoming.  He has become a major indicator of how much time has passed.  When Chris died Owen was one day short of 16 months old.  On Thursday 18 months will have passed since Chris last glanced at Owen as he walked up the stairs to shower.  Owen's life has more than doubled in time.  And then I realize all that Chris has missed.....

The journey

Widowhood has caused me to become easily impacted by the feelings and opinions of others.

It started in the fog of the early days.  I couldn't make a decision or think a process all the way through.  A month after Chris' death I could hardly find my way all the way through making dinner.  I longed for the ability to perform normal, ever day mundane tasks without feeling physically and mentally overwhelmed by the complexity of things such as the vacuum.

So many people are impacted by death in vastly different ways.  The unfortunate yet fortunate nature of grief is that we all experience it differently thus trying to comprehend another on their journey is difficult.

I've spent much time examining my life, my decisions, my children, my ability to love.

I've spent much time defending my life, my decisions, my children, my ability to love.

It's my impression that it's difficult to understand my ability to move forward, to put one foot in front of the other, to find grief in the midst of all the pain.  It's difficult to build love in the midst of pain.  It was incomprehensible when I realized perhaps I had found love.  I didn't understand how that could be.  Making a connection so deeply with a stranger always feels unlikely, impossible. 

Love finds us in different ways.

Chris was a long sought after love.  I had searched for him and given up, until one day...he was there.

Shaun is a love who fell into my life in an unexpected fashion...and there he was filled with love for me in my imperfect state, for my pain and its longevity, for my children and for my journey in all of its complexities. 

When all is said and done, nobody has the true ability understand another's journey but we have the ability to respect it. 

I'm tired of defending mine. 

Love and Admiration

Saturday night was rough.

Shaun was at drill for the weekend and out in the hills of Yakima cell reception is scarce.  The lonely days of single parenting catch up to me quickly. 

I had these pangs.  I miss Chris. 

I am not sure what started it.  Maybe an email I had been thinking about for over a week.  I knew what his response would be to it.  Truly I should have "listened" to him.  I didn't, but that's another issue.

I sat that night thinking about Jeremiah.

Last Monday I brought Owen to Maya's swim lesson which I don't often do since he wants to swim so badly, I feel like it's cruel.  Owen spotted his uncle sitting around the corner and off he went to see him.  I'm not sure what exactly causes the tears to well up when I see the two of them together...maybe it's the similarities the brothers have, maybe it's that this is the closest biological connection Owen has to his dad, maybe it's the pain I see in Jer's eyes.

Saturday night I thought about how much Chris loved and admired Jer.  He was his friend and his brother.  I've never known how to convey this but I have a feeling of urgency about it.   

The second year, almost half way through.  Some things are difficult to face...

I was looking through pictures with Maya and saw a picture I took of Chris' van the day his coworkers came to get it.  I can hardly remember it being in our driveway or the way it sounded when he back it in. 

Yet, every morning as I shower the scene replays in my mind as if it just happened.  It's the cruel aspect of a traumatic experience.  At times it overwhelms the happier moments to make itself known in very ugly ways.

Moving forward there is so much happiness and love yet the pain is excruciating.  There is so much to communicate, talk through, overthink ... and sometimes it just isn't as reality driven as you think.  But it's life as I know it.

Shaun and I talk frequently about the complications our life entails, there are so many aspects to wrap our heads around and three little people on three different paths because of two separate events that need the guidance and love of so many.

At the end of the day, I look into their faces and see the reality of it all.  They love and are being loved fiercely and truly love is what makes this ride worthwhile.