1,095 days

One thousand, ninety-five days.

Last week I didn't want to get dressed.  My yoga pats were calling to me from their drawer and I succumbed to several days of rocking the mysterious, "I might be on my way to the gym" look.  I didn't recognize it immediately.  On Friday, day four of casual Friday, I realized the elephant was back.  Perched on my soul was grief.  Pesky grief, always sneaking on in even when I'm watching, even when I have been expecting her.

Of course, on Friday when she arrived and I acknowledged her presence, we became reacquainted with our daily routine.  She suggested I go about as if it were casual Friday and I suggested I should at least do my hair.  She encouraged me to stay in bed while I suggested perhaps I should clean up the book my dog thought he would shred while I was ironically at book club the night before.  You see Grief, she's a pest like that.  Always encouraging me to take a few steps back so when the right hook makes contact with my cheekbone, I'm completely rocked right off my feet.  Griefs kind of a bitch like that.

Milestones, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, Wednesdays, 17's, Great Wolf Lodge, my niece's birthday, Thanksgiving planning, taking a shower, hearing the water running.  They all come back to haunt me when grief pays me a visit.  She's a bit of a dictator, trying to control my life.

Once I accepted her presence as necessary, it was time to take the walk.

I have retold myself the story of the morning Chris died thousands of times.  I've done it late at night in bed, while sitting in Maya's class sorting papers, at the doctor's office waiting for Owen to get stitches, while vacuuming the floor, while watching my kids coming down the waterslide at Great Wolf Lodge, on the flight to California.  The story has become part of many experiences since its actual happening.  It became my way of remembering as well as a method of numbing myself to the events.  At times when the reel in my head has come to the end, I stop in my tracks, shocked that the story is real.

If you're reading this, you probably already know the story.

So,here's what I know about the story now.

It's difficult to allow myself to release the guilt.  My heart knows it's not healthy.  My brain knows it's counterproductive.  But the guilt, though it has faded, still exists.  Would have, could have, should have.

Love doesn't die.

Those who sped to my rescue after my panicked phone calls on November 17, 2010, continue to come to my rescue physically, socially, emotionally.

As much as I have tried, the final image I have of Chris is seared into my soul.  As much as others tell me to replace it with happier images, it does not budge.  I loathe that his happy go lucky, laid back smile is replaced in my soul by an image I have described to very few.  Acting as the gatekeeper, few have come to understand the image as it exists in me.

As I continued to feel Chris' spirit and talk to him in the hours and days following his death, I still talk to and feel his occasional presence.  I hear his voice and pray for his hand in guiding the decisions I make and watching over the beautiful pieces of his heart that were left in my care.

The story, though heart breaking in its existence, never ends.  Chris lives on in my heart.  He lives on in the personality of a son who barely knew him.  He lives on through the devoted love of a daughter who asks often to be reminded of the man he was.  He lives on in the stinky old hound dog he just had to have 8 years ago, who now comforts my heart in the lonely nights. He lives on in this house that teeters between haunting my mortality and enveloping my heart with peace.  His spirit lives on because the love and essence in which he lived his life was so pure.

In the days following Chris' death, I couldn't sleep.  I was trying to rest at night on couch cushions arranged on the living room floor, unable to bear the sight of the bedroom we had once shared.  One of my best friends slept on the couch and my parents slept on an air mattress surrounding me.  My heart was in so much pain that the essence of my being felt empty and numb.  Then it happened, I woke up and felt my soul again, and with the searing pain, I had this song in my heart

Chris created an easy silence in my soul and kept the craziness of life and the world at a calm hum for me.  Today I remember you on the third anniversary of the day you earned your angel wings and pray you left this world knowing how adored you truly are.  Always.

Strength, panties and reminders

Strong.

Such a relative term. 

Is it emotional, physical, psychological, social, moral? 

Being strong is not always positive.

Nor it is always a choice.

And definitely it's not always deriving from a self determined life route.

Often I find strength to be the subject of conversation in my life.  Usually I toss back the idea that anyone has the ability to have strength in this given situation.  Truly, the alternative is melting into the universe and allowing your children to spiral out of control with no adult guidance to see them through.  Trust me, I've pondered the melting into the universe thing.  A rocket popscicle left on the back porch by a distracted toddler who comes back an hour later to find just the stick and a drippy, syrupy mess.  That idea really is just shot to pieces.  Screaming toddler, nasty mess, stick disposal.  Melting into the universe is clearly not easy.

Now this is sounding bitter.  Truly at the heart of this is that maybe being strong or having the strength to endure one's trials is not the compliment we all intend it to be.  While we are here, I might just lump looking good during a tedious, heart wrenching trial into this.

Looking Good.

I was afraid I would terrify my children with the pasty, dark eye circled, greasy haired, scatter brained mommy who emerged in the days following Chris' death.  (For heaven sakes I was mysteriously sleeping on the living room floor with one of my best friends and my parents.)  Truly we all know that make-up can clear most of that up in a jif.  When I was told I looked well, I would wonder if they were lying or if by some miracle my grief wasn't showing.  It's sort of like a nasty panty line or that unmistakable moment where you realize you can see the pattern of your panties through your pants.  No matter what you do in that moment, there they are, surprise!  Grief is the same.  

I digress....always.  Nasty, nasty habit.

I want each of you to look at yourself in the mirror and make note that if it were you, you would have done the same.  No, seriously.  You would not have stayed in bed.  You would not have lost your mind, I promise!  I'm not down playing my coping ability, I get that we each have our own way of dealing with things.  Nor am I necessarily boasting yours.  I'm merely saying, you too would promise yourself to not let the existence of your children spin out of control.  You would not let the world collapse around them or leave their fate to a Plinko board.  (Yeah I'm not sure what the Price is Right reference is all about, but I'm leaving it).  You would put one foot in front of the other, smile when socially appropriate, brush away the tears of your friends, tell everyone you are well, learn the strange way the widowed end up consoling their friends and family, breathe, try to remember to eat and try not to forget about what your life was like once upon a time ago.  You would.  That's why I am friends with you.  

But no worries, if you forget you can do this, I will remind you.  After all, you reminded me.

Srength and Courage

I'm opinionated.  I have trouble holding my tongue.  Eventually, I will comment.

Grief, however, is a subject I truly try to hold my tongue on. 

My grief has been commented on by so many.  I know, then, why the heck do I write a blog?  (Or maybe I should say, why did I since my updates are very outdated.)  My blog, I realized, resonated.  It explained, expanded on and gave life to feelings I couldn't explain in words thus allowing others to "see" my grief instead of just assuming I was strong.  I hated that comment.  You are so strong.  What the heck else could I be?  I digress.

Logically I know my experience has been analyzed, criticized and supported maybe not all at once, but essentially that's what I have felt.  I have read and heard harsh words that I will attempt to refrain from addressing and quite honestly I know others have been said that I have not been privy to.  Really, I try to take a "hope it never happens to you" attitude.  Not in a mean way, more in a, I don't want you to have this judgement or this pain or have to understand why I have made the choices I have.  I don't want anyone to know the crushing loss of a husband.  To stand on their back deck screaming into the rain as strangers look on from within their house.   

Ok, here it is.  My Point.

Watching grief from afar is interesting.  An acquaintance died suddenly last fall leaving her husband and two small children.  Another acquaintance from high school died after an ongoing illness leaving a husband and small son.

Mostly I have watched these experiences unfold and transform with a prayer on my breath and beams of strength being sent into the universe from my heart.  Reading and thinking about their experiences made me sob.  The mere act of watching from afar has made me cognizant of many things but really, mostly it has made much more clear to me the experience had by others who are not truly at the epicenter of the death but who are close by.  They are the people suffering greatly, trying to support those at the epicenter yet navigate their own life challenges as presented by the death of this loved one.  

This morning I read a brief post from a widower who has decided to date.  He commented that many won't understand.  All I could think was, "ain't that the truth."

It was a difficult desire to explain and defend (at times).  Then it made me angry I should even have to defend it.  I'm not crazy, I never was.  I never put myself or my children in harms way.  I was vocal about my grief, I was processing and reprocessing.  I was reading and trying to lead my children.  I was honest.  I was angry when people around me doubted my ability to navigate.  Now I wonder what they saw, what they felt.  At the time, all I could think about was that I was the one who was here.  Chris was gone and now it was time to support me.  Chris had God on his side, he no longer needed the loyalty of friends and family.

A little too simplistic, I know.  And wildly harsh.  

Now, I get it a little better.  Everyone needs to have their grief experience honored and acknowledged.  It's hard to understand anothers grief because you just are not them and purely are not meant to understand.   

Truly I was lucky that in all of it I only had two real fall outs...ugly, drag out, mean word fall outs.  Sadly, I will admit I haven't forgiven the hurtful words but do hope they both have had their opportunity to move through their own personal journeys.  Grief is debilitating and harsh judgement is sometimes the fall out of that reality. 

Perhaps this is point number two.  Life is hard.  It's our job to look at those in our world and acknowledge that their journey is important too.  Strive to support and love everyone through their own journey.  Acknowledge that everyone reaches their destination in a different manner and via their own path but no matter what, it is what is right for them.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. -Lao Tzu

Arrival

It arrived so suddenly though I had expected it, waited for it with an anxious heart.

At the moment it arrived, I wasn't ready.  My mind tried to tune it out, change the path, avoid the destination.  I was waiting but I was not ready.

"I don't want you to go to heaven."  My kiddo sat trying to hold back tears with tiny sausage fingers.

Did that give it away to any of you?  Owen.

Me:  "I'm not going to heaven sweetie, I am staying here with you to be your mommy,"

Owen:  "But I was a baby once and I had a daddy that I loved and he went to heaven."

Yes, I gasped too.

I gasped so audibly that the air in the room rushed into my heart and opened the wound that I have spent much time tediously mending into a usable condition.

Owen's tiny little sausage fingers almost clawed at his eyes that were brimming with tears.  He was sad.  So simple.  In that moment I couldn't help but wonder why he felt the need to cover the crying.

We talked honestly about heaven, about his daddy, about being sad.  I told tiny fibs about staying here with him forever.  I sent out silent prayers to God that he make that part true. Really I begged.  It's my nightmare.  Nothing can happen to me.  Not now.  No cancer, no car accident, no ailment I can't cure with Tylenol and a nap.  Nothing.

Crushing is the weight of that conversation.

The follow up...I knew it was coming.  And it did.  On the next night.

Perhaps it's the song I sing at bed time, on his request.  We call it Serenade.  The Dixie Chicks call it Lullyby.  The lyrics ask, "How long do you want to be loved?  Is forever enough because I'm never, never giving you up."

Never giving up.  That's sort of my motto.  Hours after Chris died, I vowed I would not let this world fall down on them.  I would never give up.   

The follow up went a bit like this, Owen: "I'm sad.  I want my daddy here not in heaven. I love my daddy."

Me too buddy.

I do what mommy's do.  I reassured my sweet boy that his daddy loves him so much, that his daddy watches over him, that we can still love people who are in heaven and they love us in return and we feel it.

It's as simple as that.  The arrival of feeling.  Previously it was all fact.  Daddy is dead.  Daddy's heart was not working right and nobody knew it.  The associated feelings are now present in the mind and heart of my little man.

It's in this moment I recall the conversation with a friend who lost her mom at a very young age.  Her insight.. grief is evolving.  We grieve and re-grieve in different ways over time depending on circumstance and age.  I knew it was true by simply living the past 2 1/2 years watching Maya's every word, every nightmare, every story.  But Owen had yet to arrive.  His arrival has rocked my boat and made me question my ability to steady three ships in the storm of grief.   

The arrival of Owen's grief, I was waiting but I was not ready.  

  

Often I find myself mentally transcribing what I would write should I actually find myself sitting in front of my computer with a moment to spare.

Tonight I would have written about Chris' panic every time Maya split her lip open as a toddler (which was pretty close to daily til she was 2) and how I would calmly step in.  He would always ask how I was so calm with so much blood.  Tonight she split her lip and there was tons of drippity droppity blood.   

Last week my post would have been about Maya's nightmares, which have started again.... Last week she was terrified screaming "Run Owen, Run.  Hurry, Run!"  I will be honest.  I couldn't get myself to ask what she was dreaming about.  Big fail.  I didn't want to know.  I'm too often haunted by the dreams Chris had about Owen just before his death. 

Two weeks ago my post would have sweetly remembered the moment I said "I, do."  The declaration which has lead me on this whirl wind adventure of life I had never even remotely imagined. 

In March I perhaps would have told you about the fabulous La Faux and how for just a moment in the midst of drag queens and acrobats I couldn't help think of all the amazing restaurants Chris loved on Capitol Hill.

My point.

I need to write. 

It's cathartic.  It's hard.  At times I have no words for my feelings. 

Grief is every present, in differing degrees and involving a wide range of experiences and characters.  But it's there.  Some times it slips by like a whisper from the lips while during other moments it's the explosion of symbols, impossible to ignore.

Grief.