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.

10.17.2012

I don't know how others do it...make it through these days.

Yesterday my head ached so badly that I convinced Maya to skip movie night at school to stay home and make cookies.  The thought of a gym full of exuberant kids made me feel nauseous.

It was painful.  It was grief.  My body ached.  I spent the day longing to lay in the cool sheets of my bed.

In the aftermath, two years ago, I forced every footstep, made my legs keep moving, willed my mind to keep going.  It's hard for me to stop, to step back, to give myself true space when I need it.

It makes me feel weak.

I know it's just in my mind.

But I've arrived, feeling weak, raw, vulnerable.  I hate it.  It feels disorganized and difficult to complete grasp.

In this moment I secretly feel vaguely proud.  Proud that I am doing it.  Proud that I have moments of weakness.  Proud that my feet keep moving and I keep doing my best.  Proud of who I am and hopeful of who I will become.

Today I will relive it over and over.  The sights, the smells, the sound.  The conversations will float back to me.  The phone calls.  My dad.  My sister in law.  The 911 operator.  The ones I overheard to my sister, my brother-in-law, my friends.  And the ones I imagined, to Chris' best friend....

No I probably won't talk to anyone about it.

My mind is so full of thoughts yet so empty of structure.  Writing is easy.  Speaking, is impossible.

Two year ago my husband died.  He was my friend, my chosen companion, the amazing father to our two precious children.  He was one of the people I respected most in this world.  He had experienced so much and brought extreme peace into my life.  He was full of love, laughter, intelligence and had a wicked streak of goofiness.

In my mind I hear his voice.  In my heart I feel his love.  In my world I feel his influence, encouraging me to keep going, to keep evolving, to accept my faults and to hope for the future.

Rest in Peace Christopher Michael Carpenter.

I will remember, always, always always,     

White Knuckling It

Two years.      730 days.    17520 hours.

These anniversaries become glass half full sorts of events.  Ok, truthfully grief is an honest look at the empty glass with feeble attempts at seeing it half full.  

Two years of head spinning, life changing events.  Freeing and overwhelming all at the same time. 

Two years of grasping at hope, holding on to faith and surreptitiously drinking in the love that surrounds me.

What's difficult about anniversaries like this is feeling in step, in sync with the last hours you had on this earth.  In these moments I can feel you close.  I sit looking up the stairs you walked up just minutes before you collapsed and see in you my minds eye as if it happened only moments before.  I wonder if I quickly walk over if I will see your footprints imprinted on the carpet.

In these final hours I open the cupboard for a glass and the mug that you left, half full of coffee on the bathroom counter screams to me, begging me touch it as if it would still be warm from your touch.

I was annoyed you were taking so long in the shower.  

I close the bathroom door and see your red Cougar Camp shirt and Addidas shorts in a pile and reach for them only to realize they have long since been packed away.   

The dampness on the floor of the bathtub coating my socks as I leaned over you leave my feet cold.  I can hear the water running, my sleeved soaked from reaching through to turn it off.   

My heartbeat loud in my ears.  The rapid breaths escaping my body.  My hands on your chest, awkwardly pressing your body into the ground.  My words to you sounding like a lifetime movie.  Please don't leave your kids.  They need you....

My heart willing Maya to stay in the living room despite my frantic phone call on speaker and Owen's cries watching my chaos, my counting... 39, 40, 41 and then the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs.

But I see you and I know the truth.  You weren't leaving, you were gone. 

In my head it sounds unfamiliar, like someone else's story but I can feel it in my bones.

They ache.  Grief isn't just sadness...tears, depression.  It's the heavy down quilt, warm yet suffocating.  Alternating feelings of nausea and despondency.  Agony, anguish, desolation, despair.  A sickly sweet wretchedness oozing, sticky, messy.  Disorganized.

It's what I hate about grief the most.  It's disorganized, unpredictable. 

Now I yearn for you to know Maya and Owen.  She was barely writing the letters for her name when you died and now she's reading books, doing math, writing sentences.  Owen could speak only a handful of words and now he's "reading" me whole books he has memorized, counting to 30, spelling his name, making us all laugh.  They ride bikes, roller skate, play elaborate make believe games and are always looking for warm arms to snuggle in.

There lives and enormous pressure in my heart driving me to remember everything.  Your personality, your voice, your laughter, the way you moved through a room, how we were as a family.  But its so much and I feel overwhelmed.  The more I try to remember the more I feel slip from my hands.

I have not dreaded the days leading up to this anniversary though they have clouded my mind and engulfed my energy but am fearing the memories of the aftermath.  With few exceptions those days are foggy and full of nothing more but attempting to continue moving, breathing, feeling.

It's with this I look around and wonder if you are here.  I long for affirmation that you are fine.  I search for signs that you are close.  While others dream full, animated, colorful, lucid dreams, I wake up blank and are left with wonder about your final destination.

on the calendar

There is so much to say and truly by not posting in order I will need to go back and fill in the beautiful details of my life but as the inkling creeps up, pushing me to blog it usually is about the stress.  Don't get me wrong, my life is filled with so much beauty.  Unfortunately beauty and peace don't require cathartic writing to process fully.  They just are because they are beautiful.  It's the ugly, uncomfortable feelings that I need out into the abyss of written words to completely analyze, turn over and process.

For the past two weeks, the monster has been there...the two thousand pound elephant trying to remain invisible in the room.  Really I feel like he just sort of follows me. As we started a new school year there were so many people I feel I needed to "let in" on our family as well as ones I felt the need to warn.  Not every parent is ready to have their child come home asking about death. 

I opened my calendar a few weeks ago to put my niece's birthday party down and took a deep breath, then realized I was taking a deep breath.

My calendar is very different now...it's electronic and not just the free WPZ calendar hanging in my kitchen.  It contains pick ups and drop offs for Riley.  It documents days of kindergarten and preschool and social security deposits.  All things foreign two years ago. 

The words...Sarah's birthday.  Pumpkin Patch.  Halloween.  Charissa's Birthday.  Thanksgiving.  dot my calendar in an unintentionally suffocating manner.  With them I have memories like a slide show float through my mind.  For moments I remember the days leading up to it. 

I'm a believer in signs.  If you read my blog in "the beginning", you know I was looking for them behind every door, in ever dark corner and really felt quite empty handed.  It took a few months for me to decide my signs were much more simple. 

I left the pumpkin patch today, soaking wet, driving to our next stop and saw a beautiful rainbow.  The colors so vivid.  Just as I thought we would catch it, that the pot of Gold would be in the field next to us, it would move.  But in this rainbow I found a moment of peace, a feeling of hope, a hand of comfort telling me that life is as it should be and that despite it all, my heart can rest.  Telling me that even though he is gone, illusive, just out of reach, he is always there watching over us. 

My signs have never been big.  I haven't had dreams so vivid I woke thinking they were real.  I rely on smaller signs.  The week Chris died he told me about this song he heard on the radio that he wanted to put on his IPod by Kings of Leon.  When I catch a chord of that song, I say Hi.  Coincidences?  Probably  but in my psychological schema I use them to find peace, to make a connection to my grief and to smile. 

As I watched Maya and Owen at the pumpkin patch today I couldn't help but catch my breath at how much they have grown.  This past week I ran across a copy of  Chris' obituary in the filing cabinet and sat down to read it.  It's sad... are there more eloquent words to say that?  What struck me most were the words about the bond between Chris and Maya.  It makes me wonder if she would be a different kid if she still had that.  Obvious things would be different but I look at her anxieties and sigh...and wonder, why my babies?  Really, my connection to them is crazy... Since Chris died, every time I look at them across the room, cuddle in bed or simple touch their cheeks, an electricity bursts inside of me and I feel toward them something I had not felt ever.  My bond to them carries me through and pushes me to do more, be more and become more than I had ever imagined..