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.

The 'Normal' Stuff

Here we are at Great Wolf Lodge enjoying the lil kid slide all together!

Maya was the 'Shinning Star' at her preschool in December. She got to bring whatever she wanted in the box to share. She chose to bring the stuffed wolf we got at Great Wolf Lodge and a picture of Owen...whom she called 'her friend' during sharing time.

Our friends and family took us out to Farmer Brown's Tree Farm to find a tree.



Then we decorated...while others of us tried to figure out what the heck was going on.



Maya had a Christmas program at school. The class sang 6 songs. Incredibly cute and was a moment I wished Chris had been here for. He would have beamed. Owen came along to cause trouble.

We painted reindeer masks...and some of us ate paint.

Maya and I tried our hand, once again, at making a Gingerbread House.

We went on a Santa Brunch Cruise with all our favorite people where we got to see Santa!!!



Christmas Eve found us at my grandma's house where we also had an encounter with Santa. Oddly, my children walked right up and sat down.



Christmas morning was glutenous. So many presents.

Maya was VERY excited for me to open my present. She picked out a sweater and a dolphin pillow pet for me.



Christmas evening found Owen WAY over all the presents. Instead he watched us open his presents, turned on the singing decorations and used exorbitant amounts of chapstick.




The days after Christmas started our adventure in remodeling the bathroom. Here is Maya helping me paint. She was very proud of 'her wall' and slightly offended when I filled in the white parts.

A New Year

In my head Christmas was this horrendous hurdle I was going to have to get over. I realized quite suddenly it is in fact New Years. This was especially startling to me since Chris and I had no real attachment to the holiday nor did we have any specific rituals we performed. It really has nothing to do with Chris yet everything to do with him. Strangely, though Christmas was hard, this feels more difficult.

My hang up? This begins a new calendar year without Chris. I keep thinking about minute details like the fact that he will have never written 2011. Ever. Just around the corner is also my 34th birthday as well as Owen's 1/2 birthday. Then the other day I was thinking that come April 2011 I will cross many bridges. My first anniversary since Chris' death which would have marked our 6th. Maya's 4th birthday. The birth of a niece Chris never got to meet. The six month anniversary of his passing. Finally, I will have reached the age Chris was when he died. Then, do I become older?

Yesterday I got down a calendar we received in the mail and wrote in some appointments and obligations I needed to remember when my current calendar goes into exile. Until last year, Chris always picked out our calendar. Last year I made one on Shutterfly. This year...I am using a free calendar I got from Woodland Park Zoo. I am sure it is some sort of subconscious protest to my situation. Reading that last sentence made me laugh...situation!?! I guess it seems minimal or easily overcome if I call it my situation instead of my life.

So, what to do? I think my technique is going to involve deep breathing and the old grin and bear it or fake it til you make it idea. It will be a low key night with Chris' brother's family and some good friends. The kids will be wild and wound up and we will enjoy some pizza and good company. It probably won't sink in until I get home and am trying to negotiate the simultaneous bedtimes on my own after being out. After the kiddos are in bed I am sure the silence will set in.

Each of the past three nights I have had a moment where I said to myself, 'now what?' Then the onslaught of memories comes flooding in. The swats on my booty I always received walking up to bed, the debate about who was going to take the dog to her crate, the discussion about how late we stayed up, questions about what I was going to do with the kids the next morning, the drawing of the invisible line down our bed so Chris' 5 pillows wouldn't smother me, laughing as we fished My Little Ponies or other small objects out of our bed. It's just so darn quiet here after the kids go to sleep. Tonight I waited for it. I could sense it coming. The silence slowly sets in and covers my house and makes things seem foggy and slow. Now I sit in my king size bed and think I should just take it out back, burn it and buy a double. Not really but this bed is gigantic.

One of these nights I am going to go to bed at a normal time. Really...I will.

Fragile

Chris' best friend and his wife took Maya with them to a high school basketball game tonight which she LOVED! When she got home she told me all about the white players and the blue players, shooting the ball and cheering. Thankful doesn't do justice to how I feel about friends and family incorporating us into the threads of their lives. Tonight Maya went with the Pierce family to the game and I stayed home to get Owen in bed on time but was kept company by my awesome cousin Laura on this, my second night solo. We have so many people who have made us part of their immediate family and have invited us to take part in their every day lives.

After the kids were in bed I read my email. An email from a friend made me realize I am not crazy. Life is fragile and the existence of our bodies is only a result of our body working with us and itself. It was a reminder to me that there are amazing people in this world in circumstances beyond their control. The only way around them is through them, and the outcome is not always self directed. This is such a reminder to me.

Tonight I am praying as I have every one of the last 43 days. Maybe that sounds odd to you but prayer had not been part of the daily rituals in my life during the most recent years. I have been praying for strength and endurance, for personal knowledge about when to let go and let be, for Chris, for my kid's healing, for peace and healing for those who loved Chris, and for personal understanding of this life and my intended journey.

Tonight I began praying for strength and healing for a friend whose spirit and internal beauty radiate.