Well, here we are over one year later. A year of tears, a year of loss, a year of pain so bad that at times I can actually feel it slamming into me. Knocking my brain into a tailspin where I have to fight to land upright and once again accept the fact that you are not coming back. A year of holidays. A year of silent football where I couldn't bear to watch. Slapped by the silence in the split second that you would have made the call first. Before any of the announcers. Following it up with "No shit Sherlock" and an eye-roll when they, doing their jobs, reported it to everyone else. A year of drawing on every ounce of strength in my body to raise our son as you would want. A year where even in my dreams you are gone. Dreams that seem to mock me. Shoving in my face even in my most peaceful moments the cold fact that you are forever removed from my side. Almost every morning I wake to not only the thought that you are gone, but then to the realization that even in my dreams you are blatantly not there. Dreams without time, without place, without theme... The only thread from night to night being the fact that in each dream it is bitterly evident that you are as absent in my dreams as you are in my waking life. Or maybe you are there, hiding, making sure that I remember that you aren't coming back.
It has been a year where at times I have had no option but to stand back and watch as things beyond my control went down. Like your birthday weekend. It's a nice thought, wanting to have your ashes scattered I guess. It all sounded just fine when you were alive, sitting next to me on the couch and in my mind you would be 65 or so by the time I had to deal with that. Usually first talking about your Grandpa, and then you saying for the billionth time that you wanted to be with him. It was a beautiful and moving notion and when I pictured myself as I saw your Grandma the day we laid Grandpa Jacob to rest it seemed almost beautiful. With grandchildren and nieces and nephews running around. Perhaps with a young and newly cemented forever kind of love in the air as we were. Odd how different I felt on those two days. On the first, so long ago I was overcome with emotion and a profound gratitude for the family that hasso openly and fully accepted me. That day was beautiful. Painful no doubt, but a glorious goodby to a man who had lived and loved a long and fulfilled life. A man who had once loved the outdoors, but had been robbed by age the ability to make that climb again. A distinguished and fitting farewell to celebrate the life of a loved Father and Grandfather. The only tie to that day and that fateful Saturday in July was the profound gratitude and thankfulness that I have for my family. My Jacob family surrounded me and love me as if I were blood, standing side by side with my parents in support and that is the only way I made it. When it came down to it, the notion of casting the only man I ever wanted to love, to hold, to learn with, to live with, off that cliff was just to much to bear. Cremated or not, I recoiled in horror at even the thought. It was an inevitable action. It was what you wanted, I could not stop it. Besides, the same family that had loved me as unconditionally as you had, and continues to do so was ready. So we drove. I sat, I hugged, I talked, all the while as hollow and fragile as an empty husk. Numb except for the brief bursts of the young children's magical laughter and love. Not even that was enough though. They were to young. You could have made that climb. You had SO MUCH time stolen. In order to make it through that day without ending up in a fancy new white wrap around coat & a trip to the "spa" I had completely shut down on the inside. On the outside I spoke about how nice it was that all of your loved ones would be able to go visit you there forever blah blah blah, all the while my insides screaming "NOOOO!!! I want him with me! Where I know where he is. How can he EVER come back if you scatter him off a damn mountain?! I would say that this was one of the worst days of my life, but I can't even get that far. That is a subject that cut to deep. Even now. Surrounded by family and loved ones, carrying out your wishes I wanted to hit them. I wanted them to tell me how it was EVER going to be okay if I couldn't even find you!
In my darkest hours of to the desperation and frustration it is that notion that rises to the top. Why haven't you found a way to get back to me?! That's when it gets scary. My brain knows that you can't come back, but my heart, and at times even my mind want to know WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK?! It is still invincible that you aren't ever going to be able to come back to me, yet I find myself asking "What is taking you so long?!" Then I come back and realize, as I did on the drive into the mountains that day, that I truly never will see you again. Each time is another in the millions of emotional slices to the heart. At times, driving around this town, never knowing what memories are going to pop into my head that I feel like I am dying the death of a million cuts. Our anniversary came and went without a hug, without a kiss, with nothing but another drop into the dark bottomless pit that is ever growing in my heart.
They say that part of the grieving process is bargaining. I love you with all of my heart my dear, but I did not bargain for you. I bargained for our son. I bargained, I begged, I pleaded, all for something that I know I cannot do. I have lost count of the number of times I have prayed and pleaded with God. I can't even fully comprehend the magnitude of what I would sacrifice to give him back his father. Or to somehow unburden him of his pain. As his mother I guess it's just instinct. All I want, all I think I'll ever really want is for him to be happy. That January morning last year, as I watched what was happening, I was looking around at everyone and everything happening so fast around us. I stopped on our son. If it was a bomb, I could have throw myself over it and saved him. I would have done it in a second, but I was powerless. There was nothing I could do to stop our son from watching it all play out. He's was to old to be shooed out, besides that's not how we roll.
Noah's birthday went well. He seemed happy and that's all that matters. Halloween came. I didn't open the door. That was your job. Opening the door and joking around with the kids. Guessing their costumes. My birthday came and went. Me numbly following along once again. Even going to the same restaurant you and I went to last year with my parents to celebrate the same occasion. I didn't care. I couldn't. My birthday was completely empty without the man it meant the most in the world to. It no longer mattered. I have found that many things just don't mean as much without you there to share them with me. The food was good, nice time, made it home safe.
On the anniversary of John's passing I went to the park. I went for you. When I cry for John it is your tears that I cry. Thanksgiving came, along with hugs and love and tears around the table where the shining smile of our table was gone. Everyone smiling just a little bigger, loving a little harder, desperately trying to fill the enormous gap where your love and laughter and love once dominated the room. At Christmas we circled the wagons. Both families came together at our parents home. Even that was not enough. I could only make it a few hours before being pushed out by a title-wave of loss, emptiness, and core shattering pain that I had sadly become accustomed to.
New years was nothing to be celebrated. As the year before, I sat crying. Worrying and wondering about you. The only difference was this time I didn't allow myself to say or hear the empty promises of, and wishes for a better year this time around. I was in bed by nine. It didn't matter. Once again, little did. Noah was safe, had fun, and made it home before midnight. That's all I can bring myself to care about. Three days later I awoke to the other shoe dropping. January Third, Two Thousand and Fifteen. One full year since you left this earth and our life behind forever. Our wonderfu friends gathered at the park once again. Forgive bebe but I just couldn't bring myself to join them this time. Instead I got my own memorial for you. As our friends gathered to remember you at the park, I lay alone on a table in a tattoo shop. Relishing in the feeling of the tattoo gun digging into my skin. Weeping with relief as the needle pierced my skin over and over. Forever carving us together. Right next to my heart, where you will remain for the rest of my days.
There have been good times too. Blessings that don't fill the void, but they help. Miracles that remind me that God is good and each moment we are blessed to have with our loved ones is to be cherished. I have made beautiful friendships and reconected with beautiful old friends thst had either moved away or somehow fazed out of my life. Sometimes when life is so dark, and a heart is so hard it's tough to see the miracles and even tougher for the significance of them to reach my soul. I have seen some of your prayers answered though, and for that I am grateful. The most significant by far was the reunion of a Father and Son after a decade of being kept apart. As I struggle to navigate the path that our son and I will walk without you, that miracle reminds me how good God is, and how sometimes you just have to keep on pushing. You never know where your next blessing is going to come from.
I wish I could say that it's getting easier, but then I worry that if it gets easier I may loose that sharp pain of love in my heart. The truth is bebe, I don't know if I want it to get easier or not. I know that I never could forget you, but the notion that as time goes by I will heal breaks my heart all over again. Perhaps someday I will feel better through "healing", but after living for 376 days of thinking of you at least once a minute it seems as inconceivable as the notion that you are gone at all. It is most certainly better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but that doesn't make it easier by any means. In fact, it's been my experience over these last twelve months that it only makes it harder. That being said, the moments I shared with you and our son are by far the best of my life. Even at our worst, we were always in love. Maybe not pink heart love. At times it seemed we were closer to the dark, angry, sharp love that holds my heart now, but that's just fine with me bebe. That only helps to remind me that it was real. All day, every day. I don't know what the future holds, but you hold my heart. Forever and always bebe, always and forever...
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Thursday, March 13, 2014
First confessions of a young widow
Widowed at thirty six. WOW! I wonder if people shake their heads and whisper after they've seen me. Whisper about what happened. Or worse, whisper about what they heard from someone who heard from someone who heard what they think happened. Always whispering, in a secret unknown hope that their life would never take such a turn... Life became a permanent "by any means necessary" situation for me sixty nine days ago. I find it laughable that I decided to start my first blog post ever at 1:05 a.m. sixty nine days after the great love of my life left this earth. That's his way of telling me to do this. He had quite the sense of humor, that one. We'll get into that later though, this is not the time. After three days in the hospital and zero days notice, my husband of eleven years and best friend of seventeen was gone. In what felt like a flash in time, not even a second, my son was out a Father before he was out of braces. With the nod of my head I was forced to concede. To let them know it was okay to quit. Reneging on everything my husband stood for. My man was many things, but a quitter he was not. In that instant all choice was removed and I was left with only the responsibility to tell them to stop. Forever casting an unrelenting shadow over my son's life and my own. I had watched so many of them them try so hard for so long. Coming from a medical family, I knew that it was no longer my choice. Josh had made it very clear that he would never want to live any kind of way that would have kept him here the way he was. In that instant I surrendered any shred of hope that my family would ever be what I always knew we would be. Together forever.
It's not as if we weren't severely fractured already. Our wild wolf pack of friends who are so intertwined it's more like a giant beautiful family. We run pretty close. There are a lot of us and everyone doesn't get to see everyone all that often, but thirty eight days before Josh passed, another one of our most formidable family members took his leave. My husband's best friend of twenty years was gone. When everyone else was at home getting ready to leave they were always together. At his place, at John's place. Wherever, they were always together. Even when they weren't together. I don't care what the Coroner's report comes back telling me. I KNOW my husband died from a broken heart. I wasn't his first love. Their hearts just beat the same. To say that the two of them together were a formidable force would be more than an understatement. They always said that they would move heaven and earth for each other, and sadly for the rest of the pack, that's just what they did. Strong men, those two. He and John were thick as thieves. They were far from alone though. Thankfully our pack runs as wide as it does strong. My son and I are blessed to have many to hold us up and keep us together. There is nothing so bittersweet as reuniting with long lost deeply loved friends at the funeral of a thirty four year old man. Except for seeing them again a month later at the funeral of your thirty four year old Husband.
Like I said, it's only been sixty nine days. I don't have much experience with all this, but I do know a few things. I know that as those two hearts stopped beating, numerous others were fractured in a way so deep that they will never be the same again. I see it in our children. As I love them and laugh with them, I see that deep solid black pain behind way down deep in their eyes. I see it in my family. In the way they make kind alternative suggestions instead of saying "no". I see it in the movements of our loving pack. Always reaching out to try and mend what cannot be fixed. Their hearts breaking all over again with the recurring realization that this one is beyond their control, no matter how strong they are. I see it in the mirror and I feel it in the deepest part of my soul. When my chest feels to heavy to breath. When I see red because someone cut me off or something gets misplaced. Wanting to rip the Universe wide open one second and feeling to weak to draw another breath the next. There is nothing I could break that is worthy of this pain. No one I could strike out at that would be sufficient. Yet I live constantly looking frantically around for something. Evaluating everything I see. Every situation I find myself in. Just waiting. Waiting for something, ANYTHING, ANYONE, to be enough. But it never will be. I'm smart enough to know that. Nothing can give me what I want. For my son to have a father again. His father. Not some man I meet years from now who's "good enough". I begin to feel like a spool of thread that has just been thrown to the wind, unraveling at a more than unnerving speed.
How do you just keep going? Don't know that one yet. You just do. Time stops for no man, no matter how much they are loved. No matter how much pain and carnage has been left in the wake of this emotional tornado of untold proportion. The County wants money or you won't get water. The power company feels bad, "Sorry about your luck, but if you want power we need money". My son continues to grow. Needing answers that he's to polite to say he doesn't want from me. Advice and guidance that should come from his dad. Just listening to me with that dark pit of pain behind his eyes. Behind the smile and that light tone he takes on. Either as to not worry me, or more likely, just to get me off his back. Loving me to much to tell me to shut up. Praying that I'll be quiet soon because his father is no longer here to tell me enough already as I babble away. Rambling. My brain scrambling for the words. Racing to find the ones that are going to return the light. The words that might make his heart whole again. I know they aren't out there. At least I can't think of any that would help me. Yet I cannot stop. Constantly being haunted by the notion that whatever I am saying, whatever I am doing it isn't enough. Will never be enough because his father's word was bond. Oh how beautifully tragic it is... The notion that Josh loved our son so much he told him every time he laid eyes on him. From my bebe's first day to my husband's last. Determined to build a strong foundation for a lifetime of love, family, and friendship. We were a beautiful trinity and now that has gone. All that remains is two points and a line. I pray that I can keep it from fraying to pieces, but our anchor has been cut loose and the storm of life is unrelenting. The world refusing to yield to our pain. Instead we find ourselves drifting through our days. Me forever worrying that we may be unable to find our way back to the joy and love that we were once unwittingly lucky enough to live in.
"They" say that time heals all wounds. It does not. This hurt, this relentless, crippling pain that no one can fully see will never go away. The best I can hope for is that someday, as time passes, the sharp edged thoughts and memories that cut my soul like broken glass slashing at my heart will dull with age. Becoming a quiet ache that doesn't leave me on the verge of collapse at any given moment. My heart will grow back, but it will beat twisted and different. The rhythm of my heartbeat will never be the same. "They" have said a lot of things over my thirty six years on this planet, and one thing I know for sure from listening to "them" is that I'm not one of 'em. I also know that I have forever lost the one person who has ever seen me. Seen all of me and loved me every second of every day, not in spite of who I really am, but because of it, is dead and it's almost to much to bear. It cannot be to much though, because God doesn't give us more than we can handle. It's part of the deal. I HAVE to believe that. Even when it feels like there's no way I can walk through this. If I didn't force myself to believe that, I wouldn't make it. I also know that, despite how much I feel it, I'm not alone. I know women who have walked this path. I have watched them cry, seeming to fall apart bit by bit, only to reunite with them later and find them smiling and getting on with life. They are happy in their own way. They say they are, and I know they wouldn't lie to me. A pack member would never pull some shit like that.
I've discovered other stuff too. Like the fact that there's a good chance no one will ever know me again. Not like he did. Painful words that I may never have the strength to utter again will rot inside me. Memories that I have forgotten will die, with no one here to say "Remember when...". I have learned that no matter how much you cherish something, it can all be gone in a flash. Your entire future gone. Every thought you gave mind to, every plan you made, every dream you dared to dream, dead in an instant. An entire lifetime ripped away from you by the perfectly dark and twisted storm.
At one point I knew a lot more. I knew that Josh loved our son and I far to much to ever leave us. I was delusional in my comfort that things would always be what they were. I knew that we would grow old together, and that I could convince him to dance just one dance with me on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, just as I had on our wedding day. I knew that he would be here to bring me back when I got to far into my own dark world. Now I know that I must do everything in my power to remember how to find my way out of it long enough to navigate through my days and raise my son. And finally, I know that I am forever grateful that although our time together was way too short, at least it was true. Every last bit of it. Our love was true and real and beautiful. At times it was also sad and hard and ugly. That's how I know it was real.
It's not as if we weren't severely fractured already. Our wild wolf pack of friends who are so intertwined it's more like a giant beautiful family. We run pretty close. There are a lot of us and everyone doesn't get to see everyone all that often, but thirty eight days before Josh passed, another one of our most formidable family members took his leave. My husband's best friend of twenty years was gone. When everyone else was at home getting ready to leave they were always together. At his place, at John's place. Wherever, they were always together. Even when they weren't together. I don't care what the Coroner's report comes back telling me. I KNOW my husband died from a broken heart. I wasn't his first love. Their hearts just beat the same. To say that the two of them together were a formidable force would be more than an understatement. They always said that they would move heaven and earth for each other, and sadly for the rest of the pack, that's just what they did. Strong men, those two. He and John were thick as thieves. They were far from alone though. Thankfully our pack runs as wide as it does strong. My son and I are blessed to have many to hold us up and keep us together. There is nothing so bittersweet as reuniting with long lost deeply loved friends at the funeral of a thirty four year old man. Except for seeing them again a month later at the funeral of your thirty four year old Husband.
Like I said, it's only been sixty nine days. I don't have much experience with all this, but I do know a few things. I know that as those two hearts stopped beating, numerous others were fractured in a way so deep that they will never be the same again. I see it in our children. As I love them and laugh with them, I see that deep solid black pain behind way down deep in their eyes. I see it in my family. In the way they make kind alternative suggestions instead of saying "no". I see it in the movements of our loving pack. Always reaching out to try and mend what cannot be fixed. Their hearts breaking all over again with the recurring realization that this one is beyond their control, no matter how strong they are. I see it in the mirror and I feel it in the deepest part of my soul. When my chest feels to heavy to breath. When I see red because someone cut me off or something gets misplaced. Wanting to rip the Universe wide open one second and feeling to weak to draw another breath the next. There is nothing I could break that is worthy of this pain. No one I could strike out at that would be sufficient. Yet I live constantly looking frantically around for something. Evaluating everything I see. Every situation I find myself in. Just waiting. Waiting for something, ANYTHING, ANYONE, to be enough. But it never will be. I'm smart enough to know that. Nothing can give me what I want. For my son to have a father again. His father. Not some man I meet years from now who's "good enough". I begin to feel like a spool of thread that has just been thrown to the wind, unraveling at a more than unnerving speed.
How do you just keep going? Don't know that one yet. You just do. Time stops for no man, no matter how much they are loved. No matter how much pain and carnage has been left in the wake of this emotional tornado of untold proportion. The County wants money or you won't get water. The power company feels bad, "Sorry about your luck, but if you want power we need money". My son continues to grow. Needing answers that he's to polite to say he doesn't want from me. Advice and guidance that should come from his dad. Just listening to me with that dark pit of pain behind his eyes. Behind the smile and that light tone he takes on. Either as to not worry me, or more likely, just to get me off his back. Loving me to much to tell me to shut up. Praying that I'll be quiet soon because his father is no longer here to tell me enough already as I babble away. Rambling. My brain scrambling for the words. Racing to find the ones that are going to return the light. The words that might make his heart whole again. I know they aren't out there. At least I can't think of any that would help me. Yet I cannot stop. Constantly being haunted by the notion that whatever I am saying, whatever I am doing it isn't enough. Will never be enough because his father's word was bond. Oh how beautifully tragic it is... The notion that Josh loved our son so much he told him every time he laid eyes on him. From my bebe's first day to my husband's last. Determined to build a strong foundation for a lifetime of love, family, and friendship. We were a beautiful trinity and now that has gone. All that remains is two points and a line. I pray that I can keep it from fraying to pieces, but our anchor has been cut loose and the storm of life is unrelenting. The world refusing to yield to our pain. Instead we find ourselves drifting through our days. Me forever worrying that we may be unable to find our way back to the joy and love that we were once unwittingly lucky enough to live in.
"They" say that time heals all wounds. It does not. This hurt, this relentless, crippling pain that no one can fully see will never go away. The best I can hope for is that someday, as time passes, the sharp edged thoughts and memories that cut my soul like broken glass slashing at my heart will dull with age. Becoming a quiet ache that doesn't leave me on the verge of collapse at any given moment. My heart will grow back, but it will beat twisted and different. The rhythm of my heartbeat will never be the same. "They" have said a lot of things over my thirty six years on this planet, and one thing I know for sure from listening to "them" is that I'm not one of 'em. I also know that I have forever lost the one person who has ever seen me. Seen all of me and loved me every second of every day, not in spite of who I really am, but because of it, is dead and it's almost to much to bear. It cannot be to much though, because God doesn't give us more than we can handle. It's part of the deal. I HAVE to believe that. Even when it feels like there's no way I can walk through this. If I didn't force myself to believe that, I wouldn't make it. I also know that, despite how much I feel it, I'm not alone. I know women who have walked this path. I have watched them cry, seeming to fall apart bit by bit, only to reunite with them later and find them smiling and getting on with life. They are happy in their own way. They say they are, and I know they wouldn't lie to me. A pack member would never pull some shit like that.
I've discovered other stuff too. Like the fact that there's a good chance no one will ever know me again. Not like he did. Painful words that I may never have the strength to utter again will rot inside me. Memories that I have forgotten will die, with no one here to say "Remember when...". I have learned that no matter how much you cherish something, it can all be gone in a flash. Your entire future gone. Every thought you gave mind to, every plan you made, every dream you dared to dream, dead in an instant. An entire lifetime ripped away from you by the perfectly dark and twisted storm.
At one point I knew a lot more. I knew that Josh loved our son and I far to much to ever leave us. I was delusional in my comfort that things would always be what they were. I knew that we would grow old together, and that I could convince him to dance just one dance with me on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, just as I had on our wedding day. I knew that he would be here to bring me back when I got to far into my own dark world. Now I know that I must do everything in my power to remember how to find my way out of it long enough to navigate through my days and raise my son. And finally, I know that I am forever grateful that although our time together was way too short, at least it was true. Every last bit of it. Our love was true and real and beautiful. At times it was also sad and hard and ugly. That's how I know it was real.
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