Hello and Goodbye

It's your birthday.  I hope you are running and playing football and laughing and hanging out with Dr. Guimon, your dad, my dad...all of those people that I know you found.  I don't know how the whole timeline thing works in Heaven or if that's even a thing.  Regardless of how time works there I bet you know that your friend, Greg Pipkin is there too.

Today was a pretty terrible day.  I've been dreading it.  Hating it.  Crying just to think about it.  I can't even imagine what your mom feels like.  It is just too much.

I cried through most of church.  Lots of people did.  Greg had gone downhill really fast.  Everyone was sad.  The feelings of that first week without you swirled around me, suffocating me.  I couldn't stop thinking about Greg's wife.  I could feel it all over again.  The pain, the shock, the fear.  The visitation for Greg was tonight.  I must have talked myself out of going several times, but eventually I just went.  Joey went too.  When we got to the front his wife whispered "I've been avoiding you."

Yeah.  I get it.  I'm sure that following our story seemed to be prophetic in some ways.  In terrible, awful, dreading ways.  And then I got the hell out of there.  I just couldn't take it.  The familiarity of it all is too much.

We went to the cemetery.  Your sweet mama brought you a card and a pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  More tears. 

This is not the way it was supposed to be.

Some day I hope that your birthday will find me and the kids and other people that loved you at Imo's eating a Jason's Special and laughing as we remember good times together.  That isn't this year.  I can't even smell Imo's without crying.  Maybe next year.

Happy birthday.  My love for you is without end.

I Can't Hear God's Voice

Sophie:  Mom, I can't hear God's voice.
Me:  What?
Sophie:  I'm trying to hear God's voice and I can't because it is REALLY loud in here.

and then we prayed together.

and then she sang this song:

In my dreams I talk to you

I hope someday it will come true

I hope you will be proud of me

I’m helping other humans find a place

I wish that I could see your face

Because I have so many stories

I’ll meet you in my dreams

I know that you love me

I love you too.

You’ve missed so much since you’ve gone

On this day I carry on

Holding you close in my heart

I can dream of you….

I can dream of you….

She is smart and sensitive and just amazing.  She is so you.
We miss you some days so much it is hard to think of anything else.

Functioning

It's my birthday month.  God, how I miss you.  My birthday was fine.  Mother's Day was fine.  *sigh*  No, it wasn't.  Nothing seems fine without you.  I've heard and read so much about the first time of everything without you will be tough.  Yep.  It feels like part of me is gone, dead, buried with you.

The biggest miss?  Sophie graduated from Kindergarten with a fist full of awards.  Joey was a great big brother and the grandmas were there.  You would have been so proud.  You would have hated the ceremony though.  I'm pretty sure it was about 110 degrees in there.  I had swamp ass and swamp tits and swamp everything.  I had to go and CHANGE before I went back to work.  *giggle*

I've made it through the school year.
I've filled up my summer with stuff to do.
I've been in counseling for a few months now.

Counseling has helped.  I was really haunted by that last day.  She's helping take the trauma out of that memory.  I mean, I'll never forget but seeing and hearing and smelling our last minutes together repeatedly, all day long was really starting to interfere with my ability to function.

So I guess that's what May has brought me.  I can function.
There.  I said it.
I can function without you.

And I hate every single minute of it.

This Holiday Isn't So Bad

Most of last week people checked on me to see how I was doing.  It was another big milestone holiday without you.  I'm glad they did, but this one seems different.

Because Jesus died and rose again, death really has lost its sting.  Because of Easter we'll be reunited someday.  Because of Easter, we will be together again someday.  Because of Easter I grieve with hope.

That's pretty awesome.

No Regrets

The current sermon series is about regrets.  I've struggled to really find many things that I regret.  That should probably be disturbing, but I don't know.  I have no regrets with you.  We loved completely and told each other that often.  We loved our kids like crazy.  We came clean with each other when needed and I hope that we both tried our best to build each other up.

We may be the lucky ones, you know.  So many people can't say that.  I've told some that we didn't have any unfinished business.  We talked about everything together even when it was uncomfortable, even when we didn't want to, even when we tried to lie our way through it only to confess and lay ourselves open and exposed to the other.  I wonder how many people get to say that. 

God blessed us.  He blessed me by giving me someone with the gift of discernment, with unbridled compassion and the most forgiving heart I've ever known.  I still don't understand it really, but I have no regrets about our life together.

My only regret is that it all ended too soon.

It's All Stopped

The cards and letters have stopped coming.
The funeral bill has been paid.
No one just pops in to bring us food or see if we are okay.
People have stopped approaching me with their heads tilted to the side and their foreheads wrinkled to see how things are going.

Sometimes I think it's too bad.  I think I may need it more now than before.  Jasper, Michelle and Claudia try to touch base via video message.  A chick at church and a teacher at school have made intentional efforts to connect with me.  I am thankful even if I don't always accept their invitations. 

All this stuff has just stopped, but the pain hasn't and the loneliness seems to have multiplied.

An Addiction

I think that grief is like recovering from an addiction.  I've never had to do that but I imagine it is something like this.  I physically crave your touch, your scent and the sound of your voice.  Without it I feel crazy, disoriented, unfocused and deeply depressed.  Just when I think I'm on the path to recovery there's a trigger (sometimes one I can't identify) and I crash.  Again.

I'm having withdraw symptoms.  Everything is harder.  I'm depressed.  I'm angry.  I'm remorseful.  I'm broken.  I'm manic.  I'm overcompensating.  I'm lying.   I'm searching everywhere for a cure, a magic trick that while rocket me from where I am to being completely free of my craving, my need for you.

I Know What I'm Afraid Of

I had an epiphany of sorts today.  I'm afraid.  I've been afraid for months now on a regular basis.  I don't wake up afraid, but sometime as the morning goes on it creeps up.  It starts to smother me.  I haven't been able to label it until now.

I mean, I know its fear because I know what fear feels like.  I just couldn't figure out what.  At first it was the fear of taking care of the kids, the house, the business, etc.... on my own.  I'm doing that.  Probably not well, but I'm doing that and things aren't imploding or anything.

Then it was the fear of moving on.  I mean...each day that I live it feels like I'm leaping away from you.  Each day I see your books, your shoes, a sauce you love in the fridge, your picture on the wall and I just keep living.  I keep going to work.  I keep paying the bills.  I'm tentatively putting dates on the calendar.  I'm moving on, like it or not.  So...that isn't really what I'm feeling.

The fear of loneliness has also plagued me lately.  I afraid of being lonely before I'm actually lonely.  Loneliness sucks.  It's the most depressing of all, but I don't know that it is really fear as much as it is dread.  People say I'll get used to the loneliness sometime.  I doubt it.

Then it hit me today, driving down the highway thinking about the future that will eventually arise from this dung heap of a life I feel like I'm in right now and I got it.  I had a label for it.

I am afraid that the best part of my life is over.

That's it.  I can't imagine my life getting better without you.  I can't imagine a future where I am happy and content without you.  I can't imagine a better family life (because it is less), a better sex life (cause...damn), a better financial situation, a happier me....I can't imagine it.  We shared dreams and made plans and looked forward to our future....laughing at Joey trying to raise kids, arguing over who's genetic contribution helped Sophie win the Nobel Prize, you know.

Now?  I don't have that.  I feel like the very best part of my life is over and I hate it.  I am consumed. CONSUMED with a terrible, stomach wrenching fear.  What is there to live for?  What future am I working towards?  What could possibly be better than what we've had?

I know what I'm afraid of.  I'm afraid that the best part of my life has already happened.