Hugs forever

I came across an old note that Jeff wrote one day. It was just a short good morning, I love you, have a wonderful day note, and he'd taped it somewhere so I'd see it before I left for work.

We left notes like that often, just to make the other smile. I never threw the notes away, but I didn't save them in special places either and it eventually got lost in a stack of other things. When it turned up the other day it was folded and crumpled but readable. It was an instant hug from him, but it was also one of those sudden reminders that he can't leave me new notes and it made me cry.

Maybe I found it because I needed a reminder to have a wonderful day. My days have been distinctly not wonderful lately, the sunny, beautiful days seem to have driven me into hiding in the house. How dare it be sunny and lovely outside! I won't endure it. I won't enjoy it. I won't have a wonderful day.

I suppose Jeff felt like he needed to remind me how he felt.

I immediately found a frame and put it near my bed, so I'd see his wish each day. I don't know if it will remind me to have a  wonderful day, or if I'll continue to rebel against that for a while longer, but it's another little connection.

Hugs forever, my love.

More observations from beyond the timeline

I was looking at some photos from last summer and realized that a little over a year has passed since we saw Rush in concert. That was a show I'd looked forward to for months, and like a little kid waiting for summer vacation to start, it felt like the days leading up to the show lasted forever. And then, like most things you can't wait to experience, it felt like it was over in a flash.

Often when you think back on an event you enjoyed a great deal you feel like it was just yesterday. It's so fresh in your memory that it seems impossible that any time could have passed. I don't get that feeling when I look back at the concert. I can still remember it vividly, and it was enjoyable, but I don't feel like last July was just a few weeks ago.

I wonder why some events are experienced in the moment and pass into memory without a struggle, yet others freeze time. Time was still passing normally last summer, I experienced it just like everyone else. In fact it feels like it has been forever since last July, like so much time has passed that it can't have been just a year ago.

November, on the other hand, that was just last week.

Ups and Downs and Downs and Downs

And more downs.

Sometimes it's just a down kinda week. Summer is a bit depressing. Spring was also. And here I am, still traveling on the outskirts of time, watching it pass.

Eight months later I don't cry every single day. I don't collapse into nausea inducing sobs as often. I think things are just numb now... 

Summer has brought with it a lot of anniversaries, and I am truly happy for my friends who have their happy days. I love them and I want them to celebrate together for many more decades. I don't want to be bitter and resentful. I don't want to be hyper aware of couples when I see them walking hand in hand through a store. I want to be happy and joyful.

That doesn't stop the bitter, sad thoughts. I wouldn't dream of voicing them and ruining someones joy, I would never do that. But I can't shut off the feelings that life is unfair, and it sucks, and I hate that I will never experience that sort of joy again. And so I "like" the happy anniversary posts, and I smile when I hear good news, but then I want to hide away from them. I want to hide from the reality that life is going on all around me.

I want to end on an 'up' note and talk about hope, but sometimes I get tired of pep talking myself and I just want to be sad. So, for now, I will just sit back and experience that.

Meanwhile, time continues to pass.

Bad Naps

Dozed off for a bit this afternoon for a short, quiet nap. Woke to a bright and sunny living room, and for a moment everything was right in the world and I could imagine starting to get dinner ready for him because he'd be home soon... And then the fog lifted and I knew he wasn't on the way home, and the sunshine was wrong, the day was wrong, everything was wrong, because how could it possibly be a beautiful bright day if he is gone?

It became one of those moments of profound disbelief. He's not dead. He can't really be dead. It really was just a dream, because now that I've woken up I'm absolutely sure that he's going to pull into the driveway any second now. 

Sometimes you just don't want to try to work through the grief moment. Sometimes you just have to lay back down and try to resume your nap, and hope that when you wake up again things won't feel so totally wrong.

I'd thought I'd be comforted by the warm beautiful days, but now I don't know. I think the warm, beautiful days are going to be the hardest days to face.

Messages

This is one of those stories that people would be sure is fiction, and although the first half of it was cool enough that I thought I'd share on Facebook, the latter half left me just a little freaked out and certain if I posted that part people would just shake their head and say "Yeah, you made that part up." But no, it's real. It's one of those really rare wild coincidence stories that happen now and then. Or maybe it's something more... either way, I thought I'd put it down here because I wanted to write it out, exactly as it unfolded.

So here I sat tonight, watching YouTube videos on the TV. I was alternately looking at the computer and the TV, getting ready to respond to a note on Facebook, and occasionally chattering about the video to Jeff's picture. In other words, fairly average night for the past few days. Then something colorful on the floor caught my eye and I looked over to see what that was.

In the middle of the floor, near the front door, was a little pink paper heart. I sort of remembered cutting it out from one of the small size pink post it notes, probably back around Valentine's Day. I'm not even sure what I did with it after that, I think I had made a few, this might have been stuck to Jeff's laptop, or stuck to my desk, or stuck to something. But wherever it had been I hadn't seen it in months, and since it was a bit of a throwaway idea I'd forgot all about it.

Now here it is, a little pink heart unfolded and quite pristine, and laying on the carpet. Obviously I picked up something that it was attached to and it fell off and fluttered into place where I noticed it. I've moved stuff around all day, I don't know what this was stuck to, but I suspect it had hitched a ride. I thought it was really cool, though, a neat little thing to find, a memory, and sort of like a little kiss from Jeff. I stuck the heart to the monitor and smiled at it, wrote a little Facebook post, and was happy.

Fast forward fifteen minutes or so. I was telling a few other people my cute heart story and getting ready to put the paper heart into a frame with Jeff's photo. I opened the lap drawer on my desk to get something that I could use to slide the heart under the glass and the first thing I see, right in the front of the drawer, is a folded up pink sticky note, with a heart shape cut out of it.

Now this drawer is a mess. I've cleaned it out a bit lately, but it's still a mess, full of old paper, junk, empty pens, more junk, and pretty much anything I wanted to scrape off the top of my desk. I move things around in it constantly, earlier I had shuffled it to and fro looking for USB cords. I don't recall seeing the pink note then, although I could have tossed it all over the place and not paid attention.

Now, just after I find the heart, here is a paper with a heart outline. Okay. Coincidence, right? I held it up and it is indeed the exact paper that the heart came from. Logically this is still just one of those rare events where it's totally explainable as random chance, but still astonishing when it happens.

But there is that part of me that feels like it is a little nudge from Jeff, a message to me. He's with me. He really is.

Day 13

Another day, another mix of semi functional busy-ness, and total inactivity.  Bless all my friends who keep telling me I don't need to do anything, I wish that were true. Unfortunately I can't spend the rest of the year in total inactivity, plopped on the couch, ignoring any responsibility.  I'd like to, but eventually I'll have to do something.

I'm finding that my moods are fluctuating wildly... For a few moments I am wildly optimistic: I'm going to survive this! I'm going to go forward and do the things that we always dreamed of! I am going to write that book he told me we needed to write... I am going to follow through on things, be confident, be focused, grounded, centered... I am going to be the woman he always knew I could be!

Then I look at at a photo, or open a new card, and all the optimism vanishes in a puff of grief. I can't do it. I can't go on. If I don't have my husband to share these things with what's the point in doing them at all? If he's not physically here to give me feedback, to encourage me or join me in my activities, why even bother?

There has to be a balance in there somewhere. I'm not ready to find it yet, but maybe the idea that I'm even considering there might be something else for me to do in life is a good thing, even if that hope only lasts for a few seconds at a time.

I will let the grief continue on it's own terms, for now.

And another thing

All of the people telling me my husband is with me in spirit, or he's always there in my memories, or he's in Heaven watching over me, and say they hope that comforts me.

You know, I appreciate the sentiment, and I really do appreciate that you are all trying to comfort me, and say something that will be helpful and healing and kind. And I will always graciously accept the thought and thank you for it and mean it. I really and truly do feel thankful for you, for any words you have for me at this time. Thank you.

But really? That is not in the least comforting. Not even a little. I know this is grief speaking, and it probably makes me grumpy and angry. (Well yes, for sure it does.) Yes, he's with me in spirit. Yes, his memory is always with me. I don't want to sit here with memories, I want to sit here with my husband. I want to put my arms around him, I want to cuddle up next to him, I want to kiss him on the cheek or feel him come up behind me and wrap me up in a big hug. Yes, he will always be a part of me, but knowing that doesn't fill the void that his physical presence left. It doesn't make my stomach stop hurting, it doesn't help me feel comforted in the face of panic attacks and convulsive sobbing.

And I don't even know how I feel about the afterlife concept. I know my husband didn't believe in it at all. His goal to live each day as completely as he could was based in his belief that this life is all you get, once it ends that's that, so to speak, so you should make the best of the time you have on Earth.

I'd love to think he's gone on to a new experience. I'd love to think he's waiting for me and one day I'll join him. My pagan / spiritual / eclectic new agey world view really wants to hold on to the belief that a person does have a 'soul' and that the essence of being goes on after physical death. But it's unknowable. I can see now, more than ever, why people need to be comforted by religious beliefs. Hell, I can see why people go to psychics and try to make contact with the other side... it's too hard to let go. You want there to be some tiny little spark of hope that life is eternal and your loved one is there, that their consciousness is there, the awareness and personality is still there, just in different form. You want to know that you will be reunited with them. The alternative is unbearable.

Today was just another bad day. Filed for his Social Security death benefit, (just the single payment, I am too young to receive spouse benefits) then I came home, crawled under his bathrobe, and have spent most of the time I wasn't trying to sleep crying or eating cookies.

Still the well wishers send me their prayers, and their hope that I'm doing okay. Maybe someday I will be. Not yet.

Twelve mornings

How did I get so lucky?

That was a thing we would ask each other. How did I get so lucky? How did I manage to keep you? How is it that I am lucky enough that you love me? Me, with all my insecurities, my self esteem issues, my constant worrying and doubt... how did I get so lucky?

And he told me that he was the lucky one, that he felt lucky that I loved him. And we both meant it, I know.

I still can't believe that I had such good fortune, I still can't believe how blessed I was. But right now, in this moment, I don't feel at all lucky.

I made it through the memorial, but it was definitely not a comforting turning point. If anything I feel loss even more deeply now. We are on day 12. Twelve mornings I've woken up without him. It's getting harder, I think, with each morning. Harder to imagine that he's not here, harder to get through they day. Harder to accept that it's real, he's really not coming home. I am doing my best to keep myself busy and as long as I can do something that requires all of my attention I am okay for a few minutes. But then my attention drifts, and I fall apart again.

More errands to do today. Up early for that, but I have a feeling as soon as that finishes up I'll just spend the afternoon bundled up in his robe.

Day 8: Mornings.

I never used to rise early. Husband was an early riser, he was always up by 9 at the latest, even if he had nowhere to go. He always wished I would get up early with him, but I was never a morning person and just couldn't get myself awake. Every day this past week I've woke up by 7 or so. I wonder why I couldn't have done this in the past? I feel like I wasted so much time sleeping that I missed out on extra time with my husband, and I feel awful.

And then there are the very well meaning folks who are telling me how strong I am being. I know they mean well, I love them for caring, but I am not strong. I am not even a little strong. I feel like I'm obligated to put on a brave front now, so I won't disappoint everybody. Sometimes, once a day or so, I think about how I will do my best to go on and make him proud of me, in his memory. But the rest of the day I just want to close my eyes and never wake up again.

7 Days

It has almost been a full week. On one hand time seemed to stop, on the other I don't know how this much has already passed. I feel like I was just sitting there with him. I can close my eyes and feeling his arms around me, and snuggling against him.

I looked through so many pictures. The ones I've kept on my phone, the ones that I had saved. And videos, too, little short clips we sent each other. I wonder how long it takes before I can look at any of it and smile instead of falling apart. I wonder when the time comes that I will find an appetite, instead of trying to eat something every day only because I know I'm supposed to. How long before I stop feeling physically awful.

Today I pick up the memorial package, the guestbook, the remembrance cards, the urn, although I have not yet received his ashes, the urn will be his proxy at the memorial. I have two days to try to prepare myself for that as much as I can.

I keep telling everyone I'm doing okay, I'm hanging in there. Am I? I'm not even sure.