i dream of you

The credit for this photo is uncertain and if anyone can verify the photographer that I will be happy to site credit for the image.

I've had many dreams of Jeff since his death. There are a few that are terrifying renditions of the last few minutes of his life; but the vast majority centre on seeing him again in a variety of surprising locations.

I've found him on dairy farms slogging through the mud. I have glimpsed him on boats passing bridges that I stand upon. I have found him sitting at the dinner table expectant for his next meal.

In each one of these absurdly set dreams, he is smiling, joyful and laughing. His mirth spills from him with such force that I believe that he is alive again and this whole death business has been an unfortunate ruse.

After hugging him forcefully and smelling him deeply, I usually beat upon his chest swearing at him for inconveniencing me with having to plan a funeral and all the painful outfall from the belief that he has been dead all this time.

He never utters a word but gleefully smiles at me and holds me tight. I always seem to come away from these dreams feeling that he is "okay" and that he is happy.

These dreams shifted recently when my dream of rearranging furniture into the perfect configuration was interrupted by a dreamland telephone ringing. I was too immersed in my activity to answer it. Jeff's good friend, Finnegan, answered, laughed and replied to the unseen person speaking, "I'll tell her...." He turned to me and said, "Jeff asked me to tell you that he loves you the whole pie and he's thinking of you." Outraged that Finnegan had hung up, I flung myself at the phone fervently trying to remember Jeff's contact number for wherever the hell he was.

I woke with my heart beating frantically and my mind attempting to grasp that telephone number to god-knows-where....As my head cleared, I realized I was looking for the number to "Heaven"....

Although I was frustrated and saddened that he was just beyond my reach, I was relieved that again, he seemed to be "here" and he was "alright"; in fact, he seemed happy.

I wonder if others have these dreams when they have lost someone so very dear to their heart? Is this my mind playing tricks in an attempt to soothe my heart? Or is Jeff reaching out to me from somewhere to let me know that he still loves me and will be with me always?

Ouch!

"You are cordially invited to attend an exclusive open house at our world-class model. Experience first hand this special event where we will celebrate history in the making - the nations first LGBT Retirement Community with a continuum of care.

Tempt your palate as you savor delectable bites and taste the neighboring Paradise Ridge's award winning wines. Enjoy a site tour of our ten acre, oak-filled campus with stunning view of Sonoma County Valley and Fountaingrove Golf Course."

Damn them. Damn the U.S. Postal Service for being the excellent trackers they are. And, damn life for it's ongoing kick in the stomach.

It has been 11 months since I move away from our San Francisco home, in need of a fresh start with as few reminders as possible. It's been two further moves once settled in San Diego. I didn't want to spend the rest of my surviving days being reminded of what we had, and what we planned to do. There were too many of them. There were so many plans that we had made, and so many that got tossed straight into the trash can when Michael received his diagnosis.

I accept that life gives us what it does. I accept that God moves in mysterious ways. What I don't accept, is why there has too be so many painful reminders of what we don't have. I get that for the majority of people my age, they are looking ahead to their golden years together as a aging couple. I get that they are carefully planning out their retirement, and that for those that are financially fortunate enough, they are looking into the perfect retirement community to live out their lives together.

Do I really need to have this single piece of mail track me down, 500 miles south of San Francisco, then travel up and down the streets of San Diego, making it's way from the initial house I rented, only to find that I quickly moved on and put down permanent roots here in my current home, and then find itself dropped into my simply stated stainless steel mailbox?

"No. Michael doesn't live here!"

"No. There is no happy couple interested in your retirement community."

"No. There are not two happy and loving faces that you can plaster on one of your lovely tri-fold brochures."

Okay. I know I'm being a bit childish. I get it. Where's that thick skin of mine, right? You know, I wear my armour every day that I leave my house. I expect that I can lay it down once I walk through my door. I also expect (foolishly obviously) that I can control that which hurts me, or cuts to my vulnerability within my own safe haven. But you know, this is what really goes on here. When no one is around, and it's just me that picks up the mail, well there is no buffer, and there is no need for it either. So, BANG! Shot to the heart.

"Is this very mature of me?"

"Can't I just get over it, and realize that these things happen?"

Grow up Dan. Be a man.

For the record, I did handle it very maturely. Nobody in, or around, my house are even aware of this small moment, or this insignificant piece of junk mail. The reality is (and all of you live this every day) is that nobody around me would even think to ask if receiving the occasional piece of mail addressed to the two of us is difficult to deal with. And, I'll bet that like me, most of you have those moments where life still knocks the wind right out of you. You probably take a deep breath, or immediately succumb to tears, or maybe still have those moments that drop you to your knees (those were always my favorite).

This is just one of those many moments that illustrate how it's just not so easy to move on.

me, to the world: "Yes, I am doing very well. I am making progress, even though most of you don't understand that there is still progress to be made. Yes, I thank you for telling me for the hundredth time how good I look. Not quite sure why one says that anyway. And no, I am not purposefully getting stuck, or wallowing unnecessarily. This is what I must do. Like it or not, this is who I am, and this is how I experience life."

Ouch! again.

if you were here

There are times that I torture/comfort myself thinking of all the things I would say or do if Jeff "came back"....or was at very least able to hear me. It's a little game that hurts and heals simultaneously:

If you were here,

I'd slap you for not going to the doctor sooner.

If you were here,

I would curl up safe and warm in your arms.

If you were here,

the kids would know their daddy in reality...not just through the stories I tell about you.

If you were here,

I'd make YOU mow the lawn.

If you were here,

I would never, ever let you go.

The imagining of our conversations and interactions somehow makes him "real" and closer again....But it also stings when I allow the loss to sink back in. I wish I could just exist in the state of imagining him walk through the doorway, laughing at the dog's slobbery kisses and the way I jump up and down with glee at his arrival.

I don't know if this practice is beneficial in the long run...but for now, it's a way to hold him still. And imagine what life would be like if the worst had never happened.

as I remember

Photo from here...

When telling a story, Jeff or I would occasionally correct each other's rendition of the tale. Although I am always as truthful as possible, there were times when either of us would need a reminder of the facts of a past event and it was comforting to know that I could always ask him some small memory that was remembered by both of us. "How long was Liv's labour?" "Remember that road trip to Hardy? Why did we camp at the side of the road?"

It seems, however, that my grief stricken brain rewrote a little part of history without my consent.

It all starts with the question I would sometimes get after Jeff's death, "When are you planning to take off the ring?"

I'd stare down at it as I had for years and say "I've never taken it off since he put it on...."

It's not that I was proud of this or felt that it validated my love or loyalty for Jeff any more than it would for any other widow. It was just that it seemed so much more...insurmountable because I had never taken it off....ever. I wanted to moment I removed it to be "just right" and I hadn't found that moment yet.

So last summer at Camp Widow, while sitting with Matt and Mel, I slipped it from my finger. My hand felt naked and odd, but no earthquakes rumbled beneath my feet and birds in flight above the building stayed in the sky.

It felt appropriate to be with others who understood and knew just how big this moment was to me....after all, I had never taken it off, right?

And then, recently, while looking through photos from the days just after Jeff's death, I found one of Jeff's ring....enveloping mine. It was not on my hand. It was on the kitchen table. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I think I may remember this moment now. Jeff's sister had asked to see the ring, I think, for comparison to his mammoth-sized band.

I find it odd and, truthfully, a bit scary that I had forgotten this. I went around believing that I had never, ever taken it off. I wonder if anyone else noticed my lapse in memory or if it was just me. Who, other than photographs, will be my 'fact checker' now?

three

This morning will mark three years since I've held your warm hand. Heard your snores. Felt safe knowing I was yours.

My life doesn't stop today as it did three years ago....although I partially wish it would. There are appoinments to be attended, childcare to sort out and errands to run.

I'd like to lay in my bed and think of only you. To keen quietly and close my eyes to the empty side of our bed.

But I am terrified that by allowing myself to sink into the grief that still runs so deeply through my heart, I will fall back into that pit of loss. The dark and scary place where time does stop and all I feel is the loss of you.

So I fill my day. To the brim.

I will take the kids to the beach with our notes for you attached to helium balloons. I'll barely allow myself that hour to let the sadness sink in...I need to keep my heart up and my eyes sharp for my little ones.

When this tradition is fulfilled I will begin running again. Focusing on dinner and bathtime. Fingernail clipping and playing referee to intermittent sibling discord.

But after the night has brought quiet and our two children rest, I'll truly feel the loss of you. I'll remember that first night without you. The enormity of the loss. The confusion and unbelievability found in your death. I will cry out for you. I will hold the last dirty shirt of yours close and attempt to smell the long lost scent of you. I will wonder at the ability of others who naively went about their day unaware of this day's significance. And I will miss you as fiercely as I did that first day.

I love you, Jeffrey, with all my heart. I miss you still. And I don't think I can, or will, ever stop.

silence and vulnerability

Photo from here....

The middle of the night is where I feel your void most intensely. I attempt to busy my brain with other less painful activities. I lay in our nightlight lit room listening to the drippy wet sounds of the aquarium down the hall, the monotonous whirr of the bathroom fan left on, the refrigerator starting up yet again. I attempt to make a mental list of activities that I'd like to do with the kids. A registry of people not yet called, thanked or contacted. A calendar of events that are upcoming.
But no matter what asinine or tedious thought temporarily enters my searching mind, it is constantly forced aside by thoughts of you.
I replay my walk down the aisle of the church...both on the day of our wedding and the day of your funeral. Both times, you waited for me near the altar.
On the day of our wedding, as I walked down that strip of red carpet, we smiled at each other, felt comfort in each other's presence and became the only two in the church. The day of your funeral, I clutched Liv's small hand and held Briar's little body close on my hip. I walked that same carpet with nervousness again, but this time not with nervous excitement. This time, it was terror and loss.
Although the tranquilizers administered to me by the doctor allowed me to stare out from my body with my mouth silent and closed, with my head erect, I felt far from 'tranquil'.
I saw the same faces staring at me from the front of the church as I saw on our wedding day. Their swollen and tear streaked faces a constant reminder of why we were there. But you were missing.
I saw your coffin. You were always the biggest in the room, the centre of attention, the one I looked to when unsure. Now you were a box. A big, wooden box. Liv asked if 'you' were in there. She thought she could hear your snoring. While I smiled at her, I could only imagine you, your shell, laying there, oblivious to the events that were taking place. Completely unknowing that today would be the last day that your body and mine shared the same space. Ignorant of the pain that all of us within that church felt without you there to sing out your laughter, grin your famous smile, make some completely ridiculous joke or tell a far-fetched story.
Without you, without your presence, I felt lost. Adrift. Vulnerable. I still do. I long to hear you. But I shy away from listening to your still recorded answering machine messages. I wish I could feel the comfort of my hand enveloped by yours. But the thought of it reminds me that I will never feel them again no matter how I can remember the shape and the feeling of your immense hand. The touch of your mouth. The softness of your earlobe. The shape of your knees.
On our wedding day, there were the sorts of issues that cause stress at all marriage ceremonies. Seating. Flowers. It was...interesting. But you were there. You would NOT let anything ruin our day. And we were together. That was all that mattered. We were together. The day signified our 'togetherness'.
Your funeral conveyed the separation of you from all of us left behind. A ceremony to let all of us know that we would never again walk with you, work with you, laugh with you, hold you.
As I followed you from the church once again, I had tears of loss and fear slipping over my cheeks marking my coat with wet dots. Gone were the tears of laughter and joy that we shared the day we married.
Liv, our little daughter, was with us both days. And this one fact reminds me of what I still need to live for. If only it is to see both of our little ones grown and happy, I must keep breathing until I can see you again. So I lay in this bed and listen to the appliances that surround me. I stare at the box beside our bed that contains your ashes in the orange glow of the nightlight and I miss you. God, how I miss you. And I wish only that first ceremony had happened. The second should not have happened....not yet.

Originally posted on my personal blog on February 12, 2009 (8 1/2 months widowed)

deja vu....again

Photo from Background

A local stable burnt down last week. Now as I drive past the ashes where the barn once stood, I see the surviving horses milling around their paddocks...looking slightly lost.
When I read an article in the local paper about the event, I could imagine the throat choking smoke, the flames licking the sky, the sounds of crashing timbers and sirens. I thought of the horses wild and wide eyed screaming their fear into the night. I imagine how terrifying it must have been for them as something so new, fearful and unexpected happened to and around them.
It made me think of Jeff and his last moments of life.
It brought me back, yet again, to the moment of his death. His wide eyes. The shock and fear exposed within. My screaming. The confusion and the finality.
I imagine what he must have felt like. I torture myself with the question of whether he felt comfort in the fact that I was there and trying to save his life. I worry over whether his death was physically painful and just how much pain was felt - tooth ache amount? giving birth amount? Did he lose consciousness with a floaty cottonwool head comfort that I have experienced when passing out after exposure to too-graphic surgeries on television?
It makes my heart race and my stomach contract everytime I remember these surprisingly short last minutes with him. It seems that I use these trips back in time as a barometer with which I measure my pain threshold and my 'recovery'. Like checking if an element is still warm a few minutes after boiling a pot of water, I don't know that this practise serves any 'real' purpose...but I do it anyway.
Although the fire took hours to burn out, I do so hope that Jeff's fear and pain was short. And for me, I so hope that eventually every news story involving death does not bring me immediately to that place again.