flying solo

Photo from here

I am finding this new responsibility of being thrust into the world of solitary decision making terrifying...But I am doing it and it's okay. I would prefer to bounce all these thoughts, necessary choices and responsibilities off of Jeff, but I can't. So as I forge ahead with my life alone, I am finding these mountains that I am climbing difficult; but in someways, I am getting better at them. I am learning to trust myself and the believe that I can make these decisons alone. That I know what is right for me...or us.
Today, I sold our car. The car that Jeff bought me for Valentine's Day in 2006. The car Jeff died in. My little blue Toyota Matrix. It was small, safe and economical....But we had the truck for carrying larger loads and muddy dogs. I didn't need to bring multiple children in the car very often as I wasn't caring for anyone other than my kiddos or the occasional playdate.
But now, life is different. I am going to need to look to a future where I can bring in an income and care for my children alone. I need to be able to move objects by myself and cart various things home that would not fit in my little car.
So now, I own a minivan. I decided and made the deal myself. It was scary and I kept worrying that I was being taken advantage of....Possibly a bit paranoid. But I did it. Myself.
The kids and I quite like the van. It's a few years older than the car thus making it more affordable. It's clean and safe. It is blue just as my little car was...Jeff's favourite colour as Liv pointed out.
Liv had her trepidation about buying the van. She cried the first night and asked me to go get the car back because it reminded her of Daddy. I remembered crying when my dad talked of selling our little Vauxhal (a little white German car that our family had when I was a child - it`s floor was rusted out, we would watch the road go by as we drove along and we sang songs about `Daddy`s little Vauxhal`). It was certainly a different circumstance but I could empathize with her feelings of security and comfort in the car....especially after losing so much this year. But now, it is like a fort. She wants to show all her friends her new van. They ask to `play in the van`. I am loving the space and the ability to comfortably take our friends along.
So although one door has closed, another has opened. I do feel sad. I do have such fond memories of our little car that I had thought the kids would learn to drive. But I must be flexible and not hold onto things that do not provide the needs we now have just because they are a link to Jeff. This is a hard lesson to learn. But I am doing it.

Originally posted Nov. 29, 2008 - 8 months 4 days post-Jeff on my blog

things could be (and have been) worse.

four different airports

in three different countries

in 24 hours.

packed tightly

with pissed off adults.

and.

countless.

SCREAMING.

babies.

most people would

(understandably)

hate such a situation.

but with a

little perspective

those annoyances seem

so minor.

(i'm sure you can relate).

and after a few

days away

from my child,

those screaming babies

made me smile.

(the me from 4 years ago cannot believe the current me just wrote that).

and they made me

excited to see

my best girl again.

being without her these

past few days,

well, i just haven't

felt like me.

i just hope

she's quiet when

we head back

to los angeles

on saturday.

Just Call Me ....

 .... Sybil.

I very often feel like I have a split personality.

I have passed the three year mark.   I find these words difficult to absorb even as I type them.   Hell,  I never expected to live out the first year.  And then I knew I wouldn't survive the second.  I often thought that it was a shame that I couldn't just "think myself" to death.  In fact, there were many days when I was surprised to find that I couldn't.
But here I am .... three years out.
With a split personality .... sometimes.

Life is getting "better".
I now smile and laugh readily.
My depressingly sad moments don't take an entire day (or week) to get through.
I am in a relationship.

And yet .... I still want Jim.
I still am brought to tears at the thought of his absence sometimes.
On New Year's Eve I was holding hands with a man who loves me.
But tears were pouring down my face because he wasn't Jim.

One moment I feel fine.  Good, in fact.
And the next, I'm grieving again for what will never be.
I still do not look very far into the future.
I do better to focus on one day at a time, as do most of you probably.
The future was ripped away so I'm not sure when I'll be able to peer into it again.

But I'm ready to be happy.
I'm ready to live fully.
I'm ready to blend my personalities.

Damnit!  He's been dead for THREE years.
It's time for me to look my grief straight in its face and let it know that it will not control me.
It won't cripple me.
It won't keep me from living.
It will not define me.
Jim wouldn't want that for me any more than I'd want that for him.

But I do acknowledge that it will always be a part of me.
My grief will be a beautiful part of me because it's about Jim and he was a beautiful part of me.
He made me feel beautiful.
And loved.
Very, very loved .... and secure in every way.

My grief has softened me .... into a more compassionate person.
But it's also hardened me .... and let me know that I can endure anything.
All in all, it's made me a better person (in most ways).

So I will wear my grief proudly.
As one who loved and was loved beyond all reason.
And I will live positively.
As one who is sure that the love in her heart will never die .... not until she breathes her last breath.

There are two cups that sit on my dresser.
One reads, "Death Sucks".
The other reads, "Life is Good" (I just bought it this past weekend).

Yes .... after three years I can finally say ....
that death DOES suck ..... but life IS good.

Waves for the Little Ones

One night last week G and I snuggled up on the couch for a little mid-holiday chaos downtime. We scrolled through the on-demand movie selections and settled on Nanny McPhee Returns. The original movie was really cute so we were looking forward to it.

The setting of this movie is WWII England. The story consists of a mom and three kids struggling to make ends meet- Dad is away fighting in the war. Enter Nanny McPhee to save the day. I won't go into all the details of the movie - but ultimately the dreaded telegram comes and father is pronounced dead - Mom collapses and the kids are horrified and shocked. At this point, G reaches for my hand with tears in his eyes and says "we know what that's like Mom". It was a very brief but heartbreaking moment. I was grateful it passed quickly, but my relief was short-lived.

Happily, the telegram had been wrong, and Dad miraculously reappears at the end of the movie - they live happily ever after. This is good news right? Yes, but not to a child who knows that particular happy ending isn't in his future. My little G was keenly aware of the unfair reality of his story, and he burst into tears at the end of the movie: "I can't believe I haven't seen him since I was five. I'm ten." He cried for a few minutes, we talked about Daniel, and about how much cancer sucks. We talked about how we still miss him and that it's too bad there is no magic wand to make him come home. Grayson listed all of the things he'd give up if he could just see his Dad for one more day.

Not all movies with a dead parent (and there are so freaking many of them...what's up with that?) have this effect on him. I think it was really the effect of the holidays. It's hard on everyone who has lost someone, and its even hard on the little ones. We all talk about the waves of grief that hit us. Clearly the waves are there for our kids too. I'm grateful that he will share them with me. I'm grateful that he lets me be there for him when it hurts. I'm also so sad for him that he has to experience that kind of pain so early in his life. It sucks. The good news is, he's a survivor and I'm proud of him for being such a happy optimistic kid in spite of it. The waves hit him, and he jumps on his boogie board shortly after.

Happy Tuesday - Michelle D.

I Had A Dream

I had a dream.

Well, first of all, just having a dream is significant for me. I can count the number of dreams I have had since Michael died on one hand.

As with most dreams, there was no significant sense of time or place. In my dream I was returning home, which actually wasn't my home. What was disturbing was that someone had stolen our bed. At first I thought maybe someone had borrowed it, and was perhaps using it as a prop for a play, but no, it was really stolen. Why would someone steal our bed?

I went everywhere looking for our bed, and was getting more and more angry. Eventually I went back home to see if there were any clues, or to see if anything else was missing. When I arrived home I took a good look around. Everything seemed to be in it's place. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw an empty space on the book shelf. Our wedding photo album was missing. This was personal. Someone was taking Michael away from me once again.

Could this be happening? I thought I had already suffered all the loss that was possible, yet here I was still feeling like I'm on the losing side of life once again.

Michael keeps disappearing.

With each day that passes I feel further and further away from Michael. Since I recently moved, most of his things are still in boxes. I guess you could say he's been put away. With each month that passes I hear less and less from the people that knew him. Our bed has become my bed. What used to be a place where we expressed our love has now become a place where I feel most alone.

So it's no wonder that I feel like someone has stolen our bed, as it hasn't been 'ours' since September 2009. And with time I'm feeling less and less married. The life made evident in our wedding album is forever gone.

Last week's Christmas celebration was memorialized through pictures taken with my iPhone. There are many photos of my kids and my parents. After many photos were taken someone pointed out that I wouldn't be in any of them. I said, "oh, that's okay. I wasn't in any of them before Michael became a part of our family. It just goes hand in hand with being a single parent."

I had four years of living the dream. Now my dreams serve to remind me of what has been taken away.

All I Can Be Is Who I Am

Pallas was assigned this book in school. I would read sections of it to her. The first time I read the section below out loud, I could not finish it. I was sobbing as Pallas watched me curiously. Mau had put into words the way I feel about being a widow.

I hope you will read the entire quote for nothing I have read has fully encompassed what widowhood means to me than this single paragraph.

Back story: Mau’s entire family and village are wiped by a wave. The wave also shipwrecks Daphne (ghost girl). As the days go on, survivors from neighboring islands arrive. Mau and Daphne (both approximately age 12) find themselves in charge of building new lives for themselves and this new nation.

From Nation by Terry Pratchett

Daphne asks, “Would you go back? If you could?”

“How can I answer you? There is no language. There was a boy called Mau. I see him in my memory, so proud of himself because he was going to be a man. He cried for his family and turned the tears into rage. And if he could, he would say “Did not happen!” and the wave would roll backward and never have been. But there is another boy, and he is called Mau too. And his head is on fire with new things. What does he say? He was born in the wave, and he knows that the world is round and he met a ghost girl….. He called himself the little blue hermit crab, scuttling across the sand in search of a new shell, but now he looks at the sky and knows that no shell will ever be big enough, ever. Will you ask him not to be? Any answer will be the wrong one. All I can be is who I am.”

There was a woman and her name was Kim.

I see her in my memory and she is a fairly happy person and she has a husband and three children and dreams of being “somebody.’ She cried for her husband when he died and couldn’t see how she could live with such great loss in her life. She would say “I can’t do this.” She would wish her husband alive, make bargains in order to bring him back. And would spend long periods of time wondering around her house, functioning but unable to think or move without her husband. She wondered how she was going to get through the day.

There is another woman named Kim too. And her mind and life are on fire! She says “OMG! I can do so much and I feel so happy!” She was born in her husband’s death. She sees his death as his last gift to her. She has discovered herself and her courage. She sees that life is full of hope and fun and new things. She sees her abilities are growing and she discovers new ones too.

Can I ask her not to be? All I can be is who I am.

I spent the last moments of 2010 making a list of all the things that I am grateful for in that year. In contrast, I spent the last few moments in 2009 (the year my husband died), praying/hoping/begging God to make 2010 better. I gave 2009 the finger as I stepped into 2010.

I gave 2010 a sweet kiss and hug as I stepped into 2011. I cannot go back. And I cannot ask me not to be, either. The old me and the new me make up this me whose potential I am quiet excited about.

If you are new to this journey, if you don’t know how you will make it, know you don’t have to know.

None of us knew.

I still don’t at times.

But there is one thing I do know, the pain does not last. It comes less frequently and with every time, every cry, every longing, I find nuggets of courage and light.

In 2010, I discovered my strength, my courage and my ability to handle adversity. It was not pretty and yet I stand here before you in my newly discovered inner beauty.

And by jove (I have always wanted to use that saying!) if I can get here, so can you.

Welcome to 2011! May you marvel and celebrate your strength!!

2011

It's here.

2011.


Another year I venture into without Michael. Officially the 4th year that I cannot reference Michael to being in.

I do not know what this year will bring as each year has been different.

2007-2008- The years of the "fog" and immense anger displacement on loved ones for not getting what the heck I was going through.

2009- Pretty good! I started figuring out and actually utilizing the fact that I am the one that determines when I actually want to start living again. All the things that I did were suddenly enhanced by the fact that I was seeing the world with "new" eyes.

2010- It had its ups and down. More ups than downs which I mark as being the dictator of whether the year is good or bad.

Leaving me to enter 2011. From looking at the past years, I've got to admit that they actually are getting better with each one. I never look back at the horrible years and say that I should have done anything differently, as they allow me to savor the contentment and happiness that have oozed in afterward.

I wish that to continue for myself and you.

Happy New Year.