I was texting with my SIL a little bit ago while getting some lines down for a new poem that’s been rolling around in my head. My left thumb reached over to fidget with my wedding rings (Mine and Jason’s) on my ring finger….and instant panic…overly pokey prongs…one bent way over…and no diamond in my ring.
I turned the flashlight on my phone and frantically started looking for it while trying to hold back hysterical sobs…pretty sure I would never find it. Did I mention that I had just gotten home from walking the dogs…in the dark? I retraced my steps in the house…no luck. I went out into the garage shining my flashlight on the step and garage floor. Opened the door to my car….and there it was…on the floor mat. I can’t even describe how relieved I was. I don’t think I’m overly attached to material possessions…but this one…yes. It borders on a “one ring to rule them all” obsession.
I’d really like to find a jeweler that can do some cool thing with our rings together and somehow rework mine so that the prongs don’t get caught so easily. This is the second time the diamond has come completely out…I don’t want to chance a third.
I’m in a pretty chill place right now after spending the evening with a good friend and a couple glasses of wine. Everyone needs at least one friend that they can trust to talk about anything with…no judgement. I am blessed to have a few that really get me and put up with me…I know I’m a little “extra”.
I have been listening to this Keith Urban song on repeat since last night. I don’t even know how I first came across it, but it is so good. I’m so thankful for so many good memories.
So many things today that I wish I could tell Jason about…I’ll write them in my “Letters to my Husband” journal later that I got from another good friend. It’s missing Jason in the day-to-day that inspired this poem today.
Ordinary Time
Missing the ordinary-
The normal-
The boring
Every day.
Get up-
Fill up my cup-
Kiss goodbye
Work for the day.
Come home-
Kiss hello-
How was your day?
Mine was so-so
Who did you see?
What did they say?
Dinner with the kids
Make sure school’s going okay.
Do dishes-
Walk the dogs-
My hand in your elbow
Strolling along.
We talk about everything-
Or nothing-
It doesn’t matter
Just happy together.
Come home-
Relax on the couch-
Or help with homework
Math is your realm.
The day is done-
Get ready for bed-
Good night kiss
Before “I love you” is said
We didn’t know it then-
But I know it now-
Wedded bliss is abundant
In ordinary time.
Today is our Baby Girl’s 20th birthday! So crazy! I think Jason and I were barely back from our Honeymoon and I was telling him I wanted to have a baby. I remember him telling me that he wanted to wait until at least after Christmas…and that’s pretty much what we did.
Anna was a bit of a challenge. Because Jason is a twin we had an early ultrasound to check for twins. There were a few moments where two techs were looking at the screen before they said “Okay. Only one. We thought for a few moments there were two”. Then at the ultrasound where they are able to determine the sex she was sleeping soundly with her legs crossed. The tech wouldn’t even guess. Jason wanted him to poke my belly a bit to get the baby to wake up…a suggestion I did not approve of one bit with a full bladder.
Her due date was Oct. 21. Which came and went with no sign of baby. Everyone kept telling me I could have a Halloween baby. I didn’t think there was any way I would still be pregnant on Halloween…well…I was. I finally went into labor on Halloween. I think it was 11pm when we went into the hospital. Some of the nurses were wearing costumes.
I discovered two important things about Jason that night. Number one. He really, really, really is not a lot of help in the delivery room. He was excellent at a lot of things…seeing his wife in pain…combined with blood and other “stuff”…not his strong suit. I think his eyes ventured “south” once during Anna’s birth. He caught a glimpse of my bloody sock…I heard the nurse say “Dad, you doing okay”…and pretty soon he had a nurse as well. Telling him to put his head between his knees and bringing him snacks. When Seth and Levi were born I let the nurses know ahead of time to keep an eye on him.
The second thing I learned is more important…all of my suspicions about Jason being excellent “Dad material” were confirmed. Once Anna was born he was all about being the best Dad he could possibly be. He changed diapers. Rocked her to sleep. Played with her endlessly. During her “challenging years”…and she had quite a few…he and I would tag-team dealing with her. When one of us ran out of patience the other was “it”. He loved his “Nonnie” with his whole heart.
Now she is an amazing young woman. Almost half-way through her Sophomore year of college at UW-Eau Claire. She is finding what she is passionate about. She is involved…has great friends…is happy. All of the things parents want their kids to be. I am so proud of her and know that Jason was too. Happy Birthday Baby Girl!
So this weekend I loaded the boys and the doods up in the car Friday night and went to my Mom and Dad’s for the weekend. We hadn’t been there in probably close to two years…they live about 3 hours away. I’m glad that we went and we had a good time…but it was also just a new and different level of hard.
I went out with my best friends on Saturday night. They are fantastic…super supportive….everything best friends should be. It was still hard. I was having an impossible time focusing on the conversation. I felt like I kept spacing out and was trying really hard to have fun and relax in a situation where that would have come so easily to me before. My mind was just off in all different directions. I got back to my parents’ feeling sad and defeated. I would really love for something to be able to feel “normal”….but nothing does.
Today on the drive home I had way too much time to think. The boys are not great conversationalists. I just kept thinking about Jason’s quality of life and his happiness. I tried to make all the best decisions that I could at the time with the information that we had, but now when I look back it’s really hard not to think about the “what ifs”. What if he would have tried Optune? What if he wouldn’t have had the second surgery? What if we had held out for the trial instead of doing Avastin? I know it’s pointless at this point…and honestly, with this cancer the end result doesn’t change…but maybe we could have kept him feeling better longer. Maybe I should have found some way to work less…or even stop working all together…we could have done more together…taken advantage of our time. I don’t know. Hindsight is 20/20 and regret sucks.
Tonight I just feel like I need a good cry and I would give anything to have Jason’s arms around me and sob into his shoulder.
I am feeling all sorts of tapped out tonight. Levi had his first band concert in….awhile…since pre-covid. Can I just say how much I hate single parenting? Not because it is so much work…or I can’t handle it…or I don’t want to go to the kids’ events. It just really sucks that it is “just me”…I’m it…all they’ve got. The majority of their friends have Mom and Dad…even if their parents are divorced…not mine…not anymore…and that really sucks. I hate walking into places and seeing all the parents together enjoying their kids’ concerts, games, etc and being solo. I just hate it.
I did think about texting one of my friends tonight to see if I could sit next to her so I wouldn’t be by myself. I didn’t because I didn’t want to feel like some sort of odd third wheel with her and her husband. Ironically, she walked in without her husband…he was doing baseball with their son…and she sat down next to me. Five minutes later another friend was also in the same boat…so the three of us sat together. It did make me feel better not to be sitting alone.
One of the band directors at the high school passed away from esophageal cancer about a year ago. Anna had worked with him quite extensively during her four years of high school. He was an amazing man. The band did a really moving tribute to him…with his high school-aged daughter conducting. It was really hard for me not to ugly cry during that. The edge of my mask was soaking up some tears. It’s hard to see what the “big picture” could possibly be. What could possibly be the reason for taking these amazing people away from us…leaving their families…friends…communities…behind to grieve them? It doesn’t make sense.
I feel like I should have a lot to say today…it’s been a really crazy, busy day…but some days poetry just comes out…
Stuck Inside
The words won’t come today.
They’re stuck inside-
Like schoolchildren
On a rainy day.
Looking out the window
The playground is empty
And lonely
Rain runs down the slide like tears.
Maybe tomorrow the rain will dry up.
There is always hope
The sun will shine again-
Eventually.
Wednesdays are my counting day. Today makes 12. I want to pull the covers over my head and stay in bed…have to go to work. Another day. Seven more before 13.
When Jason was on hospice the last few days of his life my neighbors gathered in our driveway…to support us and say their “goodbyes” to Jason. They gave me a windchime. I love it so much. I can hear it from anywhere in the house. It reminds me of Jason and also that I have “people”. Today it’s going like crazy. Love that.
I feel like I have a lot to “unpack” tonight. First, of all I have to write about my dreams that I had last night. People have asked me if I dream about Jason…and I have…but so far they have all been kind of “abstract”…like I knew Jason was there…but I couldn’t really see him…hard to explain. Last night was not that way at all. I was lying in bed facing away from his side of the bed…like I always do…and suddenly I felt his hand on my cheek. And I remember thinking “Well, that’s not Linc”…because our dog always sleeps next to me now. So I turned around and Jason was laying there. I remember thinking “You’re back!” and putting my hand on his face and running it up and down his arm. And we just laid there like that for a bit looking in each other’s eyes and then I asked him how he was feeling…and he said “I don’t know”…and I remember feeling upset about the way he said it because it was the same way he said it when the hospice nurse came to see him on Saturday morning (the beginning of the end)…like very confused and not knowing what was happening to him. I think my being upset woke me up…but I could still feel his hand on my cheek.
It took awhile to finally fall back to sleep after that dream, but the second dream I had was in an airport. I was at the desk trying to get my boarding pass and the guy wouldn’t give it to me no matter how much I begged him. I kept telling him that my husband and I bought the tickets together and he was already waiting for me. He was really apologetic but just kept saying he couldn’t give me my ticket even though it was paid for.
Those two dreams kind of stayed with me all day today. I loved dreaming about Jason, even thought it was upsetting in the end. And I think the second dream is self-explanatory…I can’t follow where he is right now, but I know he’s waiting for me.
Work was…well…work…a bit more stressful than usual lately. As I was leaving I got a text from the friend of mine who is making a quilt out of Jason’s shirts for me. It is absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to wrap myself up in it.
Then I got home and had two packages on my step. You might remember a post where I talked about missing how Jason always said “I love you” to me before going to sleep at night and I posted this picture that I took out of a card he had given me
Well one of our dear friends, Sarah, from college took that and put it on pillowcases for my bed. Now when I go to bed my pillowcase will remind me how much Jason loves me. One of Jason’s cousins, Mindi, also took Jason’s signature and made a sign out of it for me
So tonight I am feeling all the feels. It is almost 12 weeks already that Jason has been gone…and in that time I have learned a lot…about grief…about myself…about other people. My grief right now is very heavy and fresh. I don’t know at what point the missing of someone starts to fade, but it hasn’t happened yet. I miss him more each day than the one before. Which isn’t surprising considering when he was alive my love for him kept growing more and more each day. My tears are closer to the surface much more often…maybe the numbness is wearing off…I don’t know.
I do know that at some point I won’t be lying when I tell people I’m “ok”…I really will be. That point feels very far off right now. I do know that I am doing the best that I can right now for me and for our kids. We’re all trying to figure out what life without Jason really looks like…especially with Holidays coming up.
What I am learning about other people is interesting. A lot of people don’t know how to act around grief. It makes them uncomfortable…or they are fascinated by it…or just kind of clueless. They ask intrusive questions. Say things without thinking. Make the pain worse when they don’t mean to. I try to give those people grace as much as I can…even though that is NOT my strong suit. Jason was much better at that than me.
Grief can also bring people together. Some of the relationships that have been built and/or strengthened in this past 11.5 weeks are worth everything to me. Life’s too short. Fix what’s worth fixing. Move on from what’s not.
After my sad post of this morning I decided to do the responsible adult thing…blah…and get the lawn mowed. When I was done mowing the lawn I saw a text from my friend, Vicki asking if I wanted to go to lunch. We usually do breakfast on Sunday mornings, but she couldn’t this morning. Turns out that lunch was perfect timing…and did so much to turn my mood around today. Our lunch turned into spending the afternoon together…I bounced some ideas off her for my house…our dogs even met each other and we went on a walk. We always say we’re going to go on a walk, but never actually do…so “yeah us” today.
This evening I decided to get a knitting project out that I have been working on off and on for years. My only issue with knitting right now is that it has always been something I do while I watch a movie or something on tv…and I am having a really hard time finding anything I want to watch. I decided to take a chance on “Cruella” tonight on Disney Plus and it turned out to be a good choice. I have always been a little fascinated with seeing things from the villain’s point of view…everyone has a story after all!
So all-in-all I’m ending my day better than it started. Hopefully I can sleep well tonight so I can tackle the week ahead.
I’m having a rough morning. I was cold when I went to bed last night and missing Jason to cuddle up with…he would have complained about my cold feet and then let me tuck my toes up against his legs. Going to bed alone sucks. I should probably put the flannel sheets on the bed today and make sure the heated mattress pad is plugged in…Jason loved that thing…he would preheat the sheets before he got into bed.
This morning I’m drinking my coffee and listening to “Acoustic Sunrise” on the radio. I love acoustic music…but today every single damn song is tugging on my heartstrings. Tears were rolling down my checks listening to Duran Duran “Ordinary World”…a song that I don’t think I’ve ever really listened to the lyrics of before.
I’m looking outside and thinking that in other years I would have convinced Jason to get lost in the woods somewhere with me on a day like today. He would say “this could be the last nice day to get yardwork done” and I would grumble and convince him to go hiking with me…and probably stop at Caribou for coffee. Now I’m sitting her feeling sorry for myself writing sad poetry…blah
Fall
A season of intense beauty
And death.
Your fall
One last flash of all your beautiful colors
Before darkness.
Now we clean up the remains
And prepare our hearts and homes
For winter.
Spring
Is a promise of new beauty
Someday
Without you
Love, Tennis, and Cancer 