Saturday mornings are a struggle all their own. I got up this morning….did the “morning things”…coffee…feed dogs… I try so hard to…I don’t know…help myself “up”…find a positive outlook…acceptance… Lately several people have spoken to me about “allowing” myself to be happy…like I’m making some sort of choice in my feelings right now. I have words that are not nice to say about that…heck, I probably would say them if I wasn’t sober right now. All well-intentioned of course, but unwanted all the same. I know “Jason doesn’t want me to be sad”…I just can’t stop…turn it off…like some sort of emotional light switch. And so I turn to music and poetry. Looking for that perfect expression of my feelings…searching for understanding…
Lost
And I feel like I am lost
Wandering
Solo
Searching
Looking to the past
Wishing
Hoping
Yearning
Trying to find a place
Home
Peace
Rest
But I don’t fit this space
Grieving
Wounded
Hurting
Untethered I am drifting
Dissolving
Melting
Flaking
Struggling to find meaning
Why
Why
Why
It’s cold. Snowy. Haven’t seen the sun in…..I don’t know how long. Constant clouds for days. Before I wouldn’t have minded the excuse to just stay in. Netflix and chill…so to speak. Now I am feeling the melancholy. The chill that doesn’t want to go away. I come home from work and layer on the clothes…winter cap lives on my head. Missing Jason’s warm torso to warm up my hands…he was always willing to sacrifice his comfort for my warm fingers. Light candles around the house. And I don’t know how I’m going to get through winter. Restless in my house…but it’s worse to go out. Pour a glass of something to warm me up from the inside out and maybe dull the pain…fill up the void. Put up some Holiday decorations…lights on the deck…try to find some cheer…and then spend all evening in our bedroom…lonely. Listen to music…try to find a kindred spirit in the lyrics.
Forever and Never
Forever and never
Vows
Words whispered
Between lovers
Sharing breath
And a pillow
I will love you forever
I could never live without you
But they were not
Enough
To save you
As you took your
Last breath
Tears soak the pillow
How are you?
How have you been?
Haven’t seen you since
Who knows when.
I want to hide
The silence stretches
Awkward
My breath hitches
Should I gloss over the truth?
What do I say?
Do you know Jason’s gone
And I am just surviving day to day?
Should I open myself more?
Share my fragile feelings-
Without my Love
I’m floating with no ceiling
Looking down on myself
Not recognizing my life
A stranger in my body
Am I still a wife?
But you probably don’t want to hear that
Just making small talk
Waiting..staring at me for an answer
Wondering why I balk.
And so my mouth opens
And the syllables I hear
The pat answer I give
“I’m hanging in there”
And you turn away
In satisfaction
And my heart is racing
From your innocent question
Deep breaths
You’re fine
Get through work
Glass of wine
My mantra
Time after time
On repeat
I’m fine
Lies
And someday time will heal the pain
I’ll look back and understand
Why this had to happen
In the bigger plan
That’s what people tell me
When they see my grief
And empty words fall out of mouths
To give themselves relief
Jason’s death does not make sense
Yesterday, tomorrow, or today
And telling me it somehow is best
Are hurtful words you shouldn’t say
Everything happens for a reason
Is another cruel lie
Falling from well-meaning lips
After I watched my Love die
It’s hard to see my sorrow
And not know what to say
But sometimes silence and a hug
Can go a long long way
My path is mine alone
One you can’t understand
So don’t try to give advice
Just sit and hold my hand
Yesterday marked 15 months without Jason. The same amount of time he battled glioblastoma before he died. So 30 months…2 and a half years…that life has been…I don’t even have the word. A struggle? A fight? Stressful? Fucked up? Unreal? Too real? Yes to all of that.
I woke up yesterday and just didn’t want to. Mornings are always difficult…the remembering again. Reaching a hand across the bed and finding dog fur instead of my husband. Yesterday, I just laid there and cried. I just didn’t want to…any of it…anymore. And then I reminded myself of a conversation I had with Seth a few weeks ago. Seth…who struggles so hard with his Dad being gone…and I think so often feels alone in his grief. I flat out told him that it is him and his brother and sister that keep me going…because I don’t feel like doing anything most of the time. And that it is loving them and wanting them to be happy so badly…that makes me get up everyday and keep my shit together. I think they were words he needed to hear…and that I needed to tell myself yesterday
So I got up and did the day…again…managed to hide my sadness…mostly.
Today is a rainy, gloomy Saturday. I told myself I was going to be motivated to do a bunch of house cleaning today. I did clean our room…including uncovering my desk from the pile of papers on top of it so my writing area is open again. That makes me happy. Other than that…yeah…it’s 4pm and I haven’t gotten dressed…and don’t remember the last time I showered. My hair tells me maybe Thursday…but could’ve been Wednesday. I just don’t really care. I did write a poem while I was dusting…
Dust
And as I wipe the dust from your urn
I yearn for the dust inside to reform
And you to return
Like a genie from a lamp in a tale
The caress of my hand a wish
You whole and hale
But magic left my life with your end
Wishes go unanswered
Into the wind
Our hopes, dreams, love, happiness
Reduced to memory
Ash and sadness
I don’t know how to live my life for the pleasure of living anymore…for myself…not our kids. I’m lonely, but most of the time don’t want to make plans. And if I do have plans there’s always a big part of me that is hoping they will fall through and I can just stay home. Those times when I am enjoying myself….like last Saturday in Eau Claire…I know that the instant I get home my mood will crash because Jason won’t be waiting there for me…ready to listen to me talk about my day. There’s a hollowness inside and a pressure building…all at the same time. Like I just want to scream at the top of my lungs…but would anyone hear me? Would anyone care? Pretty sure it would just get the dogs all wound up.
It’s impossibly difficult to go from sharing life so completely with someone…having your happiness…sadness…hopes…dreams…future…past…so entwined with each other–to this. I don’t know what to “do”. Instead of looking forward to retirement with Jason by my side…spending our glory years together…traveling…watching our kids and our grandkids–when I look to the future now I see…nothing. Every single dream had him in it. Honestly, I think once I retire I’ll buy a small cabin by some lake somewhere and spend my days watching the water lap the shore and my nights staring into a fire and listening to it crackle.
Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. I guess I had a lot of “bleeding” to do today.
Today is Anna’s 21st Birthday…and I’ve been fighting the melancholy all day. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of hiding it, but it’s definitely there. The big milestone days are always so hard. They’re when the “empty” beside me seems bigger…
My sister-in-law Jackie and I spent a glorious day in Eau Claire on Saturday celebrating Anna’s birthday. We watched her play in the marching band and took her out to a Mexican restaurant for birthday dinner. The weather was perfect…the company excellent…and the drinks delicious.
On Sunday my boys moved my fire table up onto the deck for me so that I can enjoy it all winter long. Marvelous idea. I’m hoping that it will help me get through the dark/cold months up ahead. Jackie commented that I will probably need a separate budget for propane. I’m sure she’s right. I absolutely adore sitting by a fire.
Tomorrow I’m taking Levi to the DMV to get his driving permit. Another big event that makes me miss Jason more. I did not teach Anna and Seth how to drive AT ALL. Anna did 100% of her driving with Jason. Usually driving him around neighborhoods so that he could play Pokemon Go!…lol. Gratefully, a friend of ours took Seth under his wing last fall and taught him how to drive. Another time when I just have to “Throw my hair up in a bun. Put on my big girl pants. And do it”. I’m so tired of having to do that. Levi is very excited though…and I think he will be a really good driver. He’s very motivated to be able to get to his girlfriend’s house on his own…lol
This week also marks 15 months since Jason passed away. 3 months into the second year and I feel like it is so much harder than that first year. A lot of the first year is just a numb blur. Now reality sets in more…and more… And reality really sucks. And as reality is just setting in for my kids and I…society thinks we should be okay…that we should have adjusted….”moved on”…etc. And that is so far from the truth. We may have found a daily routine….and look like we are doing fine on the outside…but inside we are still shattered in a million pieces and sifting through the rubble.
Everything about this weekend was “unexpected”. Anna had been not feeling well since Wednesday. She called me Friday morning and sounded so miserable I decided to go to Eau Claire and bring her home for the weekend. I think she was nervous that she would be sick for two weeks like she was when she had covid a month ago…and didn’t want to be stuck at school…and maybe just needed some Mama TLC. I needed to see her and actually assess what she had going on…and if a visit to Urgent Care was in order.
I made her homemade chicken noodle soup on Friday…yes, I can cook sometimes… and her and I worked on a puzzle together. We decided that if she wasn’t feeling better on Saturday she would go to Urgent Care. Well, she woke up Saturday morning feeling better. In fact, her and I spent all afternoon outside getting ready for winter. Jason would have been proud of us for taking advantage of the “last nice weekend”. She took care of all of my pots and I dragged in all of my garden/yard decorations. We also got the garage cleaned out…again..so that Seth and I can both park in there. It was a super productive day. Then we watched a movie and played a game in the evening.
Today she helped me go through a pile of stuff in the basement before I drove her back to school. She still has an annoying cough…but I sent some cough medicine with her that was really helping.
It made me so sad to clean up my gazebo for the year. I feel like I was finally just starting to enjoy spending time in my yard. I’ll have to transition to spending time in the basement in front of the fireplace I guess. Not the same.
Have I turned any of you into Dermot Kennedy fans yet? Love him so much. So much emotion in his voice…and his lyrics…seriously…and when he plays piano or guitar…I’m just done.
I wrote this poem right around this time last year, but I was reminded of it today as I was driving home from dropping Anna off at school.
Fall
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
Yesterday this quote popped up in my Facebook feed.
It resonated deeply with me. So tonight…when I should be sleeping, but sleep can be such a fickle bitch…I’m up trying to put my pain somewhere else…and for me that’s poetry.
Our Song
When the pain grows so big
It’s all I can feel
Time moves on but
Neglects to heal
I’m trying so hard
To find peace in this place
But tears keep on chasing
Each smile from my face
And as one year without you
Has come and gone
I feel more and more
Like I don’t belong
Our life was so beautiful
A symphony a song
We sang the melody
And the world played along
When my voice was weak
Yours was so strong
And as you forgot the words
I was there to lean on
Now I open my mouth
And nothing comes out
Our song has been silenced
Every note
And solo is so lonely
Every night alone
Not interested in a duet
Perfection’s come and gone
So as I wait for time to take me
I’ll hum our melody
And when we’re reunited
Our voices will sing free
Thank you to everyone who checked on me this weekend…let me know you were thinking about Jason…shared a memory. Thank you especially to my “angel in disguise” who drove to meet me at 9:30 on a Saturday night so that we could go out and toast Jason with a couple old fashioneds…and then told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever call her and say “sorry for bugging you” again she will “kick me in the shin”.
I tried my damndest to focus on good memories and happy times this weekend, but nothing is more sad…more final…than a birthday no longer celebrated…a number forever frozen…stopped way too soon. I’m so thankful that I was by his side for 25 of those years…raising our family…enjoying adventures and quiet times…happy times and sad times. I can honestly say that we never took a second of it for granted…we knew what we had…how lucky we were…and would comment on it often. How we were so thankful circumstances aligned and brought us together move-in weekend our Freshmen year at UW-Eau Claire.
When Jason was sick we would lie in bed and I would be crying about how “this isn’t fair”…and Jason in all his wisdom and grace…even with terminal brain cancer…would say “cancer doesn’t care” and point out to me that kids get cancer all the time…and that DEFINITELY isn’t fair. So…yes…while 43 years was not enough…he accepted that it was all he was given…and I miss him so much.
Today is Jason’s birthday. He would’ve turned 45. Jason was never one that wanted a shred of attention on him, so usually his birthday was a quiet affair…family dinner…going out for a drink at “our spot”…going for a walk…doing yardwork (“This could be the last nice weekend!”) His last birthday on Earth his greatest joy was getting out of the hospital and getting to come home!
These “special days” hit me like a ton of bricks. The “missing”…the “unfairness”….the “what should have been”…the “what was”…the loneliness…all right there on the surface. All of these feelings that I don’t really know what to DO with. Tears have been oozing out of my eyes so much this week I feel like the corners of my eyes are chapped. The boys and I went out for breakfast this morning. They aren’t comfortable taking trips down “memory lane” with me yet. A few passing comments about their Dad is usually about all they can handle. So now I’m back to sitting outside in my gazebo…fire, blanket, winter hat all in use today…trying to dig deeper inside myself…to just keep going.
I can’t remember if I’ve shared this song before or not, but it’s on my mind today…
A lot of people have been asking me for an update on how Linc is doing. His vet on Thursday confirmed that there is definitely something going on in his wrist/metacarpal area of his left front leg. The good news is that the area is stable side-to-side and that he is able to put some weight on it…he’s limping, but at least he’s not “tripoding”. Unfortunately, she couldn’t really tell more without doing a “stress xray”…basically taking xrays while his paw is being bent…because it’s the only way to really see the area where the injury is. That type of xray would have to be done under sedation. We decided to send his chart on to an orthopedic surgeon to see what she recommends because we didn’t want to risk having to put him through that twice…once at the regular vet and once at the specialist. So we’re in a holding pattern right now waiting to hear from the surgeon. He’s still limping around and on hard core exercise restriction…which I think is annoying Emmett more than him…ha!
Love, Tennis, and Cancer 