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Yesterday went nothing like I envisioned it. The kids and I went out to breakfast with my BIL and SIL…and then…as we were leaving the restaurant…Anna and Levi decided that it would be the perfect day to CLEAN THE GARAGE?! WHAT???!!!! At that point Seth decided that he had made the perfect decision by deciding to work yesterday…lol.

That was not at all what I felt like doing either…I was hoping to be able to slip away for a bit with the top down…can’t really leave the kids working by themselves though…and the lawn really needed to be mowed. So I gassed up the mower…slipped my headphones on…and did all my processing by myself while attacking the lawn. With all the sweat dripping down my face…no one could tell there were tears mixed in…it worked pretty well.

By the time I had the lawn mowed, the kids needed my input on what to do with a few things. We finished up the project together…and were all exhausted.

Maybe this is the way we spend “Jason’s Day” from now on…family project. I think he would like that.

Thank you to everyone who kept us… and our family and friends who are grieving Jason… in your thoughts yesterday. It was appreciated.

I often wish dates didn’t hold so much power over me…but they do. As much as I tell myself that today is just like any other day…it isn’t. In our culture we are taught to commemorate the “happy days”…birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The sad days in our lives…not so much. There’s not even a word to call this day…the anniversary of Jason’s death…Jason’s death day…everything sounds and feels wrong. Amongst my widow friends…we just call it “Jason’s Day”.

And just as there isn’t a word for this day…there is also no set way to spend it. Usually just by doing “whatever feels right”. Well…on this day…NOTHING feels right. It’s literally the day everything went to shit. And then there’s the balance between me doing what feels right for me as a wife mourning her husband…and also being there as a mom for our kids mourning their Dad. One of those things always takes precedence over the other…and that’s okay.

Our kids, after all, are where I see Jason alive in this world. Levi has his Dad’s capacity for loving fiercely…dedication to family…loyalty to his partner. Seth has Jason’s compassion…kindness…grace. Anna, well I’ve said it before…she has her Dad’s brain. All of the things I loved about Jason…spread out over these three humans we made together.

So, we’re going to start the day by going out to breakfast together…and then Seth is going to work because that feels right to him…maybe Levi will spend some time with Svea…and then we’ll see.

The voice inside me saying “I’m going to be okay” is quieter today…but it’s still there.

I feel fragile today. I worked last night…and it was a rough one…super busy…lots of really sick people…transfers to the hospital…and then tech issues on top of that. I woke up this morning with a nagging headache…probably from the tears I can feel right behind my eyes. I’ve been trying to psych myself up all morning….but I think it’s just going to be one of those self-care type days. Have some grace with myself…take it easy…don’t let my mind wander to tomorrow while it’s still today.

Maybe it’s time to load up my “gazebo tray” with all my gazebo essentials…notebook, pens, beverage, book, knitting project…and head out to my spot.

I love Thursdays because they are therapy day. That sounds really strange to say, but it’s true. When I think back to the end of May….of where I was mentally and emotionally when I first started seeing my therapist…I am literally scared for my life. And I don’t ever want to feel like that again. I’m grateful to the friend who texted me the link to this therapist…twice…and nudged me hard to make an appointment.

Therapy hurts…it’s painful…it’s hard work…but my therapist has shown me time and time again that she’s never going to take me to a painful place and abandon me there. She is always right there with me and brings me back to safety…makes sure I’m on even ground before saying “good bye” for the week.

I’ve had people ask me what my therapist does or what she says or suggests about particular situations. The truth is she doesn’t suggest anything…doesn’t give any advice…or minimal advice if I specifically ask for it. Bottom line…she listens while I talk. The past couple weeks we’ve been doing this technique called “brain spotting”. You can Google it if you want to read more about it, but it’s basically finding the eye position that helps unlock feelings about a particular trauma….then talking those feelings out so completely that the trauma relinquishes it’s hold…at least that’s how it feels to me. My therapist is there to guide me…brings me around to the feelings she wants me to explore deeper…but the rest is all me and my brain doing the work. It feels pretty magical. I’m not a person that likes massages…but it’s what I imagine a good massage would feel like…but for the brain.

Today, I don’t want to think about hospice anymore…so I’m going to focus on this picture from Aug, 2020 instead 🙂

Sometimes I feel like my subconscious brain is out to sabotage me….like during the night it pulls forward all of the things that I don’t really want to think about so that “bam!” there they are waiting for me the second I open up my eyes. Not surprisingly given this time of year…this morning it was hospice days waiting for me. I don’t want to think about those days…much less talk about them…write about them…begin to process them… Those days are the ultimate knot of mixed up raw emotion…and that knot has only gotten more complicated as time has gone on. I’m not going to begin to try to unravel that by myself right now…but I am hoping that by letting my brain acknowledge it we can put it aside for a bit (until therapy tomorrow!) and live in this day.

On this day…July 31, 2024…I have a lot to look forward to. One of them being a trip to Glacier National Park in August, 2025 with Anna, Levi, and Svea. Every time I see pictures of this gorgeous landscape my heart literally skips a beat. I’m reminded of when Jason and I went to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado about 14ish years ago. I tried to convince Jason then that we should move to be closer to the mountains…but he nixed that idea….wanting to stay close to family…which of course I understood. There’s just something about the mountains though!

We were originally thinking we would stay in a lodge inside of the park, but after looking at the room options…two double beds is the biggest…we decided to VRBO a place instead. We’re still close to the park, but now will have a kitchen, laundry, and everyone will have their own bed! It took a lot of stress about the trip off my plate to get that booked. I know I say it all the time…but Anna’s brain is so like her Dad…she knows the things that stress me out and actually likes to do what needs to be done to take that stress away. She had so many tabs open on her browser last night it was giving me anxiety….but it was so reminiscent of her Dad.

Now to pick myself up and move in this day where one of my friends is going to teach me the art of thrifting before I go to work. Should be fun!

The kids and I just spent a really good weekend with most of my family…one of my brothers had to work. I think it was the first time that we have been together since Jason’s funeral. It was definitely the first time all of the cousins have been together since my youngest niece was born at the end of 2022. It was so nice to hang out and catch up on what everyone has been up to. Levi brought Svea to meet all the family. She seemed to fit in pretty well. Only kicker was Levi waking up with excruciating pain in his ear yesterday which required a run to urgent care and some meds. Thankfully, he was a trooper and tried to rally the best he could to have a good day.

It was awesome hearing memories of Jason being tossed around. One of my nephews has taken up tennis. My brother and I talked about how Jason helped to plant that seed when he rounded up all the kids and took them to the courts exactly 6 years ago today. 6 years ago my nephew tried to jump over the net and ended up with a skinned knee…now he can step over it without even trying. Kiddo towers over me…well over 6 ft tall. I really enjoyed being able to talk tennis with him this weekend. Jason would have loved that his love of tennis was passed on.

One of my sisters shared with me that Jason was the first one to let her drive a car. Apparently it was one of the many times she stayed at our house over the years. She said she was 14 or 15 and Jason took her to a parking lot and let her drive our gold Saturn. I had no idea!

I woke up in my tent this morning…looking up at the ceiling…thinking about how good the weekend felt…and then the wave of sad just hit. It’s hard to feel such a mix of such strong emotion. I felt like I finally found some “ease” around my family again…like I was finding my groove…feeling supported and loved…and then “wham” just like that…sad, teary, ready to go home…even though I had a really, really good weekend and nothing happened that upset me…quite the opposite. My therapist always tells me that Love and Grief go hand in hand…and quite often it will be the times I feel the most Love that the Grief will follow closely behind. She kinda knows what she’s talking about I guess!

Last time I blogged was yesterday in the very wee hours in the morning. It was easily the 2nd worse night of my life. Things had happened that completely gutted me and decimated much of what I thought was true and still constant in my life. I couldn’t stop crying…no matter what I did…the tears just kept coming…by the time my alarm went off to get up for work I just couldn’t do it. I felt physically ill…dehydrated…had a mother of a headache…and I was still crying. I called in sick to work. I knew I needed help or I wasn’t going to be able to pull myself back up. So I asked for it…and my tribe came through for me.

Today I had therapy and she didn’t have any solutions to offer, but she did help me process all my feels…and by the time I left there I felt able to just shut my brain off about it. Folks…my brain doesn’t like to shut off…so when I am able to shut that fucker up it is like such peace.

I came home and I’m sitting…eating lunch all by myself…and suddenly I had this loud blaring thought it my head…and it was this “YOU’RE GOING TO BE OK”. Might seem simple, but I have never thought that before. People have tried to convince me and I have never believed it. It was the biggest epiphany over frozen Trader Joes pork buns ever.

I still have a ways to go before I achieve “ok” and I’m sure there will still be lots of low times…tears…hopelessness…loneliness. But I’m figuring it out…connecting with people in ways that feel real and genuine. Trying new things. Making plans that go past the next day…or week…or month. Our kids are blossoming into such awesome young adults and I’m enjoying every second of that. We are pretty tight as a family unit and we talk about their Dad all the time. He is still very much present with us every single moment. The four of us are all going to be okay.

2:30 am….I’m sure you’re probably nice and all…but…I would rather be sleeping. I think there is a saying along the lines of “nothing good happens after midnight”…well I have no good thoughts after midnight.

Here’s me trying to make sense of it all so maybe my brain will shut the fuck up. In our relationship I was usually the “leap before I look” type and Jason was the “look…make a spreadsheet…then leap” type. We complimented each other well. One thing that drove him insane is that I would have zero sense of self-preservation walking across a parking lot…I would literally leap before I looked. Countless times his hand was on my elbow pulling me out of the path of a car. The funny thing is that I only was like that when he was with me. If I was by myself, or had the kids with me…you can beat your ass I was looking for cars.

I mentioned the other day that I love wearing overalls. Well, all of my overalls have a little…like loop on the back…I guess where you could hang them up or something. Well, Anna…whose brain is so like Jason’s that I am constantly astonished by it…pulled on that loop on my overalls the other day and said “what is this thing for”. And I immediately said “well, your Dad would’ve yanked on that to pull me out of traffic”. And now I have this visual in my head of Jason behind me with his finger in my overalls making sure I look both ways before I leap…not that there’s too much leaping going on these days…but I’m trying.

Around this same time that I had this conversation with Anna I was texting with one of my SIL’s and she told me about a philosophy on grief that she had heard…that it’s like a stone in your pocket…that is always there…you always feel it…it never gets smaller…but over time you get stronger and it’s easier to carry. Well, overalls have a lot of pockets and right now I feel like I’m carrying one huge stone that is the loss of Jason in one pocket…and then countless numbers of other stones of various sizes in all the other pockets…for all the other accompanying losses. It’s a good thing those overalls have shoulder straps or my pants would be around my ankles.

What do I do with all those rocks? Because right now, as I’m trying to tread water and keep my head from going under…well…rocks don’t help at all. Tonight I’m just trying desperately to feel Jason’s finger in the back loop…but shit it’s dark and lonely at now 3:15am

Seth’s 21st birthday is coming to a close and I’m thinking about how proud I am of him. He’s quiet and sensitive and has such a good heart. He often acquiesces to the stronger wills of his brother and sister…poor kid hasn’t even tried to call “shotgun” in the car in years…but he knows how to dig his heels in about the things that are really important to him. His smile has been coming more easily in the past year…and that is the best thing ever! He loves talking pro tennis with me…him and I are taking a trip to the BNP in Palm Springs next March…and loves trying new foods…especially anything Asian. He’s just a great young man.

In true Seth style he said he “didn’t care” about his birthday…but then got home early from work and sat and chatted with me while he ate dinner and drank his first legal rum and Dr. Pepper. I’m not a rum-drinker so that bottle of 5 barrel from Belize had to be dusted off a bit…lol

Do you ever get sucked into those videos on social media of reunions between members of the military and their families? Like the kid is at school doing his school stuff and then turns around and suddenly his Dad is there. I got sucked into the social media black hole of watching those tonight. I wish that would happen with Jason…sure could use him tonight. Some nights “alone” feels more lonely than others…tonight is one of those.

First things first….and to start on a lighter note…today is my Bronco’s First Birthday…I guess actually her Gotcha Day because I bought her used…but her first owner way underappreciated her and traded her in after only 5,000 miles. I guess he wanted a hardtop instead…fool. We celebrated by putting the top down…taking the dogs for a walk…and going grocery shopping.

Seth was working tonight, but Anna, Levi, and I made dinner together and then played cards. Anyone who’s every played a game with Anna knows that she is super competitive. The good news is that she is learning to laugh at herself. Man, there was a lot of laughing tonight.

Now for the heavy…because holy shit this time of year weighs on my mind a lot. This time of July, 2021 is when Jason’s neuro-oncologist referred us to hospice. She had run out of treatments that she thought would work for him and really wanted him to retain what quality of life he had left without tests, pokes, and doctor appointments. His last MRI had been a disaster and he had told me in no uncertain terms that he was “done with those fucking things”.

We had two huge things we were looking forward to…one was Jason’s brother’s wedding…the other was a trip to Cincinnati for a tennis tournament. His headaches were so bad at this point I was in constant communication with his palliative care doctor trying to find the right cocktail of drugs so he could even attend the wedding. He was incredibly unsteady on his feet…had fallen in the house twice… I was still trying to work, but my days were so filled with anxiety over how he was doing at home I knew I was going to have to stop working soon. I would get him up before I left for work….make sure he had his pills and breakfast…make him a sandwich and put it in the fridge for lunch…write the schedule for the day clearly on a whiteboard so he would know what was going on. Everyday was overwhelming anxiety and stress…all while trying to put on a brave face for the kids…smile for Jason…fake that I was holding all my shit together.

One memory that I hold onto very tightly from during this time…Jason’s short-term memory was horrible at this point…and more than once we would be laying in bed at night and he would look at me and say “I can’t remember if I told you today that I love you”. What I wouldn’t give to hear that one more time. He really was the finest gem of a man…not sure how I got so lucky that he was mine.