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
Today I really wanted to give myself a relaxing day after all the hub-bub of Friday and Saturday. It started with breakfast with my friend Vicki. We have a no-pressure standing Sunday morning breakfast date. When we are both available we go out for breakfast…if we’re not, we don’t. It is the best thing ever. When it does work out I enjoy our breakfasts immensely.
I have been writing a lot of poetry and decided that I needed to learn more about poetry and read more poetry. It is enjoyable and makes me feel like I am “doing” something…learning something…in this time right now where my inability to “do” is causing me a lot of frustration. So I took myself to Barnes and Noble this morning and went a little overboard in the poetry section…if you were going to go to the Burnsville Barnes and Noble and buy poetry books you might want to wait until they restock…
After spending the afternoon reading, I decided to turn the TV on and see if there was anything on Netflix or Hulu worth watching. Other than watching a movie or two with the kids…and tennis…I have not turned the TV on since Jason passed away. TV was more his thing than mine. I am much more likely to be reading or listening to music. Trying to find something to watch was frustrating. Everything reminded me of Jason in some way…a show or movie I had watched with him…too much romance…too sad…etc. I ended up watching a few episodes of The Wonder Years and then turning the TV off.
Tonight I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow. I took the day off work and am going on a drive to have lunch/look at leaves/get away with some of the ladies from my grief counseling group. Since we meet virtually this will be the first time I meet them in person. Today I was thinking how odd it feels to be making friends that Jason doesn’t know…and will never know…that’s hard for me to accept. We definitely had some separate friends before…but a lot of them eventually became “our” friends…and we met each other’s friends for sure. Just another thing to get used to somehow…
Here’s the poem I was working on today. The concept has been rattling around in my brain for a few weeks. Not sure it’s done yet….there might be more to this one…we’ll see.
The Merry-Go-Round
Life is like a merry-go-round
Music playing
Laughter
Smiles.
Parents standing next to toddlers
Keeping them safe
From
Falling.
Older children hop on in groups-
Choosing their
Mounts
Carefully.
Couples hold hands as they
Bob together
Up and
Down.
I stand in the middle.
Paralyzed.
Watching.
Alone.
Feeling all sorts of emotional tonight. Might just have to sit down and have a good cry. Really missing Jason and having a partner to share all the BS that life likes to throw at me all at once sometimes. Luckily, I have really good friends and family to help me and commiserate with me when the suck happens, but at the end of the day it is just me…making decisions, worrying, trying not to eff things up, worrying, making sure my kids are okay, worrying. Then I get myself so wound up and exhausted that everything seems ten times worst than it is…and my person who could unwind me is gone.
I feel whiney, pessimistic, stressed, frustrated, overwhelmed, stuck, etc…and I hate it….I hate feeling that way. I miss the days when I blissfully thought that bad things only happened to other people….those were good, ignorant, happy days. Now I feel like I’m just always waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I hate that way of living.
My house doesn’t feel like home anymore…not without Jason. Everywhere I look he should be there. All of his things are still here…just waiting. Yesterday I thought maybe if I start going through his things…try to make the house more “me” instead of “us” it will feel better. I got as far as sitting on my bed with a garbage bag and then just sat there paralyzed….couldn’t do it. I know…I know…give myself grace and time. I’m trying. I just want him back.
Home
Rattling around the house
That used to be our home
Now it’s just all full of
Stuff
I can’t seem to let go.
Plastic tennis trophies collecting dust
I want to throw away
But then feel
Panic
They stay in boxes on the floor
Your nightstand is just how you left it
Empty Tums bottles
Kleenex box
Junk
I can’t throw in the trash.
So much stuff
I’m caught between
Wanting to let
Go
And holding on tight.
I look around and see you
Even though you’re gone
Our house still holds its shape for you
My heart
Not ready to move on.
I long to feel at home again
But my home was always you
These walls were just a container
Our love
Was the glue.
I will stay strong love on this Earth
Living this fake life
Until I find my
Home
On the other side.
Today was a nice ending to a topsy-turvy week. I went to Jason’s Mom and Dad’s house and had the best time sharing memories with them and my SIL, Jackie. We laughed…we cried…we supported each other in our sadness over losing Jason…we ate birthday cake. It was just what I needed…and I wish I would have done it sooner.
This morning I finished reading a book called, “It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand” by Megan Devine. I read it through the first time kind of fast and now feel like I need to read it again to really soak it in, but this is the start of Chapter One and I feel every word of this so deeply
Here’s what I most want you to know: this really is as bad as you think.
No matter what anyone else says, this sucks. What has happened cannot be made right. What is lost cannot be restored. There is no beauty here, inside this central fact.
Acknowledgement is everything.
You’re in pain. It can’t be made better.
The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can’t be cheered out of.
You don’t need solutions. You don’t need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life.
Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried”
p. 3
And that is why today was what I needed. No one was trying to “fix” me….or cheer me up….or got uncomfortable when I cried. No one was offering me empty platitudes…telling me I should be grateful because he’s in a “better place”. We all want him back here…and miss him so deeply.
On my way home I could almost feel Jason sitting next to me with his hand on my leg. I almost reached down a couple times to put my hand on top of his and rub my fingers on his weird fingernail that had this ridge in it…as I would often do while driving. And then I started thinking about a poem that I have been working on and all the words to finish it came to me. This one is for you Kent and Jan from Jason.
When you think of me
I know your hearts are sad.
But I loved you more than anything,
Mom and Dad.
You taught me how to swing a bat
Eat all my peas
Hit the ball
Right off the tees
You were my biggest hero
In my athletic career
For every game and match
In the stands you’d cheer.
You taught me how to be a man
How to live with integrity
Stand up for what I believe in
Let no one pressure me.
You taught me how to be a husband
I had an amazing wife
We loved each other and were so happy
All our married life.
You taught me how to be a dad
To my sons and daughter
The greatest blessings of my life
I was a very lucky father.
Someday when you look at my pictures
I hope that you can grin
Although my life was way too short
I’d do it all again.
My weekend was actually pretty good. I enjoyed going through pictures and thinking about good times. Makes me homesick for the past. I had a conversation with Levi about this one of Jason and I in college… and about how we were younger than Anna is now in the picture. I think he was kind of flabbergasted.
I feel sad that there are whole years of pictures missing. Jason had them all digital and I can’t figure out where he saved them as they are not on our computer. We have a lot printed out from when Anna was a baby, but not very many from Seth and Levi’s baby years before we started taking all of our pictures with cell phones instead of cameras. I wish I could ask him where they are.
I met a friend for breakfast today…which was really awesome. I talked so much I didn’t make it through my whole breakfast burrito. Sorry Vicki…next time you get to talk. Sometimes I feel like unless I’m at work I spend a lot of time alone having whole conversations in my head…or with my dogs. If I’m feeling really down everything in my head starts forming itself into poetry. That doesn’t happen when I’m in a good mood…I’m weird. I guess if I ever start talking to you like I’m Dr. Seuss you might want to throw chocolate at me and run away because I am not in a good mood.
Speaking of poetry, I ordered two more books of poetry that are supposed to come tomorrow. I just can’t get enough. It’s all I want to read. Something about it just connects with me inside. The written word is so powerful. The kind of ironic thing about poetry is that…depending upon what kind it is…there is a lot of math in it as well. It is what makes the cadence of the words so appealing…how many syllables in the words and such. So fascinating. I’ve been thinking about taking a poetry class someday…when I have time…ha!
This wasn’t going to be a poem post…but this is how my words want to come out tonight I guess.
Most days I feel like I am pretty good
At hiding true emotion.
I get through my day at work
Hide that my heart is broken.
People ask me how I am.
I lie and say I'm fine.
Hanging in there.
One day at a time.
Some days I hold it all in
Until I pull into the garage,
Then all the little reminders
Hit me in a barrage.
Today was not most days.
The mask would not stay up.
My eyes kept overflowing.
There was a huge hole in my cup.
I couldn't lie when people asked me
Are you doing okay today?
All I could do was shake my head
And say the tears won't stay away.
But then you know what happened?
I let some people in-
Affirmed that I am not alone
And now I can breathe again.
Today I feel his presence
I know he would be proud of me
For reaching out to those we love
Who are grieving alongside me.
Grief is an impossible journey
That never really ends
But together maybe we have a chance
As it twists, and turns, and bends.
I brought one book with me this weekend. It is a book of poetry that grabbed my attention: “100 Poems to Break Your Heart” by Edward Hirsch. Maybe an odd choice as I clearly don’t need my heart broken any further, but I am really enjoying it. Hirsch compiled poems from the last two hundred years from all over the world and then does a literary breakdown of them….which would be hell on Earth for some people to read, but my English Lit brain loves it. In his introduction he says “Poetry companions us. Poems are written in solitude, but they reach out to others, which makes poetry a social act”….”We become less isolated in our sorrow, and thus are befriended by the words of another.” LOVE that!
This poem has been writing itself in my head for the past 24 hours…insisting that I spit it out on a page.
The Phoenix
I come to the place of past happiness
Alone
When I arrive the night air is nippy and
Dark
I open the door and am welcomed by sweet
Warmth
I thought this place would bring sadness coming
Alone
Instead I feel like I am able to breathe to
Exhale
I wrestle the cork out of my wine bottle and
Sigh
My physical body is spent my spiritual body
Exhausted
I turn down the duvet on the double bed and
Balk
I pilch the pillows and a blanket and shuffle to the sofa
Solitary Sleep
The sun rises in the morning in breathtaking
Beauty
A solitary green heron watches with me in
Stillness
I wonder if it’s the same one I saw when I was not
Alone
I shift and it startles gives me one last stare and
Soars
The steam from my coffee cup rises in the
Cold
My nose is nippy and I wish for your warm neck to
Nuzzle
I sit and ruminate on the nature of being
Alone
How to find elusive peace and happiness in this unwelcome
Solitude
My toes and fingers have now joined my nose in the nip I seek warmth
Inside
I take refuge in my makeshift nest of blankets and pillows seeking
Comfort
One thought is blaring above the rest who am I
Now
Before it was easy as a beloved mother and
Wife
Now a new unwelcome me has intruded named
Widow
The counselor says through grief there is a
Transformation
I loved the me I was before when we were
Us
This transformation sounds tenuous and
Painful
I want to retreat back into my cocoon and
Sleep
I feel like fading into forever except I have a crucial role as
Mother
In the evening I build a fire and feel the
Heat
A lone seagull sits and screeches shrilly
Calling
I feel like we are kindred spirits on this earthly
Plane
The lake is calm also holding secrets in its
Depths
The fire burned hot and fast now
Dying
The wood turns first to coal and then to
Ash
My mind imagines another fire a
Pyre
Your body like the wood first coal then
Ash
I struggle to rise anew as a phoenix out of the
Flame
Love, Tennis, and Cancer 