With Great Love, Comes Great Pain

My Sweet Michael,

It's been 5 months since I last kissed your face.  On the 5th year anniversary of the first time you told me you loved me (yes, I kept track of those dates), I received my widows ring in the mail.  On that beautiful day 5 years ago, I would have never dreamed that today, I would be your widow instead of your wife.

But Baby, in those five years, we had the fairy tale.  We had love, we had adventure.  We faced trials and we triumphed.  In five years we made so many memories that I will spend the rest of my life reliving them.  You were my great love.  You were the person that my whole life was lived towards loving.  You were my soulmate,  my breath, my life and my world.  And with great love, comes great pain.

Losing you has been the most painful thing in my life.  I have wondered if I would die from the agony.  There have been times that the pain became so crushing, that it took my breath away.  Days that just waking up took all my energy and going to bed took all my resolve.

In this world of grievers that I now find myself living in, the one phrase that we all say at one time or another is "I don't want to live without him".  And we mean it.  At that time, more than anything we want to be with our lover, we want the pain to stop.  But, really, what we mean is not that we want to die, rather we want you to come back to the life that we loved.

Then comes the time we realize that our lover won't come back and we seriously consider that our dying is the only way that we will ever be whole again.  We have to find a reason, a reason to keep living.  Other than for our children, or our friends, we have to find a reason to keep living for the love that we so desperately miss.

And so I choose to honor you by living.  I honor you by being the person to carry the memory of you, as only I knew you.  I honor you by keeping alive the love that was yours.  I know that as long as I live, that there will be someone who loved you above all others.  As long as I live, you will live also. And I honor  you by grieving.

My grief says that you are worthy of being mourned.  My grief says that my love continues and that the world was better with you in it.  My grief is my gift to you, my husband.  The only gift that I can give you now.

The seasons are changing and time is passing.  I still wake up and look around and realize that the world has continued to turn.  I look forward and see the Holidays coming quickly, I see the dark, rainy days of winter looming ominously, bringing the depression that we always feared with it.  I see endless days and nights of missing you and the exhaustion of surviving all this reaches to my bones.

But, I will pray that I can look at only today.  I pray that I will have the strength to pray and to put my feet on the ground and live.  I will pray that I can keep your memory alive in our little guy.  That he can someday be the man that his Popi was.  So be patient with me Baby.  I'm only just learning to feel my way in this world.  But I promise I will try.  I promise I will live until it's my turn to come to you once again.

And so I live and I grieve and I mourn.  I do this because I had my great love and am honored to be the one chosen to bear this pain.

I love you, Michael.  I love you with every breath I take.

Into the Darkness

I awaken to the darkness, lost and searching
as if in a dream from which I can't emerge.
Where once there was light and joy,
I find only confusion and sadness.

I search for you and for me,
but somehow we were lost on that day.
Do you remember our joy,
the happiness that surrounded us?

All the memories come rushing back,
I see you smile from your picture,
you raise your hand in a toast
and  you smile the smile of life and warmth.

When  you left, you took everything that was me.
I stumble through the days
like something ancient,
bones creaking, heart breaking.

I search for your smell,
for a hair left in your comb,
I look at your things
trying to find affirmation that you were real.

Your love haunts me from the grave,
it teases me, saying "this once was yours"
you reach out and touch me,
but it's only in my dreams.

I'm caught in this tug of war,
life pulling, death beckoning,
screams from my soul to inhabit both realities.

And yet I make it through the day,
not stronger, not happier,
but breathing, waiting,
until I can go back into the darkness once again.

The Primal Scream

Good Morning, My Sweet Michael,

Oh, how I miss you!  Do you ever get tired of hearing me say that?  Do you ever wish you could cross this wide abyss and tell me to get off my butt, clean the house, quit eating junk food and be "me" again?  But then, I know that you never expected me to just jump up and dust myself off.  You knew how painful this would be for me..that's why you told me, that last night, that you weren't afraid to die...you were only worried about me.

The days have melded into weeks and the weeks into months.  It seems sometimes as if it's been one long, horrible day.  Standing in church yesterday, singing a hymn that I especially love, I felt you holding my hand like you always did.  I felt you telling me to praise God.  And for the first time since you've been gone, I lifted my hand in praise.  It was painful.  I felt so broken.  I felt so pitiful and for the first time, I asked God to heal my bleeding, festering wounds.  To heal this broken heart.

I've become a master at stuffing tears inside.  Telling myself "not now, make the bed, not now, you've got a meeting, not now, a woman is in labor".  But last Thursday from out of nowhere, this creature inside me clawed it's way to the surface.

I was doing the dishes.  I had a meal to make for a sick friend.  As I was standing there thinking of things I needed to get done, I felt this creature erupt from my body, taking over and consuming me.  This scream, this horrible, pitiful, painful scream came from somewhere inside me...somewhere I didn't even know existed.  It knocked me to my knees.

I had no power over it.  It was primal, it was physical and it indwelt my body.  I was on my knees, my face in the dishwasher full of dirty dishes and I just screamed!  The exertion was so great that I couldn't even stay on my knees.  I fell to the floor and gave birth to this primitive, untamed, unfettered being.

I felt like I was out of my body.  Like I was looking down on myself and my mind was independent of my body.  Thinking of making the lasagna, thinking of the mailman coming to the door, thinking of inconsequential things as I screamed!  I screamed at God for taking you.  I screamed at you for leaving me.  I screamed at the pain and the fear and the loneliness.  I kicked the cabinets.  A puddle of tears and snot and spit forming under my face on the kitchen floor.

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't function, I screamed until my vocal chords were swollen and stopped producing sound. I screamed until my lungs were burning and my nails had cut into my palms.  I gave life to this hurting, dying creature.

And as suddenly as it came, it was gone.  It was like surviving a tornado.  The storms come and the wind makes a fearful noise like a freight train bearing down on you.  There is damage and fear and when it's gone, when the silence surrounds you, you think "I survived.  I survived this and I'm still here".

When this horrible tempest had passed, I stood up, wiped my face and I made the lasagna.  I finished the dishes and I got dressed.  I went out into the world and I did the things I needed to do.  I felt empty and spent and exhausted, but I did it. I did it for you and for Tru and for me.

And Michael, I knew that you were with me.  I knew it was you that kept me safe, that sheltered me from the damage.  And I knew that you understood.  I knew that you guided me.  And I'm safe.

My love for you has not ended, it hasn't even abated.  The memory of your touch has not left my body.  Your voice is still in my head and your smell is etched in my soul.  I love you for eternity, Michael.  And Baby, I miss you so very, very much.

Embracing the Beast

Hi Baby,

Today Tru brought home a picture he had drawn at school.  It had him with his arms out and smiling, next he drew me, and I also had my arms out and was smiling.  Then he drew you.  You had your arms down and you were all colored over with blue paint.  I asked Tru what his drawing was about?  He said that he and I were smiling because we were happy.  He said you were covered in tears because you miss me. I said "You mean because Popi misses US"? and he said "No, Mawmo, because he misses YOU".

I've been reading a book on grief from church.  It says you should "embrace your grief".  That grief is something you should "experience" not "go through" or "get over".  You should have courage to mourn publicly, that the person who is willing to cry publicly is showing a willingness to "heal".

So, they want us to "embrace the beast" because that's what grief really is, Sweetie.  It's a monster...it slashes, and claws and tears at my heart.  It raises it's ugly head and and sends me reeling into retreat.  There are times that I think I've escaped the beast...but it's impossible... it's only hiding, waiting to attack..maybe I'm driving down the highway listening to a song, maybe it's while I'm trying to mow the grass, or when I try to tell a funny story about you...it just blindsides me because this beast doesn't fight fair.

Our little guy is learning to read and write!  He is so smart and amazing.  He can write my name now including our last name.  He is always asking me how to spell something, walking around with a paper and pencil.  I know you would be so proud of him.  I know you would help him do his homework and make sure he gets it right.

The beast brings guilt.  Why didn't I cherish you more?  Why didn't I make time for "date days" after we were married.  Did I tell you often enough and make you feel loved and happy?  Was there more I should've or could've done?  Why did I spend New Year's morning fighting with you about something stupid?  I didn't know it would be the last New Year's and before half the year was over, you'd be gone.  Did I bother to try to dress myself up the last time we went out for dinner?  The night before  you died?  Or did I just run a brush through my hair because I was exhausted from your hospitalization and my hectic schedule?  

After my meeting today, helping a client get ready for her birth, I stopped at the hobby shop and bought some silk flowers and that little plastic cone thing to stick in the ground..you know the cemetery flower things?  I drove to the cemetery, took the flowers, a candy bar, my ice tea and cigarettes and camped out by your grave (I HATE that word).  It was such a pretty day, and I sat there on the grass making flower arrangements for you and Grandma and Grandpa.  Pretty, cheerful fall arrangements.  You used to like watching me make things.

As I worked, I talked to you about all the things that are going on around here.  I talked to you about the kid, I talked to you about the house and my recent birth.  And I thought I'd outlived the beast. I thought I could visit you without the pain.  But, I was wrong.  I laid down next to you and put my arm across you and I cried and I begged you to come home.  I asked you why you left me when you promised you would never leave me?  I asked you how you could've gone so easily when we had so many things left to do?  I cried the cry of the mortally wounded.

I could hear you say "just come on home, baby, it's getting late" and I knew you would be worried because it was time to pick up your little guy.  I knew that if you were here, you'd be reminding me that I had to work tonight, so I needed to "just come on home".  So, I packed up my stuff and I left you there yet again.

And so I embrace the beast.