Quieting the mind is no easy task. The whys, what ifs, hows, should haves they are trying their best to drive me insane. The only solace I can find is while running and the few precious hours I sleep.
The three of us are no longer sleeping in the same bed, separate rooms even but Happy wakes up screaming and crying, yelling for mommy.
EVERY MORNING.
I lost it this morning. I'm not pleasant when I wake up, Christopher was always the cheerful riser. Even after only a few hours of sleep or years of having to wake up at 3 and 4 in the morning, he was always in a good mood. He made waking up easier for me, so I wasn't a grump for long. He would bring me coffee and his first random thoughts of the day. There would be many more to follow.
God.
I miss him.
But this morning after only getting to sleep for 4 hours, I blew up. It hasn't happened often, I would love to scream and hit and be vicious enough to make someone feel this way too. I just can't. I'm not wired that way. I want to be better.
I want to thrive. I don't want to hate the world. But I don't know how to stop wanting that.
I'm doing everything I'm supposed to. Therapy, praying, exercising, eating right, trying not to isolate myself, reading, but it doesn't feel like it's doing any damn good. Alexander and I pray at night to find the broken pieces of our hearts so we can start super glueing them back together.
This is rough. We are in a tough spot, pushing and dragging ourselves along because none of us want to feel this way.
Christopher.
He wouldn't want us to feel this way. We have to live up to his legacy. It's our only option, nothing else will do.
This weekend is our wedding anniversary. I've booked a hotel out of town for my sister and I. Forcing myself to go have some fun. Feeling anxious and guilty about leaving my kids, even if I know they will be fine. Worried about breaking down, not knowing how to cope with the fact that he isn't here with me and we won't be able to celebrate together ever again. But I'm going. I have to.
And then I'll get to sleep and that may be all that I do.
I went to a grief seminar this past weekend and one of her suggestions was to write you a letter, so here it is.
I bought a puzzle yesterday. I guess I need to feel like I can put something tangible together because what I'm left with now, this life without you, I can't.
I despise this. I don't want to live this life without you. I haven't heard your voice in 70 days, until yesterday. I found this old video of you and even though it's 30 seconds long, the kids and I have listened to it over and over and over and over.
We miss you. Alexander is in so much pain, he's trying to sort all of this out in his 6 year old brain but it's too much. I can't even make sense of it. Happy sees you, and I am fairly certain you two play together daily. Our life wasn't supposed to be like this. We had fought so hard to get to where we were and now I don't know if I have any fight left in me. I feel so defeated.
What did I do?
How can I fix this?
I need to fix this.
We should be preparing for you coming home. Thrilled that we are going to see you soon.
Go on adventures. Snuggle in the cloud. Be US again.
This is not us.
This is not our family.
We are not a family without you.
I don't understand and every day my heart breaks.
Over and over and over and over.
I'm scared that I'm going to fail and you'll be disappointed. How fucked up is that? I'm scared of what a dead man is going to think about how I'm living.
I sob every single night. The memories are torture and all I want is to go back. I want to feel you next to me. I want to hear you and Alexander giggling together. I want you to be here to see them grow up. You'd be so proud of Alexander. Happy is a breath of fresh air.
They keep me sane. They are the greatest gift you could have ever given me.
I wonder how you'd handle this if it were me that died. Would you be ok or would you be a puddle of despair like me? Tell me what to do. I need you to tell me how I'm going to get through this. Help me get through this.
I love you. I just wish it were enough to bring you back.
Life is incredibly bizarre. Time seems to stand still or zoom by. I'm exhausted. I'm sick of the endless phone calls and paperwork that typically results in "I'm so sorry for your loss, but we will need a death certificate or something else that proves your husband is deceased."
I am over it.
I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I want. What I do know, this not how I thought my life would turn out.
I never imagined being a widow at 33.
Forced to start over.
Raising two kids.
Alone.
I never imagined moving back to Mississippi.
Living with my parents.
Trying to organize and cram what little of our life before into their house because all of our stuff is in some Army storage unit and I have no clue when we will get it again.
I never imagined that Thursday would be the last time I'd hear him say he loved me.
Alexander has been asking how Chris died, and tonight I will have to explain to him what's going on. We don't know. He's going to ask questions and I pray I can give him the right answers. Even though I don't have any myself.
Sidenote-
If you're reading this because I know people are, there is a handy tool that shows how many people read each post, please don't decide today to ask me what happened or if I've heard anything.
If you haven't bothered to reach out to me before, please don't bother now. Our life isn't for you to gossip about.
I'm done with fake.
I'm done with bullshit.
I'm done with surface level people.
I know the fight is alive in me, I know I'll get shit done. I know I'll take care of our kids. I know they will become stellar adults because they are already stellar kids.
I know I'll be a fire you won't be able to put out.
I just have to get there.
It'll happen, I just have to figure out which map to choose.
Panic ensues. I have started pacing like I did that day. Numb. Depleted. Nothing, just terror but not the type depicted in movies, this terror is silent. It is so many emotions at once that I am in overdrive but my body doesn't know how to react, I don't know how to react. So I pace.
This can't happen. I need to go to the grocery store. Our kids need to eat something other than soup, applesauce or whatever is convenient. I put a shirt that has blue paint on it from when Christopher and I painted the kitchen in our Colorado home. It's comforting but almost burns when I put it on. It's the searing reminder that this is what I'm left with. An old shirt with blue paint on the front, like the "Scarlett Letter" but instead of an A it's a W.
Our wedding anniversary is in 19 days, he wouldn't have been home but the best gift/date was that it was the mark of the "final countdown". He would be home in two weeks. This is not what set me off though, it's when I started reading our text messages.
Damnit.
On the Tuesday before, we were texting that morning and I told him about the awful dreams I had the night before.
This is where it goes downhill.
I remember the dream. It was the last one I had before Friday, I've just recently started dreaming again, but this one, this damn premonition, this was my warning sign. I should have known what was coming my way.
Blood, pain, frightening images. Chris had died in the dream and it was so real that I cried in my sleep. I woke up in the middle of it, realized it was just a dream but went straight back into REM hell. It wasn't long, it wasn't detailed, it was just so much heartbreak and so much anguish that it destroyed me that night. And now, still destroying me.
I am a spiritual person. I believe in signs, omens, signals. I should have known that this wasn't just any normal dream. I knew. I was trying to prepare myself. I just didn't realize that one can never prepare for something like this. I also know that I could not have prevented this but.
There is always that but.
I know it's insane of me to think that I sensed something was going to happen but insane things have happened in the past two months that make me think, maybe I'm not that crazy?
Christopher always said that
"maybe we're the normal ones and everyone else is insane?"
I'm not pacing anymore. Typing it, putting words down, sending this somewhere else for now, I think I'll make it to the grocery store today.
I have to feed these kids.
In the car, driving your kids and when your two year old is riding with someone else and they bend near the steering wheel, said two year old will tell them not to cry. Apparently, this is where I breakdown a lot.
In the shower/bathtub, you're relaxed or have two minutes alone to think because shampooing and sudsing up doesn't require much thought.
During mass, during the fist reading, homily or when you speak to Father Such and Such afterwards. Like, ugly, spastic crying. It's not pleasant.
In the morning, drinking coffee because this is the time you think, "Great, it's another day I get to be me!"
In bed before you fall asleep, every single night. Alone or with your 6 year old because you haven't slept apart (or in a different bed) from your kids since you had to go to Dover to retrieve your husband's body. Every damn night.
Sobbing is an understatement. Can't breathe, the tears have run out but you're still crying. The water I drink only replenishes the tears.
We are going to a friend's beach house this weekend, it's magical and we need a little magic right now because all of the above can be expected.
Guilt. You feel it. It covers you like poison ivy. You scratch at the what if's, the if I had done this, or that, or anything different, then maybe. They tell you not to use the word guilt. They being the people who have been deemed experts on grief. They say that it isn't healthy, you should use the term regret instead because this allows you to learn from your mistakes instead of feeling like you had some sort of control over what happened.
At first I sat in a baby pool full of guilt.
Chris had high blood pressure and should not have deployed. He loved salt, had an intense job that caused a lot more stress than most and he used "worm dirt" (dip, chewing tobacco, gross)and this caused him to be non-deployable a few months before they were set to head out. He fought and schemed on how to get it lower, he started eating right, running more, less nicotine. I helped him, I rooted for him, I did everything I could to get him to his goal. Deploy with his guys. He finally got it low enough and they signed off on his deployment status, from a no to a go and that was that. Until the day he died. When I was able to start thinking again, I felt immense guilt. I did this. I helped him get deployed and if he hadn't gone over there he would be alive. A big ol' buffet of guilt all for me.
How sweet.
I had to get his body from Dover, Maryland and I told the chaplain at the Fisher House about this guilt I felt. He said, "You were being a good wife, there is nothing to feel guilty about. What if you hadn't helped him? That could have put a strain on your relationship, he may have resented you for his non-deployable status. What then?"
Perspective is a beautiful thing.
I haven't felt guilty about that since, their have been other things but I've been able to see "the bigger picture". I've realized it's incredibly vain of me to think that I had control over someone's life. I dislike egos just as much as guilt, especially if it's my own. So for now, this is working and I'll keep my perspective goggles handy for moments that will surely arise and the guilt tries to sneak out and take control.
We talked about school supplies, Alexander was about to begin first grade and even deployed you wanted to participate in every event happening at home.
It was a normal conversation, you had just bought giant chocolate bar and were ecstatic about your find. I had a garden club meeting that night and you offered to type up the notes I needed so I could focus on other things. It was just another day and you were fine. Healthy, happy, loving and alive.
I wouldn't change our conversation. I would be willing to have the same conversation over and over and over again. Just to hear your voice. Just to see you smile. Just to hear you say that you love me. Just anything.
Happy started a part time preschool program today and she was stellar. She had the best time, made friends, arts and crafts. When I picked her up, I told her how proud I was and that I loved her. That Daddy loved her and she said "Daddy's proud too."
Yes, my love, he is so proud of you. He will always be proud of you.
I signed up for a grief seminar, hoping it will give me some answers on how I'm supposed to keep going. Every day I wake up, and every day you're still gone. I fight back tears (or ugly cry) when people tell me "hello" but can mumble a "thank you" when they say "I'm so sorry for your loss." I hate that sentence. And while we're at it, I hate "be strong". Well, no shit. Strength is not something I am lacking. I have been strong. The moment you left for this deployment I was strong. The moment I found out you had died, I've been strong. I do not need to be told that anymore. I'm sure it will be said, that seems to be the only thing people know to say. "I'm sorry for your loss, you have to be strong." Okay, well when your husband dies and you have two children under the age of 6 please, please let me know how it works out when people say that to you. I'm sure you'll do the same as me, thank them (why am I thanking them?????) and politely decline any further conversation.
I enjoy being alone, I've never had any issues with being by myself. This is just a new type of alone, complete isolation. I'm stranded on an island. Those who float by typically paddle as fast as they possibly can to get away from this island. While I'm still here, waiting for someone to rescue me. Waiting for someone to paddle full force towards me, screw a life ring, they're coming on this island to save me.
Meanwhile, I wait. I've pressed pause, praying to be rescued.
Everyone dies. It's a fact. No one is safe from its grasp or the aftermath it leaves behind. Yet, we fear the inevitable and have no clue on how to deal with the emotions it burdens us with. Rationalizing death does not work. My mind understands the science but my heart has no idea on how to deal with the rest. Trying to explain this to children is nearly impossible and a harsh, cruel subject matter to burden them with.
My son's heart is broken.
Broken.
Broken.
Broken.
Bits and pieces that remain are still breaking. He's convinced himself that this is just "a nightmare, one day we will wake up and Daddy will still be here". I feel the same way and wish with every ounce of my being that it is just that, a nightmare. My mind knows better.
I am just here, holding them tightly, praying that one day we will find some super glue to turn all this broken into something.
Honestly, I have no clue what I'm doing or what to say. Right now I feel as though I'm just coasting, doing what I'm supposed to, pretending like I can move on from this when I don't really think I can.
He's gone, and I'm shattered. I miss him and need him to tell me how I'm going to survive this without him. Survival. That's what it feels like right now. I'm doing what I have to do so I can survive.
Breathing. Sleeping. Water. Food.
Those are vital, everything else is everything else.
53 days. How many more?
Why do we do this to ourselves? Implant someone into our lives that when they die it's unbearable. Sadists? It's torture. A slow, ongoing, festering type that makes you want to crawl inside a hollow shell and never return. But you do.
Breathing. Sleeping. Water. Food.
Death is everything and it's nothing. The emotions that ravage you are all consuming and that makes you numb. Death makes you desperate. Empty.
Death can turn simple thoughts into a pain you'd never imagine, until you're caught in it's trap. Weaving in and out of you, every inch of your body. Death is poison. And it never stops. It will seep into my body every day until I stop breathing. I'm sleeping forever. And I no longer need water and food.
Death and I will become best friends, it's learning everything about me, why shouldn't I get to know it?
