And so it is

I am continuing to evolve. Every day is a new thought, a new process. My life isn't as dismal, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. There are lights all over.

The journey. 

That is what I'm focusing on. When you start to focus on the now instead of the past, the here instead of what could be. Who do I want to be today? What can I do to make that happen? Is it kind? Will it make my future, my tiny people, will it make their futures better? 

It is time. It is time to explain some things that have been held inside me, so tightly wound, I think I may explode. Christopher made a choice in his death. Call it what you want. The army isn't calling it what society does. 
The choice he made that day, the decision, the hurt, altered everything. Changed everything. One choice after a lifetime of pain. I was mad, some days, I'm still angry. I have read and deciphered every message, email, every word that would lead me to some answer as to why? Why would he, how could he? Why us? Depression, trauma, a  pain so deep that he only saw one way out. He only had one answer. His choice was that life for us would be easier this way. 
Without him. 

He was wrong. I swallow this truth every day. 
My life is now a testament to his. A testament to our children, because one day, they aren't going to understand. 
I hope that I can guide them, show them that even through tragedy, even though people make bad choices, it doesn't sum up our existence. That their father was more than his last decision. He fell down the rabbit hole and it was too much. My wish is that by my words and my actions, I can teach them a level of empathy that I'm only beginning to understand myself. 
This is what life is, a string of lessons, ultimately leading us to our own truth. My husband's life on this planet may be over but his impact on those who loved him, on those who encountered him, he can live forever. 

Love is all that matters. 

I'll continue on. 

So many trees wasted

Christopher is here.

Not many people know this but when the mania of retrieving Christopher's body, in another box, was over,
I ran to him.

From the day I found out he had died, I was in "go mode". Every part of me, every nerve, every cell, every single part of Lindsey was, this is what we prepared for, deal with the aftermath later. Little did I know that the aftermath was a complete shit show. 
The day the plane landed at Schofield was just that. I had already done this at Dover. 
Another box.
Another day.
Another person to feel sorry for me. 

And on top of every thing else, the media and cameras, helicopters, strangers, all here. Peering, lurking, exploiting, loving, empathetic reactions to what we are, were, experiencing. 

It's such a strange feeling to have gratitude for those who took the time to care and hate every second driving past those who took the time to care. 

I ran to him. 
No sleep. Exhausted, done with the day's tasks of signing this paper or making this decision about how my husband would be memorialized. 

I don't want to do this.  

This is not us. Thanking people for attending the death of my husband? Hearing his ex girlfriend tell me "this is her worst nightmare"? 
Are you fucking serious? 

But I did. I shook their hands. Accepted the condolences. Hugged them back. And no, I didn't slap her. But I wanted to and kinda still do. Social media is a "see you next Tuesday". I'm better than that. This is not us. This is not happening. People are strange.

I ran. 
I ran.
I ran.

Everyone was done. Napping, dealing with their own lives, everything they put on pause to come and help. To just be with me. 
I hadn't slept and I wasn't going to nap.
So like Forrest and to be "that person" 

"I just kept running."

There was another family suffering a loss and I swear the entire town was in attendance. 
Don't care.
Keep going.
He's there.
You can touch him.
He's home.
He's home.
He's here.
He's home.


I was stopped at the door. The funeral directors didn't recognize me. I was sweaty, exhausted, heartbroken. I had stopped playing hostess. I just wanted my husband. This is real. This is what a life crumbling before your eyes looks like. 

I'm Lindsey Wilbur. My dead husband is in there. Let me in. 

I'll huff and I'll puff. I'll blow this motherfucker down.


It was a full house so they had moved Christopher to the hallway, near the kitchen in the back of funeral home. 

Some would be appalled, I was relieved. 

FINALLY!

A moment. A breath. 
Just him. Just me. A coffee pot. A refrigerator. 
Things that were real. That made sense. 
Holding and clinging to a dead man didn't make sense. 
I kept expecting him to wake up. I kept begging him to wake up. 
I did everything I could to get him to wake up. 

He didn't.
So I read.
I read. 
People came and went, hours passed. I kept reading. 
The Alchemist is art. Prophetic and poetic.
I read. 

I held his hand and I kept reading. 
He pestered me the entire time. Probably to say that he hated the book. I felt this tickle. Constant and persistent, I thought I had bugs crawling on me, as hard as I searched there was nothing. Just Christopher. Just me.  
But it was him. In whatever form or fashion he is capable of now, he found a way to let me know that he was there. 
I hadn't felt that since. Until tonight. 
All of our life, our stuff, everything we collected together arrived today.
He's here. He's tickling me again. 

It's annoying as hell. 

But I'll take a lifetime of annoying tickles from a ghost of a man that I know loved me with every ounce of his being, a man that I loved and love more than most will ever experience OVER a lifetime of never feeling anything or just some loser with a sheet over his head.

BOO!