Every Sunday

(Written 2/2011)

Every Sunday it happens.
I go into my office to print out the grocery list.
And find myself on the computer
Searching for……
a distraction,
a reason,
a gift,
something that will ease the unease.

I read the past week’s posts of the other widows.
I look at my emails.
I answer the ones that don’t take much out of me.
Finally, I refocus but not before I feel
Overwhelmed
by the emails
that require me to plan, to think, to notice that I have to do it again
alone.

I have to make lists that will get checked off
by
me.

Before I get stuck in overwhelm, I force myself to remember what I came in for.
I print out the grocery list and begin the routine.

Weeks meal plan
Three grocery stores
To Do List for the week

Every Sunday, I feel empty and alone.
Every Sunday I use my computer as a way to run from it
and every Sunday it doesn’t work.

This Sunday I went further
I tried ice cream, hoping the cold creaminess will make me
forget the
cold
emptiness.

It didn’t.

So I tried alcohol.
Hoping the gentle relaxation would allow me to weather the
insecurities, the fear, lesson the weight of the world that not only sits on my shoulders
but my spine,
my stomach and
my knees.

It doesn’t.

I call a neighbor. “Do you have anything?” I ask.
He runs me up a little something to smoke.
I look at it. I go to light it and I stop.
I know it won’t work either.

So I call this guy I know. This friend.
Strong hands, a comforting hug, a good kisser
I go to him.
I want to know that I matter to another man.
I want to feel his arms around me, to sink into the testosterone, the power
the protectiveness of him.

It works...
but only for a little while.

I get back into my car
And I am crying
And praying to God

“Please help me!
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take the weight, I cannot make one more decision on what we will eat this week by myself I can’t!”

And even as I say it, I know I am lying.
I’ve done it every Sunday for over 52 of them. I can do it for 100s more.

Every Sunday I wonder, is this it?
Is this what surviving grief looks like?
Is this what I worked so hard to get too?

Really?

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A Different Grief

Pallas and Langston

It was a lovely evening. I could feel the exhaustion running all the way into my finger tips and for once I welcomed it. It was 9:30 pm. I checked the clock 7 times to make sure I hadn’t misread it.

9:30 pm and for once all three of my children were in bed and….asleep.
A self-congratulatory smirk (accompanied with a sigh of unimaginable relief) passes over my lips. I’m in bed at 9:30 pm!!! I close my eyes doing a happy-skip-run-prance towards sleep.

I am exhausted. In an effort to take care of myself I have run myself into the ground. Eating healthy and answering all those kid questions, paying attention to the long and drawn out stories, making orthodontist appointments, and ordering skin cream and buying bikinis and getting my 9 year old to SLEEP IN HIS OWN DAMN bed and getting a break from them and running a business (two now….) and trying to have a social life and exercising and trying to spend quality time with each of them so they don’t feel further abandoned and teacher meetings and volunteering (which I admit I HAVE TO STOP doing) and talking to a new widow 3 times a week and remembering who has what game/doctors appointment/play date when
has
run
me
into
the
ground.

9:30 is huge fucking triumph!!!

I drift into my triumph

At that mother sleep level, the level that allows you to hear the cough, the sneeze, the bathroom runs, the talking when you are asleep but not quite wake up, I hear him rise from bed. I hear his heavy methodical one-foot-slightly-dragging footsteps make their way towards the bathroom. Only they don’t stop they keep heading my way. I think “Lie really still. He’ll just go away.”

I remember those nights when all three kids just seemed to keep getting up, Art and I would pretend to be asleep so the other one would get up with whichever kid had just wandered into our room. I remember how the person who “won” would feel guilty and would hold open the covers.

So I’m pretending and it’s not working because Art’s dead and I’m the only one here. Langston, my oldest, says to me, almost pleading, “Mom I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” His voice is nasally, stuffed up, then that mother awareness memory kicks in. He’s been blowing his nose….a lot. My big man-child has been crying. A lot. Him in pain jolts me awake.

“Hey … kiddo, what’s going on?” I hesitate using ‘kiddo” it’s what Art called him. I let my mother imagination fly … drugs, girls, bullying and suicide. He won’t tell me. He won’t alleviate my anxiety. He repeats over and over again “I don’t’ want to go to school. I don’t want to go to school.”

I repeat “I need to know what’s going. I need to know what’s going on. “

After the seventeenth “I need to know what’s going on.” He shouts, exasperated, “Never mind!!” and storms out. I get up, go into his room, he’s not there. I find my crocks, grab my sweatshirt and head out the front door, that I just noticed is ajar. And there he is. Sitting on the front stoop.

“I want to be alone.” He says. I pretend I didn’t hear him. I sit next to him. I put my hand on his back wondering when did this back become the back of a man, and not of a little boy. His man back is shaking as he cries.

My heart, that feels so fragile, begins to tear at seams that have been mended over and over and over again.

“Sweetheart, tell me what’s going on. It’s safe. I promise you it’s safe.” I say
“It’s everything.” he says “I miss Daddy and no one understands. Only one of my friends gets it.”

I say “Yes, that’s true. Many of my friend’s don’t get it and it makes me feel lonely.
But you know people who get it. You can talk to them.”

Then he says
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!”
I want to laugh.
I’ve been waiting my whole parenting life for one of them to say that to me.

“You don’t,” he catches a sob in his throat, “You don’t have to walk past his office every single day!

Rip…the seam is completely undone.

Langston attends school where Art used to work and he does walk past his old office every day. I thought it didn’t bother him.

I’m such as ass.
Such a mother ass!
I know better than those not-knowing people who act all surprised at my sudden tears over Art’s loss and say “Are still mourning?”


“I think about him all the time, Mom. All the time, every day and I don’t want to think about him every day.”

He’s sobbing. He’s almost pleading. My 6 feet-225-pound-14-year-old is sobbing. I'm trying to use my 5’7”-130-pound frame to comfort him and it feels entirely inadequate.

This is THE WORST PART OF ALL THIS.

I can’t fix it for him.
I can’t protect him from this loss.
No amount of words, or actions or back rubs will take his pain away.

It is like watching someone drown because I am unable to swim.

I’m silent. Every day he walks past Art’s office. Every day. How many of those days does he think he might see his dad? How many of those days does he just want to punch that door?

It feels like for the first time I am seeing his world, a world that doesn’t include potential other fathers the way my world includes potential other husbands.

He lost his father. There will be no other.

I breath deeply. He is not ok…he has been hurting all this time? Shame rises and then falls. In Art’s death I feel the lack of motherhood omnipotence.

He’s right. I don’t get it.
I don’t understand because I don’t walk past Art’s office every day. I don't understand because my dad lived till I was just one day shy of 40, not when I was 12.

Then he says, “Mom, it was so hard having you and Pallas and Ezra fall apart but I couldn’t.”

I let out the kind of sob that hurts my body.

“I know, baby. It must have been so hard for you to lose Daddy and then have me not being able to function. Sweetheart, I’m here now, I’m functioning. It’s ok. We survived it.”

He continues, “I felt so powerless. Unable to do anything to help you.”

This is when I hear my heart shatter.

I stifle the sobs. “I know how you feel.” I say.

He just sits there and cries. And I sit next time him, my hand on his back, or stroking his hair, his neck. I do what I wanted so many others to do for me.

I witness him.

I witness his pain. I honor it. I validate it. I don’t hand him a tissue, I don’t say “It’ll be alright.” I don't distract him with "You know your father loved you." or "Your dad used to...." stories. I just sit there until he’s cried out.

I put him to bed and he lets me rub his back as he falls asleep. I notice that it takes longer than I remember to traverse the distance from his left shoulder to his right, then down diagonally to his waist and across.

He has grown in the last two years, inside and out. Another loss for me. I feel like I am seeing him for the first time in two years, since Art died.

And in those long strokes, I send him courage and strength and love, love, and love. I sit in my powerlessness, finding that I do have some power.

My power is not in protecting him but in honoring his journey. My power is in not lying to him, telling him it will be ok because it will never be ok. His father is dead.

My power is in letting him have his feelings and making them ok. My power lies in showing him that the bad is followed by the good, which will be followed by the bad and the good again.

My power is in teaching him to hold tight to those moments…all of them because they are what will make him so wonderfully approachable and human.

I see his grief and my grief as separate. I always saw it as the same.
He lost a father, someone that cannot be replaced.

I mourn his innocence.

-----

I finished writing this, the eve of Mother's Day, and for a moment I can't think. I keep wishing everyone else a Happy Mother's Day and forget that it applies to me as well.

I'm not sure how I feel about it or that I should even put much thought into it. The man who is partially responsible for me becoming a mother is dead, but I'm still a mother. A very, very different mother than I would have been if he were still alive. I haven't thought about the ways I've changed till now.

But when I re-read my post I see. In Art's death, I am becoming the mother I always wanted to be. The approachable kind, the kind that my kids (and others?) know will love them, will honor them, their triumphs and foibles. I am impatient, but real (I'm sorry guys. I don't have the space right now to help you.) I am harsh. (It's because when I was your age I didn't have the chance to do it. It may not make sense to you. But you are doing it anyway!) Above all I hope my kids see that I am human -- flawed and imperfect, courageous and terrified and still moving, changing and forever growing. I have never felt more like a real mother than I do today, at this moment.

Art's death freed me to be this kind of mother.

So to all you widow-mothers out there -- I love you. Our journey through motherhood without husband's is an imperfect one, full of bad words, horrible feelings and unwise actions. Yet we not only live it but find the courage to grow in it.

That truly is the miracle of motherhood.

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730 Days

Written on April 15, 2011

729 days and 22 hours ago…

we were dancing in his room.

We were drinking beer, watching American Idol

and eating.

I can’t remember what.

We were laughing together,

his sister, his best childhood friend, my friend and I.

And then one of us would look at him,

and cry.

I tried to forget all of that today.

I told myself that I will “ignore” tomorrow.

I had decided that I would ignore this anniversary.

The 730^th day.

730 days since my life

shifted,

became Jell-O under my feet,

since it ended up on a different life plane.

And those memories of the last hours of his life

can’t be stopped.

I tried eating my way into ignorance.

I tried drinking my way past them.

And yet, there they are,

those pointy edges,

those fragments of memory,

pricking me,

making me bleed tiny little droplets

and

as I bleed out,

in comes the physical response to the grief.

My spine aches,

my eyes feel prickly.

I feel fuzzy, unclear and surreal.

Just like I did 729 days ago.

I am filled with the same joy too. It was us, the four of us there, in our cocoon. The world stopped at the hospital door. Those three were there with me, we were there to help him leave this life. It was beautiful those last hours.

His leaving so black, so unknowing. Sarah McGloughlin reminding me to:

“Hold on.

Hold on to yourself.

This is gonna hurt like hell.”

I remember the nurse telling me that I wasn’t cooping well.

And I yelling at her, “I know I’m not cooping. My husband is dying! Now get him more morphine!”

I remember all of it

It pours into me.

There is no stopping it, no deciding to ignore it.

So I sit still

Let the tears come in their sporadic, unpredictable rhythm,

dropping down my cheek and onto my shirt.

I use my hands to swipe at them, smearing the wetness onto the back of my hands then onto my cheeks and then my pants or the bed duvet cover. Tissues …I can’t. Placing something clean and white under my eye to safely contain the grief feels absurd.

Grief is messy and wet and unpredictable.

I want these tears to represent all of it.

And then I want to cry not just to honor what has been lost,

but what

has

been

gained.

I can’t be one without the other.

730 days.

730 days.

730 days.

730 days.

To be followed by 731.

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Sex, Sensuality and Sadness

Sex. I’ve been thinking about it lately.
And I really miss it. I miss the animal-ness of having another sweaty body pressed down against mine, the sounds, the smell.

I miss being openly desired, I miss teasing, I miss all the foreplay that comes before. I miss being sexy. I miss being a sensual woman.

And I find myself unsure if I even know how to be sensual outside of him.

I know I don’t have to be. After all I’m a widow. Good widows don’t crave sex. Good widows don’t take about that need. Good widows move forward but do so looking back and sighing. Good widows leave their best years behind them, and walk bravely into the future. Good widows don’t talk about their “toys” either.

Sometime when people ask me how I’m doing I want to say, in a pleasant soft voice with a sweet smile, “I’m horny as hell and really want to get laid.”

I’m a shitty “good” widow.

But it’s not just about the sex. It’s about the desire to be desirable. It’s about having a man openly want me, it’s about my wanting him back.

It’s about being sensual and here is where I struggle. For all of our sex, for all the times we made love, I can’t say that I was ever sensual, I mean really, really comfortable enough to be sensual with Art.

And I’m scared.
Art’s death has splayed me open…. I am raw to the touch, to any emotional breeze. And in a weird way I feel the fool. Foolish for laying there letting anyone see me.

And yet in the fear strangely comes courage and the desire to use my second chance to embrace what I have always wanted to be but been too afraid to try.

It’s the bravery I turn into Sensuality here in Cancun. I love the word, it captures it’s meaning in its pronunciation.

I have dared myself to practice being sensual this whole trip. And in doing so I try to see my body the way Art did: beautiful, soft, curvy and expressive. It’s difficult to ignore the familiar, mean, internal messages. “Your thighs are too big. You have too much cellulite. And good Lord, whatever you do don’t lean over! Your three child stomach skin will hang down like elephant ears.”

My sensuality fights to stay present, in front of me.

On the beach, I study other woman from other places like Brazil and Atlanta. I watch them move in tiny bathing suits with bellies and thighs and bosoms that are the complete opposite of the waif thin I think I should be. And I watch the sensuality float around them, magnifying their sexiness.

I want that. I want to dip myself in it. I want to be amplified. I want to see what Art saw in my body. He didn’t see the stretch marks, cellulite, the wrinkled belly, or the saggy small breasts.

All he saw in that single minded male way was a woman, who he loved with breast that were just right, with a belly that was curvy in all the right places, soft, expressive and holy delicious to look at, to kiss, to stroke.

With those thoughts, Sadness creeps in. There is a man on this trip that I’m interested in. It will be a one night stand. And suddenly standing next to this man, I am lost, not sure how to do this or even if I want to. I am scared I will do something “wrong.” I am still splayed open. I feel unattractive and needy and fuck….vulnerable.

It is here that I see for now, I am trapped between my dead husband and a world that is out there. A world I see and occasionally venture into but for most of the time it waits for me to figure out how I want to engage in it.

And with that, the sensuality is gone. I am a widow. A scared, lost, confused widow. Not sure what to do or how to do it.

I've been here before. I'll figure it out.

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Ugly and Forgiveness

This is post from March 26, 2010
I've been going back to find myself, to ground this experience, to find a way to mark the growth, the good changes and all the challenges I have overcome.
I'm been going back to find courage.
This is what the post said.
-------

“He’s in our thoughts and prayers.”

“We are sending a blanket of love.”

Those are words I read today about a boy, who like Art is

battling his second round of cancer.

He’s doing a better job than Art did

and I’m NOT doing a better job at begin gracious.

Instead, when I read those words of love

And support

Ms. Cynic thinks

“Save your breath!”

“Those good thoughts and prayers

Don’t work.

If they did,

I wouldn’t be writing this column.”

Silly, stupid, people.

-------

That boy died earlier morning on Friday, March 26.

The grief sucked me down its whirlpool, shame followed

And anger was fast on its heels.

Only this time, I bobbed to the surface

Before I got too much water up my nose.

The whirlpool didn’t take me down as far and I am not as disoriented.

I cry because I know where his mom will go.

I know the journey of loss

and the idea of someone I know walking it

Makes me scream myself raw

and punch trees

and crumble to the floor and say

“Why her? Why her?”

Brooks….I’m sorry.

I wanted those silly, stupid people to be right.

I really wish they had been right.

-----

I re-read these words and at first, I feel shame

and then oddly

it is followed by forgiveness.

In the wake of the last few months

I have learned to forgive myself.

To forgive myself for:

not calling his doctor sooner,

for not convincing him to try alternative treatments

for not singing to him the moment he died

for not being too tired on Saturday to visit him so I could have alerted the doctors sooner

for not waiting to hold the memorial service so our friends from across the country could attend

for not kissing him on the lips after he died

for not staying in bed for days and days and days like I really think I should have

for not playing the widow part good enough

for not being more loving to him when he was around the last few months

for not being kinder to stupid people

for trying so hard to please all those around because somehow I felt their attention was unworthy

for it all

for crying too much or not crying enough

for my anger

for....

the list goes on.

In his death, I found my humanity and my imperfections.

In his death, I have discovered that it's not my fault.

In his death, I have discovered myself.

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The New Road

some where on the I-5 in CA heading south

862 miles

14 hours in the car

in two days
.
Less actually, because we left at 
1:00 pm on Friday
 and got back tonight (Saturday) at 7:00 pm.



It started with a casual comment.
"Hey, you guys wanna go to Sacramento to the State Championship Basketball games for the boys and the girls varsity teams?" I asked my kids on Tuesday.



"Sure." came their reply, unaware of the weight their casualness carried. 



The plan?
Drive to San Francisco, (387 miles) stay over night with Art's cousin.
Get up early the next morning and drive to Sacramento (91 miles).
Watch two basketball games, then drive home (384 miles).

The motivation is simple and clear.
It would be fun and
I think I can do it.


862 miles in 30 hours.

Crazy talk.


Overwhelming talk.


Why-didn't-someone-talk-me-out-of-it? talk.



Only this time, I notice, I'm on a new road.



It's unfamiliar.


It makes me grin.



The road is called SPONTANEITY!

 And I’m diggin' its slickness, its sense of adventure, its well-what-the-heckness, its I-can-handle-an-unplanned-event confidence.


Two years ago, I could not have done this.
Last year I could not have done this.
4 months ago, I could not have done this.
Today, I smirk.
I did it.


Spontaneity powers my grin.

Forgiveness powers my spontaneity. 


Death powers the forgiveness.

Because after his death,


after the grief lifts for longer and longer periods of time,
I see that …

grief
didn’t
kill me
(although I was sure it would).

I notice that...
I didn’t
cry
myself
to death
(although I tried).

I realize that...
the next day
kept
showing up
(although I doubted it would come again).

I grasp that ...
life went on,
but
yes,
yes
it
got
better.

I have faced loss,
painful,
excruciating loss
and
I’m still hear.

Did you hear me??????

I'M STILL HERE!!!!!

Nothing will be as hard as those moments.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G!!!!

In the realization comes freedom.

Spontaneity is my new road and I’m driving it, baby, on cruise control because
I
have
been
to hell
and
I’m
back.



On Thursday, a friend texted me and asked
“Do you want to go see Lady Gaga on Monday? VIP seats!”

As if I need VIP seats as an incentive!

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The Ghost of Art

I read one of his journals today.
I read it because
I sold
our bed,
in three hours.

I had to empty out his bedside table (they went too) before the guy came to pick it up.

Later, as I try to decide where
a mattress
on a floor would look best,
in MY room,
I get side tracked
and sift through
the box of stuff from the bedside tables. I sit down, pick up a journal and read.

It starts in June 1995, 6 months after we had been married.

I recognize his early fear of not being strong enough for us. I recognize my young self, but from his eyes. It is a refreshing and slightly embarrassing view. I am soften. I want to reach in and back and hug him and tell him it will all be ok.

The journal gives me a memory of things I had forgotten. He records our bike trips, the time he got fired from his job as a basketball coach. He records his fear and excitement about my pregnancy…and his amazement at how I just want to eat all the time. He records our trip to Paris and every single place we visit. He records his disappointment at work and his deep disappointment for his parent’s reactions. He records his love for me.

He records the good advice I gave him, calling it “another good thing Kim said..”

When I open his journal
I did not expect to see him,
Rising, like a ghost.
But he is no longer clear.
He is like mist.
I can see him if I stand still or far enough away from this life.
But up close, he looses his definition.

Reading that journal brought him back to me but not in a full form.

My life is past him, and here in this life 702 days away from loss,
I can only see traces of him.

It’s strange because I see
the idea of him, of Art,
doesn’t fit in this new place,
in this bedroom with no bed.

I could not be who I have become if he were here.

It’s almost like another death. A quieter
More gentle death
As I move forward, I leave him behind
In the mist
As a ghost.

Tonight
I will lie on the mattress,
on the floor and cry,
for him, for me
for how I am leaving him,
and for all the good things I have
become since he has gone.

That is what needs to happen
So I can find a new bed.

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Tired

I’m tired of being a widow.
I’m tired of bringing the car to the mechanic when the red maintenance light visually screams at me.
I’m tired of running out of food and being responsible for getting more.
I’m tired of waking up by myself.
I’m tired of being solely responsible for:

Bringing in all the income
Paying all the bills
Making sure the kitchen is clean.
Preparing the kids for their car pool.


I’m tired of not hearing “Daddy?”
I’m tired of hearing “Mom?” from three different voices in 13 seconds.
I’m tired of being interrupted while I am trying to hear what the first "mom" yeller (or was it the second) call was about.

I’m tired of telling people I’m a widow.
I’m tired of using it to help me get what I need
Or don’t need (like that traffic ticket).
I’m tired of the look that people give me when they find out I’m a widow.
I’m tired of that fucking gentle touch on the arm which really means “I’m so sorry for you and I’m so glad it’s not me.”
I'm tired of my widow story.

I’m tired of explaining that widowhood is not all doom and gloom
I’m tired of talking about the growth, the joy, the fun it is too.

I’m tired of going to teacher conferences alone.
I’m tired of teachers asking me to do that one more thing for one child or another, not realizing that it will break me.
I’m tired of taking the kids to doctor’s appointments, dropping off the prescriptions and picking them up and administering them by myself.

I’m tired of listening for that horrible cough in the middle of the night by myself.

I’m tired of holding our children as they cry because they want you to come back.
I’m tired of my powerlessness to fix it.
I’m tired of telling myself that they will be better people for your death.

I’m tired of my over reaction to the Legos on the floor.

I’m tired of not knowing what will trigger sobbing.

I'm tired of the guilt I feel because Langston, as a teenager, doesn't have a father.

I’m tired of being awed by all that they are doing and then, in the next breath regretting that they won’t ever know the joy of looking up and seeing you smile at them after they did it.

I’m tired of the irritated sound of my friend's voices when I need to talk.

I’m tired of the shallow “OMG! You look so great!” as if there is a direct correlation between looking good and feeling good.

I’m tired of admiring my body…by myself.

I’m tired of deciding to: break the cell phone contract, buy a new couch, and enter that cycling race with you not here to discuss it.

I’m tired of being lonely.

I’m tired of writing about widowhood
I’m tired of crying.
I’m tired of missing you.
I’m tired of loving the person I have become since you have been gone.

I’m tired of forgetting, in very brief moments, that you are dead.

I’m tired of planning each day, a closely choreographed dance, with dancers who want to go their own way on a tiny stage.
I tired of remembering drinks for the team, that Langston is sleeping over at ___'s house, that Ezra needs cleats and what color Pallas wants to paint her room.
I’m tired of asking:

What is your homework plan?
Did you write that thank you note?
Will his parents be home?

I’m tired of forgiving myself for the missed phone calls, forgotten plans and skipped lunches.

I’m tired of fearing dates:
6 months,
1 year and now
two years dead.
Your birthday or
Langston’s or
Ezra’s or Pallas’s.
Or mine.

I’m tired of discovering that the reason I have been feeling so crappy for so many days is because I have been in a death march (Susan, such a great and accurate phrase!) because one of those dates is coming.

I’m tired of crying in Trader Joes (I am sure they are too).

I’m tired for trying to remember if something occurred before you died or after.

I’m tired of looking forward to the weekend, only to realize the weekends offer no break from the kids, from the grocery shopping, from being an only parent.

I’m tired of the men I date not even trying to understand what it is to be an only parent, not just a single one!

I’m tired of not having someone to tag team with.

I’m tired of not having anyone to look horrible in front of but still be loved.

I’m tired of your parents who can’t take ONE damn step out of their comfort zone to see your children.

I'm tired of hearing them say how important family is but backing it up with NO action whatsoever.

I’m tired of not having someone to talk about the car or the stupid pedestrian I almost hit on my bike ride today.

I’m tired of having no one to discuss my day with.
I’m tired of thinking about the energy and time it takes to get into a new relationship.

I’m tired of craving sex.
I’m tired of wanting to be held, of needing to be touched.
I'm tired of wondering if my sagging breasts are a turn off.
I'm tired of wondering if I'm good in bed.
I'm tired of waiting to have sex.
I'm tired of wondering if I can give a good blow job.
I'm tired of worrying about diseases!

I’m tired of wanting someone to take care of me, so I can have the energy to take care of everything and everyone else.

I’m tired of clean sheets and a clean body and no one to enjoy them with.

I’m tired of wishing I could see you just one more time, just one more fucking time, healthy.

I’m tired of watching the anguish in our kid’s eyes as they miss you.

I’m tired of writing about you.
I’m tired of talking about you.
I’m tired of telling stories about you to our kids so they can know you.

I’m tired.
I am so, so, so fucking tired.

So honey?
When the fuck are you coming back? Cause I’m tired of this shit.

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Get the BLEEP Away from Me!!

Take your hands off of me!

I said get away from me!

Only you don't understand it cause the words that are coming from my mouth are...

"Damn it, L! How many times do I need to tell you to pick up, wipe off, clean up your _____ (insert typical mother rant hear.)

I CAN NOT DO THIS ALONE!" I yell.

Really wanting to throttle him,

to give my hands something to do

with rage,

disappointment,

anger,

hopelessness,

and trapped-ness.

Art Nagle! Damn you, Art Nagle!

You were supposed to be here!

I picked you!

I am not supposed to be doing this alone.

Damn you! Damn you! Damn you for dying!

And damn me for only having two arms, two legs, two ears and one over-wrought tired and lonely brain!

I scream, "Death sucks!" and I slam the door.

I cry.

And then later, I pick up and keep moving forward.

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The Smell

I didn’t mean to.
I was only trying to help
To help him
Because he missed you so much.

He was in your closet.
He came out and said,
“It doesn’t smell like Daddy anymore.”

He looked so sad.
He looked so forlorn.

So I showed him my secret.
Your cap.
The one I have kept folded up
Tight
In a Ziplock bag,
Stashed
in my bedside table.

I unzipped it.
We both inhaled.
It smelled like you.

And then his face crumbled.
Mirroring mine, I think

Your smell.
Your smell reminding us,
Of how it no longer surrounds us,
How we can’t take it for granted.
How it is no longer part of the background of our lives
How it is fading.

We didn’t remember what you smelled like
Till that moment.

And after we remembered
Me and Ezra,
Ezra and I,
Sat on the floor
Sobbing like ….

The people we are
A wife,
A son,
Missing you.

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Emergency

Ever since
April 16, 2009
I have struggled
with
what name to put
in the blank space
that says

In Case of Emergency

I loathe that blank space.
It reminds me
no one will love my kids
as ferociously,
as tenderly,
as fully
as Art did.

It makes me
want to go
back
to
bed.

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Another

I had a conversation yesterday with another widow.
Sorry, a widower
He wanted to meet me after his sister, a friend, showed him my black widow photo.

It was a conversation that felt good, connected and real.
It was a conversation with laughter and head nodding (which he didn’t see cause we were on the phone.)
It was a conversation of understanding.

It was a conversation of “Oh!! ME TOO!”
It was a conversation of faith.
It was a conversation of regret.
It was a conversation of courage and hope.

It was a conversation that made me sad.
It was a conversation that afterwards made me cry
For all that we have both lost.
It was a conversation that made me sigh for all that we have gained.

It was a conversation that reminds me that with pain comes wisdom
and hope
and profound tenderness.

It was a conversation that reminded me that while I didn’t want this life, I am moved by it
and
odd enough
grateful for it.

Grateful because I can have a conversations with a widower and recognize my inspiring journey in his words.

I can’t wait to talk to him again.

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Death Sucks

I was wearing this t-shirt the other day.

It was a "you think your life is bad, I dare you to try mine" day.

I was feeling righteous.

I was feeling mad.

I was feeling "How dare you world go on and leave me here, in this life, struggling today to just do enough.

How dare you!"

I was willing to take it out on any poor sap who dared comment about death sucking.

So I put on the t-shirt, hoping that one person would comment,

would open their mouth and say

"Life can't be that bad." or something that would let me tell them

how bad my life was at the moment.

And then I saw her.

This young woman.

She made eye contact

and came towards me, purposefully.

I rehearsed my lines in my head.

She smiled.

She leaned into me, gently holding my arm and said

"I'm so glad you are wearing that t-shirt. I sometimes think I am the only one who truly believes that Jesus will rise again. Death does suck and that's why it does not happen to the believers. God bless you."

I give her a faint smile.

I nod.

I leave the grocery story.

I
laugh
all the way home.

I take off the shirt.

My death suckiness day having come to an abrupt end.

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On a Four Star Floor

Written on Thursday, January 13, 2011 during my two day break from the kids.

I’m sitting on the floor of a four star hotel (paid for with Amex points)
I’m crying
and
I can’t seem to stop.

This is not how I wanted this break to go.
I wanted it to be about rejuvenation and rest and self-love.

Instead it feels, right now, like it’s about not enoughness and loss and fucking grief.

It feels like it's about transition and learning.

It feels like there will be no peace from the hole, the void, the confusion that has placed me on the floor of this four star hotel.

I got this email from a client, someone who should have never been a client.
She is upset with how I am working with her. I take her criticism and turn it global. I smear it all over my body.

I become
what is wrong,
instead of just my wrong action.

After two glasses of wine,
I send a bit cocky email to a guy who I like.
This afternoon, I reread it and am amazed how there is no gentleness or softness, something I like to be, I need to be, I like to be with him.

I layer that mistake on top of the one I made with my client.

I become all things bad.

And then I open up my web browser
And I see
a photo of
Christina Green’s brother (Tuscon shootings)
wiping tears away.

I stand up, sobbing.
I pace the floor.
I walk over to the window, back to the hotel door.
Then without knowing that I am doing it,
I am on my knees on the floor,
hands covering my face, forehead leaning of the floor.

I laugh for a moment, I have spent a lot of time on floors this past one year and 8 months!

And I think:
How is it I’m grieving again?
How is it that the sobs can come from a place so deep I forget it exists?

I think:
I don’t’ want this life.

I think:
This is just too hard

The kids, the dating
The business

I think:
I want it all to be easy
Because after what I have been through,

I think I deserve easy.

I want easy.

I desire easy.

I think:
Easy
is not
what this is!

One sob out, a slower breath in and I remember,
it’s not them.
It’s not what they do or say or what I write or the photo I saw that leave me on the floor.

It’s that I have forgotten
I am still a well-functioning

raw nerve.

The emotions from Art’s death are just a short dig, a disappointed client, a stupid email, a photograph away.

When will I stop being so sensitive?



Maybe that’s the
wrong
question. Maybe the question is:

When will I just give into the sensitivity and learn to embrace it?

I think

it’s what

makes me real.

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All I Can Be Is Who I Am

Pallas was assigned this book in school. I would read sections of it to her. The first time I read the section below out loud, I could not finish it. I was sobbing as Pallas watched me curiously. Mau had put into words the way I feel about being a widow.

I hope you will read the entire quote for nothing I have read has fully encompassed what widowhood means to me than this single paragraph.

Back story: Mau’s entire family and village are wiped by a wave. The wave also shipwrecks Daphne (ghost girl). As the days go on, survivors from neighboring islands arrive. Mau and Daphne (both approximately age 12) find themselves in charge of building new lives for themselves and this new nation.

From Nation by Terry Pratchett

Daphne asks, “Would you go back? If you could?”

“How can I answer you? There is no language. There was a boy called Mau. I see him in my memory, so proud of himself because he was going to be a man. He cried for his family and turned the tears into rage. And if he could, he would say “Did not happen!” and the wave would roll backward and never have been. But there is another boy, and he is called Mau too. And his head is on fire with new things. What does he say? He was born in the wave, and he knows that the world is round and he met a ghost girl….. He called himself the little blue hermit crab, scuttling across the sand in search of a new shell, but now he looks at the sky and knows that no shell will ever be big enough, ever. Will you ask him not to be? Any answer will be the wrong one. All I can be is who I am.”

There was a woman and her name was Kim.

I see her in my memory and she is a fairly happy person and she has a husband and three children and dreams of being “somebody.’ She cried for her husband when he died and couldn’t see how she could live with such great loss in her life. She would say “I can’t do this.” She would wish her husband alive, make bargains in order to bring him back. And would spend long periods of time wondering around her house, functioning but unable to think or move without her husband. She wondered how she was going to get through the day.

There is another woman named Kim too. And her mind and life are on fire! She says “OMG! I can do so much and I feel so happy!” She was born in her husband’s death. She sees his death as his last gift to her. She has discovered herself and her courage. She sees that life is full of hope and fun and new things. She sees her abilities are growing and she discovers new ones too.

Can I ask her not to be? All I can be is who I am.

I spent the last moments of 2010 making a list of all the things that I am grateful for in that year. In contrast, I spent the last few moments in 2009 (the year my husband died), praying/hoping/begging God to make 2010 better. I gave 2009 the finger as I stepped into 2010.

I gave 2010 a sweet kiss and hug as I stepped into 2011. I cannot go back. And I cannot ask me not to be, either. The old me and the new me make up this me whose potential I am quiet excited about.

If you are new to this journey, if you don’t know how you will make it, know you don’t have to know.

None of us knew.

I still don’t at times.

But there is one thing I do know, the pain does not last. It comes less frequently and with every time, every cry, every longing, I find nuggets of courage and light.

In 2010, I discovered my strength, my courage and my ability to handle adversity. It was not pretty and yet I stand here before you in my newly discovered inner beauty.

And by jove (I have always wanted to use that saying!) if I can get here, so can you.

Welcome to 2011! May you marvel and celebrate your strength!!

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Wonder Woman Again

On Tuesday night, I went on a second date

dressed as

Wonder Woman.

I know...right?!

The back story: We tried to get together and then he was making cracks via email about how busy I am and then he asked if I was out saving the world, or something like that.

He made a joke about my invisible airplane. His last comment to me before we met was "Don't forget your cape!"

And like someone shoving me in the chest, I reacted. I thought "I'm gonna wear my Wonder Woman costume."

Wonder Woman

I bought the outfit in 2006 one month after Art was diagnosed with cancer during his first battle.

I wanted to be a queen that year until Langston, then age 9, pointed out the Wonder Woman costume and said "Mom, you should be this!" I laughed as I paid for it at the register.

Art almost fell over when I met him at the door after he was being escorted home from a chemo treatment.

My friends thought it was the best costume .... EVER.

And then I put it way.

And then, three years later Art died.

So on Tuesday, I'm sitting outside a wine bar, in my car, dressed as a blonde Wonder Woman. And I'm on the phone talking to a widow friend of mine.

"This is stupid." I say.

"No it's not Kim. It's who you are. You are Wonder Woman!"

I take it in.

I feel my superpower rising.

She is right.

I am Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman is back, I think.

Wonder Woman with the faults that do not make her weak but actually make her strong.

Wonder Woman is real.

Wonder Woman has been who I have been all this time, since the moment he was diagnosed to this moment, one year and 8 months after his death.

I realize Wonder Woman is back.

I wear it to meet this guy who is laughing so hard he can't talk for a moment.

I stand there laughing too because he enjoys the joke so much, because I had the balls to say "Fuck it" again and show up in a costume for a second date.

The next day I am laughing because he has written out the lyrics to the Wonder Woman theme song and sent them to me and... he asked me to accompany him to a Christmas party.

He likes Wonder Woman.

The costume will not go back in the Halloween box.

It will stay with me, in my closet so that

I can remember

that Art's death

has brought back

Wonder Woman.

It's nice to see her again.

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Exhaustion

Exhaustion runs through me

so thoroughly

that I am sure my body now uses it

in place of 30% of my blood.

I can't think.

Eating feels too strenuous

unless I can rip open a bag.

And then if I do,

what I eat is so tasteless

that I end up spitting it out

into the garbage.

Why bother making the effort to chew that crap.

I look haggard,

drawn,

tight.

My skin does not reflect exuberance

but looks more like a pond that has not been drained

properly, murky, unclear and blachy.

I know that I am killing myself.

Not by over dosing on pills,

or alcohol

but by just running at this pace,

the pace of a young,hustling widow

with kids.

I know it needs to stop,

or my body will stop me.

And then I will be made to rest

in a hospital

and it will be a fitful, uneasy rest

because even there

I will be making the ever changing priority list

of things that NEED to get done.

So as I crawl into bed, faced with

the prospect of getting

8 hours of sleep, instead of the 5 I can't exist on

I promise myself that I will

let

the

list

lie.

I promise that I will stretch in the morning.

I promise that I will use the damn massage

gift certificate that was

sent to me

(anonymously)

over a year ago.

(This person took the time to send me several of them! So I better damn use them. THANK YOU whoever you are.)

I promise to refill the well with water by

sleeping

and eating

and doing nothing

nothing

nothing

for at least 30 minutes a day.

He would be proud of me for all of my promises.

He used to say

"What? Do you think you'll finally

get everything done on your list?

You will die with a to-do list so

stop worrying about it so much."

He died with his to-do list

and the biggest thing that is going

undone

is me.

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Value Added

I said good bye to this guy a few days ago. Actually what I said was, “Let's just call this what it seems to have turned into, a friendship.…”

I did it in an an email cause I tried to break it off once before over the phone and I moronically then asked him if he wanted a second chance (I KNOW!!! I KNOW…not my finest moment in the newly learning-to-date world.)

I hit send, then slammed my fist into the table.

Then my head.

And then the stupid fucking tears started

I was so mad at thim.

Why did he not see my value?

Why did he keep stringing me along?

And then I went “Huh.”

as I lifted my head and swiped

at my tears with my hand.

I see my value.

That’s why I sent the email.

I see that as much as a cliché as it is, life is to short to be treated poorly or to try to GET anyone to like me.

And I see that in letting him go

Another will come. I can feel him coming now, like a tug in my gut.

In letting this one go, I opened the door for another one to enter.

I got into my car whistling.

There is beauty in Art’s death.

The beauty is that I am here

Alone, without him

And I see

I

have

value

And the value feels added, like something I didn’t have before.

In this new life, I realize now, it wasn’t having Art that gave me value (like I had thought).

It was who he loved that gave me value.

And he loved me.

All my opinionated, brilliant, sometime off the wall ideas.

He loved my hearty laugh and hated the way I would interrupt him.

He loved how quick I was and how much I appreciated his amazing brilliance.

He loved how when we argued and we would switch sides.

He hated my ability to chill him with just one look

And he loved the way I kissed.

But it was not his love that made me valuable.

It was his acceptance of me that made me see my value.

And now it wasn’t until he was gone,

that I really saw how much he loved me.

Anyway, I’m in my car singing after the head banging and the crying.

And I’m singing loudly and quite well, thank you very much,

Because in his death I discovered my value.

And it feels like value added.

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