stuck

I get out of bed for her.
I keep breathing for her.
I go to sleep for her.
I continue this existence.
I can't believe I've gone back to where I was.  That place of empty, the place where I don't sleep or move forward.  I just exist.  It's been 13 months and 20 days, I've moved backward like it was day 20.  When nothing was left to do, to keep me busy.  On day 20 you were closer, my memories were sharper.  Now you're so much farther away.  I'm in a fog, I don't want to sleep yet my body craves it, I just want to sit here and write or distract myself on social media.

The me that lives without you, I've been slowly carving out the detail of that person.  This work in progress is stuck right now and I don't know how to continue.  Maybe I'm scared.  I know I'm tired.  You always understood me, even before I finished expressing my thought.
 I miss you handsome man and I love you so.

take care

I'm in a funk and having trouble getting out.  The emptiness, the hollow, the dark is back, I just can't.

Just me

The other day I forgot to put my ring on, I didn't realize until I was out the door and down the street.  When I came home I still didn't put it back on.  I haven't put it back on yet.  I've been thinking about it quite a bit.  I still wear your ring around my neck where it dangles near my heart.

If I ever forgot to put my ring on before you were sick, I felt naked and knew something was missing.  You're not missing, you're gone.  If anything, part of me is missing, I'm learning to live life with that missing piece, with that hole in my heart.  Maybe that's why I still wear your ring so close to my heart.  You never took it off, in the shower, asleep, swimming, it was part of you.  Of course you were forced to take it off for medical procedures, but as soon as you were able it was right back on that finger.  The last time you took it off was for the 8 hour full body MRI.  You gave it to me to hold, I put it on a chain and wore it around my neck.  I was ready to give it back to you when you woke up.  You were in so much pain.  That ring never went back on you finger and I still wear it around my neck.  Sometimes I put my own finger through it.

Your Princess is angry, she's angry with all the daughters that have fathers, with me because I had you for more than eight years, because I was there at the last moments of your life, because I still have my Dad.

I'm doing the best I can.  I've finally realized that our parenting style is very different than my parenting style.  Being part of a team is so much easier than doing this solo.  I'm finally starting to accept that it's OK  I do things differently.  I'm not you and I'm not us, I'm just me.

I love you handsome man, take care.

for me

I did something for me.  

Da mi basia mille

This phrase is for me.  It's from a poem you chose to have read at your funeral, but it's more to me than just words spoken at your memorial.  You included this phrase in a note you wrote to me so many years ago, a note I only just rediscovered.  The day in the hospital when the pain became too much you asked me to read poetry to you.  I love you handsome man. take care.   

Catullus 5

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus

Rumoresque senum severiorum

Omnes unius aestimemus assis.

Soles occidere et redire possunt;

Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,

Nox est perpetua una dormienda.

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,

Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum;

Dein cum milia multa fecerimus

Conturbabimus illa ne sciamus

Aut ne quis malus invidere possit

Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum

-- c. 55 B.C.

Translation:

May we live, my darling, and may we love,

And may we consider all the gossips of our dour elders,

Worth but a red cent.

The sun may sink and return again,

But for us, whenever our brief light fades,

Night is an unwaking slumber.

Give me a thousand kisses,

Then a hundred,

Then another thousand,

Then yet another hundred,

Then a thousand, and then a hundred, on and on,

And then – when we have made many thousands,

We shall scatter them, lest we know their number,

Or lest someone spiteful should scorn us,

When it is known how great were our kisses.