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.

the old is gone and this is my new

I just realized I am no longer a wife.  I wear my wedding ring every day & yours around my neck.  The new category I was forced into last year took away my title, my identity as your wife.  More reality.  Harsh reality.  I hate this reality.  No longer wife.  The air has been knocked out of me, here comes the fog.  I will close my eyes now.

love you handsome man.

take care

past tense

He lay in the bed day after day

Unable to survive in May

Lung cancer will pay

   --- written by your princess

Our daughter is 9 and she has vowed to "destroy lung cancer"

I try to be as supportive as I can and encourage her.  I also reassure her that if she changes her mind and does not want be a researcher that's ok.  She also feels like she has to like everything you liked.  She's having trouble in school with a subject that you excelled in, I can see herself beating her self up because she's not doing well and she does not like it.  I've told her it's ok, she doesn't have to like everything Daddy liked.  

As I sit here and read what I just wrote I guess I'm finally starting to use the past tense.  I haven't done that before, it makes me sad and a little ashamed. I suppose subconsciously I'm accepting you are the past and no longer my future.  There is a battle between my soul and the part of my brain that is analytical.  I'm struggling to let go of the pain, but the pain is what helps me remember you so vividly.  It's hard to find a happy medium, it's hard to find a happy anything really.  It's either a great day (usually because I'm busy at work) & not all of my thoughts are of you or it's just a horrendous day and everywhere I look or everything I see reminds me of you.  

Today was different, I would say it was 55% busy/great and 45% grief.  I don't know if that's a good or bad or nothing at all.  Tomorrow is a day off from work and I don't know which way the balance will tip.  

I love you handsome man, and that will never ever be past tense. 

take care, 

Waiting

Waiting.  We did lots of that my love.  Waiting to hear your name called, the ever privacy compliant Richard S.  We would go back together, wait for the blood draw, wait for the doctor, wait while the promise of your future slowly drips into your system.  We were always together.  Even when I couldn't be there in the same room as your scan I would be there, toward the end I would undress you and help you into those fashionable gowns, and when you were through I would help you dress again.  We would sit and just be together, you were ready to go and waiting for your turn to enter the room with the machine to tell our future.  In the beginning I would be out in the waiting room, you would dress yourself in that sexy gown and I would wait and listen to the quiet of the waiting room.  I still remember that Friday night in May.  We knew it was cancer but didn't know where.  I sat in that room waiting and worrying.  That was just the beginning.  I will be in that same waiting room.

I'm sure you remember in October, waiting in that room.  I was in having a more detailed mammogram because the first showed something unfamiliar.  You were sitting in that waiting room & I could just see the tension and worry in your whole body.  I had results before I came out to see you, I gave you a smile and a nod from the doorway I entered and the relief and tears just flooded your face.  You hugged me so tight & we left that waiting room hand in hand.

Nearly a year later, you had been gone seven months & I did the waiting on my own.  A growth was found on an ovary and it was being monitored.  I went to the same building where you had your treatments and took the elevator up to have an ultrasound.  This would determine if the growth was stable and therefore not a concern or if there was further growth.  I went in that building, I hadn't been in there since I was there with you.  There were no results before I left and there was no you sitting waiting for me to come out.  There was just me taking the elevator down and staring at the oncology office as I exited the building.  All my thoughts were of our little girl.  Relief and tears hit me as I read the electronic notification of the all clear. I did not have to return to that building, to that office on the first floor.

Here I am, you've been gone one year and seven days.  I'll be waiting once again.  I'll go to that waiting room where the machine determined your fate, we waited for 43 hours.  The phone rang on Mothers Day and we had our answer.

I love you handsome man.

take care,