june 1.
i don't know why it gets me every time but i feel pretty sad today...
i have said, lately, to my friends that i know i give these days more power than they really need to have. my person told me that it's okay to have a few sad days...as long as it's only a few.
this month holds so many dates.
our first date.
our first anniversary.
my birthday.
our last brewer game.
our last photo.
the last time i laid eyes on his beautiful face.
the last time he held me.
told me i was going to be okay.
so many new beginnings and hopeful adventures that were at our finger tips.
so it's true. when you have the chance, you need to tell people how you feel....
because it's been 1803 days of loving someone in another universe when i didn't choose it.
and while most days that's entirely okay.....some days, like today, it takes my breath away.
how has it been that long?
some days it feels like it's been 18 minutes.
i am reminded that grief is a never ending cycle.
for example, on friday i went to see body worlds and i expected that i might be grossed out....instead, i felt my heart break when we got to the lungs. the autopsy showed his lungs looked like that of someone who had emphysema and a heavy smoker even though he never smoked a day in his life....and there i was, staring my husband's killer in the face. instead of crying, i processed. slowly.....but it stopped me in my tracks. i'd seen it in books. i've read that report a half a dozen times. but i never knew what it really looked like. and there they were....staring me in the face....the only thing separating me from those sad looking organs was a piece of glass....and i wondered what it felt like when he couldn't breathe that day and i was up here while he was downstairs. i wondered if it hurt. i hoped it was fast. i wondered, again, if i could have done more....and finally, i accepted that God knew better than i. but i won't lie...i'm still trying to let go of that sight. it's not that i didn't think i wouldn't see them. it's that i had no idea that something like that could still level me....take the wind out of my sails...and remind me to take stock in the many people and relationships in my life--a lesson i never expected to get from plasticized organs.
i have been blessed to be surrounded by the most beautiful people. so many of them don't know chris but there are the few who knew us when i was still this girl who believed and saw the best in everyone and everything. i was so different then...naive...hopeful...optimistic...and entirely sure that the world was created for me to paint it every color of the rainbow. i've changed so much....and i look at photos of myself before the bottom dropped out and i cannot recognize her. i miss her some days....the way she saw things...the way she gave of herself without fear.....now i've grown more cynical and jaded....and i cannot find those rose colored glasses anywhere.
but that's the thing about grief...it changes you. here i am, nearly five years later....and i still have rough days. while they come less and less, i still have them. they still exist and they still take me to my knees.
because even when you put all the bad stuff away in a box, that lid doesn't stay shut forever. sometimes it opens and you never saw it coming. and sometimes you were fully prepared and it hurt more anyway.
this month is the hardest....i am so good at putting aside all of these emotions for 11 other months but not this one....not the moments where i touched him in his casket and felt tissue paper because they stuffed his chest with it since they had to break his ribs and clavicle for the autopsy.....not the moments where i gave a eulogy in a packed church and forgot that i wasn't the only one in the room....or the moment i knelt beside his casket because it was literally the last time i'd physically be in church with him ever again....or the moment my best friend walked in the hospital and i knew right then that this wasn't a dream because of the look on her face...or the moment when a dozen people piled onto my couches and watched my wedding videos with me right after i planned a funeral....or the moment when one of my very best friends slept on an air mattress with me in the living room for weeks because i needed him right there.....or the worst moment...when i found him and knew it was over before i ever had a chance to save him.
so today i'm sad....because i know what's coming.....i know right where i am...and i know that you have to hurt to heal.....
and even though i know it's coming, it doesn't bring me much comfort. even though i've been here four other times, each time is different....because i'm different.
believe me, i know this is a depressing read thus far....but you have to know also that i'm stronger than i ever thought i could be. that getting out of bed today was hard but i did it....i told myself that 848 am was a long enough pity party and i had to get up. just get out of that bed.
and i did.
so you must know that my heart is more resilient than even i ever knew.
i just have hard days.
and i always will.
whether or not someone walks into my life again....and believe me, i hope that he does.
and it doesn't mean i'm not okay or that i'm broken.
it means something awful happened to me once. it means i lost everything once. and when you lose it all you don't soon forget what that feels like. not after 5 years or i'd imagine even after 15.
but i do know that i was loved beyond belief....even if it was for a very short time. i carry it with me always...you can't see it...there are no physical scars...you wouldn't know it by looking at me...but it's always here....
and that, friends, is why every june 1 makes my heart beat a little faster...it's all part of riding the waves. the tide will go out soon....i am certain of it.
until then, i'll just keep swimming.
No comments :
Post a Comment