Vault

Long day at work......Huge success at the 11th hour placing an unplaceable patient, tired but happy. I offer the PT a ride home, with a caveat that he would have to stop at the grocery store first as I am having a party for Mac---he is engaged. Doogie (the PT) doesn't know Mac but he is happy for a ride to the train even though it involves a trip to the grocery store first!
He is a happy person and it is infectious, he runs up and down the isles expediting my list, milk, pie crust garlic. all missed with the first pass through all brought by Steve (his real name)
I drop him off at the depot and go home to cook. I admire the kitchen, and I start, wild rice in , veggies chopped
I decide to turn on the vault after all we will need music tomorrow, more than just my tinny radio,
I actually manage to turn on the vault,hit the TV and the receivers....what to play?
Jim has it all alphabetized different than Chris....so I pick an "A" Aaron Neville, he is first in the list....
I hit on and it plays in the back room,but not in the front, i tweak the knobs til I hear it in the front I move to the front room and I hear it.... the music, it fills the house.
All of a sudden I crack,I crumble. the music is loud, it fills all the empty spaces in the house.
I haven't played music in so long it overwhelms me. This is a gift from Chris.
I lose it, I sob I hold onto the door jamb between the two rooms. I realize what I have lost and it cuts through me. It hurts. I feel like I am being split into two.
I love Aaron Neville and his music has always been so beautiful to me and now I am overwhelmed. I can barely hang on to the door jamb, I am crying, screaming and sobbing.....there are no words just sheer and raw pain, like a wounded animal wanting to be killed I cry until i can't cry anymore.....

long way home

late again leaving work at the Cape Ann hospital (still leery of Big Brother so I won't name it here. driving home or to my next shift at my other job. I have 3 clients yet to see, something that would never happen if Chris were alive, I would be heading home to make dinner, enjoy a meal and some AI with my husband. It strikes me that I can't remember what that feels like. I try to pretend he is home or that he will be home. what did I think while driving all those nights when he was alive. What was happening a year ago? I do remember thinking about the possibility that someday I WOULD be doing what it is I am doing now. Driving home as a widow, alone to an empty house. I chastised myself then, if you think it will make it happen, I hated myself for going there in my head, but it was like biting a sore tooth, you can't stop....or at least I can't. I imagined the loneliness and emptiness.I imagined being able to go to the second job after the first, not having to cook dinner, not having anyone to kiss at the end of the day, not having anyone to even know that I made it home after a snowy night.
Why oh why, then can't I remember the real feelings of going home every night to all that love that Chris had for me? What was I thinking on this stretch of 128? What to make for dinner? What we would watch on TV? Looking forward to hearing about his day and telling him about mine. Having a warm and open presence.....just someone who got me, loved me and lived for me.
So so easy for me to slip in the " this is what it will feel like when he is dead" mode when he was alive, than to feel the memory of what it was like to drive home to him when he was alive.
Why is that?
Why?
Y?

Happy anniversary

10 Years ago I married a wonderful man who loved me like i have never been loved before. And now he is gone, taken from me .....for what reason I will never understand. Even in my deepest meditative buddha state, I can't get it. Was it karma? something I needed to learn? It must be one hell of a lesson for someone to have to die. I prefer to think it has absolutely no meaning except it is part of my shit life. Doomed to this I was from the start I guess. It is why I will never recover from this, I don't want to, to recover means to risk hoping for some semblence of a normal, maybe happy like. Why risk that again? If I am miserable and in pain, and stay that way nothing can be taken from me again. Very Buddhist of me to form no attachenments. Maybe the job in Provincetownwould help me, move away from everything I love, form no new attachemnts and never get hurt again. Oh I will carry this pain, but I won't get any more pain.

Young Widows Group Part Deux

So I decided to do another group at Hospice.I feel like I need a place to go to be with other widows. I know about the group in Lynn, but its lack of structure and leader is scary to me, the therapist that has run homicide survivor groups for 25 years. I can't imagine putting clients in a room by them selves, with no agreements to meet weekly and support each other, the come as you are where you are of a drop in group is so very foreign to me. I need the safety of a group leader and the safety of a start and end date.
The first group was ok, the leader was different a young "counselor" type. She probably has her masters but seems very nervous, she is obviously taking over for Holly the widow who ran the first group I attended, but is not here now.
We go around the room, introductions......mostly cancer deaths, a heart attack, an aneurysm. I am drawn to Lyndsay, not just her name, but she is young, fragile, lost her fiancee suddenly. They were so in love never fought and cherished each other. She had the love I had with Chris, I felt an affinity with her. She had what I had, she lost what I lost.
She is the reason that I come the second week. I didn't want to come after the first session. Not sure why, just didn't want to.....couldn't NOT go though, the therapist in me has to "show up".
There are less of us this week, the lone male is late ---he didn't want to come either......The leader opens up with asking us to describe our relationship what we lost and how the person died. I am shocked that this is the direction she is going in, but I am curious to hear everyone stories. I don't think we talked about this int he other group.
It is hard, I cry when i describe the loss and how it went down.....next week it picture week......good grief seems like we are on the fast track. The first group I couldn't stand to bring a picture, I still feel the same. How cnaI bring a picture when I can't stand to look at one?

the green bowl

I decide to have cereal for breakfast, unusual for me, I usually like something warm. All the dishes are dirty, and the dishwasher is full. The only bowl available is Chris green plastic tupperware bowl. It was his favorite and I wasn't allowed to toss it. It was perfect for Raisin Bran (he liked to soak them in milk til soggy), perfect for Wiz Fizz (his root beer and ice cream concoction) and when he s single it was his go to bowl for his Dinty Moore and wonder bread creation. Oh yes the green plastic bowl was much cherished by Chris and much derided by me. It didn't have a place near my 25 dollar a bowl recycled glass bowls, or my Crate and Barrel clear bowls.It would end up in the cupboard or drawer siting on top of something else, out of place and unwanted by this chef. I once asked him if I could toss, I was soon listening to the virtues of this forlorn piece of tupperware. So it stayed. It held his Raisin Bran and later when we went organic/sugar free cancer fighting diet, it held his organic bran flakes with organic raisins sweetened with agave. I even made sugar free ice cream and ho made sugar free root beer for non cancer feeding sugar free Wiz Fiz ( he proclaimed it better than edible, but quite good!).
So the bowl holds alot more than just food this morning as I poru my Specail K into it. I think about all the times he held the bowl in his hands or had it by his side at his desk waiting ti the cereal was just the right kind of mush. He had this bowl for 15 plus year (maybe 20) and I wanted to throw it out......and now O am so glad the bowl is here. I had never used it before. It was a good cereal bowl with it's graduated side. I held it in my hands, I started to cry. Is this all I have left of the man I loved? What if I had thrown it away? I would have been so sad, missing it, another part of him lost to me.
The tears ruin what little appetite I have, finishing this breakfast will be a true Special K challenge.

Angel Catcher

I have started the Angel Catcher journal. I saw it in a book store and it is a journal of sorts, except it has prompts.....My last conversation with you was.....
Your favorite ice cream was......You last read this book.......it is book of memories, designed to capture what is fresh in the memory before it fades to black. I only did a few pages. It was tough. I put the pen down and turn off the light. Lying back I stretch my arm out over to "your side" of the bed. It will always be your side, closest to the bathroom and the books, my side is closer to the window and the light. I lay my arm across the bed where your heart would be. It feels warm, the first time I feel rather than hear you (in my head). Swollen hot tears flow down my face. I don't dare move my hand to lose the connection I think I feel. I gaze out the window, I often leave the shutters open lately, so I can see the dawn when it comes. I miss you so so much. I am barely living, hanging on, I go to work and get the bills paid, the laundry done when it hits critical mass. It doesn't seem right that you aren't here, I don't want it, this single life, this one ness. I feel you now, I believe that your energy is here somehow, but I am not satisfied. I want you in 3 D. I want to hold you, kiss you goodnight, make love to you, all of that is lost. In a weird way I know why some poeple don't like creamion. There is nothing left of you. Your mom goes to you dad's grave. His body IS there. She also goes to your sister's grave, she is there. Where are you? In a marble box in the living room?, pieces of you in a small urn in the bedroom. Maybe I should have had you buried so I too would have a place to go. I went to my father's cometary a few times, but he was created and then buried, I didn't feel like he was there. Of course he wasn't there when he was alive---but that's another story.
The pain is fresh. It hurts like the the first few weeks. Masybe trying to remember is moving things around in my head and stirring up too much. Maybe I am doing too little or too much. What is right? What is wrong? It is so hard to know which away to turn. All i know that you dying is horribly wrong for you, for me and for the rest of our world, now my worls. Som empty with out you.

all by myself

Saturday
Have to go see clients today......the curse of the 60 hour work week.
I am checking email and glance over the camera that it is on the counter.
It strikes me...I have to dowmload the pictures and archieve them, I have to manage all the media, the electronics, the home repairs big and small, all of it is mine and mine alone.
It does not ovewhelm me so much anymoore it saddens me. I can do , I have learned how to do so many things, it's just that I don't want to or feel that I should have to.
I was so loved and cared for by chris, and now I don't even care about myself enough to do the simplest things. It is only because Lynne is coming that I clean the bathroom or pick up the clohes off the back of the couch. I have laundry to d and now it will get down, out of some sort of respect for Lynne's friendship. It is sad, pitiful this life.Maybe I would feel more like doing things if the hip pain was not so overbearing. I makes me slug like and pathetic. Somehow I don't care. Maybe the streroids are making the anit depressant less effective? Who knows and who cares.
I have so muuch work to do. It is three o clock and I must hwead back to the office for a few hours. Ah the single life.

bone weary

so tired today. Had Acupuncture today for the hips/back. Hoping it can help. I liked the acupuncture, it reminded me of Chris going to Tom Tam. It was really relaxing and I felt myself drifting off. I remembered that this was always Chris' favorite part of the Tom Tam experience. I am lucky that I know the practitioner from the New Earth book group.It made it easier somehow.
When I left I was so sleepy. I met with Laurie for a while then had two clients, it was a struggle. I went to a store afterward to get something to wear for the fundraiser. By the time I walked half way around the store I had to leave, I was in so much paining. Limping to the car I started to cry, the pain hurt so much and I felt myself getting angry. Angry that this pain is standing in the way of my grief pain. Angry that I am putting so much effort into fixing this pain and I feel no different. Maybe I should quit the chiropractor. I am so tired of dealing all of this. So very very weary. I would just like a day that is normal, get up, shower and get dressed without wincing in pain, do some mediation, reading, walk the dog. I can't do any of this without pain. And I have so much I want to do but the pain prevents me which makes me depressed, angry and tired. When will it get better. And even if my hip gets better will the rest of my life be any better? Or will I be confronted with enormity of my loss, the emptiness of the rest of my life. I feel like I can't concentrate on anything as all I can think of is wanting to saw off my leg. (Maybe I have been watching too many Jig SAW movies???)
I get home and stagger to the couch, the dog needs to go and I stumble down the stairs to let her out, still crying. I contemplate the assortment of leftover cancer drugs I have, none of them worked before......perhaps a six pack, but even that doesn't appeal to me anymore.
I decide to try and watch tv but can't. AI is on at nine I won't make it,I crawl into bed at 8 PM and leave the TV on. I don't know when I pass out, but I eventually do.

2/2/2010

10 months today. No wonder I woke up so early this morning. the one year mark is coming. I await it's reach with baited breath. It's like I can't breathe until it gets here, then what? I will breathe again, or I will know that I survived the worst thing that could happen.

mosaic thougts

Can't gather all my thoughts into one coherent entry. So here is my mosaic.....
When I got home from work there were two blue hand blown vases on the granite counter top. Jared was here. The vases swirled with blue, a bud vase and a wider one --could be a candle holder or a vase. Not unlike the larger orange one he gave me a while back.
Isn't it strange that the woman who has long collected leftover glass in pieces weighting up to 50 pounds is now hanging out with a real life glass blower, who is filling her home with home made glass trinkets?

Debbie (a nurse at AGH) asked me today how I was doing, I seem ok...she said "do I have any real moments of happy?". I told her about the group calling me out when they asked me the same thing...I always answer humorously never real.... and how being alone was hard. I seem to be mostly ok around lots of poeple a change from 6 months ago when I couldn't be in a crowd of more than 2 without crying, now it is like I am performimg.....look at her she is doing so well......
And then I cried all the way home tonight, overwhelmed with the fundraiser, stress from Mark Libon and an uncertain future.

Talked to Max today, he is broke again, he is going through cash so quickly I am worried that he might be into something bad. I swear this is the last deposit I make ito his checking account.

I spent Saturday going through stuff in the back room, Chris' sanctuary. The dust and dog hair were alittle overwhelming. I wanted to start a fire and did. The years of Fine Home Building Magazine were weighing heavy on me. I hate the build up of paper especially magazines. Maybe it's my sister's husband's office filled to the brim with scientific journals that got to me once, or maybe it's just thatI did buy Chris the entire FHB collection on DVD ( for 400 bucks---it is still in the shrink wrap). If I have them on disk why keep them here? I know if he was here and alive he would just tell me to leave them there, are his and I need to respect his stuff.....which always makes this so much harder than it is, if that's possible.
Truth be told I had a couple of BL's and that helped. I emptied the shelf and took them all the way out to the recycling bin where they will stay until next week when the recycling truck comes. In theory they are not thrown out until that time. I still felt a twinge of guilt, like he will be mad at me, upset that they are not there. This feeling comes as a surprise, this feeling hasn't been around much, it is awakened by the action of tossing something that was Chris'. Something that he had not touched for at least 3 years, but his nonetheless.
Braver and brazened I turn to the bookshelf. More home improvement magazines and books. It is the shelving unit that contains his ashes.Hallowed ground. Still there are so may books on kitchen remodeling, will I ever need these in my lifetime? Or if he comes back he won't be here doing the kitchen again will he? I list a few on Amazon, none of the ones with the post it notes though I save those. The ones we picked out together I kept, the ones he bought that don't register are fair game. Out of one whole shelf I get rid of half. I make room for his ashes so they aren't crowded. I turn the bookcase around so it faces the entrance more so I can see his ashes while I watch tv. It comforts me somehow. I don't think he would mind, at least that is what I tell myself.