Wednesday, April 28, 2010

dear chris.....

last time I wrote I just wrote that I didn't want to be alone, although I seldom am, what I really meant is that I WANTED chris.....back in my life, here to talk to. Impossible relationships, my special gift (Richard Gere is in my head again). I can talk to Chris, through letters, here....maybe he will answer back.

Dear Chris:
I hope you are enjoying the transformation of the deck railing. I think it is quite spectacular, although is is not "up to code" or "historical". The poor carpenter has been so nervous about not pulling a permit and being caught by the building inspector that I gave him an Ativan last week. (I think it was more about his girlfriend problems...but I will get to that later).
I remembered when I had the inside stair rail done as a father's day present for you. We had been constantly working on the house, and had had all the walls plastered. You were investigating different approaches to the railing to make it less early American and more us. Unbeknownst to you I hired a carpenter to come in and look at the pictures you had earmarked in your magazines and decorator books (metro sexual that you are). In a matter of hours the railing was done and I saved you a whole weekend of work. You were very surprised and I think you really liked it (although you didn't like that it cost over $1400.00.
The deck railing replicates the inside railing. It has PVC sleeves over the old posts and the metal wire in between. I am thrilled that it means no more painting! John (the carpenter) even made a wide top for your stereo speakers and drink!
Only one small part had to be wood but other wise it is maintenance free!
It looks great and I have been wondering what you would have though of it. It was the original railing the Dave put up and was always a mess. You didn't have any ideas when it came to replacing it and there is always the code/historic issues. Well now it is done. I hope you love it!

Monday, April 19, 2010

tapestry

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

lost weekend

afteri went to a book signing formy friend Steve and Max left i took to my bedm too tired to attend to the moutain of chores...laundry,bills filing, paperwork. totally sapped of any energy. I looked back I was in the same shape last year. It was 2 oclockand i laid down, turned the tv on and just laid there. the thought og getting up crossed my mind. I told myself i would get up at 230 then 3, then 330 all the way to 530. i was to hear from mac a out getting together for dinner but did't and iwas glglad. I didn't eat or drink I just laid ther all aftrrnoon and evening watching lifetime and googling nonsense. fianally at 10 i decide to shut down the electronics.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

so sad


A year later.....still having tough days and this is one of the toughest in what will now be known as year 2. Good grief, another year of writing all this down?
So so sad today, worried about money and home repairs and having enough. A new deck railing costs $3600.00, too much, can't do it. (of course the HDMI wire would have paid for that). A million thoughts run through my head. Get my shit together, write Max a nice letter and disappear (it's a feeling----you readers out there ok?)
I have PT tonight, endless therapy to solve the brokenness of my hip/back/spirit.
She runs me through the "assessment". whatever, get me outta here, it's almost 8 and Adam is on AI. He kept me alive today.....can't wait to see him, here him talk (no singing tonight he is a mentor). I blast my FYE CD in the car, play Fever 3 times, in its synthcy wonderment. Wish he would play THAT on AI on Wednesday. Ah two nights of Adam on AI just when I needed it the most.

Adam doesn't disappoint. He is a mentoring king, pushing the lame into talented.
At one point he sings a wee bit of an Elvis song it is enough. I feel free, happy for just one second of a long miserable day.....and then some magic happens

After AI I decide to rip the japan CD (the one with rabbit hole on it) have to hear it in my car.....
While it is ripping/burning I hit the speakers in the front room, it blasts. I go toward the speakers so I can hear it all....start to move, I am dancing! moving. dancing without much pain....oh there is a little but I haven't moved like this in years without pain.....a special gift, a special uplift from my masacraed angel.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

in the aftermath

It's not ok that you are gone and left me here with all the rest of my lie to figure out. We owe (YOU, YOU owe) $18,000.00 in taxes. Capital gains for your stupid etrade account that I can't even get to. How am I supossed to pay that? WTF, Chris.
And if that was't bad enough I have boxes and boxes of your stuff to go through. Not the clothes and books and music and dvd's that are upstairs. No the boxes in your computer room downstairs. I was going to leave them alone til I discovered that the mice have been making quite a nice nest in them. Yeah the mice I kept telling you we had, that you wrote to Gail about :" Karen thinks there is a mouse downstairs and points to some black dirt as proof". Well smarty pants I guess I was right. They sure do like all the copies of the Lowell Connector. What is that newspaper? It is the newspaper from when you were at ULowell, OVER 29 years ago.
What were you saving them for?????? I burned them all in the "outdoor fireplace/trash burner". Hope you are not mad.
I also clenaed out some of your leftover odds and ends from re wiring the house.. All those spools of HDMI wire. Yeah I found out later that they were worth over 4 grand. How was I to know? I put them out on the sidewalk and they were gone in 60 seconds......How do I know what is important to save and what isn't since you save EVERYTHING. Yeah all the cards and letters from Nahid and Gail and Lynne and your mother and Steve Lincoln, all predating email. I am surprised you didn't scan them.
I feel like I don't even know you.....Najid held your hatred of Lynne.She wrote to you of how much she loved you so much that she hated Lynne for you because you couldn't. Is that true? And does it even matter?
I guess it shows that there are two sides to every story te story you told yourself and the stories the girls are telling me now. Is this why you were so protective of your stuff? You didn't want me to find out thestory behind the story? As if I would have cared.
Maybe I didn't know you and you didn't know me. Otherwise why would you have left all of this for me to sift through?

Friday, April 9, 2010

April 2 2010 Evening


22 people for dinner!?!? What was I thinking? An unique way to remember Chris, something to create that we could look forward (??) to every year. Definitely a marker, though, a big deal. Lynne came early to help. Gail abstained. Only 2/3rds of the harem, oh well t would have to do. My fantasy was that if all three of us (withces of Eastwick) were here he would have to show, the pull would be too strong.
The table is set it looks better than I thought, all aglow in white linens and candles. I love the way everything looks, dreamy, spiritual. Candles everywhere. white rocks from Racepoint beach as place cards. It truly is a magical space created in our home. The sun is setting and the slanting rays cast a golden sheen on everything.
Folks start arriving, Kathy my next door neighbor comes bearing the meatloaf she prepared as well as Chris's favorite dessert Marble Cake1. Laurie comes with her trinkets and tools. A Sage brush to cleanse the energy of each guest before they enter the house. Not sure how this will go over with my Catholic "I can't eat on good Friday" sister and her Asian husband, but I want to do this right. Jared, my "tadpole" gets to stand outside with the burning sage brush and as each person approaches the door, he tells them that it is to cleanse their energy. Everyone has dressed in white and it lends a oneness to the night. Guests are respectfully quiet as the enter, carrying their offerings to kitchen. Laurie's partner is making the mashed potatoes and I was curious why he waited to make them here instead of making them at Laurie's and bringing them, one taste and I didn't care. They were creamy perfect clouds of yum, just the way Chris would have loved them. Simple, pure and whiter than white. I was in charge of the chicken and stuffing (in the bird of course). Andrea made a chopped vegetable salad with the whitest creamiest ranch dressing. All his favorite foods, all his favorite friends, what more could he want.
I don't really believe that he will show up in 3 d , I just want a whisper of a feeling, like a soft breeze that catches my attention for just a moment, brushes my cheek with its coolness and separateness. A sense of special.
Finally everyone (but Mac, Brit and Neal ---who are at a God Friday ?Celebration) is here. After a few minutes of enjoying Chris favorite appetizers, bread with dipping oil and scallops wrapped in bacon, washed down with a white russian or rum madras, Laurie rings her Tinga bells. She says nothing just a simple one note ring. She only has to do it twice and everyone is silent. She asks everyone to take their place at the table so that we may begin. By now it is dark outside, but there is sufficient candlelit for everyone to make there way to the table. Clad all in white the clothing seems to glow in the darkness. It looks as if we are lit from withing. Is that the meaning, the message? We all carry a part of Chris with us? Us who are left behind. Or is it us who have moved away from him?
We settle in, silent, even Aurora cooperates.
Laurie speaks:
" Grief is an altered state. Death forces the mind/body to enter another state of consciousness, another dimension. Our friend Karen has entered this awareness this past year. We have all observed her pain, both emotional and physical.
Chris and Karen shared a special love. They, the king and queen lived in the Love Shack while welcoming all of us into their home. It was clear to me that they knew how fortunate they were to have one another. They appreciated one notherr and the life they co created together. it was close to a perfect relationship. I smile when I remember Chris rolling his eyes as Karen took yet another call from a desperate client and talked them off the ledge.

I believe Karen found her anchor, in Chris, her ground her dearest friend. and within their love she healed some of hr deepest wounds.

Chris' world opened up by sharing life with a wild woman. This vibrant ever changing with the new liberated, high energy, loving female changed his world and made it fun and exciting. He told me so,

And so Karen was forced into the sacred practice this year, fored to bear the unbearable. The loss and grief of a beloved husband nd companion. She has experienced that very skillfully at times:individual therapy, group therapy, support groups, journaling, crying, blogging, eating, not eating, drinking, not drinking, being alone, being with friends, working too much and turning grey.

Sometimes when she stopped resisting she would go directly into the pain,sometimes moment by moment.

As Karen moved through her grief sh has had to push herself beyond her own limits to go beyond whatever and who ever she had previously imagined herself and her life to look like. I believe Chris prepared her for thistransformation of inner bonding as hard as it was and still is.

During this difficult long year of mourning she never stopped caring cooking,laughing,volunteering and being there for others with her wit, her energy and her food. Adam Lambert, the sexy massacred angel, sang to her to guide her along her path. And she has black leather glove to prove it.

Karen's essence energy is straight from the heart. Chris'essence energy is straight is straight from the heart.

In the words of one of my favorite spiritual teachers Stephen Levine 'when we die energy moves from one state of being to energy of a different kind'.

i invite us all to have a moment of silence together to honor Chris' spiritual energy and heartfelt essecne and to see, embrace and acknowledge Karen in all her goodness and growth"

Karen may you saturate yourself with compassion and deep self care and move forward living your life from your deepest highest most alive self."

I am blown away by Laurie's words. She has crystallized the year and in true and beautiful way. We are all silent.

Laurie invites others to speak. Using Chris' GORT figurine as a talking stick she invites everyone to share something with me.

Janet tells a story of a time when she and Chris after one of the many many meetings they attended to advocate for dogs in the park, went out for a drink. As was their habit she called Mike and Chris called me to join them. Before we got there Janet shared that Chris asked her to compliment me when she saw me as I had just begun a bootcamp-style workout and had lost some weight and he wanted me to feel good about it and continuing. I had not heard the story before and it was another shared moment demonstrating how loved I was.

Friday, April 2, 2010

one year later ~morning


It is April 2nd 2010. a year ago I lost the love of my life. Did I know then what the impact would be? His death affects everything, colors everything, every decision, every action, every thought or feeling I have is colored by the loss.

I wake up at 4:30 AM too early for my meditation at the time of death 5:38 am. I have the alarm set for 5:20. i try to coax my self back to sleep, it is dark. I think back to the night he died. His rising up out of bed only to fall into child's pose, the struggle he experienced to "pass". I must have fallen asleep with these thoughts for the next thing I remember is the bleep bleep of the alarm. It is 5:20. I feel exhausted. I turn off the alarm. I move over to his side up the bed, the last spot he wa alive on this earth. I am sitting up I try to meditate, solo, no CD or music. I breathe in and out, I heighten my awareness. I want to notice something a sign a feeling. I watch the numbers on the clock change ...it is a slow deliberate process. Maybe that is the problem it is too deliberate. I am not in the moment I am trying to be in the moment. That's not how these things work...
Finally it is 5:36. Two minutes to go.....Aurora, Chris' beloved Labrador begins to twitch in an jerky manner. It is not her typical having a dream moving the legs but an all over her body shaking. She keeps it up for two minutes. I don't pat her or interrupt whatever it is that is going on. Is she getting a message from Chris? It is because she is not trying or at least I don't suppose she she is) that she gets to receive something form him? I have nothing. the clock moves to 5:39. The time has passed. I have not received a message or a sign or any comfort from this special time.
Is it because I was trying too hard? Wanted it too much? Or because it simply is not there?
The day stretches before me. Tonight is the "small" remembrance dinner. Nothing to do for that. I decide to walk the dog, maybe she will share what her twitching was about.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

T-2

Saw my therapist today, the regular one not the Hospice one....We tried to recreate the lst days of Chris. What was happeneing. I saw her the day before Chris died, was still hopeful about Florida. I shared that I wished she had pushed me more to have important dialogues with Chris, not about pragmatic thing but about what he was feeling, what he was thinking about his life and his possible death. I am looking for some sort of statement or statments that could have served to guide me during the next 365 days. But those conversations didn't happen.....I was left a drift without an anchor. Adrift to navigate the seas of loss and grief.
It is almost too much to bear. it is not the ripping, tearing, searing pain as it was not so long ago, but it is an allover pain. A dull all over ache that weighs me down....will it be lifted on April 3rd? who knows.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

T-3 and counting

3 days til one year. A whole year without you ....unbelievable and I survived....barely. Oh ok, I survived, but didn't thrive. I came out the on the other side. I hurt, I miss you but I still had time for friends occasionally, I went to a few social things (Jack and Sammy's birthdays).
It is a roller coaster, one minute I am level the next minute I drop down, down, down into the vortex of pain. My hip feels slightly better so I can feel more emotional pain, just in time....are you lifting the pain so I can feel my heartache more?
I wished I had written more about that last week at home. Some parts are clear, others foggy. I was frightened of losing you, and yet you were slipping away. I thought the lactulose would help you wake up, but it didn't make you vibrant.
I feel heavy with sadness, yet hopeful that the dinner will bring some lightness.
I talked to Lynne tonight. we talked more about the dream. We are very close and I feel you through her. She knew you so well, so much better than I did in some ways. You truly were like minded. How funny that we are such good friends, now. I remember when we were first dating, how important it was for us to meet. And how we were instant friends,,,,,,how nice that she is here for me. A special gift.

Monday, March 29, 2010

and what will you do with all those Oxy's????

I met with my therapist today. I told her about wanting to remember Chris' last week and wishing that I had written more....we tried to recreate parts of.....Hospice admit, Spread sheets of meds and times, a horrible trip to Bank of America. All that.
I shared that I had a bad appointment with the pain doctor and that he gave me a Rx for Oxy's....which I took and filled despite having all of Chris leftover pain medications.
She asked me why I took it....I was offered. I didn't get it at first, but she was worried that I might do something with all these pills around.....

Friday, March 19, 2010

FML

I Hate My Life. Hate Hate Hate. Pretty Hate Machine. Can you tell this is a bad day? Immense pain all day, cry at my desk nears tears all day kind of pain. Searing hip pain, limping crushing mind altering pain. Took an Oxy -no relief. Want to end my life so I can't feel this kind of pain. Too bad I had to borrow my son's truck or I would have driven my car over the Annisquam bridge.
I cried on and off all day today, the pain, the helplessness the what do I have to live for. FUCK. I am done. I have had enough. Maybe I would feel different if I didn't hurt so much. But I can't do anything. The tulips are up but they won't last long covered by leaves. I tried to rake the leaves off and was rewarded by pain running up and down my leg. It's too much.
I am doing everything I can to help myself
My therapist thinks the pain is from my grief.
The medical intuitive thinks it is from carrying Chris' cancer.
The chiropractor thinks it is from sublaxation.
The acupuncture thinks it is my gall bladder
My PCP thinks it is my back.
The back Doctor thinks it is bursitis in my hip
The orthopd thinks it is arthritis.
Can't anyone agree? Can't anyone help the bereaved widow take care of her emotional pain which is severe being sublimated by this physical pain?
If I have to deny my grief process much longer..............
you make this all go away, you make this all go away.
I am down to just one thing and I am starting to scare myself.
I just want something I can never have.......
My
Life
Back.
Grey would be the color if I had a heart.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Widows group-homework




We were to write a letter to our dearly departed.
Here's mine:

Dear Chris:
Where are you? why can't you contact me? What happened when you died? were you afraid? I tried to not let you be frightened. I am frightened and sad and so so confused. Do you know that? Can you see and and are helpless to help me? Does that upset you or is this one big cosmic joke? Are you sitting somewhere watching me struggle, knowing that this is my journey because yours is complete.
I talked to Lynne last night. She had a dream with you in it. It was amazing. Are you in her dreams because you can't get into mine. In her dream you were standing by the water on a beach......P town or St. Thomas she was not sure. I was with her. We knew it was you from your profile. She wanted to approach but I was afraid and couldn't move. She went toward you, you had Buddhist robes on, you were enlightened. She put her hands around you not touching but near you outlining you, absorbing your energy. she brought all that energy to me and gave it to me.....
Is that it?
Are you enlightened, and Lynne can see but I cannot. Is she the passage to my enlightenment? or just the messenger? Am I supposed to understand now that you were here only for a short time to help me learn the many lessons you taught me?
It seems like that is what is happening. I just want the dream myself............

Saturday, March 13, 2010

overwhelming sadness

It is barely dawn, dark with a hint of light. i lie in bed looking out the window at the pink and gray of a new day. Isn't that were I am supposed to be? coming out of the darkness? It has been 345 days, 11 months and 11 days. 20 days from now it will be the " death anniversary". What a term. Maybe it is because it is the weekend and although I have to go to work and group I don't have that jump out of bed urgency. I miss him. I miss Chris. I miss having our lives to share with each other. It is a sadness that is very deep. It is in my bones, deep withing It has changed me, it has altered my DNA.
I cannot fathom why he was taken from this world. What is the meaning?Is there a meaning? Why was Lindsay's fiancee taken from her? They were so in love, so perfect for each other? Is there any order in this chaos? Why did Chris just finish the kitchen, the last renovation of the house only to die 16 months later? What does this all mean? My mind feels confused and yearning to know. Why did I meet Chris? We met through an online dating service back in the day when such things were a novelty. What compelled me to write to him? Meet him? Marry him? Is it as the medical intuitive thought that I am drawn to those in need....Chris, Bob, Dave? Is that my lot in life eternal caretaker, giver, helper?
I thought Chris was my reward for all those years of suffering in bad relationships beginning with my childhood. I had endured a hellish upbringing, a bad marriage, a broken heart and here was this man loving me in a way that I had never known. thanks for loving me, because you are doing it perfectly.....what do you want from me? a line from Adam's single on the radio now.....what does life want from me, now?
Should I take that job in Provincetown? Move away from everything related to Chris, leave his masterpiece of a house and start over in our favorite place?
I am paralyzed still, I show up to life as it is listed on my schedule, I go to work and social events as indicated on the PDA. But I am not living, I am sleepwalking through life. And I don't want to do anything to change it, that would take me away from my grief, the only connection I have with my husband.....

Friday, March 12, 2010

Will Rogers Follies

Tonight was my friend Lauren's son's (Aaron) play "Will Rogers Follies". I dreaded going, the people I might run into who I haven't seen since last year's play (Copa Cabana.)
I m a huge Aaron fan though and wouldn't miss it. I haven't missed one of his performances since he was Chip in Beauty and the Beast (they brought him from middle school to be in a high school production.) He has a great voice and presence and he like all good performers, takes you out of yourself.
Ultimately I am glad that I went. Aaron seemed genuinely glad that I was there, hugging me and chatting after the show. I ran into a former high school guidance counselor "Madonna"---the nickname my then 2 year old have given her on his many trips to the high school while being cared for by my friend Lauren (yes we have been friends that long). Madonna (her real name is Donna) hadn't seen me, and expressed her sympathies. I wasn't upset that she did,it was the right thing to do. But it numbed me out. I just shut down. I felt like I have been given a drug. Everything feels heavy, deadened, anesthetized, detached,remote. Everything I hear and see seems far away. I feel as if I am watching myself. After the play I have to grocery shop for the Shrayer/Huth dinner. A quaterly event in which I buy and cook food with the Huth girls and I schlep the food over to Huths's the Shrayers show up and in 45 minutes, 5 hours of work and a 100 bucks is gone.
I shop I have a list I am robotic. I feel nothing, I don't care if I am here or home, nothing sinks in.
In the car Adam is on singing "Pick You Up". One of my favorites because he laughs at the end. The song seems to penetrate me, but it the only thing that penetrates. Even writing this now seems surreal. I see my hands hitting the keys but feel so detached. Some one pick me up......

Thursday, March 11, 2010

waterr bowl~widows group

this is our third meeting. This group is different, the leader has less control and there are times when some group members talk more than others and the social worker in me gets tense, wanting to help the group move along so that everyone gets enough time, but that is not my role here. The group tonight has an activity involving a bowl of water that we add food coloring to, to represent our feelings. I add purple, because it was a color favorite that brought Chris and I together. I am missing him and one of his favorite colors represents that. After everyone puts in their colors, red for anger, blue for sorrow, the water is black. We then add drops of bleach to represent our coping, mine is this blog, others have family, friends etc...I do too, but writing is the best for me because I don't have to feel like it needs reciprocating. The water lightens....the lesson here is that with time, we will have clearness back, tinged with the color of our grief but not so black. It is a different experience, this art stuff. It takes away some of the intensity, although I feel that it resonates within everyone.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

DISCLAIMER

This is a tough time for me. the feelings and emotions that are expressed in this blog are just that. It can be dark and painful to read. I am not planning anything.I am just out of my mind. I promise to come back someday. So please don't send the white coats over here ok

NIN


March, the month of the big slide when Chris began his descent to the the other side. Yesterday was so bad, I cried all the time, losing it here and there, culminating in a massive melt down at a YOGA class. I was so gone. I called Laurie hoping for some insight into why I was losing it in such a big. Bogged down with boyfriend problems, she doesn't hear her phone or chooses not to answer or listen to my message.
I go home....Not wanting to drink beer (gasoline on the fire) I opt for something different.... I HATE Riesling....a white wine, a favorite of Lynne's. It is ok. I start googling "how to make suicide look like a natural death" oh I am serious. I have had it. I see the road ahead. I know it's bad. I don't want to relive it I know how it ends......I google it for awhile, mostly message boards full of hope for the poor saps like me that have had enough...and I have had enough. It's like ok I have lasted 11 months isn't that enough? I did my best. I suffered through all the holidays, the anniversaries. I made it. I coped so what did it prove? Not a fucking thing. That I can suffer I guess. That I can cry and rail and rant and rave. and still go to work and do amazing things and be a great therapist, a great placer of the unplaceabale. a phenonm. and yet when I get home I am ugly, rageful, sorrowful and insane. two people or just one crazy person. surely i am not the only woman who was in love with her husband to the point of painful only to have lost it all. Did they all go crazy did they all enter the nether world at night?
I want to leave this life.....take a job in P town, California? (my other google obsession) or just check out.
My therapist checks in with me....do I have any plans for the future( an indicator that I am not all that serious). Yes I am going to Phantom of the Oprah with Dave,I have a legit hotel reservation in August for Carnival and I have a son.... I wouldn't put Max through anything this grotesque. He is the only thing that keeps me from driving my car off the bridge. (one of the recommendations from the sight).
My sister calls. Adam on Leno. I did dvr it but the dvr cuts off before it is over...of course.
Last year we were at the Brigham took the ambulance in, his crit was down to 15 (12 =death)he was admitted. We spent the better part of 2 weeks there.It was up nd down. I read the caring bridge today.I am icily calm in my writing. technical without being too graphic. Just the facts.....some humor but short, unlike the longer entries over the past 5 years. 5 FUCKING years that I tried to save him....yeah I know I am not an oncologist, but whatever.
Is this the apocalypse? do I only have to get through this then I can die too?
AsI sit here the pain flows through me like hot waves, over and over.
Though it all looks differnt now I know it is all the same
Everywhere I look you're all I see
Just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be
Who we used to be.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

one year ago......

From Caring Bridge.....
Monday, March 2, 2009 1:43 PM, CST

Well after a tough weekend (Chris is still short of breath and bascially bed to bathroom and back) We were glad to be going to Dana Farber for a scheduled Transfusion (hereafter known as Tfx). I had the drive way all sholved, the car warmed up....we were good to go at 5:15---out appoitnment was scheduled for 7 AM. Chris asked me to wheel him out on my desk chair because he was felt a little weak to walk from the bedroom to the stairs (don't know what we were going to do at the top of the stairs).... LONG story (ok medium) short... I called the good boys at Lyons. (ambulance) and for a mere???? thousand dollars they drove us in in record time (how does 1 hour and 40 minutes sound?

so we got here Chris 'crit was 15, he needs 4 more buckets of Tfx bags. AND they admitted him (penthouse of course!). So I am on the 16th floor with my hubby waiting for the gastro boys to plunder his esphogus looking for bleed

Friday, February 26, 2010

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.....