Tears

They leak out of my eyes and run down my face in small rivers. I am now used to their comings and goings; they are unbidden at times, whilst at other times they are triggered by a memory...by a song.

Sometimes they fall from my face in a gushing waterfall to wet my blouse or fall to the floor at my feet, while other times they dry on my cheeks leaving their faint trace of salt.

They are like a nosy neighbor...if you don't let them in every so often, they catch you off guard when you'd rather they left you alone...I know them too well.

They have haunted me lately, often waking me from sleep, or unleashing in the shower, late at night when I am alone...but not wanting to be alone...wanting...needing him to be HERE with me. Where I can rest my head on his chest and finally exhale.

Focus

A comment made by a friend got me thinking about the fact that people who have lost someone instrumental in their lives tend to view the world from a new, and unwanted, vantage point.

After Brian's death I remember thinking that death swooped in and stole my rose colored glasses...leaving me with a pair of dark shades instead. I was quite certain that rose was no longer my color.

This darker world view made every life celebration bittersweet...or sometimes just plain bitter. Movies became minefields, attending weddings became tortuous, walking down the street beside hand holding couples made me feel nauseous, and stopping for lunch alone during my workday often reduced me to tears. While grey was the dominant color in my life I generally felt either sad or numb, with not much in between.

Sometimes when a bit of color would filter through the haze (a flash of genuine happiness for example), I felt almost burned. My instinct became turning away from the sun and pulling my new shades down over my eyes to keep the world in a comfortable state of darkness.

I can't tell you exactly when my shades started allowing the penetration of light...but they did. One day I genuinely smiled. Another day I laughed so hard that my sides hurt. Every now and then I could walk down the street without counting the couples I passed. And I even went to a wedding and found myself caught up in the love of the moment instead of listening to the voice in my head detailing the ways that death may these two part.

When I realized that I had made it through a wedding without the bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth, I knew that the gloom was finally lifting.

Death has changed the way I look at every single thing in my life. Lately I have been thinking of life as a camera. We don't always get to select the lens, but we can adjust the focus.

I can't change the fact that Brian died, but I can choose to focus on how lucky I was to love him.

I will never sit through a film that includes losing a loved one without a pang of sorrow, but I can choose to employ that compassion in my everyday life. When I see very old couples assisting each other out of a car I still wonder why not us...but I can choose to think "good for you."

Sometimes getting the focus right is still not easy. When a wave of grief comes from somewhere unexpected I am often temporarily unable to adjust my focus, but I am learning that finding the right focus takes practice.

And each day gives me a new opportunity to pick up my camera.

I'm struggling with a wave...

...that yet again, I never saw coming.

I have no idea where it came from, nor why it chose to hit now, especially since I haven't experienced a wave in more time than I can remember.

Yes, they still come, though they come only infrequently now. Thankfully. But when they come, they are still powerful. They still come to me by complete surprise, sneaking up on my while my eyes are on the shore, not scanning the horizon, watching for them, like in the old days. They still have the power to knock me to my knees, and to threaten to pull me under with their powerful undertow.

But I am stronger now.  My legs may go out from under me, but I will not be pulled out to sea so easily.
I may stay on my knees for a while, but I will not be beaten by this wave.


And that is a very important thing to know.

Two years ago, I would not have said that.  I could not have said that. The waves that hit me relentlessly, one after another, did threaten to pull me out to sea. And after so many waves, I wanted to be pulled out.
I was beyond exhausted. I had no strength left.

Or so I thought.

But here I am...almost two years later, not doubting at all the strength that is within me.

And I guess that that is the point of my words today.


To tell myself that even though the waves do come this far out...they are coming less frequently and they will not pull me under anymore.

Because I am stronger day by day, month by month, year by year.

I'm sad.
I'm missing him.
I'm missing what our family was "before."
I'm missing so very much.

And I'm struggling.
In spite of having love in my life.
In spite of being loved the way Brian loved me.
In spite of...

The waves still come.
But I will survive.
This wave does not have the power the earlier ones had.

I suppose that waves will always come. No matter how many years go by. No matter who's in my life.
No matter how much I am loved and how much I love. I will always miss that man and what we had.

I will always miss what we never had the chance to have.

But I will continue to get stronger.

another dream

Original date 11 May 2012

In saying "goodbye," I'm not closing a door on the first half of my life...and definitely not on Brian.

I am choosing to look forward to what may, or may not, lie ahead. I could no more forget Brian than I can kill myself by holding my breath. It's physically impossible.

I can choose to look towards the future without wishing that I had the past. We all wish we had who we had. I think that if we hold on too tightly to that wish, it blurs our ability to see the future.

The timing of this, like every single other aspect of grief, is unique. I could not have done this 2 years ago. I could not have done it 3 months ago.

I will never forget Brian, but will carry him with me wherever I go and with whomever I'm with.

He's a part of my heart, you see. And as long as my heart beats, he's here...moving forward with me, not causing me to stop and stare only at what I can't have...my past with him.

Ok...so about the dream...

It was around midnight.

I'd been at a hotel for almost an entire week. I had on a great dress. I knew I'd be dancing like crazy...and I did dance...which is totaly weird because I have two left feet.

There was a table in the middle of the dance floor. I knew that each person there would receive a glass heart, with some paper on which to write a note, and some ribbon with which to tie said note on the heart.

Then the hearts would be thrown into the ocean around midnight.

I wasn't interested. I didn't even take a heart. I didn't give this more than a nano second's thought. Actually,

I thought I'd be in bed sound asleep when this jaunt out to the ocean happened.  I danced with various people and I danced with Todd.  He danced with various people. We had fun in the picture booth.

Those hearts on that oddly placed table kept attracting my attention for some reason. I tried to ignore them.

I was not interested.

But at the last minute, I grabbed one. I took it with me and sat it down at my spot at the table. And then I went off to dance some more.

Then, before I all knew it, a five minute warning was given before the march to the beach would begin. So I went back to the table.

And I stared at that heart.

The heart I had no intention of using. I had nothing to say, after all. It's been almost 2 years. I've said all I can think of. Besides, I don't really think that Brian can hear me.

So I sat down and stared at the heart. And then I slowly unwrapped it, wondering why I was even giving it that much attention. Before I knew it, I had reached into my bag and brought out a pen. Still wondering what the heck I was doing, I began to write. I didn't write a lot...I didn't have to. All I wrote was this: "Brian, I will love you forever. Kimmy"

See? Nothing poetic. Nothing worthy of the prose. Just a simple note. And still, I had no intention of doing anything with it. But I wrapped the note onto the heart anyway. And then I got up and started for the ocean.

And then suddenly, Todd had to rush upstairs and left me on the dance floor.

So I hustled out of the doors and across the patios and onto the bridge that led to the beach. I still had no intention of doing anything with the wrapped up heart that I held in my hand.

I was a sight to see...barefoot and formal, picking my way through the sand to head up to the pounding surf.

I looked behind me to see if Todd had returned yet. He had not. I hung back for a few more minutes, watching others march right into the surf and hurl their hearts out into the Atlantic.

And then, before I realized what I was doing, I was walking into the surf. I'm not sure how I got there... I don't remember making the decision to go...I just found myself there.

The water was cold as it surged up over my ankles and up my calves. But I only seemed to notice it for a moment. And then I stopped and I talked. To Brian. It didn't occur to me at that moment that I didn't believe he could hear me. I just pictured him, standing there, facing me in the surf.

I didn't plan on seeing him. I didn't plan on talking to him. None of this was planned.

But then I told him what I'd been learning to say for two years. I told him that I love him, and that I will always love him, but that it was time to say "Goodbye."

I thanked him for everything he was to me. I told him that I still look forward to seeing him in Heaven, when it's my time to get there. But for now, he's part of the "before Kimberly." And I needed to say "Goodbye" so that I could turn around and face the future.

Without him.
Not the future I had planned...ever.
And not the goodbye I had thought about...ever.

But I've had two years to get used to the idea that he is not coming back. No matter how much I love him.

And with that "goodbye" I tossed my heart into the Atlantic.

My glass heart.

My real heart stayed in my chest...against all odds. I half expected to bury it in that ocean along with the glass heart.

But my heart, my very real, very alive, beating heart, stayed inside of my body. Where it should be.

And I turned around and started walking out of the surf. I had tears in my eyes, and my head was bowed, but I was not sobbing. I felt more surprised than anything.

Surprised that I was able to actually say "goodbye" to what was past without having a huge meltdown. Surprised that I felt so at peace.

After I walked out of the water and up on the beach for a bit, I finally looked up. And I saw Todd coming out to meet me. And I thought of the irony...and of the meaning of this night...to me, anyway.

I had just said "Goodbye" to the most important person in my life...to my very first and very, very true love, and turned away from where I left that heart, only to see this man in front of me.

The man who is in my present and who is in my future.

I couldn't help but smile at that thought. And I knew, without a doubt, that that was what Brian would want for me.

That that is how it should be.

His death is my reality, no matter how much I hate it, or how much I want to wake up and find it didn't happen. It did happen and that is my reality.

And there's a man who stands before me. He loves me. He's crazy about me. As I am for him. He is my now, and my future.

And he doesn't deserve me constantly looking over my shoulder for what was. For what can never be again.

Yes, that hurts. But it also feels like I've been given my freedom to live...to move forward. And Brian is the one who gave that to me as I tossed my heart into that ocean.

Something I never thought I'd do. Something I didn't plan to do. Something I had no interest in doing.

And yet...I did.

Brian will always be a part of my heart. That's a fact of my life. But I needed to say "Goodbye."

in between

Original date 10 May 2012

It was not physical or material. This love lacked inhibition and boundary. It was limitless and free of expectation or regret. It was effortless, all-encompassing love; given, received, and understood. I think it's rare in life to experience this kind of love.

In any relationship it ebbs and flows, but once you've had it, you crave it like no lustful urge you've ever had. I was filled with it on my wedding day, and again when my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

If only we had the ability to live life as though it was so new or so close to the end that all we could do is give and show and become love. It seems that beginnings and endings teach us about this kind of love.

It is in between that we tend to forget.

Anyone who has had an experience like this knows the power in these words. It is what I have been trying to formulate words for and translate from my heart that I've been unable to do for so long.

But it could not be truer. When you lose something so precious, you crave to fill the space. You crave to feel something genuine, something authentic. Everything seems arbitrary up against something so important that you become frustrated with other people's pettiness. You lap up the moments that matter.

I am about to face another beginning...the beginning of my life with Todd. Facing this new adventure in my life brings me closer to that nostalgia of remembering what life is all about: love.

So I'm more sentimental, I try to be more careful with my last words to people, I steal extra moments with people I love. And grief tends to keep me running along with the same theme and keeps it closer to me for longer.

But that doesn't mean I don't fall into the 'in between' category every now and again. I catch myself doing it now, and at the end of the day, I can recognize it in a way I couldn't before.

And I start over every day.

It's a pledge I made to myself and to Brian that this was the way that I would love from now on. My life is forever changed, so there's no way I can act like it isn't.

Love fiercely. Don't get stuck in the in between.

all along

Original date 5 May 2012

There's a poignant quote from a book that I truly related to in the first days and months after my love's death:

"My heart was chilled to ice. I felt ill with grief. But there was no time for frozen shock. Something in me did not want to give up on life, was unwilling to let go, wanted to fight the very end. Where that part of me got the heart, I don’t know."

I didn't know how I could still live...still breathe...without my other half on earth...by my side.

I turned on all things and people around me...believed in nothing....loathed my fear that deterred me from taking my own life.

But now I know.

Know how that part of me remembered I had the heart to keep living, to keep breathing...but most importantly, to keep growing, giving, and healing.

He did.

You see, Brian was not in the Marine Corps for his life career...only 11 years...as a way to feel challenged in life....to feel as if he was making a difference...to feel passion for something outside of himself and for those around him.

I never quite understood it. Understood the ability to be willing to risk one's own life for another he barely knew. To pursue a career that no one around him could even fathom doing.

And yet Brian followed his heart . Became whole. Helped his comrades grow...pursue their dreams....find purpose. The same purpose he was once looking for but had found...if only for a short period in time.

That's how I had the heart to keep going.

He showed me...gave me the ability to say, that my love died doing what he loved, followed the path wholeheartedly, and had no fear when passion was the guiding light.

He gave me the ability to see that I could do the same...find that passion, pursue it, change my own life and hopefully those around me, and, when the moment comes....one day....one decade...one hundred years from now...and fate meets me face to face....those who know me will be able to say the same, as I've been able to say for my husband.

All because I realized not where I got the heart from...but was reminded that I had it all along.

dream

Original date 25 April 2012

I took a nap today. I don't normally take one, but I was overwhelmed with the need for sleep. It was very strange.

Brian paid me a visit in my dream.  I dreamed he hadn't actually died. He'd had a near death experience and recovered. "Surprise! I didn't die!"

Where he'd been for the last 18 months never came up, nor did the fact that I'd missed the memo on his NOT dying. But there he was anyway, all logic suspended in dreamworld.

In life, Brian was the most practical, level-headed person I knew. He had strong feelings about tattoos. He just couldn't get his head around spending money to have a needle poked into one's skin repeatedly and then having to cover it with his uniform, or to get a decent job.

He was also practical when it came to his emotions. He just didn't spend a lot of energy talking about or analyzing life, dreams, hopes, feelings or emotions.

In my dream, however, Brian's NDE had changed him completely. He had several tattoos to reflect the ways his experience had altered him and was outwardly philosophical and emotional. He was transformed.

I was so happy to have him back, like he was a war hero, returned to me after fighting bravely. I kept reaching out to rub his back and I felt full to bursting with joy that he was here again. I had the urge to shout at everyone around us "SEE! He didn't die! He's here! He survived!"

They say in dreams, whatever you dream about represents YOU. If you dream of a house, the house is you. If you dream of someone rejecting you that person is YOU rejecting yourself, and so on.

So, it occurred to me that Brian may have represented me in this dream. I went through this life-changing experience, I survived and I am changed almost beyond recognition because of it.

So, while the dream was heartbreaking and made me ache for him, it also felt like a simple message about my own growth and emerging self-worth. And by emerging, I mean baby-sized, blinking in the bright light, scared and ready to bolt back into the womb, self-worth.

But it's there, and it has potential. I get down on myself sometimes for not knowing what my new life's plan is, exactly, and worry about providing for myself.

Then I think of what I've survived so far and how, against all odds, I've held my shit together through it all and I remember that I have that flame within me.

I can do what it takes to be happy and fulfilled. I deserve it and I can do that for myself. I have that strength.