Light

Several weeks ago, I was in Indianapolis for a work conference.  It's an annual thing; most of the people I see there, I haven't seen since last year, and won't see again until next year.  Early in this trip, I bumped into the woman who I was temporarily working for when Ryan died.  She asked immediately how Sophie was doing, and if I had a picture.  Proud mom that I am, I pulled one up on my iPhone right away and showed it to her, beaming.  She gasped, smiled bright, and said with true joy, "What a light!"

Truer words have not been spoken.  That is what Sophie is to me - a light.  Before she was born, when I was in the depths of my grief, I know many people were hoping that a baby would provide me with solace.  I always reacted to this sort of sentiment bitterly, knowing that a baby would do nothing to heal my heart, that a baby would not make it all better.  No matter how happy she may make me, I knew that she would not fix things.  And she hasn't.

But, she is a light.  A bright, warm light in the center of the darkest room.  She glows pure and strong even when I'm having my worst days - the light is always on.  Sometimes, it grows so bright that it's hard to look at - it grows to all sides of the room, and the darkness shrinks away.  Sometimes, her light spreads to the walls, and shines out the windows, and for the first time in months, I can see outside, and see what's ahead.  Other times, it shrinks back to the center of the room, dulls, and it becomes my job to tend to it, and make it bright again.  But the light never goes away, it is constant, always warm, always hopeful, always on.

The dark is still in the room too.  There are dark corners, all of the time, and sometimes I can't help but going and sitting in one for a while.  There are shadows too, that catch me unaware.  They are projections of darkness that fall off of relics in the room - old memories, objects, things that are there and I can't get rid of, or don't want to.  As bright as the light is, it can't shine out all of the bits of darkness.  After all, before the light went on, it was a very, very dark room.  I can't expect one little light to get rid of all of the black.  That's an awfully big job for such a small light!  But because of my little light, I can see again.  I can understand the dark corners and the shadows, and know that they are not hopeless - though they sometimes can feel like it.

What a light.  A light that wrinkles her little nose when she smiles her gap-toothed grin.  That laughs when I laugh, and then makes me laugh again.  That runs as fast as she can and giggles and hides, waiting for me to find her.  My little light dances to the music that I play for her, and asks me to sing songs to her again and again.  She snuggles against me when she falls asleep at night, and is happy to see me in the morning.  She's excited when I get home from work, and runs and throws her arms around my legs.  She gives me little kisses when I ask for them, and every so often, for no reason at all.  My little light causes me joy that is bigger than my grief.  It does not replace or cancel out my grief - they run parallel.  But the joy is bigger.  The light it bigger than the dark.  And, to be clear, it is a very big dark.

What an amazing light.

Missing You for Two Years (A Letter)

Dear Ryan,

I heard your voice yesterday.  Usually, I can't even bring myself to look at your name in my voicemail box, but yesterday it was almost full, and I had to delete some old messages.  I always do this insanely carefully, making sure that I don't accidentally delete yours - it's like cutting the correct wire on a time bomb.  After I was finished deleting a few yesterday, I stared at your name for a while.  Then, I had to listen.  I wanted to hear you say that you love me on my birthday.

I have three messages saved from you - two are just you saying chicken in your silly voice.  The third, though, is the message you left me the morning before you died - a happy birthday wish because you had forgotten to say it before I left the house that morning.  Thank goodness you were so sleepy that morning - otherwise you wouldn't have needed to call me, and I wouldn't have this record of your voice.  Now I just have to make sure I never lose it.

It wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be, listening to your voice.  It was a comfort, at least for as long as the voicemail was playing.  I listened twice.  I haven't forgotten what you sound like - I remember it perfectly.  Hearing it sounded like you were right there, and that I'd be on my way home to you soon.  I have dreams like that - that we're just apart for some reason, and are supposed to be seeing each other again soon.  But, in the dreams we never get there - I always wake up first.  And then of course, in real life, I know that I won't be seeing you soon.

There are no words for how much I miss you.  I know I tell you this often - when I think of you and start talking to you, it's almost always the first thing I say, I think.  But then sometimes I get lost in talking to you and I don't finish - I get distracted, or if I do it at night, sometimes I'm so tired I fall asleep in the middle of it.  But I do try to talk to you.  Do you hear it?  Are you listening?  You never talk back, and I wish you would.  That sounds trite, but it's simply true.  I know you probably can't talk to me in the traditional way, but I wish you'd give me something to work with - some way to know that you're hearing me.  If you're sending signs, I'm not catching them.  Am I just too stupid?  I'm trying, I really am.  Maybe you need to be more obvious.  But not scary.  Don't scare me in the middle of the night or anything.  Be obvious in the daytime, when I can handle it better,  You know I can't handle scary.  There's a reason that I always left the room when you were watching scary movies.

So anyway, I try to talk but I get distracted, so I thought I'd write.  I'm clearly getting distracted doing that too.  I'll try to do both - talk and write - more often.  I can't believe I haven't seen you in two years.  The other day, I drove by the church where we had your funeral.  I drive by it every day of course.  But that day, it suddenly struck me, with ferocious intensity, how that was the last place I ever held your hand.  And I can still imagine how it felt - when I held it that day, and when I held it just a week before.  I have a true tactile memory of it.  I want to hold it again.  I want you to come, and wrap your arms around me, and let me cry as long as I want, and support me telling me everything will be okay.  And you're there - so it will be.  No one can make me feel better like you could.  So, now that I need someone more than ever, it's a double whammy that you're not hear to make me feel better,  Everyone tries, but it's not the same.  And, for this, there's really no such thing as feeling better,  Not totally.  I won't wake up one day and say "Oh good, I'm all better now.  Glad that's over".

So, I have a few things I want to say.  I'm sorry that I couldn't keep you here.  I tried really hard.  I didn't realize at first what was happening, and I reacted slowly.  But I don't think it would have made a difference.  I couldn't keep you here, but I wanted to.  And I would give nearly anything to fix it and get you back.  I don't beg for it as much as I used to - only when I'm having my worst days - because I know that it's not possible.

Sometimes, I think you knew that something was coming.  I looked through the house intensively to find some trace that you knew.  You told me weeks before that you were starting to sell off some of your collections (I wish you'd done better with that), and that you were trying to connect with old friends.  You mentioned a strong desire to drive through your hometown.  And when I told you about the baby, you reacted strangely.  I don't know exactly what was strange, but you seemed almost bittersweet about it.  I probably just caught you off guard.  But sometimes I think you knew something wasn't right with you.  I don't know why it would matter, whether that would make it better or worse, but I just think about it.  A lot.  I think about everything a lot.  I'm often lost in my head.

And about the baby - she's wonderful.  She's my everything.  If you're reading this, then I'm sure you're able to watch her too, so I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know, but you would be head over heels for her.  She has such a fantastic little personality.  The temper I could do without - but I think it's a sign of a headstrong girl, and that's a good thing.  She's simply the most beautiful child I've ever seen.  She loves reading books - sometimes she babbles aloud while she's looking at them, as though she's reading out loud.  She knows her shapes (star, circle, square, heart), and colors, and believe it or not, she's learning some letters.  "S" is her favorite.  Today we learned "G".  She looks at family portraits here and at your parents' house, and identifies everyone in them.  She points at you and makes a "Da" sound.  And Ryan, I hate to flatter us so blatantly, but man did our DNA combine well.  She's perfect.  It's a sin of the highest order that we can't make a couple more like her.  I think of that often, and it ties my stomach in knots.

I love you.  And I love you some more.  Thanks for leaving me that voicemail two years ago so that I can hear you say it back to me every now and again, and so that I have proof that it wasn't all a dream.  Sometimes I have a hard time looking directly at your picture, or thinking about you for too long - because it still hurts a lot.  There are certain memories that make me especially sad - because I know I'll never make more of them with you.  People who say that I should cherish the memories mean well, but they don't understand how sometimes memories can just be reminders of a lost future.  I think about seeing a movie with you, and all I want to do is go see a movie with you.  And, of course, I can't, so it's just a lot of turmoil.  And to know, at my age, that I will NEVER get to do a certain thing again, is very hard.  The finality in it.  But then, you know all about finality.  Oh Ryan, I wish I could change things so that you could come and be with your daughter, keep doing the job you loved, learn everything you wanted to learn, be with your family.  You still had such a bright future.  It's not fair.  I say that a lot.  But it's true.  It makes life feel very random and meaningless.  A person like you should have gotten to live a century.  I want you to know what a good man I thought you were.  I was married to the best man I knew.  I felt so lucky to have met, and fallen in love with, such a good man.  And to have you love me back.

I'm getting long winded (I know, surprise, surprise).  I should let you get back to unlocking the secrets of the universe - which is what I always hope that you're getting to do.  Maybe having conversations with all of the great people in history.  You'd love that.  I'm serious about you letting me know that you're there.  Work on it - please.

All of my love,

Kate

Resolved

I've never been much for New Year's Resolutions.  That is, I've never been much for telling people about them - it doesn't mean I don't make them for myself.  But as long as I don't tell people, then when they don't work out, it's not a big deal.

And, they're extremely likely not to work out.  Most people give them up by halfway through January.  I think I've heard that by January 19th, most people are done.  I always feel like it would be more productive for me to make new resolutions every month or so, rather than a bunch at the beginning of the year - taking on too much seems to be the road to failure.  But there's something so enticing about the beginning of a year - a clean slate, a chance to start fresh after a busy (completely unproductive) December.  So I always do make them, thinking this year will be different.  And the worse my last year was, the more unspoken resolutions I make.  I don't tell people about most of them.  They just sit in my head, or, sometimes I write them down.  I'd  guess I have about a 25% success rate with this system - not great, but not a total embarrassing failure.

This year, I feel like I have about a thousand of them.  Throughout the past three months or so, I just kept collecting things I wanted to accomplish.  But, with a job that peaks in November and December, it's next to impossible to set out to accomplish anything new in those months.  Forget it- if I do it, I fail miserably, and feel terrible about myself later.  So instead, every time I thought of something new, I said to myself, "Okay, that will be for January".  After three months of treating my every whim this way, I have a "to do" list three miles long.  Oh, and I can't remember it, because I didn't bother to write most of this stuff down.  (Mental note:  add to my list of resolutions that I should write more things down.)

Most of the items on the list are of the "self care" variety.  I've started with the old New Years' standards - get back in shape, and eat better. I've vowed to meditate for a couple minutes every day (except for today.  And yesterday). I'll take more time for myself.  I'd like to find time to write more, and about different things.  I've promised to read a certain number of books this year, as I've fallen out of the habit of reading. I'll watch a movie at least once a month - I think I only watched three this year, and that's pretty sad.  I've resolved to connect with old friends, to be a better friend in general, return emails and calls faster.  And to meet new people.  I want to find time to take Sophie places, do Mommy and Me classes, oh yeah, and maybe take a class myself too - even just an online one.  I've resolved to begin the ugly process of cleaning out my storage unit (really begin it, really find more permanent homes for things).  Maybe find a new home for many of Ryan's things.  Look for a new place to live, maybe.  Start my life again.

And, I've just described about 200 hours a week worth of material, once you add in work, sleep, and my other responsibilities.  How does one organize this type of to do list?  Yet again I've created for myself a mountain that seems impossible to climb.  All of these little things go into starting my life again.  It's important for me to define again who I am, what makes me special and unique - be something other than a widow and single mom.  So I need to do all of these things for myself.  But, I'll never get all of this done, touch all of these items every week, and I'll feel like I'm letting myself down when I don't.

Which brings me to my number one resolution - the one I can do my very best to commit to and keep.  I've been seeing a grief counselor for many months - I see her once a month at this point, and she has a piece of advice that she reiterates to me at just about every session.  When I tell her that I'm overwhelmed, that I have no time to move myself forward because I'm bogged down, she always says that I need to change my perspective.  Instead of saying "I can't believe I didn't get more done today", say "It's the end of a busy day, and I've done the best, under the circumstances, that I can."  So this year, every day, that will be my mantra.  It's the end of a busy day, and I've done the best that I can.  But I will add one thing to it - I'll try to say I've done the best that I can, and MEAN it.  I have to try hard enough during the day, that at the end of it, I can honestly say I've done the best I could.

In 2014, I didn't always do my best.  I tried, but I know I didn't always rise to the occasion.  Sometimes, I just wanted to give up.  The day-to-day single mom/widow baggage is enough, but throw on all of the problems that came up with the sale of my house, and it was a trying year.  And I struggled.  And sometimes, if not often, my attitude was just bad.  When I look back and try to tell myself I did the best I could under the circumstances, I know that some days that was true, and some days it wasn't.  And I don't even think that's wrong - 2014 was tough.  It was the first full year that Ryan was gone, and it was my first full year of motherhood.  It was the first time I've ever sold a home - a home I never wanted to have to sell on my own.  It was a lonely year - and a year where I realized that I will probably feel lonely for a very long time, just because I don't fit in with people very well anymore.  I'm in a pretty small demographic.  It was a year of coming to terms with my new reality.  And a lot of trial and even more error.  I think it's okay that I had a sour attitude for a lot of it.  I struggled.  I still do - a lot.  The path forward is murky, it feels treacherous, and I have no idea what's on the other side of it.  But, then again, neither do you.  Even if you think you know where your path is leading - you really have no idea.  It could take you anywhere, and you might not like it.  Of that, I am living proof.  I don't know what's ahead - but that is the great equalizer.

But I can't stand still.  This is not a place that I want to settle down - I want so much more in my life.  Most of what I used to want has gone away - or seems unlikely or impossible now.  So I have to make a new way, and that is big and scary and tiring.  And, I want it now.  Every little setback is crushing.  You would think that after the loss of the love of my life, I'd be better at not sweating the small stuff.  But the small stuff often feels likes it's just piling on my broken heart and stopping it from healing.  Any little bump in the road feels devastating, or like some sort of preordained bad luck that I'm cursed to for the rest of my life.  It becomes very easy to be negative, very easy to expect the worst, very easy to just stand still.

So this year, I promise to do anything but stand still.  I must try.  I must take the list the I went through above, my 2015 "to do" list, and get through some of it.  Do a little each week.  This week I did particularly good with reading, dieting, and exercise, for example, but not as great with the other things on the list.  It's okay - I did something, and I tried.  I did the best I could, most days- and I mean it.  Try again next week- and the week after that.  And one day, I'll climb the mountain.

Reaction

It started with a small red mark on the side of her mouth.  Just a little thing, so small I wasn't even sure I saw it.  Then, as I got Sophie out of her highchair and threw out the remainder of the lightly peanut buttered cracker, she started rubbing her eye- just the eye at first, then the whole side of the face, and crying and complaining.  I was hoping that she had just gotten a crumb in her eye.  When we went into the bathroom to check it out, a welt appeared on the side of her nose.  Then, when I tried to turn her towards me to see the welt, what seemed like a hundred more popped up all around it, and her eye began to swell shut.

My heart sank.  My daughter seemed to have a peanut allergy.  I was terribly angry with myself - why, why had I decided to try this to her today?!  The rest of our day was ruined!  I was going to be worried about it all night long!  More than just worry - panic.  I gave my daughter something that had caused red bumps to spread across her face at an intense speed; they appeared in the literal blink of Sophie's puffy eye.  Because of something I chose to give her (a thing I probably should have given to her earlier it turns out, but they really don't give you a manual for this stuff).  And then I thought, all at once, "oh my God, what if this doesn't get better?  What do I do now?".

It was a Sunday, so I had to leave a message with the on call doctor at my pediatrician's office, and wait for a call back.  Observing that Sophie seemed to be in no immediate distress, other than some serious itching, I decided not to call 911.  Instead, I fought with her (unsuccessfully) to get some Benadryl down, until the doctor called.  She told me that I was doing the right thing, and that I'd eventually need get Sophie to see an allergist to diagnose the allergy and discuss treatment and care.  While I was on the phone with the doctor, Sophie quietly took the Benadryl dose from my hands and sucked it down.  Then, she fell asleep, and was fine.  Her welts went away that night, the swelling of the eye took a bit longer.  And her little life went back to normal, no worse for wear.  My panic subsided as well.

In the subsequent days, I talked myself into thinking that maybe it was a freak occurrence - that Sophie didn't have a peanut allergy.  After all, we've made no special efforts to disinfect the house of the peanut butter that we all eat so regularly, and she'd never had an issue before that night.  Yes, certainly this would be fine.  I'd schedule the appointment with the allergist, as a precaution.  While I wasn't thrilled about having Sophie undergo a scratch test, I held out hope that we'd find out that there was no allergy, or perhaps a very mild one that we could "condition" her out of.

Of course, if that were the end to the story I probably wouldn't be writing about it.  No, it was not as I had hoped - yesterday was the visit to the allergist, and there will be no peanuts for Sophie.  I had to hold Sophie down as they administered the scratch test to her arm, and then I saw it balloon up on the spot labelled "P" for peanut.  I listened as the nurse went through all of the pamphlets I would need to read on peanut allergies, how to read food labels, how to handle social situations, and how and when to use an EpiPen (remove the blue cap, stab the orange end firmly into the middle of the thigh, hold for ten seconds.  Call 911.)

I know, I know that there are many, many parents who have to go through this stuff all of the time, and that in the grand scheme of things that can go wrong with your kid, this is probably not that big of a deal.  Perhaps there is even a mother of a child with a peanut allergy reading this, muttering to herself "What is the big deal?!", or "God, this woman is such a drama queen!".  Well, that's probably fair.  But here's the big deal:  I'm not sure that I can handle another emergency life or death type situation.  The last time I was in one of those, it didn't pan out so well.

When Ryan was seizing in bed, I knew that everything was going to be okay.  I knew it.  It didn't seem as though there were another viable choice.  He couldn't die.  That was impossible.  And even as I was in a sheer panic, I still thought everything would be fine.  Looking back, no matter how my mind was racing, my actions were remarkably calm and collected - I reacted quickly and did what I thought I knew how to do to help him.  Then, when that didn't work, I called 911, and spoke impossibly calmly to the dispatcher.  I thought that as long as I didn't freak out, he'd be fine.  The moment I knew that it didn't seem like he was going to be okay, I immediately started mentally thrashing myself.  WHY didn't I called 911 faster?  Why on earth would I believe that I knew how to handle this?  Oh my God, what if this is my fault for doing something wrong?

A hundred thousand doctors could tell me that this wasn't my fault, and I would still have that little gnawing part of me that thinks perhaps I could have done something differently and Ryan would still be here today.  So, with that on my heart, I get myself into a panic thinking about something bad happening to Sophie.  I think, presented with another serious emergency, I'd be a basket case, second guessing every little action and decision.  Yes, I'm going to be one of those Moms.  A worrier, to the nth degree,

And then, there's the sheer insult of the whole situation.  I think one of the first things I thought when she had the reaction was, "Seriously?  I have to deal with this too?  Shouldn't I be done with the bad news by now?"  I guess I thought I had some unspoken contract with the universe that I have been through my hard luck, and it should be easy from here on out.  I lost my husband, Universe.  I'm done with bad luck.  Pick on someone else.  So whenever something bad happens, it feels like an affront.

So what, was I expecting a bump-free ride through my daughter's childhood?  No major injuries, no sickness, no runs to the hospital?  If I was, it was beyond foolish.  Of COURSE we're going to have those things- every family does.  Kids get hurt, they get sick, bad things happen all of the time.  I have no right to believe that because I've been through some rough stuff that I should have earned some sort of free pass for the rest of my life.  And I don't believe that, not really - I just sometimes think that someone owes me one.  And even if I've probably already redeemed the one that I was owed several times over (the easy pregnancy with a lack of morning sickness, the baby who sleeps through the night, the fact that her first reaction to peanuts was serious but not life-threatening), I still continue to think it every time something bad happens.  Come on.  Don't you owe me one?  (Said in the whiniest possible voice, to no one).

After yesterday, I just have this sad image in my head.  The nurse at the allergist told me that her daughter has a milk allergy, and when she goes to parties, she wears a label that says "Don't Feed Me".  I'm imagining my little Sophie, walking around her first social outings without me, wearing a sad little label that says "Please, No Peanuts".  Perhaps just the word "Peanuts" with the international "no" symbol around it.  And everyone else having their Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or Snickers Bars (which just happen to be my personal favorite candy), and Sophie wants one too but can't have one.  Or maybe one day she decides that it wouldn't be so terrible if she just tried a little bit.  And then I'm getting a call that they had to use the EpiPen on her, or rush her to the emergency room, or that no one knew what to do and they're sorry.

That's obviously the very worst case scenario.  I know that nut allergies are prevalent today, that Sophie will probably have friends who have them too, that most schools know what to do,  and that I'll learn how to handle it as well.  But I just don't want to (again, said in the whiniest possible voice).  I don't want to, as a single Mom, have to be worrying about what I buy at the grocery store, or what my daughter brings home on Valentine's Day, or anything like that.  Most weeks I'm lucky if I even get to the grocery store at all, how can I deal with having to add on all that time reading labels?  Ugh.  Doesn't someone owe me one?  And Ryan, aren't you supposed to be helping with this stuff?  I guess the real big deal about Sophie having a peanut allergy is that it's just one more parenting thing that I'm having to do on my own.  And while there is a world full of single moms who know exactly what that feels like, and while I have plenty of help from my parents and other family members, it still seems to me to be an awfully lonely burden.

Sophie, by the way, despite having been inconsolable during the scratch test at the allergist, is doing just fine.  She's spent the day toddling around happily with a big silly smile on her face, like nothing ever happened.  I wish I knew how to do that.

Things for Which to Be Thankful

Yesterday at work, I found myself walking behind an elderly couple.  They were both short, bent over slightly with age, and walking very, very slowly.  I was in a hurry, and looked for a path around them, but as many older people do, they swayed a bit from side to side as they shuffled along, making it difficult to cut around.  Stuck behind them for a hundred feet or so, I looked down and saw that they were holding hands.

Old people holding hands.  That has to be just about the sweetest, most romantic thing I can think of.  I smiled and thought how adorable it was, and then my heart sank, like it often does when I see something that should be a happy thing.  I so wanted for Ryan and myself to one day be like that old couple.  And we never will.  We'll never grow old together like these two, never have the chance to stay in love for decades.

They must have much for which to be thankful.

Or, maybe they don't.  Maybe they've lived a very sad life, or maybe they only found each other two years ago (which would explain why they still want to hold hands).  But, in my imagination, they met when they were young, fell in love, got married, had kids, lived a normal married life with its ups and downs, and in their old age are still completely in love with one another.  That's the dream I had for Ryan and myself.  And when I think about not having these things, in the face of people who do, I find myself growing jealous and bitter.  And I must, quite often, remind myself:  as many people as I see who have things that I wish I had, who have it better than me, there are countless more who have it worse.  Far worse.  Tonight, there are people out there who live on street corners.  Who can't feed their children.  People who have seen unspeakable tragedy - people who have lost their entire families in wars, or in a senseless car accidents.  A single viewing of the local news proves what I have often said:  no matter what your damage, it can absolutely ALWAYS be worse.

And so, it pays the soul to recognize that there is, indeed, much for which to be thankful.  So, despite the cliche, I thought it an apt time of year to remind myself.

I am thankful first and foremost for my gorgeous daughter.  Her often cherubic face, her bright eyes, the sound of her laugh and the way she smiles when I come home from work.  I'm thankful that she is healthy, and that she is growing.  I'm thankful for her fist steps, her first words, her sweet voice.  I am thankful when something potentially bad happens to her, and then it turns out to be okay and she is fine.  I am thankful for the parts of her that resemble Ryan, and for the fact that not every part of her does.  I am thankful that she is punctual, that she showed up in my life when she did, just in time.

I am thankful for family, who took care of me when I needed them to most.  Above all, for my parents, without whom I might be a great big ball of crazy by now.  I'm thankful that they took me into their home, and have helped me to get through a pregnancy and start to raise my daughter.  I'm thankful that they're here, and when I get stuck late at work, or otherwise need a hand, that I am not subject to finding a babysitter or day care late fines, or anything like that.  I have many other family members to be thankful for - my sister and her husband, my in-laws, my brother and his wife, my nephews, friends who feel like family, and others who I am forgetting to mention, but without my parents I can't imagine having made it through.

I am thankful for a warm house to live in, particularly on these cold nights.  I'm thankful that I can feed my daughter, and myself, and that I don't have to worry about where I'm going stay at night.  I'm thankful that I have a job, a decent paying job with benefits and a certain measure of job security.  Even if it's not the perfect job, even if it makes me crazy sometimes, I am so thankful to not have to worry about where my next paycheck is coming from.  I'm thankful for good bosses, who would give me a good reference if I needed it, and who have shown an immense amount of understanding when I was a less than stellar employee.  I'm thankful for my morning coffee.  And my afternoon coffee.  Pretty much anything with caffeine or chocolate in it - I am thankful.  I'm thankful for pajamas.  Thankful for quiet moments in bed on a Saturday morning.  Thankful when Sophie sleeps all night in her own bed.

I'm thankful for pain, because it is one of the things that makes us human.  If I had gone through everything I have in the past year and felt nothing, that would be a sin.  While I want so badly not to hurt anymore, and I often shut my emotions down because I just don't have the time for them every day, I'm thankful that I still have the ability to feel the way I do, fully and without filter.  I'm thankful for this outlet to express myself and the way I'm feeling, and I'm thankful that sometimes people listen and hold me up, even from many miles away.

And finally, I'm thankful for the time I had with Ryan, even if it was way too short.  This one sticks in my throat.  I truly am grateful to have known him, loved him, and started to make a life with him, but I still am just so angry that it had to end too soon. It's hard for me to have the grace to just be thankful.  But, I try to remind myself to be happy that at least I had him for a time.  I'm thankful for the things we did together, even if the thought of much of it nauseates me now, knowing that it's gone.  I'm thankful for the memory of his face, his voice, they way his hand felt when I held it.  I'm thankful for the voicemail he left me the last morning of his life, even if I can't bear to listen to it.  And, perhaps most of all, I'm thankful that I know in my heart that he loved me, even if sometimes it's hard to remember.

That's my short list.  Counting blessings doesn't make the sadness I feel go away, but it does lend some perspective.  It could always be worse.  And there is, almost always, much for which to be thankful.

The Collection

Last weekend, I did something I've been dreading for some time; I stopped by my storage unit.  I moved into the unit when I first started moving out of my house, over a year ago, when I was heavily pregnant.  My family and I moved boxes upon boxes, quite literally, into the small space - boxes filled with many of Ryan and my favorite things.  I figured the items would be in the storage unit for a few months, that I'd sell my home in the winter and get a plan for what to do next.  In the meantime, while on maternity leave and through the winter months, I'd slowly go through Ryan's things and decide what to do with them.

As you might expect, none of that happened.  I went into labor the night I moved the bulk of the boxes into the storage unit.  Maternity leave doesn't have nearly the quantity of down time you'd expect, so I didn't spend any of it sorting through the things in the storage unit - only adding to it.  When my house flooded in January, it diverted any "free time" I had to taking care of repairs- not taking care of my things.  Time dragged on, more obstacles were added, and with them, my dread grew.  The longer and longer I ignored our things in the unit, the more  I became afraid of what I would find.

But, we must face these things eventually.  And last weekend, I had some time.  When I pulled open the door, I was faced with leaning stacks of boxes.  The ones on the bottom had lost some of their structural integrity and sagged under the weight of what was above.  On the top of each stack were loose items, things that didn't fit well into boxes and perhaps needed some sort of special care.  Despite the sadness of seeing large portions of my and Ryan's possessions in this state, I was actually a little relieved.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.  No stacks had fallen over, and nothing looked destroyed.  It also suddenly seemed manageable - I think in my head the boxes had multiplied.  In real life, there are far more than I want to deal with, but not as many as I had imagined.  This, I can do.

I lifted six boxes into my car.  Four of them contain kitchen stuff from our house, and two contain Ryan's things.  Now the work begins- sorting through what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to keep because I can't bear to get rid of it.  Admittedly, that last category will hold too many items.  I fear that I'll become a hoarder.  Which is ironic, because Ryan was really a bit of a hoarder himself.

No, that's not fair.  Our house looked nothing like a hoarder house - Ryan was way to organized and cared to much about his stuff to be a true hoarder.  He was, in truth, a collector.  Oh, and he had a lot of stuff.  And much of it is, quite frankly, completely useless- but, carries immense sentimental value.  Ryan collected books, historical artifacts and paraphernalia, comic books, baseball cards, CDs, DVDs, and most notably, vintage toys.

I'm not sure when he started doing it.  It was when he was a kid, certainly, but I'm not sure when in our relationship the boxes from eBay started arriving on our doorstep.   Soon, several a week were showing up - Transformers in the beginning.  He wanted to complete his collection of the original old toys.  Then, he finished it, and told me that he was done, because he had them all.  Then, the G.I. Joes started arriving.  He said that he wanted to get them too, but was only going to buy the good guys, not the bad guys.  Then, the vehicles started showing up.  Slowly, Ryan had moved all of my stuff out of the storage closet in the basement, and replaced it with his plastic tubs full of toys.  I was evicted.  He bought new shelves for the basement so that he could put many of the toys on display.  I was eventually assured that he had everything he could buy, that there wasn't anything left, and he was done.

One night, about a month after that declaration, I got home from a dinner we were at together, and there was an enormous box on the doorstep.  Nearly as tall as me.  Ryan had driven separately, and wasn't home yet.  Grumbling, I dragged the box into our living room, and began tapping my foot in irritation.  What the hell was this?  When Ryan got home and opened the door, his face lit up like a little child on Christmas morning.  You'll pardon the cliche - there is just no other way to describe it.  And when I asked, grumbling, what was in the box, he simply exclaimed, "My spaceship!!!"

I wondered if he'd be flying away in it.

The collecting went on and on from there - it never stopped.  But, in all honesty, it actually didn't bother me that much.  I know I'm moaning about it now, in the way a wife does, but after a while, I just got used to it.  This was one of Ryan's many, many hobbies, and I just wanted him to be happy.  To his credit, he really loved the toys.  He talked all of the time about how much fun it must be to be a toy designer.  He'd explain to me the characters, show me how to transform the Transformers, and show me why a particular toy was unique or special.  He cleaned them with Q-Tips and took care of them.  He cleaned a couple the night he died.  His goal was always that he wanted to get as complete a collection as possible, and then sell them for our retirement.  They made him happy, so I didn't mind them.  And, eventually the toys became to me such a part of Ryan's personality that I couldn't imagine him without them.

Now, I'm not loving it so much.  Far too many of the boxes in the storage unit, in my parents' garage, and in Ryan's parents' basement are these toys.  And I haven't been able to do a thing with them because they hold too much sentimental value.  They were one of the last things I could stand to pack up in the house, and when I did it, it was through many tears.  I can deal with Ryan's other collections to an extent- the books, comic books, DVDs, CDs, I have ideas for those.  But all of these toys - it could take an age.  And they take up a TON of space.  I've struggled for some time because I want to do with them what Ryan would want.  He put so much money and time into them, and at least part of the reason was because he thought that some day he'd use them to help take care of us and our family.  Like everything else, it's hard to think that won't happen.  I think he'd be sad if I didn't get anything out of them.  And quite selfishly, I hope that he's up there kicking himself for saddling me with such a lot of work.

Because cleaning out a life is exhausting- emotionally and physically.  How do I part with things that were near and dear to Ryan?  It feels impossible, and yet, I can't keep them all.  While I've been through all of the selling of the house and packing up the boxes, I'm still really just at the beginning of the sifting and sorting.  And it is a BIG pile of boxes.  How do I do this?

I'll probably just start with the kitchen stuff.

I Did Not Vote

The title of this blog post is a confession.  It's the first Tuesday of November - Election Day, with a hotly contested Governor's race in my state.  And I did not vote.

*Shame*

I've been feeling wrong about it all day.  As people posted on Facebook about their own visits to their polling places, I felt more and more wrong.  Kate from the year 2000 would be horrified.  The young, idealistic Kate who thought she could change the world would look at me and say, "Who are you?"

It's a question I ask myself often.

So, why didn't I make it to the polls?  Admittedly, they're in walking distance from my house.  It wasn't that I didn't care, I didn't forget what day it was, and I probably could have squeezed it into my morning.  The truth is that I didn't vote today because in the past year, I moved.  I moved to a new voting district, and I simply can't remember if I ever registered in my new district, or if I am still registered in my old one.  I can't find my registration card (either a new one or an old one) in any of the stacks of paperwork in my disorganized life, and in the past two weeks since I realized this, I simply didn't have the time or forethought to try to figure out where I needed to go to vote.  It doesn't help that I'm disillusioned by the ineffectiveness of our government, or that I'm annoyed by all of the political ads that have been littering our life since the summer.  Over the past couple of weeks since I realized that I don't know where to vote, I more than once thought to myself that it didn't really matter anyway.  And despite the fact that I'm pretty firm in my politics, I can't truly call myself an informed, educated voter this year.

Who are you?

This time, I imagine that it's Ryan asking.  I've just called myself uninformed, uneducated, and disengaged.  It would be impossible to be those things living in a house with Ryan, and there's no way I would have gotten away with not voting if he were here.  It's not just that he would have pushed me to be informed and pushed me to go vote (we always voted together, if we could) - it's also the fact that I never was the type of person to be uninformed and disengaged.  That's not who I was, and I don't think it's a person that Ryan would have chosen to marry.  We used to watch the news together often, or discuss it over dinner.  We had lively debates (I think our first big fight was political in nature).  He taught me things I didn't know, and gave me insight on things I didn't understand.  I think I gave him a different perspective, and every once in a while I could change his rigid opinions.  I sometimes think he wouldn't recognize me anymore - I often don't.   Sometimes I worry that if he met me today, he wouldn't be interested in me, and we wouldn't fall in love.  It's a devastating thought.  In those times, I try desperately to find a part of the woman I used to be.  

This whole story about my failure to vote is a good representation of how I feel like I've lost myself in a lot of ways.  My life has changed so much in the past two years that I often feel like I don't have the time or ability to be myself anymore.  For one reason or another, there are so many things I used to enjoy that I can't do much anymore.  Things that used to make me happy, and feel a sense of accomplishment have gone by the wayside.  I try to cram them in, but the pockets of time I have just aren't enough.  I can't say that I've had time to cultivate any of my hobbies in the past month.  I've tried to get back to running a few times a week, or reading every night, or simply fitting in a movie night once every few weeks.  At the end of most days, when my days end at 10 PM and start again at 6 AM, I'm just too tired to start something else.  Most of my news comes from CNN or The Daily Show at this point (neither comprehensive nor unbiased sources) because they fit into my schedule.  I certainly haven't done much travelling with the baby, and I haven't had much cause to cook or bake lately either.  These all used to be things I would use to identify myself - interests, hobbies, things that made me happy.  Things I'd talk about in social situations.  They feel very far away.  Now I identify myself as "Widow".  "Single Mom".  "Full time worker".  This is more demographic information than personality traits.  They're not very interesting talking points.

I know that everyone's lives change when they become parents.  It's just the way of it.  Our busy lives are invaded by little creatures that need our attention every waking moment.  It's exhausting, and there's no going back from it.  But, it's important to find a balance, I think, to find something to make up your "adult life", something that you get to keep from your life before baby.  It's got to be hard for most people.  For me, I think the big problem is that I lost most of these things actually before I became a mom, and then I just never got them back.  When Ryan died, my life was really put on hold, and then with a house to sell, a pregnancy to get through, and now a child to raise, I never really took my life back off of hold.  And now that old me seems so far away that I'm not sure how much of her is there anymore.  Are all of these things that still matter to me, or do I need to start fresh?  When your life is turned upside down, you're not handed an instruction manual or a new identity.  I am trying to keep the parts of me that I like, find a way to fit them into my new existence, and then find some new interests and hobbies too.  It's hard.  And it's so frustrating when I think I'm making something work, and then it falls apart.  Months ago, I had a system where I used the treadmill a couple of nights a week after Sophie's bedtime.  Then, she started staying up later, and I stopped having the stamina.  Then, I started taking long walks with her outside before dinner time - now that's over because the seasons changed.  Things like this happen all of the time, and I can't tell you the number of times I've had to tell myself to start over.  Try again tomorrow.

I'm in here somewhere.  There are pieces that are left, shattered puzzle pieces, and I just have to find the ways that they fit.  I'm missing the big, very important, Ryan shaped piece.  I'll have to fill it with something else- it won't fit as well, but I don't have much of a choice.  And there are other pieces that won't fit anymore either.  But I know I'm in here somewhere- someone I can be proud of, and someone that Ryan would be proud of too.

And Ryan- I'll vote next time.  I promise.

The Stages: Anger

A few nights ago, Sophie woke up in the middle of the night.  She often does, but I am usually able to get her back to sleep reasonably quickly with a pacifier, and sometimes a bit of cuddling in the rocking chair.  Overall, she is an incredibly good sleeper, but on the few nights that she doesn't sleep well, I have a hard time remembering it.

That's what happened the other night.  It was a bad night - I had to wake up extra early the next day, and could have really used an uninterrupted sleep.  So naturally, Sophie woke up crying.  I did the usual routine, but every time I put her back into the crib, she'd wake up screaming again right away.  After four or five times, I felt a little like I was going insane.  Most mothers probably know the feeling.  I walked away from the crib, went into the bathroom, and paced back and forth, trying to figure out how to get her to stay asleep, so that I could sleep, so that I could make it through the work day.  She was screaming the whole time.  I tried diligently to figure out a game plan before I went to comfort her again.  After a few minutes of rambling to myself, asking the empty bathroom how I could get her to sleep, I turned to my own reflection in the mirror and quietly cried out the thing I've screamed at the air so many times before.  I want my husband BACK!

Anger

I've struggled for months about how to write about the anger.  The deep down, gut wrenching fury that comes from loss.  I thought that I didn't feel it very often anymore, and I've been trying to find words for how it felt when I was angry all of the time.  The other night though, when I cried for Ryan in the night while Sophie wouldn't sleep, I realized that I  probably still feel angry nearly every day.  I feel anger when I'm lonely and there's no one I can turn to who could adequately comfort me.  I feel anger when I can't do things I want to do because I'm a single mom, which I never bargained or planned for.  Every time I'm jealous of someone else's life, or bitter about the loss of my own future, that comes from anger too.  I'm angry that Ryan was taken from me, and I'm angry that he hasn't found a way to come back.  I'm angry that he can't help me in my darkest hour, and I'm angry that he doesn't get to share in my joys.  Anger is the second "stage" of grief, but more than any other stage, I've found it to have some permanence in my life.  It's not something I've passed through once, but over and over again, sometimes only lightly, and sometimes like a hurricane.  It's not here all of the time, but it cycles back, often.

Right after Ryan died, I think I was in far too much shock to feel it.  I felt misery, but I didn't understand the permanence of the situation, nor the longevity of the grieving process I was about to face.  And nothing felt real.  People often told me that sooner or later, I would be angry about what happened.

And I remember it clearly, the first time I was angry.  It was a week after Ryan's funeral, and the college held a memorial service for him.  It was lovely, and I was and continue to be unspeakably grateful that my husband's colleagues cared so much about him that they would put together such a moving event.  But about halfway through it, I felt fury begin to boil in my stomach.  I don't know what caused it, but I had an incredibly vivid picture in my head of standing up in the middle of a speech, taking off my high heeled shoe, and throwing it through the glass window in the front of the room.  It would have been a ridiculous thing to do, I realize.  But I just wanted to damage something, and a shoe was all I had on me.

Why did I have that reaction?  I'm not entirely sure - except that I felt, all at once, the insane unfairness of it all.  I was having to, for the second week in a row, sit through an extremely emotional tribute to my husband's all too short life.  I had to put on a nice dress, makeup (but no mascara, because I'd probably be crying, and it might run), sit in the front row, hide a six week old pregnancy, take care of myself, and accept condolences.  Don't get me wrong, the condolences were appreciated, but why was I having to do any of this?  This was ridiculous!  It didn't make sense!  It still doesn't.  In that moment, the shock was dulling a bit, and I was beginning to feel the reality of my situation.  It wasn't fair.  It wasn't fair what happened to Ryan, it wasn't fair that he couldn't finish the life he started, it wasn't fair to me, to his unborn child, to his family.  It wasn't fair.  It isn't fair.  I was, and am, angry.

Blame

Furious.  And where do I put it?  Who will accept my rage?  I have no one to blame for this.  Ryan wasn't murdered, he wasn't take away by negligence, he didn't do this to himself, and I didn't cause it either.  It just happened, without warning.  And I have no one to blame.  The universe has stolen from me, and I can do nothing about it.  It feels helpless.  I want to blame someone.  The truth is that having someone to blame probably wouldn't help at all, but it feels like it would.  It feels like without someone to blame, the anger just flies about in all directions.

At first, I blamed myself for what happened.  I must have done something wrong.  I spent months being mad at myself for not taking it seriously when Ryan had a dizzy spell two days before he died.  I ignored him, figured he was overreacting.  I still get nauseated when I think about the look on his face when he told me how he was feeling- he was worried, and I thought he was being a hypochondriac.  I was so stupid.  Why didn't we go to the doctor that day?  Why didn't I make him get a flu shot earlier that year?  Why didn't I dial 911 faster the night he died?  The blame spiraled inward.

Somewhere along the line, I started blaming the universe, and by proxy, God.  How could he do this?  What purpose does it serve?  I've spent nights screaming at him, tears streaming down my face, demanding that he give back what he'd taken.  To an almighty force, I must have seemed like a petulant child, a mouse throwing pebbles at a lion.  And then I'd get scared - maybe if he really took Ryan away, there was more he would take unless I was good.  I don't believe in a vengeful God, but in those moments I'm terrified of what he could do if he wanted to.  I back down, and say I'm sorry.  I thank him for letting me have a baby, and my parents, and the rest of my family, and oh please don't take any more away from me.  And then I ask for him to ease the anger by helping me to understand why this happened.  I still don't understand.

Eventually, I started being angry with Ryan for leaving me behind.  This is the silliest anger of all, because surely he didn't choose this.  But in my intense sadness, Ryan would be my comfort.  He would put his arms around me, and be my rock.  And now he can't, he never can again.  And I'm pissed.  I want him to hold onto me, and tell me everything's okay.  I had to sell our house, I had to go through a pregnancy and labor alone, I've had to make countless difficult decisions alone, I'm having to decide what to do now with my life - and he isn't here for any of it.  I've had to deal with the four lifetimes worth of crap that he accumulated in his 32 years, and with bad decisions that he made.  There have been moments when I've screamed at him to get the hell back down here and help me.  No answer, again.  He's probably up there smiling sheepishly at me, wishing he could distract me by showing me pictures of baby polar bears or something, like he used to do when I was mad.  Nice try, buddy, I'm still pissed.

And there's nothing to be done for it.  I could tell probably a hundred stories about my experiences with anger in grief.  Here I am going on 1500 words, and  there's a lot more I could say.  It all probably sounds terribly unhealthy, bitter, like a person who's not coping.  But anger, like every other part of grief, is important.  As I said, it's ugly, but I think it's cleansing.  On a morning after I've yelled at Ryan, or at God, I feel exhausted.  But then as the day goes on, my soul feels a little lighter - I've let go of part of my burden.  The bad thing would be to let the anger stay inside and fester, to push it down and pretend it's not there, or try to suppress it altogether.  Better to let it out, and let it do its work.  A minister I know told my family that "God can take it".  I hope he's right - I think he is.  The rages have grown fewer, farther between, and less violent, but I can't pretend that they're altogether gone. 

Haunted Places

In a year and a half of mourning, I have traveled to many haunted places.  Places soaked with memories and feelings from a life gone by.  Places where in my mind's eye, I can vividly see living movies of Ryan and I walking together, holding hands, laughing.  Places like the the grocery store, the mall, Target, our favorite restaurants.  The bookstore where we met where we met (even though it's now a Sports Authority).  The entire town of Phoenixville.  My brother's backyard.  The ocean.  The globe is littered with these places, full of ghosts and relics.

For a long while, it seemed that everywhere I went carried some great emotional burden.  Over time, this has faded; I've re-entered almost every place of any importance many times over at this point.  The places are still haunted to me, but I'm used to it now.  When I walk through Macy's, for instance, and think how nice Ryan would look in a particular shirt, I have a dull ache and lingering sadness still that I won't get to buy it for him for his birthday.  It's not as sharp of a hurt as it used to be.  But every once in a while, I walk into a place to which I haven't yet returned, and it reopens a deep wound.

Yesterday, I had a business lunch at Maggiano's.  Ryan and I used to go there all of the time - we both loved the food and the ambiance.  I took Ryan to the Center City Philadelphia location for his birthday one year, and after that we returned often.  It quickly became one of our staples for date night- Ryan would usually order the gnocchi and a beer, and then complain about having eaten too much.  We actually stopped there the day before he died, to pick up catering I had ordered for his graduation party.

This was a haunted place I'd returned to several times already; I'd stared at the catering counter, and felt hollow and sick.  I'd started playing the butterfly effect out in my head - how could I have let him carry all of those heavy trays of food to the car?  Maybe it was the final strain on his heart!  If he hadn't exerted himself like that, or if I'd have helped even a little, maybe he wouldn't have had the arrhythmia in his sleep the next night.  Maybe he would have been okay.  I play this "what if" game out a lot - it's never satisfying, but always impossible to avoid.

So, having been back to Maggiano's many times, I didn't think going there yesterday would be a problem for me.  Until I got there, that is, and they directed me upstairs and to the left, to the banquet rooms.  My heart sank.  I walked up the stairs (past the aforementioned catering counter), and past the second level seating in the restaurant.  There was the table where Ryan and I had eaten once, and decided that it was our favorite spot to eat because it was quieter than the rest of the restaurant.  I kept going up, passed the restrooms on the right, and turned to the left, and the movie started to play in my head.  I was wearing a blue Calvin Klein dress, which later became on of Ryan's favorites.  He was wearing a nice suit, and about 40 of our friends and family were with us in the first banquet room on the left.  It was the night before our wedding - our rehearsal dinner.  One of the happiest days of my life.

I could see Ryan and I sitting at the table in the center, listening to toasts and talking to the people who loved us most.  I could feel his hand holding mine.  I could feel a shadow of the memory of excitement and happiness, thinking of the next day.  Everything was ready and perfect, the weather looked like it was going to be good, and all of the stress of wedding planning was over.  That night I could relax and enjoy myself - and I did.  My biggest concern was trying to not drink too much - I didn't want to oversleep, or have puffy eyes in the morning.  It didn't matter - when I went home to my parents' house that night, I couldn't sleep anyway - I had butterflies.  Ryan was incredibly happy too - he was the calmest groom-to-be I could have hoped for, solid as a rock.  He was enjoying himself immensely.  It was a night when we believed that we had a long life of happiness in front of us, and the possibilities were endless.  The next day we got married, and never knew how briefly it would last.

Walking past the room yesterday afternoon, I wanted to bail on the meeting.  I didn't want to sit there, trying to focus and pretend that I wasn't going through an emotional turmoil, which, of course, I was.  My stomach felt sick, and I didn't think I'd be able to eat.  For the beginning of the meeting, I felt like I wasn't present, my mind kept drifting back four years.  But I pulled it together, and compartmentalized as best as I could.  And before I knew it, I had ripped off the band aid, and now I will never have to go to that place for the first time again.

A lot of my life since Ryan died probably would have been a lot easier if I had bailed on everything.  Years ago, I told myself that if my life ever totally fell apart, I would leave everything behind an start new.  My "last resort" plan included quitting my job, buying a plane ticket across the Atlantic, and making my way however I could - with no baggage.  In a lot of ways, that still sounds good.  But I'll never, ever do it.  Not anymore.  Because the thing that truly makes all of this marginally tolerable is my daughter.  While tiny in size, she serves as a great big anchor to my current location - I'm not going anywhere.  I can't and I honestly don't want to anymore, as romantic as it sounds.  But forgoing a clean slate means that I have to live in the world I lived in before Ryan died - I'll have to return again and again to these places that used to mean so much to our lives.  As hard as it can be to walk in our footsteps, I guess I probably prefer it this way.  It's a lifeline - a tangible connection to memories that I don't want to lose.  While dealing with the hauntings can be emotionally exhausting, it's better than having nothing to remember.  

Fleeting

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying
-Excerpt from "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", by Robert Herrick
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's funny the way that memory works.  I, for example, am not always that great at remembering a person's name right after meeting them, memorizing lists of data, or remembering dates.  I'm better with songs and verses - I know all of the words to every song on my iPod.  And I did memorize the above poem after hearing it just once in Dead Poets Society.  I have also always had a fantastic memory for stories, and that includes the story of my own life.  I remember things no one else does, about an event, or a location, what a person wore, or the order in which something happened.  I remember senses, colors, feelings, all with vivid detail.  I remember what feels like every moment of my life with my husband.  But, in truth, I'm finding that there are things I'm already beginning to forget.

Like last night.  My Dad was flipping through the channels, and landed on the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie Hot Fuzz.  It's probably an obscure flick, I don't know.  I know it quite well though, because Ryan and I went to see it at the Regal Cinemas in Warrington the year we moved in together.  The movie is ridiculous, a parody of buddy cop action movies, and ends in a blaze of insane, almost cartoony, violence.  By the end of the movie, Ryan and I were both in tears laughing because it was so cleverly stupid.  So when my Dad had it on for a moment, I told him what a great movie it was.  Clearly, I use the term 'great' very loosely.  With my recommendation, he left it on.

As we reached the over-the-top climax of the movie, I very briefly had a clear as day vision of Ryan, doubled over with laughter, a huge smile on his face, trying to catch his breath and wiping tears from his eyes.  Ryan did this every so often, and it was one of my favorite things - when he would totally lose it in laughter, usually over something pretty stupid.  And in this moment, I remembered it so clear; what he looked like, what he sounded like, and how funny it was to me to see him laugh like that.  And then, a second later, it flitted away, and I struggled to pull the image back into view.  I had forgotten, until that moment, the joy I got from watching Ryan crack up laughing.  For the moment thinking of it, my heart became so full, and then deflated again just as quickly.

Like so many things since Ryan died, this vivid image presented itself only briefly, and then sank back into my brain.  It was like when there's a word on the tip of the tongue, so close yet so far away.  It's not that after that moment I couldn't recall the memory at all - the specific event is locked in my mind, as is the fact that Ryan had an incredibly vulnerable funny bone.  What I lose is the incredibly vivid, visceral memories where all of my senses are involved.  These are full color, 3D, tactile memories.  They have smell, texture, temperature.  They come along only every once in a while - the other day it was a vivid memory of what it was like when Ryan would walk up to me from across the room and casually kiss me hello.  The image is there, as though it happened yesterday, as though I'm living it again for a moment, and then so quickly gone again, as though twenty years have gone by.  I can't seem to pull it forward at will - not those full sensory images.  They attack as they like, and slink away with equal speed.

And what's most frustrating is that these memories keep getting farther and farther away, without new Ryan experiences to replace them.  And I'm the only one around who can remember these details of our story.  There is no one else to talk to about it, no one who would remember.  As the memories start to fade from my head, will they still exist anywhere?  It's like that old tree falling in the forest again.  Did it make a sound?  It did to me, but not to anyone else who's around to talk about it.  Maybe I'm not even remembering the sound correctly - maybe it made a different sound.  There's no one with whom to cross-reference.

Then there's the other gut wrenching truth - that as much as these pictures in my head ease the grief for a moment, they cannot compare to reality.  And the reality is just gone.  I'm never going to see Ryan laughing like that again.  Not ever.  The finality of it is crushing.  The moment I have these flashes, all I want is to experience the real thing again, and I know I never will.  I ache for it.

Maybe I'll always continue to have these flashes of clear, lucid memory of my life with Ryan.  I hope they'll always flit back into my head when I'm least expecting it.  It catches me off guard and takes my breath away, sometimes brings tears to my eyes, but unlocking that portion of my brain even for a second makes me know for sure that it did all happen - the great love of my life was real, and I can always keep that.  I can hold it even if I don't have him to share it with anymore.  I hope.  But, even if that's true, maybe this is all a good reminder of an undeniable truth:  much in life is fleeting.  Nothing can last forever, and most of the good stuff will end before we want it to.  It comes quickly, and then is gone, without our being able to control it.

Gather ye rosebuds.

Collision

A shooting star is nothing more than a small meteor, burning up in the Earth's atmosphere on entry.  These little heavenly bodies never make it to the surface, but instead are absorbed into the sky, as if nothing ever happened.  They just burst into a beautiful spectacle of light, and streak across the sky.  The ones that actually collide with the Earth's surface are much bigger, and come along much less frequently.  But oh, do they leave their mark.  On collision, a larger meteor drives deep down into the bedrock, displaces rock and soil, and creates a crater.  The ground is forever changed, the terrain destroyed and turned into something completely different.  While it is still composed of the same elements that existed there before, there is now something else there too.  The collision has left a hole.  It has also left a part of the meteorite, melted into the ground, an inextricable part of the land.  Over days, years, and centuries after such a strike, the land will change again and again as it is weathered into something new.  Flora and fauna may change, climate may change, and after it all, the land will look nothing like it did before the meteoroid set its collision course.  It is something new.

Perhaps it is a labored metaphor, but I was hit with such a meteor.  I can see it vividly in my mind's eye.  Tragedy came swiftly, collided with my happy life, and turned it into something unrecognizable.  It left a deep, wide hole.  And the grief is still there, melted into me, a part of me that will never really go away.  It is something that I have begun to learn to live with, a thing that I will get better at carrying as time goes on, but a thing which will always be there.  It lives deep inside, and has changed my surface and my core.  I feel it every moment.  I am forever changed, and the change extends into every facet of my life.

Two days ago, I left my house for the final time.  On the last day that the house was mine, I went in alone, and walked through every room, remembering a life that seems so far distant now.  In the kitchen, I stood at the stove and imagined stirring the risotto in my red Martha Stewart pan.  I stood at the island and thought of taking cookies off the cookie tray.  In the basement I sat where the sofa used to be and thought of eating popcorn, watching a movie with Ryan on a Saturday night.  In the master bathroom I thought of doing my makeup every morning, while Ryan sat on the bed in his button down shirt and slacks, drinking coffee and making fun of The Today Show.  I thought of the spot on the counter where I'd set the pregnancy test that turned out to be positive, and how lightheaded I was when I saw the word "Pregnant" appear on the stick.  In Ryan's office, I imagined the expression on his face when I ran in that same morning and told him the news.  And in the bedroom, I sat where my spot on the bed used to be, and yet again, begged for Ryan to just come home, so that I wouldn't have to leave the house alone.  Then, I said goodbye to the place, knowing that I will never see it again.  The collision in my life happened a year and a half ago, and in the moment that I left our home for good, it felt strangely as though my transformation were complete.

It's not, though.  Perhaps the destruction finally is - I don't know.  But I still haven't changed into whatever it is that I am going to become.  I don't even know what that is yet, or how long it will take.  How do I become a new person, and yet keep the parts of me that make up my core?  Because there are parts of me that I want to keep - while I was forced to change, there are parts of who I am that remain,  and yet they are often entirely incompatible with this new life.  While I go through the motions of my life, being a Mom, going to work every day, I still wake up every morning and think, "now what?"  In which direction should I turn my feet?  And how, while carrying the heavy weight of grief and loss, do I begin a new life?

I pose these questions because I truly don't have the answers.  I don't expect anyone else to either, and I don't know how long it will take until I find them for myself.  But I do know that I will find them.  I'll probably find many of them without realizing it, gradually, over time, bit by bit.  I'll learn to carry the weight, to live with the hole and yet live a full new life.  I'm already so, so much better at it than I was six months ago.  While the hurt hasn't gone away, and won't ever, it has become somewhat more bearable, and I have become stronger.  I will learn how the new circumstances of my life fit in with the old person that I was, the person that I want to keep.  I'll learn how to make the two compatible, how to blend them into something tolerable.  I think I've used the word "insurmountable" in a post before, and I'll use it again here.  It seems insurmountable - the thought of starting again.  But it can't be.  The only option is to find a way, let a new life take form, and hope that one day it might be as beautiful as the old one was.

Ryan and the Movies

My Mom has been trying to get me to go to the movies for months.  Probably close to a year, really.  She doesn't care what I see, or who I go with, or when I go, she just wants me to go.  Like, yesterday.  But I don't really want to.

The truth is that I have been completely unwilling to go to the movies to see anything because what I really want is to go see a movie with Ryan.  And obviously, I can't do that.  So anytime my Mom brings it up, I fight with myself about it in my head for a while, and always come out on the side of just not going.  No movie has been worth the emotional rollercoaster I would go on if I actually went.  And I haven't been too interested in taking the time to watch any at home, either.  I'm missing my movie watching partner.

Ryan LOVED movies.  He loved movies of nearly every genre, and he was prolific in his movie knowledge.  He wasn't just your typical action movie guy (though Die Hard was an all time favorite), he liked war movies, period pieces, children's films, comedies, science fiction, and the very occasional chick-flick.  It says a lot of my husband that he offered to take me to see both Sex and the City and Les Miserables.  While he went to both happily, I know he would have rather been watching Iron Man and Lincoln.  He didn't need to worry though - we went to see both of those movies too.

My experience with Ryan and film started when we were dating.  We went to see King Kong in the theater, the 2005 version with Jack Black and Naomi Watts (terrible date movie), and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the first few months that we knew each other.  If there was nothing playing at the movies, or we otherwise found ourselves bored in those first months of dating, we'd watch something on DVD.  I remember the first time Ryan suggested this - it was late at night and I didn't think the video store was open.  He told me that we could just pick something from his DVD library.  I expected that to include maybe twenty movies, and didn't expect to find one to watch.  Instead, when I got to his parents' house , he pulled out two giant boxes filled with DVDs and told me to find one I wanted to watch.  I think it took me ten minutes just to sift through them.  I think we watched Legends of the Fall that night - and old movie that Ryan had seen many times before, and I never had.  This is a ritual we would repeat often, both there, and in our own home once we moved in together.  He introduced me to so many great movies that I had just never taken the time to watch before.  He made me brave enough to finally watch Silence of the Lambs and the Kill Bill movies.  He introduced me to classic action movies like Die Hard (all three original movies).  He tried repeatedly to get me to watch Predator- though this is where I drew the line.  No Predator for me.

But back to the theater experience, which is what I started this post about.  I learned quickly that Ryan took his movie-going seriously.  He would want to go see a movie on opening night, which I usually discouraged because, as I constantly reminded him, neither of us were fond of the crowds.  He had no issues putting out the money for the tickets (although he did complain about the rising ticket prices), but found it to be extortion to be forced to pay $8 for popcorn.  He also was pretty sure that movie theater popcorn butter was a carcinogen or something.  So, we usually skipped the snacks.  We'd just sit there, hold hands, and watch the movie.  Very little talking.  Then, we'd discuss the movie for the rest of the night.  I vividly remember many movie nights, sitting in his Audi, driving home from the Regal theater in Oaks and talking about something we'd just seen.  More often than not I'd learn something- from the way that Batman had his back broken in the comic books to how the real plot to kill Hitler differed from the version in Valkyrie.  We'd talk about the previews too, and often have a list of upcoming movies that we wanted to see next.

Over the time we were together, Ryan and I must have gone to the movies fifty times or more.  Since he died, I have been there exactly once.  I went with a close friend to see The Great Gatsby, and had a good time.  But I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to reach over next to me and grab Ryan's hand, lean my head on his shoulder - it was almost a reflex.  Despite enjoying the movie and the time out, I was very sad that day, and I missed Ryan intensely.  One of the worst parts was the drive home alone, with no one to talk to about the movie.  That was over a year ago I think, and I haven't been back since.  As much as I wanted to see American Hustle and a handful of other films this year, I just couldn't bring myself to go through the movie ritual without Ryan.  And I still have a hard time thinking about doing it.

The closest I've come have been a couple of times I've thought about going alone.  Like many things in my life, I get temporarily very excited about it.  I think about going to see a movie, and I think "yeah, I want to do that!"  I think that I'll go get popcorn and a soda for a change, and take myself out to dinner first.I have fond memories of doing exactly that one time when Ryan was out of town.  I start to think of how I could manage it, how my Mom could watch Sophie, I could do it right after work some night, it would be a lot of fun.  And then all at once my body and heart reject the idea.  Nope, I don't want to do that.  I don't want to go without Ryan.  The reward of going to the movies just isn't the same as it used to be.  It should be a place to relax, have fun, and unwind.  I think, for the past year, that it would have been more of a source of stress than relaxation.

Since Ryan died, I've done many of the things that we used to do together - I've gone to many restaurants we used to frequent, I've gone on a few trips, but everything is difficult.  Movies seem especially tough, partly because they were our default date night, and partly because he loved them so much.  I've spent a lot of time being sad that I can't go to see certain movies with him - movies that I know he would have wanted to see.  The Book Thief, Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, The Monument Men, and X-Men: Days of Future Past all come to mind.  How can I go see those without him?  Honestly, I probably wouldn't even want to see a lot of them if it weren't for him.  But he opened me up to a lot of things I hadn't been interested in before.  

I know I won't feel this way forever.  Just like everything else, there simply has been an adjustment period, and eventually things will get back.  Not to normal, but to something tolerable.  It's just another thing that hurts, a wound that needs to heal.  I'm certain to break the moratorium soon, but just as certain to leave whatever movie I see thinking about what Ryan's review would have been, what previews he would have been excited about, and how nice it would be to drive home with him and plan our next movie night.

The Stages: Denial

Everyone knows the five stages of grief.  They are steeped in pop-culture, often as the punchline of a psychological joke (See:  Frasier, Scrubs, The Colbert Report, and countless other TV comedies).  More seriously, they frame our understanding of grief, particularly of another person's grief.  Before I was a widow, I admit that I'd hear of a grieving person who was exhibiting symptoms of one of the stages, and I, as though I were some kind of expert, would say to myself, "of course.  They're in denial.  That's normal."  What did I know of normal?  I think this is how many people understand the stages of grief- they make a grieving person's actions and emotions understandable to those on the outside.

Sometime after Ryan died, a fellow widow sent me a book in the mail- the definitive text on the stages, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's On Grief and Grieving:  Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss.  I was put off at first, thinking that, again, someone was trying to fit me into a simple formula.  My grief was personal, and no one else could possibly understand it.  But, considering the gifter, I decided to give the book a chance.

Upon reading, I began to see myself in many of Kubler-Ross's descriptions of the effects of grief.  It was gratifying, to know that what I was feeling truly was normal.  And not only that - it was still extremely, undeniably, personal.  The book, along with grief counselling, taught me that the five stages of grief are real, but not as pop-culture has taught us to understand them.  They are not things that grievers travel through in a defined order, in a defined time period, or in a defined way.  People in grief may go through all of them, none of them, or only a few.  They can cycle back again, you can feel multiple of them at the same time, you can have rapid switches from anger to bargaining and back again, for instance, or sit in denial for several weeks before moving straight to acceptance.  It's different for each person.  In fact, I would say that they are not so much "stages" of grief (which implies a certain formulaic progression) as "reactions" to grief.  To me, they have been almost symptoms of a condition, ways that my body and brain responded and learned to cope with what I was going through, and continue to go through, in my life.

I'm not done, and  I don't know if I ever will be.  I can say though that learning to accept the normalcy of my own grief has helped me to deal with it, and helped me to go through it each and every day.  I thought I'd write a bit of a "blog within a blog" and share, one at a time, a bit of how each of the stages have affected me personally.  I've been through them all, to some extent, some more than others.  It's my hope that in sharing some of these stories, it may help others to understand some of the the emotional process involved in grieving, and how deeply personal and individual each person's experience of deep grief can be.

When I Said Yes

I never told Ryan, but I knew he was going to propose to me before he did it.  I didn't know when he would, or how, but I knew he was planning it.  One night when I was stopping at my parents' house to tutor my nephew, I bumped into Ryan on his way out.  He had a pretty flimsy excuse for why he had been there, and while I didn't figure it out right away, I knew that's why he had come.  I let him have his secret, and tried to forget about it myself.  I always wanted to be surprised when I was asked that question, and it did neither of us any good for me to have figured it out.  Until the day he died, I never mentioned that I knew why he was there.

Months earlier, I was frustrated.  Ryan and I had been together several years, and we didn't talk marriage much.  I was beginning to worry that it wasn't something he cared much about.  I know we had talked about it before and that he had said he wanted a family, and I couldn't imagine that he was living with me for all of this time and didn't want to make it permanent.  But, I was terrified to bring it up- afraid that the conversation would ruin things.  I knew I eventually would have to say something though, and I planned for it.  I was beginning to get scared that I'd waited too long, and ended up in a dead end relationship.

Ryan and I taking a selfie in New
York, before "selfies" were a thing.

In February 2009, Ryan asked me if I wanted to spend Valentine's weekend in New York City.  I love New York, and was so thrilled that he had come up with the idea on his own.  It seemed so spontaneous and romantic.  Even though it seemed a little too cliche for him, I started to get it into my head that he was going to propose to me on this trip.  I tried not to get too excited, but the surprise trip was so out of character for Ryan that I thought maybe there would be more surprises to come.

It wasn't until later that I found out Ryan didn't come up with this idea at all.  It was a happy accident- his parents had planned a trip to New York and decided late in the game that they would cut the trip short by a day.  So they offered Ryan the last night of their hotel stay, and he took it.  The trip was a lot of fun- but no ring.  I tried not to be, but I was dissapointed.   Not only did I have no confirmation that Ryan wanted to be with me forever, but he hadn't taken me to a particularly romantic dinner (I think we ate at an Irish pub), and there wasn't really any grand romantic gesture at all.  In fact, his entire Valentine's Day gift was predicated on the fact that his parents happened to have a hotel room that they needed to fill.

If I feared that Ryan was uncommitted, or lacked in romace, I was wrong.  Ryan was totally, completely committed.  He was perhaps the most committed guy I've ever met.  When he decided that he wanted something, he set his sights on it and gave it everything he had.  In fact, that's one of the most important things I want Sophie to know about her Dad- he was extremely devoted to our family, to our future.  He would have done anything for us, for her, if he'd had the chance; he would have always been there.  I see now that he simply didn't want to get married or have kids until he was ready, so he could do it right.  I recognize that many happy couples go through hard times and split up, but I really believe that Ryan would have done everything he could to make sure that never happened to us, especially once kids were involved.  For the fact that I wasn't sure he wanted to settle down, he was so content being "settled down" in the end.  Marriage, family, grown-up life, it suited him.

And while he wasn't one for the grand romantic gesture, he worked with a quieter, more understated type of romance: he delighted in making me happy.  When he did something that made me happy, you could tell how happy it made him.  He felt that his biggest job in our relationship was to make me feel loved and taken care of.  And there's simply nothing in the world more romantic than being made to feel special.  I've never felt more special than I did with Ryan- particularly in the years after we were married.

While I was worried that Ryan might not be the marrying kind, he was deciding to buy a ring.  I was busy worrying that we wouldn't have a future, and he was busy getting ready for it.  That coming summer, he was travelling to Europe for three months to work on research for his dissertation.  I was coming to Berlin for ten days to visit, and his original plan was to ask me to marry him in the Tiergarten, Berlin's sprawling public gardens.  He decided against it, because he was afraid of travelling with the ring.  In my head though, I can imagine it.  That would have been the grand gesture, and just the fact that Ryan thought of it meant something to me.  Plan B was proposing to me the Friday before he left to go to Europe, at my parents' house, during an annual fireworks display that can be seen from there.  Again, a grand romantic gesture.  He changed his mind on that one at the last minute too, because there were large number of people there he didn't know, and he felt uncomfortable.

Ryan and I right after getting engaged.
One of the happiest moments of my life.

In the end, he asked me to marry him in front of his family, a couple of days before he left for Germany.  It had been weeks since the incident when I bumped into him leaving my parents' house after asking for my Dad's blessing, and I wasn't really thinking about it anymore - the one, single time in my life I managed to put something like that out of my mind.  So, even though I knew it was going to happen, I was surprised.  And happier than I'd ever been, ever, in my life before it.  That day felt like the beginning of the rest of my life- a day that I knew I had a future with the man I loved, and that he would always be there to love me.

I've been thinking about that day a lot this week, because it was over Memorial Day weekend that year, so this week is a sort of unofficial anniversary of the day we started planning to grow old together.  Thinking of this now, I'm happy at the memory, but I feel hollow right after, thinking of the unfulfilled plans and hopes.  That is how it is for me- even the happy memories (of which there are very many) come with heartache and a deep sense of loss.  When I said "yes" to Ryan's proposal, I absolutely thought I was starting down the path to "Happily ever after", not to "'Tis better to have loved and lost".  Without a doubt, it's true that I'd rather have the memories than not have them, even with the hurt.  I just wish I could find a way to have never lost in the first place, and get back to the happy ever after Ryan and I had both been imagining.

On Being a Mom

It's Mother's Day.  It's my first Mother's Day, my first real one, with an actual child who loves and appreciates me.  I got some credit last year when I was pregnant, but this year is the first year that really counts.  

Mother's Day has become, let's face it, the very definition of a Hallmark holiday.  It started after the American Civil War as an opportunity to celebrate mothers and maternal bonds, and has become a reason for fathers to do a lot of panicked last minute shopping to maintain their happy homes.  As a mother of an infant, Mother's Day should have been a holiday where my husband had the opportunity to appreciate the hard work I do as a Mom.

Of course, that is not to be for me, or for many other single moms out there.  Despite this, I had a lovely first Mother's Day; I went to brunch with my family, my nephew bought me flowers, my Mom and Mother-In-Law both gave me gifts in Sophie's name (I'm sorry, I mean Sophie gave me two gifts), my sister-in-law and her family sent me a gift, and I received many seasonal wishes from friends and family alike.  And, most importantly, I got to spend a relaxing day home with my daughter, who laughed at my silly faces and wowed me with her new-found ability to sit up independently.  Under the circumstances, I have no complaints.  Obviously though, the circumstances suck.  I found myself at many times, today and throughout the week, devastatingly sad that Ryan isn't here to make me breakfast in bed.  Of course, then I reminded myself that he never would have done that anyway.  Cracking the eggs alone would have perplexed him.  But, the point stands.  I don't even have the opportunity to complain that Ryan refuses to make me breakfast in bed.

At my worst point during the week, I broke down crying, thinking how much I wanted Ryan to be the one giving me a Mother's Day gift.  I was home alone with Sophie that night, and when I started crying, she was awake, looking at me.  I wondered what she must have thought, a seven month old, watching her Mommy crying, for what to her must have seemed like no reason.  As desperately as I wanted to lie down, put my head in my hands and just cry, I didn't.  Instead, I stopped, wiped my eyes, smiled at Sophie, and took her upstairs to get her ready for bed.  I sang her a lighthearted song, made silly faces at her, and made her feel loved and taken care of.  And as it often seems to, the most amazing thing happened.  She returned the favor.

I have many observations on motherhood in general, and widowed motherhood specifically, but they start with this; it's hard.  Being a mom is always hard- being a single mom could be harder, and being specifically a widowed mom could be harder still, because of the implications of the grief you're struggling through.  Grief makes you feel like less than a complete person, and as a single parent, you're striving every day to fill the roles of two complete people.  It's tough for half a person to suddenly have the strength and resolve to fill the roles of two people.  Regardless of all of that, motherhood is hard for anyone.  It's always going to be hard, and there will be times that you just want to give up.  Sometimes they'll relate to your child- sometimes they won't.  But, moms can't give up.  If they do, their kids will suffer the consequences- and no good mom wants that.  Moms have to wipe their own tears, put on a smile, and take care of the helpless being in front of them.  Okay, the smile is optional (but recommended).  But, even though it's hard, you do it as a mom, because you have to.  Who else will?  And if you're a single mom, seriously, who else will do this for you?  Grandparents are amazing (and probably the single reason that I didn't lose my mind in the first few months), but the responsibility held by a mother is beyond compare.

But, it's not all bad- and that's what Sophie shows me every day.  As hard as being a mother can be, as exhausting and emotionally depleting, it hopefully comes back to you.  If you're doing it right (which I sincerely hope I am), the reward of being a mother balances out the responsibility.  As you're being held solely responsible for the life of another human, that other human is pouring its love back into you, without even making a conscious effort to do so.  That night that I was home alone, crying over the hole in my heart where Ryan should be, Sophie saved me a little bit just by being there.  Then she saved me further by giggling at my funny faces.  Then she saved me all of the way by snuggling into me as she fell asleep.  The hole in my heart is still there (and as deep and painful as before) - but Sophie has awakened a new place in my heart, a place that I didn't know I had before.  Being a mom makes you do and feel things that you didn't know you could do or feel.  It sounds like a cliche, but being a mom makes you live for something other than yourself, and in doing so, gives your own life more meaning.  As any mom with an infant who won't sleep the night can tell you, it breaks you down first - and then, hopefully, builds you back up.

When I first thought about writing a blog post about some of my observations on motherhood, I thought I'd write something else.  Even when I sat down to write, I thought it would go in a different direction.  I'm not even sure now what it was I was going to write.  The point is, I have a lot of observations about motherhood in general, and my experience specifically.  I hope that I get to share more of them as I continue to experience them and grow as a mom.  

To every other mother out there, I hope you've all had an enjoyable and rewarding Mother's Day.  Sure, it's a made up holiday, but we deserve it.  To my own Mom, thank you.  Thank you for being a wonderful mom, a wonderful grandmother to my daughter, and for helping me through the hardest times in my life even while I'm sure it has been very, very hard for you.  To my Sophie, thanks for giving me something to live for, and for building me back up, a little every day.  You don't even know you're doing it, but thanks all the same.