Family (by Pierce Pettis, covered by Dar Williams)

Thanks again for everyone's continued patience with me.  Maybe I'll just blather here for a while and, if you feel like commenting, that's great... but, whatever...

There are no good days, although there may be bright spots in an otherwise awful day.  Just about everything makes me cry.  Anything can remind me of Eric, in a random moment, sometimes unexplainable, and I just can't hold it in... nor do I want to.  At first I thought there were a finite number of tears and I would cry myself out, but it's become apparent they are unlimited, a bottomless well.  

It's awful that we are still dealing with logistical issues (believe it or not, we only *just* received the death certificates today), which means I have multiple people/businesses to mail them to.

Yes to countless ups and downs but... Nothing. Like. This.  This is big.  This is incomprehensible.  This is ongoing.  This is forever.  The part of my life that is Not Eric is detritus.  I do not care.  I cannot think about anything else right now.  I'm still not reading.  TV holds no interest for me.  Food seesaws between styrofoam and a means to keep me from blood sugar drops.  I cannot concentrate on anything.  My vocabulary/memory is all but gone.  

I am angry.  I am taking everything personally.  I am still in Denial... yet, when I read the Accident Report or the funeral home invoice, it is In-My-Face Real.  

Chico and I went looking for, and found, a box of DVDs of moments captured when we finally got a camcorder (Winter 2001; we were very late to the game).  We stopped time earlier today and watched a few (they're each about an hour), and we laughed and cried at the family dynamic, mostly our road trips to Atlanta, etc. for the Christmas holidays, another with all the kids' Santa visits spliced together (Perimeter Mall; thanks, Aunt Mari!).  Chico filmed my *ss a lot (ha!), but the footage of the kids is priceless.  We have decided we will take a few to my sister's house for Thanksgiving.  Healing or hurting?  Both/And.

I am currently trying to find the fine line between tiptoeing-out-into-the-world adventurer and nightgowned-and-fuzzy-socked hermit.  Sarah and I did make it to Rob's roommate's Halloween party last night and I basically wanted to leave as soon as I got there.  The music was too loud, the menu was meat-centric, and most people got very drunk very quickly.  Wearing my Mother Nature costume (the idea borrowed from Roxanne a bazillion years ago) for the first time in a while, I felt pretty (it's amazing what some lip gloss will do)... but I also felt as if I was having an out-of-body experience rather than being in-the-moment.

I am trying so hard to be Present; the Past leaves me stuck at the September 26 8:30 p.m. Line of Demarcation when E's proverbial David Copperfield tablecloth is yanked out from under the dishes... and the Future will forever be missing a chess piece that I took for granted would always be there (yep, mixed metaphors).

I need to say his name.  I say it a lot, because it keeps him front-and-center in my heart and mind.  Thanksgiving will be unbearable.  I believe December will be easier because 2022 was his first Christmas*not* with us, because Eric spent it with Duyen's family in a North Carolina cabin.  

So, I'm really just a mess masquerading as a wife/mother/family member/friend/citizen of the world; I speak in soliloquys of heaving sobs and brain blips, reading messages into random occurrences that may not mean anything, but that I'm desperate to believe (rainbows and owls and synchronistic songs, oh my).

How does this happen?  Why did this happen?  (rhetorical questions both).  Walking and breathing and speaking will be a conscious effort for a very long time... 😖

SONG:  Family by Pierce Pettis (covered by Dar Williams)

BOOK:  I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye: Surviving, Coping and Healing After the Sudden Death of a Loved One by Brook Noel, Pamela D Blair PhD

POEM(S):  Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Isn’t Breaking by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star

would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons.

The equivalent weight of how much railway

it would take to get a third of the way to the sun.

It’s the collective weight of every animal

on earth. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible

until I consider how it is to swallow grief—

just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed

a neutron star. How dense it is,

how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.

How difficult it is to move then.

How impossible to believe that anything

could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other

with great tenderness. One is

the sheer miracle that we are here together

on a planet surrounded by dying stars.

One is that we cannot see what

anyone else has swallowed.

Helium by Rudy Francisco

When people ask how I’m doing I want to say, 

my depression is an angry deity, 

a jealous god 

a thirsty shadow that wrings my joy like a dishrag 

and makes juice out of my smile. 

I want to say, getting out of bed has become a magic trick. 

I am probably the worst magician I know. 

I want to say, this sadness is the only clean shirt I have left 

and my washing machine has been broken for months, 

but I’d rather not ruin someone’s day with my tragic honesty 

so instead I treat my face like a pumpkin. 

I pretend that it’s Halloween. 

I carve it into something acceptable. 

I laugh and I say, “I’m doing alright.”

QUOTE(S):  "Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement." ~ Albert Camus

"Forevers are composed of nows." ~ Emily Dickinson

“It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Close to My Heart (Dar Williams)

A snippet of something I shared on Facebook today, in response to a meme:  "...I also include sobbing uncontrollably, craving solitude, swearing like a f*cking sailor, shutting down, snapping at well-meaning friends and family, using sleep as an escape, etc." later adding:  "Semantics. My English major/Journalism minor self has a tendency to put words under a magnifying glass, trying to find just the right one for every occasion (annoying to others, but so very me). My friend Fred (who is a Hospice Chaplain) reminded me that, re: the Stages of Grief scale: "Sometimes it's never acceptance. Sometimes it's enough to get to resignation." "

Thank you, FM.  I cannot imagine getting to Acceptance anytime soon, if at all.

My dear friend Nancy, whose Love Language is Food, has been waiting so patiently, while cooking up the proverbial storm, and she wanted to drop something off today, fully prepared to leave it at my doorstep; difficult as it was, I asked her to come in because I needed a hug and, goddess love her, she stayed for almost two hours (once I started, I couldn't stop talking), in full listening mode, allowing me to spew, sob, snot.  I felt a bit of peace after she left (of course, she went home with an extra burden... 😟)

I may be ready for more peopling, but only in baby steps (which made me tell Duyen about What About Bob?, which was one of Eric's favorite movies).  We talked about watching it "together", her in Atlanta, and the rest of us here in South Florida.

Chico and I have been trying to do everything ourselves and allowing our children to grieve, then realized we've been doing them a disservice.  Now we are delegating, which is of course so much better on many levels.  It is insane what needs to be accomplished after someone dies.  I have a 20-item To Do List, and it's not even Monday yet!

Many of you know I had planned to fly up to the Baltimore area on Wednesday for Thursday's Dar Williams concert at The State Theater of Havre de Grace.  I am Booking Lead on the board of The True North Project, and was thrilled to add her to our schedule. Pam (Creative Director) and I were going to stay in a Bed & Breakfast for almost a week, hang out in the funky little town of HDG, and enjoy deep as well as hilarious conversation.  Obviously, there's no way now, as I cannot imagine being normal, much less joyful, and there is a huge hole in my heart.

Speaking of hearts, I wrote this post waaaaaay back in 2007; I've tried very hard not to repeat songs over the course of my blogging, but who knew it would have such a different interpretation 16 years later?.. 💞

SONG:  Close to My Heart by Dar Williams

BOOK:  100 Poems To Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch

POEM:  For Nothing Is Fixed by James Baldwin

For nothing is fixed,

forever, forever, forever,

it is not fixed;

the earth is always shifting,

the light is always changing,

the sea does not cease to grind down rock.

Generations do not cease to be born,

and we are responsible to them

because we are the only witnesses they have.

The sea rises, the light fails,

lovers cling to each other,

and children cling to us.

The moment we cease to hold each other,

the moment we break faith with one another,

the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

QUOTE:  "Sometimes, I’m the mess.  Sometimes, I’m the broom.  On the hardest days, I have to be both." ~ Rudy Francisco