Rivers and Life

I don’t know what to write or how to bring what is in my mind to the surface. That’s how my grief has been going for the past couple of weeks. I don’t even know where to start. I guess this is some protective built-in aspect of my brain. I want to be able to clearly convey how this week has been affecting me and I’m hoping that by turning on the computer and freestyle writing, something of use will emerge.

This past weekend, I visited a subset of the Vermonters (Bec, Rick, Bridget, AJ, Breanna), a group of friends Chris met at St. Michael’s College in Vermont during his undergrad days. He liked taking time to visit them periodically. They were his college buddies and he cherished the time they spent together, drinking, getting high, watching the Sox, listening to music, laughing and playing cards. Chris preferred going to visit them by himself. This was something he considered to be his own and once he convinced me that he still loved me, even though he wanted Vermont all to himself, it worked out quite well for both of us. We each got our time away from each other, which made us so happy to see each other when we were together.

I hadn’t been to see them since Chris died. I just couldn’t go. My grief was too great and I was clinging to my reluctance the way cats cling to screen doors. For a year and a half, I couldn't face it. Then suddenly, I could, so I did.

We had fun. Our weekend comprised dinner, brunch, drinks, lunch, canoeing and cards. Canoeing was my favorite part. Bridget told me a story about Chris which I hadn’t heard before. Once, when they all went canoeing together, she and Chris were paddling in the same boat. “Burrage’s” (as she calls him) paddling was causing the canoe to spin around in circles and once the two of them gained control and straightened out the boat, Chris turned to her and said, “We will never speak of this to anyone.” That was my Chris. I felt as though I had been there and witnessed the entire scene. It made me smile and it made me feel as though he was there with all of us. And then it made me sad.

Bridget equated the river to life, saying that we were sitting in boats being carried down the river, passing things by. If we stood in the water, it would continue rushing right past us, just like life...or something to that effect. I’m sure I haven’t captured most of what she intended to convey, but I found it to be quite profound.

We walked on the boardwalk one of the days. Me, Bec, AJ, Rick, Bridget, Finn and Emmett. AJ had worn the Red Sox baseball shirt I gave him after Chris died. It was a gray Curt Schilling shirt with blue sleeves and I bought it for Chris as a celebratory gift when he had finished his chemo treatments. I thought he deserved to celebrate. We were both so happy that he was finished and we looked forward to continuing our life together. He loved the shirt. It was weird because I found that it was very tempting and easy to squint my eyes and imagine that Chris was walking the boardwalk with me.

During lunch, I had gotten up to use the ladies room and when I returned to my table, I sat down next to an empty chair and thought, “Oh. Chris must have gone to.....” before I caught myself. In some bizarre way, I thought for a few seconds that he was there with us and that he had just gone to the mens room.

Both evenings I spent at Bec’s were nice. I kept a picture of chris on my night stand and I fell asleep gripping the guitarist’s hand strengthener I had bought him for his birthday when we lived in Los Angeles. I had forgotten all about it. It was in one of the boxes I brought with me to give to his friends and when I saw it, I needed to take it back. Chris always loved what I bought him for his birthday. Buying gifts for him created a contest in which I competed against myself to find what he wanted most for as little money as possible. That’s what made him happy. He always loved the gift but he loved finding out that I spent seven dollars on the guitar hand strengthener or three dollars on the Gilligan-style Red Sox hat. That’s what really made him happy.

Both nights, I cried myself to sleep, troubled by flashes of Chris being there, flashes of his illness, flashes of the realization that he is dead, all followed by desperate denial and tears. Nobody knew. I just took the time to grieve in the privacy of the guest room, wondering if Chris had ever slept in the bed I was sleeping in this past weekend. In Bec’s jeep on the way back from canoeing, I was also choking back tears. I just feel so lonely for him sometimes and it just didn’t seem fair that he wasn’t there with us. It didn’t feel fair that I was there, at all, because if Chris was alive, I wouldn’t have been. He would have wanted to go there alone. All of it seemed so unfair. All of it is so unfair.

Today I had a very nice day with Bonnie. We walked around downtown Amherst, had lunch at Judy’s and shopped a little bit. The day was beautiful and I felt warmth between us. I was happy to be with her.

This was my first solo trip in my life. I made the schedule, I drove to Vermont by myself and then to Keene and to Hadley and now I’m back in Boston for a day before I take off to Portland, Maine. I have never done anything like this. I feel free and self sufficient.

Tomorrow, I have a session with Clay. I hope I can convey my thoughts to him more clearly than I have conveyed them here. It’s difficult sometimes when my brain doesn’t want to face the pain.

If I could have anything in the world, I would want my Creej, healthy and happy, back in my life and a second chance for the two of us to be together.

Accepting my Lack of Acceptance

Last night, I read an article entitled “The Five Stages of Grief” in which the author argues that grief doesn’t really begin until after the five stages of what he has more accurately named “The 5 Stages of Receiving Catastrophic News” have been experienced and resolved. The article can be found at http://www.counselingforloss.com/article8.htm.

While I understand and agree with the author’s opinion and while his assertion makes perfect sense to me and his article has cleared up much of my confusion concerning my own progress through my “grief”, I am left wondering if I haven’t even begun to grieve yet.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I know these stages are not supposed to occur in any predetermined order, but looking at the list I have realized that I have only experienced four of them. Acceptance is the last piece for me, and I haven’t yet accepted what has happened to Chris or me. I can’t accept it. I don’t mean that I can’t believe it happened or that I deny any of the horrors of this entire sordid episode. What I mean is that even the word “acceptance” steals the breath from my chest and labors my breathing.

If the truth is that I truly have not accepted what has happened, yet, and I believe that is the truth, as I can’t even say what has happened without denial charging back in to protect me, then according to this author, my real grief has not even begun, yet. This is concerning news for me. How much longer will I go on having periodic episodes of crushing depression and anxiety? And will another man be able to find enough patience and understanding in his own heart to know that I am trying to move forward, or will the rest of my life be spent fighting for my right to feel?

I have always subscribed to the philosophy that I have a god-given right to feel what I feel and that nobody has the right to tell me otherwise. I shared that philosophy with Chris and reflected it back on him and I know he appreciated my patience and ability to move alongside him through both the ease and difficulties which arose for him throughout our lives together. In effect, we cultivated an environment in which absolutely every emotion was experienced and allowed, no matter how good, bad or ugly.

I don’t know if I will ever find that again.

I guess what it all comes down to is that we’re all moving forward, wearing blinders, not able to see anything but the first few steps ahead, but that’s a whole other discussion on acceptance...or lack thereof.

Frustratedly, yet strangely upbeatedly,

Shneed

Deep Breath...Okay, Now Relax.

Date guy e-mailed me today. He’s flying home tonight and asked me what I’m doing Memorial Day weekend.

When I saw his e-mail, I panicked for reasons unknown, shut down my computer and went to school, where I couldn’t concentrate at all. I like him, which really makes my panic annoying. So, on my way to the subway after class, I began to think it through and get in touch with the things about him that make me happy (his sense of humor, he’s cute, his musical ability) and get my mind off of the things that make me panic (that he’s not Chris, that I feel llike I’m cheating on Chris). I succeeded in calming myself and by the time I reached the station, I was happy that he e-mailed. I mean, he could have gone away and never spoken to me again. But he didn’t. He e-mailed me.

When I got to my truth, I realized that if I just relax, I can feel happiness and hopefulness.

My grief confuses me. I did get to my truth tonight, but it was a close call. What happened, esentially, is that I got mad at my grief. I’m tired of feeling it. I’m tired of crying. I want to stop. I focused on that desire tonight and I was able to answer his e-mail. I’m glad.

Shneed

Productive Weekend

This weekend could have gone two ways. After work on Friday, true to the pattern I had fallen into, I became depressed and scared to go home to be alone. My mood dropped steadily from the moment the clock struck five and the closer I got to my apartment, the more forlorn I became. Once inside the safety (and loneliness) of my walls, I sat on the couch and felt the first of the tears begin to well up in my eyes. I sat for about a minute, coaxing them to come, waiting for the storm when suddenly I said out loud, “I’m going to do some homework.” And I did just that.

Since Chris’ death, I have put off my online certificate classes. Chris used to enjoy seeing my work and providing favorable commentary on my creativity each time I completed an assignment. I loved his input, and occasionally I would make changes in response to his suggestions, which made him feel creative as well. Once he died, I found designing for school to be too painful, too difficult, and so I have been enrolled in my last two classes for the past two years. These classes typically take about six weeks to complete. I have had discussions with the student center explaining what happened in my life and requested and received countless extensions on these courses, only to find myself doing nothing to push through them and earn my certificate in Web and Digital Design. That all changed this weekend.

Deciding to be productive, instead of destructive set me on a course of accomplishment which has followed me all weekend. I, myself, am amazed at all that I have done over the past three days.

I completed one lesson in each of my two online classes, working a total of seven hours collectively and passed them in. I washed, dried and folded three loads of laundry. I sang at an open mike. I ran five miles and biked seven miles. I moved my furniture around, cleaned my apartment and organized all of my sheet music. I attended my nephew’s baseball game, wrote three blog entries and managed to socialize with friends.

All this because I was walking the fence between a depression-induced shutdown and the desire to complete everything on the list I have been keeping for months. I chose to be productive and it paid off.

This weekend, I escaped the extreme pressure under which I usually place myself and jumped, with both feet, into my life.

Despite the pain in my thighs, butt and knee, I feel fantastic this evening and I am quite looking forward to attending my evening slumber. I need to make a conscious effort to remember how I feel tonight. If I can jump into life each night and weekend instead of sinking back into death, I just might get through the pain of Chris' absense someday.

I wish I could be this powerful all of the time.

Shneed

Still Tossing it Around in My Head

I just returned form the open mike. I am home alone and I am not crying. I can feel my brain wanting to cry -- my brain has a brain of its own -- but I am feeling strangely in control.

I wish I knew why I don’t want to let go of my grief. I can understand not being able to let go, but not wanting to let go is something else. My grief has become like a teddy bear to me. I hug it in bed, I sleep with it, hold onto it when I am upset -- and I think I have grown to love my grief the way an abused person loves her abuser. It doesn’t love me back. All it does is hurt me and hold me back and I keep going back for more because in some bizarre way, I love it, I need it and I just can not walk away.

If I stop grieving, that means I will be over the loss of my Chris. Until the end of my grief means something different than that to me, I am not going to be able to release my panicked bear-hug grip.

Chris’ cancer was evil. Grief is evil. I feel victimized by the latter. I feel as though I am in a giant room enveloped in darkness, groping around looking for a window or another escape, but I just keep coming up against the same wall, hoping to push through it. It never gives way.

Wine and Song

I suppose I should have written this sooner, but I just couldn’t pop myself out of the grief back draft I have been suffering since my date with that guy. He has e-mailed me from his trip a couple of times and to my surprise, his e-mails still make me happy.

Anyway, since that date, I have been coming home every single night and falling apart, crying, waking up in the middle of the night crying and waking up with a dehydration headache which I unsuccessfully chase away with a steaming hot cup of coffee.

At my session with Clay, I could not come up with anything that was bothering me even though I know I have been in an horrid state for weeks. I told him I could feel the heaviness and that I know I am depressed but everything that is bothering me is hiding behind my brain and I could not get to the heart of my feelings. I sat in his office feeling as though nothing was really wrong and eventually, my brain just became empty. I had nothing to work on. I knew it was there, but I could not bring any of my feelings close enough to the surface to mention.

When the hour was up and Clay ended the session, all of my grief began to reappear. I told Clay and he mentioned that he felt as though my grief and anxiety seemed to come from the knowledge that I was about to be alone. He was right. I went home and cried again. Then I began to think about what he said.

A year and half has passed and crying every day is not something I have been doing. The regression is understandable since I took a huge leap of faith in myself by going on a date. I began to ponder my recent grief episodes, wondering if my tears have been a method of “paying my respects” to Chris, trying to reassure him that even though I went out with another guy, I still love him and I always will. If I’m not upset, I feel as though I have forgotten him or never loved him or something to that affect. My tears have felt contrived, not heartfelt...well, that’s not entirely true. My tears begin in a contrived manner and bringing myself to the point of inconsolable heartbreak again, which is what I felt for a very long time, actually takes quite a bit of Stanislavskian effort. I don’t do it on purpose, but I do it. When I realized that, I told myself for the umpteenth time that I need to stop. I can not do this to myself for the rest of my life.

Am I still grief-stricken? Of course I am. Do I still sometimes fall apart and cry my eyes out? Yes I do, and usually my despondence is genuine. Valid. But I need to find a way to give myself permission to find happiness with another man someday. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not soon. Maybe not with this guy. But I most definitely need to find a way to make this happen.

At my nephew’s baseball game today, somebody hit the ball and it almost hit the pole behind the home plate. I thought, “Oh. It almost hit the Pesky pole. “ and felt myself turn to Chris for the approval he always gave me when I knew something about baseball. I almost shared the moment with my sister, but I knew she probably wouldn’t understand how I could go from one-hundred to zero in a matter of one second in time. I wanted to cry, but I stifled myself. I took a walk over to the playground to visit my little niece and on the way, I talked to Chris, telling him about the Pesky pole and about how I knew that because of him. I choked back my tears. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong everything.

I have a right to cry, but what if whatever new guy comes into my life doesn’t think that I do. What if he gets mad or hurt or worse than that, what if he yells at me? I hate being yelled at. I can’t take it. Chris yelled at me once. Just once, and it wasn’t out of anger. I scared him with my stupid centipede phobia. He hated when I freaked out and I freaked out pretty often, but he usually came to my rescue whenever a bug threatened my life. Just one time, I caught him off guard and he stomped on the bug and yelled, “There! It’s dead! Are you happy?” I was. His anger was well worth my peace of mind.

The bottom line is I don’t want somebody else. I don’t want to teach somebody else not to yell at me or treat me badly and how my mind works and how to understand and respect me and love me anyway, despite my shortcomings .

I just want him back.

But I am going to move forward if it kills me. Hopefully it will kill me and I’ll get to be with Chris afterall. That’s just not how my life goes, though. I just know I’m here for the long haul because I have to “learn” stuff.

Wow. It feels really good to have gotten to the heart of that. I’m off to an open mike to celebrate with wine and song.

Shneed

What it Means

I have never been one to be affected one way or another by the weather but I am so glad the sun is out again. Ten days of constant downpour activated my grief and regressed it back to the early months. Yesterday, the moment the sun came back, I felt enormously better.

They guy I went on my date with has gone away for a month and said he would e-mail me from his trip. True to his word, we have e-mailed back and forth a bit. The other night, seeing three appearances of his e-mail address in my inbox sent me into a fit of tears. The familiarty of his screen name reminded me of way back when Chris’ screen name became a familiar and welcome part of each morning. I became panicked and closed down my laptop. I can’t save his e-mails, yet. I’m too scared. Placing them into their own folder would be like admitting that he’s the new guy and I’m not prepared to do that yet. Still, he makes me happy. The prospect of seeing him on a regular basis horrifies me, though. I’m all wrapped up in what it means about what Chris meant to me. I am brought to the point of suffocation by that thought. I can’t breathe and I feel like crying. Still...he makes me laugh. I guess I’ll be doing the Jekyl and Hyde thing for a while.

At least the sun came back.

Anyway...I’m late for work.

Shneed

Shopping for Peace

Today I bought two pairs of the same exact sneakers and a new dress. Yesterday, I bought a bunch of new clothes to wear to work. It’s not that I don’t need the new clothes for work. I was asked to dress not quite so funky and in order to tone things down a bit, I really do need new clothes.

The sneakers however, were the start of the depression that has systematically attempted to attack me all weekend...actually more than all weekend. It began with my date. I had a really nice time and was left feeling scared, stressed out and basically freaked out.

I have been watching Good Will Hunting for the past hour. Robin Williams’ character talks a lot about his wife who died from cancer two years ago and he describes it with such accuracy that I have been crying, trying to hold myself together since I turned it on. I’m depressed, not in the sense that I’m just sitting around crying day in and day out. Depression isn’t really like that. I just feel a heaviness which I have been suppressing for a couple of days, I guess, maybe for a week. I’m not sure, anymore. What I’m sure about is that I have a closet full of new clothes and two new pairs of the same exact sneakers, my favorite sneakers, because I medicated myself with a shopping spree this weekend. Nice, huh? Sometimes Ativan just doesn’t cut it. Actually, neither do clothes. Crying seems to help more than both of those things.

This little snippet of Good Will Hunting has been more helpful to me than anything else has been this weekend. I wish I could watch the entire movie, but my sweet, beautiful little niece just called and invited me over to collect my birthday presents. I just can’t say no to her. She made me laugh and she filled my heart. She and my nephew are the only two people on this earth who can do that now. Chris was the other one. It’s nice to know that love is still there, so strong that it both fills and breaks my heart simultaneously. That’s love. I shared it with Chris and I share it with my niece and nephew, my children.

Date: 1.5 A.C. (After Chris)

Our date went really well. We met at a cute, little Italian restaurant and dined together for three hours. We share a love for Broadway shows and music. We were both completely honest with each other, he telling me that he has been divorced two times and me telling him I lost my husband a year and a half ago.

He seemed worried about that timeframe and with good reason. Right before we went our separate ways, I told him I don’t know how this would go for me. I confessed that I am still actively grieving, even though I don’t walk around crying day in and day out. He told me he has no expectations and then hugged me good-bye and kissed me on the cheek. He’s very nice.

I told him I would like to see him again and if he wanted to see me, too, I would like to get together again when he returns from his one-month vacation. He said he would e-mail me from the road, but I’m not really expecting him to an that’s okay. He may even decide that a year and a half really is too risky for him to get involved with me. Time will tell.

Since the date, I have awakened each morning at 3:00 AM crying tears of resignation. I still cannot face the truth entirely. It’s okay. Maybe I will, one day.

Going out with another man for dinner was not as bad as I thought it would be. I had fun. I felt beautiful. I felt as though Chris approved and was proud of me for taking the step. The aftermath is rough, though. I have been crying inconsolably for days and the end is nowhere in sight.

I am so thankful for the job that I have. Being there and having the responsibility I have and the freedom and the trust of my director and coworkers is really providing a balance in my life which is quite helpful. My sanity lies at work these days.

I’m nervous about this man’s return from vacation. I don’t know how I will feel then. It will probably be very good for me to go out with him again, if he wants to see me. I already placed my cards out on the table. I have no secrets.

I really couldn't have asked for a better first date after Chris. My faith in men, which has always been shaky, at best, remains in tact. I did it. It's behind me.

All in all, I’m very proud of myself for taking this step. Although scary and sad, I believe it is quite necessary.

Anxiously,
Shneed

Is he a gift, Creej?

One year, four months and nine days ago, my sweet Chris Burrage left this earth. This evening, one year, four months and nine days later, I am going on my first date with another man. He is an “other” man.

In some ways, I feel as though I am committing adultery tonight, being unfaithful to my husband and unfaithful to myself, since my husband is still the only man I love.

Still, there is another side to the story.

I like this new man, so far. He found me on Match.com, but I have met him a couple of times before at various musical theater auditions in the area. He is a musical theater director and, as it turns out, I have auditioned for him in the past. This minor fact softens the blow a bit and makes me feel as though I am going to dinner with an old friend. He is very funny and seemingly jovial, quite silly and creative, a Sagittarian, just like Chris, which only means that if things work out, his indecision and constant wander lust will drive me right back into the throes of madness, just like Chris.

Events have occurred over the past year, four months and nine days that have affirmed my belief that our deceased loved ones have the ability and the inclination to guide and to steer us in seemingly fortuitous directions after their departure from this world. I believe that Chris is watching over me, helping me achieve peace and eventual happiness in my life after the crushing defeat I have experienced in the past couple of years since his diagnosis. I believe he still cares very deeply for me and I feel my life becoming easier than ever before.

I don’t know where this man came from, but my plan from the start was to NOT reply to anyone online. I was only there to look and get used to the idea of possibly going on a date. Then suddenly, a man who does what I do for a living loves what I love outside of work and shares my strange sense of humor and love for Broadway enters my scene. How did that happen? Did Chris do it? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I am interested in the fact that the thought enters my mind on a daily basis.

How else did I find the perfect apartment without even trying, find the perfect job, apply, interview and nab it without even trying and find a man who has peaked my curiosity enough to coax me into replying online when that was never in my plan?

I don’t need to believe these things to make myself feel better. I am quite adept at achieving happiness on my own. I have always been capable of survival without the aid of others (The exception, of course, is Chris’ death, and I remain ever-thankful to my friends for carrying me through it.)

Chris wants me to be happy. He is happy, now, and I believe that he is with me, holding my hand, comforting me, patiently urging me onward toward the remainder of my life, which I have not yet begun. He knows. He knows how sad the scheduling of tonight’s date has made me, but he also knows the potential happiness it could bring.

Or maybe it’s just me who knows that.

I want to believe Chris is helping me, but I feel invalidated when others minimize my beliefs into a coping mechanism. I may be confused about whether Chris is helping me or whether I am helping myself, but I am certainly not a person who needs to fool herself in order to move on.

I am happy for tonight for two reasons:

1) It will be nice to sit with a man who can make me laugh again.
2) It will, eventually, be over and I can go home.

A New Bathroom

I awakened out of a sound sleep Thursday morning at 3:00 AM and fell into the throes of an inconsolable spell of intense sorrow in which I remained for an hour and a half. I left my bed and walked around my apartment sobbing and hyperventilating, replaying scenes from the past two years of my life. I am still feeling trauma stemming from watching my husband’s health deteriorate, along with his faith, hope and ability to live a quality life. I thought about him in the hospital, wearing a Johnny, always so brave and unafraid, reassuring me that he was fine over and over again, smiling and just accepting each new procedure he had to endure.

I remember sitting in a breakfast restaurant in Brighton Center together one Sunday morning. We ordered breakfast and while we were sipping our coffee and waiting for our eggs and toast, I began to feel choked up. A surge of panic began to rise from within my gut and take hold of my throat, squeezing the breath out of me. I began to cry. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I was terrified and I said to Chris, “I don’t want you to die.”

“I’m not gonna died, Shneed.” he said, annoyed with my display of panic, probably frightened by it, and we ate breakfast. I felt awful for showing him my pain. He had so much pain of his own to deal with. But sometimes I needed him, even though it was he who needed help and support. Sometimes I just needed him to be there for me, to tell me it was okay and that he wasn’t going to die. I wish he didn’t die. I can still feel what our partnership felt like. It was so easy with Chris. He was so easy to be with, even when he was difficult to be with.

Today, I went out and bought a new bathroom set. I bought a shower curtain, rugs, toilet seat cover, towels, soap dispenser, tissue box and a new trash barrel. When I was in Target picking it all out, I became horrified of the money I was about to spend. I told Meira that I felt sick and wanted to put everything back. She asked me why and I replied, “Chris would be so mad at me for spending this. I don’t even really need a new bathroom set.”

I then remembered that I just got paid $160 for the show I just did and remembered that Chris would have said I should use that money to buy whatever I want. “Just blow it Shneed.” he would say. “It’s free money.” I felt better and continued putting pieces together for my new bathroom scheme. When I got to the registers, I realized my entire body was trembling. I felt so afraid. It’s awful to know that I can do whatever the fuck I feel like doing and buying and saying and that the reason is because the man I shared my life with and worked together at being a couple with is not here to stop me, anymore. I hate it. I would put every single item in my apartment back on the shelf if Chris was alive to still be with me, now. I’d never need another stupid material item ever again.

It was time to change my shower curtain and the rest of my bathroom set. the towels I bought when Chris was still alive, and the rugs as well. The rugs hold a nightmarish memory for me and it was time to remove them and replace everything with new stuff and new hope.

The shower curtain I took down tonight is the one I bought while I was still living in my old apartment that I shared with Chris. I was in a total grief-fog, shopping at Kohl’s with Carol. I bought that shower curtain that day, eight months before I moved out, as a promise to myself that I would be in a new apartment once my lease ran out. Our apartment had a shower door and didn’t use a curtain. I remember I couldn’t buy clothes because I didn’t know who I was anymore or what I liked to wear and because I had nobody to wear anything for anymore. I used to put on a fashion show for Chris everytime I went shopping. He always knew what to say about each article of clothing that I subjected him to and he was such a sport at being my spectator. Once in a while I would reward him by trying on my new three inch heels...just my new three inch heels and parade out into the living room to show him and to basically thank him for being such a good sport. Boy, we had fun together.

I have a date Tuesday evening with a man who e-mailed me on Match.com. He has a very funny sense of humor. He makes me laugh. He’s a musical theater director and so far, I like him, which makes me very sad. Part of me never wants to like anybody again. I feel like I’m throwing in the towel, giving up on my husband, admitting that he’s not coming home to me and so, very reluctantly taking a step forward. I don’t want any of it. I just want Chris back. I accidentally said his name out loud the other night, “Christopher Burrage” and that simple act, hearing his name out loud, made me feel euphoric. It was like he still existed on this plane. I miss him and I’m so sad that he’s gone.

I bought a new shirt for my date. I want to look pretty. How am I going to sit across from someone that isn’t Chris? Wherever he is, I hope he’s helping me and not hating me. I feel tremendous guilt, but it’s time for me to do this. I want companionship again and I want to love again -- even though I still just want to love Chris again. I don’t want somebody else.

If I never needed Clay before, I sure need him now.

This past weekend, I went to Hadley, MA to visit Chris’ father, Howard. He looks like he has been through it. When he saw me, he instantly apologized for not calling me and explained that he was going to but then he was scared and then he was going to but then he didn’t know what to say, etc...I asked him to please not feel badly about that. I didn’t call him either. I was scared, too. We talked a lot about Chris. Howard’s heart is so broken. He is living in a nursing home now suffering from congestive heart failure and emphysema. He thinks he’s going to get to go home eventually, but that isn’t likely to happen. I feel so badly for him. He had such a horrible time throughout his life with bipolar disorder and depression and then he lost his son. He’s so sad. Beth said that Howard has never talked about Chris since his death. The other day, he and I talked exclusively about Chris and in great depth. He told me that it’s always with him and sometimes it’s so heavy, right in his chest. I told him that I feel the same way. He then said to me, “I don’t know how you do it. I honestly don’t know how you do it.” I said to him, “You wanna know how I do it? Your son was a beautiful, wonderful, patient, encouraging person who loved me very much. That’s how I do it. He gave that to me. He gave me strength, courage and love that I carry inside of me. Chris is inside of me. .That’s how I do it, Howard.” When I said that, Howard’s face lit up into a beautiful smile. He looked so happy. I told him how much Chris was like him. They both have the same sense of humor and the same sort of demeanor. Chris even had Howard’s legs. I told him that and then I said, “Nice gams, Howard.” He laughed out loud.

I think and I hope that I helped him in some way. I want to help him more. I’m going to go back and visit him again and talk with him about Chris. I loved his son more than I can ever, ever express in words. I loved him more than I can ever express in any way.

I’m scared. This guy I’m going on a date with is so nice and funny and cute and talented, but he’s not my Creejie and I’m going to have a really tough time pushing past that. I feel as though Chris is being ripped out of my soul, like a giant great white shark has taken a bite out of my soul and ripped it off and swam away with it, leaving me screaming and trying to swim and stay afloat. At the present moment, if another man was in the water with me and I could grab hold of him to stay above water, I would opt to drown, rather than wrap my soul around anyone other than Chris.

Please don’t be mad at me, Creej. I need you. I love you.

Oh, this guy has no idea what he’s in for. I’m just going to have fun and know that I have no intention of falling love with him.

I have so many pictures of Chris. I’m not putting them away and I’m afraid that that’s going to be a problem for some men. I’m not putting Chris in a closet somewhere where I can’t look at him and see who he was and who we were together. I won’t do it.

39

After our day together, Robby and Carol went home. I went out to shop some more, not because I wanted to shop, but because I was feeling anxious and I was about to be alone despite the fact that I did not want to be. I still do not want to be.

I am having trouble relaxing. What I really feel like doing is screaming.

In T.J. Maxx, I felt anger take me over as I meandered from merchandise rack to shelf and back around again. I was going to get back at the universe by spending money. THAT would show it. Except that I luckily realized what I was doing and promptly left the store to go home.

Something is brewing. I’m not sure what. Something.

I keep thinking about hypnosis and what it would be like to be brought back in time, beginning at the day of Chris’ diagnosis and forward. There is so much junk inside of me that I’m scared to deal with and I can’t get to it. I think guilt keeps me from dealing wtih it but I don’t know why, Maybe my guilt is a product of the fact that I’m still here and he isn’t or that he felt pain and I didn’t or that he lost his quality of life and I didn’t.

Grief is difficult even though I am willing to get to the core of my pain and work through the trauma.

I am so mad that my love was cut short. I didn’t deserve this. I don’t want to be alone but I don’t want to be with anybody but Chris. I am totally stuck.

I remember falling into my chair when Chris’ surgeon told us she got all of the cancer out of him. I remember I cried tears as powerful as the ones I’m crying now except that they were tears of unbridled joy. Tonight’s tears are just tears of yearning. Painful yearning for the one man in my life I ever loved more than everything, ever.

Tonight I feel lilke there is no “over it” or “past it” or “around it”.

Tonight I feel as though I just going to get old and die alone and that’s all going to happen in double-time inside of a five-minute window and I’m going to turn around and wonder where my life went and why I never had the courage to move on.

Tonight I am mad at Chris for leaving me in a world that does not inlcude him. We’re separated indefinitely.

Birthday Gifts from Chris

Today is my 39th birthday, my second birthday sans Chris. I scrolled backwards and read last year’s birthday entry (5/1/05) and, truth be told, everything still rings true.

The ominous view out my window , although relieving and comforting, mirrors the window into my soul this morning. The difference, this year, is that I have more control over my emotions. The relief that the rain brings at the precise moment will be easy enough for me to pick up and place back into storage and I have no doubt that this birthday will be a very happy one. Of course, my hope is that as time passes, I can transform the objects that prompt me to remember Chris and what we shared together from rain into sunshine. I have already begun.

My friends, Robby and Carol, with some prodding from me, agreed to take today off weeks ago to spend my birthday with me. I knew today would be a challenge so I placed the two of them on “grief-watch”, labeled them my “birthday bitches” and planned a day of fun, just the three of us (and Chris). I try to arrange milestones in my life, these days, to make them more conducive to fostering joy rather than grief. Oh, the grief comes during my weakest moments and I doubt that will ever change, and I don’t think I want it to. How can I ever have a guilt-free existence if I don’t experience the grief my loss has gifted me and all it has to offer? There really is good that comes out of all difficulties in life. I live by that belief.

So this year, I realize and I’m beginning to accept that my gifts from Chris are
empathy, compassion, patience, love, emotional freedom, strength and those hugs I can feel every time I close my eyes and envision him behind me, supporting me and loving me, eternally, from the other side of the veil. I know he’s there and I know he’s helping me. I can feel his support.

The truth is that every day is my birthday. Every day I wake up and try to give birth to new hope, new faith, new love and I begin each day trying to envision my life taking on the shape I always dreamed it would.

After everything that has happened and everything I have done for my husband and with my husband and after his battle and my battle alongside his and after witnessing his battle wounds and experiencing my own, the real birthday gift here is freedom. Chris' freedom from illness and my hopefully ever-increasing freedom from the trauma and the nightmare-memories of his illness and of my loss.

A Burning Love for my Husband

Tonight was the second and last performance of the show that I have been preparing and rehearsing for since January. I feel good. It’s nice not to have to feel as though I should be practicing music every moment I’m home and find free time on my hands. The pressure is gone. So is the show, however, and the experience and the structured meetings with the other cast members that had provided a sense of familiarity and a sense of home for me for the past few months. The show was a tough one which took lots of work to bring to fruition. We did it, though. We pulled it off. I had my doubts -- I think we all did -- but in the end, on the second show, we really shined, despite the fact that show number one manifested itself as more of an amateur dress rehearsal than a polished finished product. All things considered, I miss it, already.

These past two evenings of song have held a sense of melancholy without Chris here to see what I have done -- how much I have grown as a performer. He would have liked this one -- and Chris liked very few shows in which I have performed. He was very critical (not of me, though -- NEVER of me -- I was always good in his eyes -- he really had the husband thing down -- what to say, what not to say). I know he would have liked this one a lot. He would have sat with Carol, Robby and Rodney and the four of them would have had the silly time that the three of them told me they had. Apparently, a laughing fit occurred sometime during the show, which spread from Robby to Carol to Rodney. I have yet to hear the details.

I wish he could have been there. In some ways, he was. I have never felt so completely relaxed on stage in my entire life. Backstage, each time I felt myself becoming overly excited and panicky, I closed my eyes, asked Chris to be with me and meditationally brought him into my world, embracing me from behind, telling me, “You can do this. It’s okay. You’re okay.” Each time I did that, I could breathe again and I suddenly knew from the deepest part of me that this is only theater. It’s fun. It’s light. It’s not supposed to be scary or to create negative feelings. I called upon Chris’ energy when I needed it and I believe that because I know what love I had and how wonderful it was to have that love, I was able to channel it, imagine it, receive it, bask in it and breathe again. I still love him so much.

During the past three months, our director freed me in so many ways, creatively. I have never been able to relax as much as I did this past weekend. I was very focused and able to do my best without imagining that others were judging me. I could do that because our director is extremely patient, a teacher by profession, older, wiser and I believe he knows that negativity breeds negativity. I saw him mostly as an archaeologist who found me, dug up my raw talent, brushed me off day after day after week after month until he found my natural sheen and ability to permeate my own brand of beauty from my very core. He fostered an atmosphere filled with joy, patience, teaching, coaxing and the perfect measured doses of pushing me slightly past my limits into realms to which I had no idea I could travel. I have passed my personal limits and now I want to keep going, keep pushing my limits, keep bettering myself, shaping myself, honing my talent. Yes, this group had quite a large impact on me. I’m hoping I will be asked back to perform in the next show.

After the show, the cast stayed and enjoyed drinks and song at the open mike our director was hosting. We drank, sang and ate. I ordered and scoffed down a plate of nachos, which were delivered to the table coveredin jalapeno peppers, one of Chris’ favorite foods. I decided that in honor of my husband, I would eat every last one, despite the fact that I have a history of finding white bread to be too spicy. Still, this wasn’t for me. It was for Chris and I downed each one, my mouth ablaze, each pepper signifying another burst of burning love for my husband. I couldn’t stop. I wanted the message to be loud and clear. I wanted it to scream “I love you!” up to the heavens as sure as my tongue was screaming at me to eat some sour cream.

I did it for him. I think he knows and I think he laughed at my smouldering tongue and chapped lips.

I miss him. I love him. I will always love him and I know he supports me still, wherever he is, even though his absense burns like a mouthful of jalapenos. His absense burns like my love for him.

It is time now, for me to cry. I have felt it coming on for about two hours. It’s time. I’m home. I’m safe. It’s time.

Howard

Chris’ father, Howard, is very sick. He has congestive heart failure and emphysema and he was just told that he has anywhere from one day to six months to live. Howard is going to be dead.

I never had much of a relationship with Howard, but Chris was crazy about him. He never exactly said it, but I could tell by the half of the phone conversation I could hear that they really enjoyed each other. Chris was like Howard in so many ways, both of them quiet, sweet, funny. Howard always reminded me of Chris in so many ways. I haven’t seen or spoken with him since Chris died. I had thought about calling him afterwards, but never quite mustered up the courage to pick up the phone and dial his number.

Bonnie thinks Howard gave up after Chris died. Chris meant so much to him. His boy. She also believes that Howard lived vicariously through Chris. I think so, too.

Howard’s impending death has got my already-in-progress grief rising up again. I have heard that happens and now I know. I’m sad. So much has changed since Chris was diagnosed and it just keeps changing and changing. There really doesn’t seem to be any stability anymore. I don’t think it exists as anything more than an illusion we, as humans, hold onto so we don’t freak out. Everything is vanishing before my eyes. The man who created my man is not going to be here anymore.

Chris is gone. Howard will be gone. The house Beth lived in when I first met his family at the twins’ 1st birthday party is no longer her home. his truck is gone, the apartment he lived in when I met him, his smile, that voice, his aspirations, Johnny Damon and my sense of who the hell I am. Gone.

I think the fog is back. It’s milder this time, but it’s definitely back.

I want to know if Howard is going to see Chris as he is dying and if he’s going to go with him and be where Chris is. I want to go and be there too.

In some strange, bizarre way, I’m envious of Howard.

The Start

Something is going on and it is making me very unsettled.

On my commute home this evening on the orange line, I suddenly realized that I had not thought about Chris for hours and hours. The thought brought on sadness and guilt and I found myself once again fearing the thought of forgetting him.

Later on, I relayed to Carol my fears concerning forgetting Chris and she gave me some very helpful advice. Carol asked me, “Can you call it something else? Instead of 'forgetting him" can you say that his cancer and death just are not the first thing on your mind anymore?”

I considered the thought and for a brief moment felt like I could breathe again, but then realized that at this precise moment, I can not say that, yet. To admit that is to let go of him and I am not yet prepared to do that. In that respect, I am feeling quite stuck.

The day Chris was diagnosed with cancer was the start of my realization that we all have very littlel control over events that occur in our lives. I have no more control now than I had then. With regard to Chris, I feel unable to control even myself. I want to let go, but instead I hang on. I need to right now. I do not have a real grasp of the reason for my reluctance to loosen my grip on him. The feeling is an instinctive one. I am not really sure what to do about it.

White Knuckled Grip

I’m confused about the shape my life is taking. I spent eight hours rehearsing for my show this weekend, which was the most fun I have had in a long time, and then another hour auditioning for another show in which I did not get cast.

I was just thinking how Chris thought I was good enough no matter what. I’m not talking about my singing or acting. I mean that whenever I faced rejection in the theater world, I would come home and express my dejection and he would softly tell me that there would always be more plays to audition for. Something about his calm, matter-of-fact delivery always made me feel reassured, validated and worth something.

I thought I would get cast tonight because I felt like I had Chris watching over me. Then when i didn’t get cast, I thought it was because Chris had other plans for me, that maybe he was saving a place for me after next Monday’s audition. Why do I do that? Why have I made everything in my life a product of what Chris is doing for me. Wherever he is now, I’m sure there are more pressing matters than my budding community theater career. I need to stop placing Chris behind everything I do and everything I want. I have brought him back into my life to assuage the loneliness and the panic brought on by his eternal absence. I’m not sure if it’s healthy for me to think this way. Clay will say it’s fine. He says everything’s fine.

Chris’ illness and death are becoming distant in my memory and that terrifies me. I need him in the forefront of my mind. This is so bad for me, but I can’t let go. I feel bad that he had to die and I can’t just plug somebody else into my life. I don’t even want to. Except that I do want to. I’m so damaged that I can’t imagine anybody being able to endure me.

I’m confusing myself. It’s probably best if I stop trying to write about it just now.

Love is a Little Piece of a Sausage

It’s midnight. I have to get up at 5:30, but I have been reluctant to go to the bedroom.

This evening at rehearsal, I couldn’t wait to get home the entire time. I wasn’t in the mood to work at anything, even music.

I began to cry on the drive home. I think all of these thoughts about dating have pushed me off balance again. I cried very hard when I got into my apartment. I talked to Chris, telling him that I wish he was here that I want him back that I want him not to be dead and everything else I always tell him when I’m in that state of mind. Tonight was rough.

I need to go to bed so I won’t be tired tomorrow, but I’m having that all too familiar feeling of reluctance. I don’t want to go. I want my life to return to what it was before Chris got sick and I want us to have a second chance. But that isn’t going to happen. There is no second chance.

I don’t think I can be with somebody else. The thought of looking across the table and seeing someone other than Chris is too much for me to handle. I dabble, here and there, in thoughts of dating. I almost joined eHarmony. I almost joined Match.com. I browse the sites, but I just can’t bring myself to join. I don’t know what to do.

Chris used to make pasta with vegetarian sausage. He was insistent upon boiling the sausages in water before frying them in a pan, even though they were vegetarian. I used to make fun of him for his cooking habits because he followed directions precisely and refused to stray. Whenever he made pasta and sausage, he would cut a little piece off of a sausage and bring it over to me to eat. It sounds so trivial, but it was special. He knew I wanted to try just a little piece so he would always bring me one.

I’m not going to be able to give another man a chance. I know it. I’m just going to keep seeing Chris in my mind and crashing every time I return to the present and see whoever is really there.

I don’t want to imprison myself, but I’m doing it. Maybe it just isn’t time, yet. I feel pressure. I promised myself I wouldn’t spend another year alone. I think I’m just weakened tonight.

I’m going to get up and force myself to go to sleep.

The Truth Beneath the Truth

I’m scared tonight.

I keep thinking, “I’m nothing without my Creej.” Sometimes it is so difficult to let go and even more difficult and shocking to realize that he has been gone for fifteen and a half months. That’s over a year. Where did the time go and why does it feel like I just saw him yesterday? And why do I feel like he’s with me despite the fact that he is physically gone? And I still ask myself, “Where is he? Where did he go?” Will I go there, too? Will I see him? Will we be together, again?

It’s tough to feel like my time is running out. If they don’t already, people are going to begin feeling as though I’m not supposed to still be hurting. Once that happens, I won’t be able to talk about it anymore.

The truth is that I am still kicking and screaming, desperate for all of this not to be true. I feel as though I have buried Chris’ illness deep inside my psyche where I will keep it so I never have to remember what he went though...what we went through, again.

But it doesn’t feel good and I need to find a way to exhume the truth and toss it around and around and around until I can arrive at a conscious sense of peace.

The trouble is I don’t know how.

Separate Together

This evening, a memory popped into my mind of me being on a bus from San Diego to Los Angeles. I remembered that the bus pulled over to the side of the road and some customs officers boarded and asked everyone to show their passports. I began to become scared because I didn’t have one and I thought they weren’t going to let me go home. When they approached me, I nervously told them that I didn’t own a passport and the officer said it was okay and bypassed me. I guess they were more concerned with illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into L.A.

Suddenly, I couldn’t remember why, on earth, I would have been on a bus from San Diego to L.A. without Chris. I distinctly remembered being there but why would i have traveled anywhere without him? I wished I could ask him. That’s what I would have done if he was here with me now. He would have cleared it all up for me

It took a few moments for me to remember that one of my friends had traveled to San Diego and I decided to meet her there and have a weekend visit while she was in town. Chris stayed home. He once traveled to Las Vegas alone to meet one of his friends there for the weekend while I stayed home.

I loved that about us.

Maybe

Maybe I won't live to be 80. Won't that be a treat?

39 Down. 41 To Go.

This entry comes on the heels of a conference call I had to dial into for work this morning at 4;00 AM. My new job is so completely fulfilling that I am excited about being part of the team and I was happy to participate at that ungodly hour. Chris would be so proud of my career. Maybe he is. I know that I am.

Before I go back to sleep for the next forty-five minutes to prepare for breakfast with my family, I wanted to attempt a verbalization of my thoughts and emotions from yesterday, now that I have somewhat processed them:

The closing episode to Six Feet Under was one of the most well-done television episodes of any show I have ever seen. The show was extremely thought-provoking and so creative and original.

I knew I had been deeply affected the moment the closing credits began to roll.

Life is strange. I don’t really understand it, anymore. I am so afraid of living to be eighty years old and having to wait another forty-one years before I see Chris again.

There are so many things for which I now have a connection and an understanding that I never had before. I now know what Eric Clapton was singing about in the lyrics to “Tears in Heaven. “ Will Chris remember me? Will he know who I am? Will I be attractive to him at eighty? He’ll still be thirty-four when I’m eighty. Will he still love me? Will he know me? Will he even be waiting?

When Ruth Fisher (Six Feet Under’s mom) grieved the loss of her son due to his death and the loss of her granddaughter due to her mother taking her back, I understood the depth of her pain. I remembered the day I returned home after running away to Hadley and Keene in the days following Chris’ death. I still have no idea how long I was gone. A couple of days? A week? I can’t remember. I know I was out of work for five weeks because I know the day he died and the date that I returned, but without physical numbers, I can’t remember much else about time. Ruth’s anguish reminded me of Bonnie and my heart broke for her.

I now wonder why we, as human beings, are here. Yesterday, I had a very clear-minded view about what life is. I was able to see it as a game. A fun game. As spirits, do we stay on the other side and talk about what life we’re going to live next and what we hope to accomplish there as though it’s a sporting event? Is Chris on the other side rooting me on and regenerating his battery for the next life? Can his exit from this life be compared to the third out in a baseball inning? He’s not in the game anymore but the rest of his teammates are and we’re still doing the best job we can to make something of our lives, never forgetting the impact he had on our team, always crediting him for the work he did and the mark he left and the inspiration he provided. When Johnny and Nomar left the Sox, the team didn’t quit playing baseball. They continue on until it’s their time to leave and when it is their time, they move onto another team or into another life stage, or they cross over, too. Yesterday, I saw death as nothing more than the next step, or a recharging station. I could feel it. We’re in the game. We’re out. We’re resting. We’re back in the game. Rookies come in. Veterans go out. And then it’s time for a new game.

Yesterday sparked an urge within me to see far away places, to take chances that will propel me into other stratospheres out of my comfort zone.

With forty-one years to go, I would be remiss to close my eyes to any possibilities.

-Shneed

The Best Gift, Ever!

Lately, I have been feeling hurt that Chris hasn't tried to visit me. I was just talking to Clay (therapist) yesterday, telling him the story of how I have guilt about not buying Chris the scotch glasses he asked for. Instead, I bought other ones I thought he would like more. He didn't like them more and I always felt bad that I didn't listen to what he really wanted. last night, I told Clay that my only regret is the "glass incident" and I expressed my anger that Chris doesn't visit me and my wish that he could come tell me that it's okay, that it doesn't matter at all, now and that he loves me. We both agreed that as regrets go, this one is pretty benign.

Then this happened:

I just got a phone call from Kelly, a woman who works at my company with whom I am friendly. She left a message on my voicemail this morning in which she seemed as though she was busting at the seams to tell me about her experience last night.

The temporary employee who covers for Kelly’s vacations is a woman named Linda. Linda is an actress/singer and a student at Emerson College who is currently working on a project for a film class she is taking. Last night she held a focus group in which Kelly participated, along with a host of other folks whose job it was to watch a student film and provide commentary.

While watching the film, Kelly noticed a woman come out onto the screen, get shot, and hit the floor. She thought the woman looked familiar but wasn’t sure so they watched it again and suddenly she realized with surprise and delight that the person who just got shot was none other than ME! Kelly couldn’t wait to call me and tell me.

Imagine that. What are the chances that a girl with whom I am friendly in a company of 30,000+ employees would be in a focus group of another girl I have actually worked with in the past who goes to Emerson College and is taking a class in which she was assigned MY husband’s senior project to analyze??!! She didn’t pick it. It was assigned to her.

Chris just swooped down and found a way to say hello to me, hug me, kiss me, envelope me in love, reassure me and remind me of the fun we had together that day at the office of Shear Madness with all of his friends around.

I am so full of love right now. I love him for that.

I am astounded, chilled, amazed, euphoric and bewildered.

My faith in my husband’s love for me is restored.

What am I doing in Natick?! My husband’s dead!

That’s the way it hits me when it hits. I panic and remember what I forgot and feel guilty for forgetting it.

I should feel happy for the moments that are free of memories of our ordeal but instead I feel panic and guilt. How can I rejoice in song?

Tonight's rehearsal was in Natick and when I have rehearsal and it runs late and I get tired and I have to drive forty minutes to get home, panic sets in and I can't believe a year and a half has passed and I'm now in Natick, Massachusetts rehearsing for a show that's opening in three weeks. It doesn't mean a fraction of what it used to mean to me.

I get to be sultry and sexy on stage and all I can think is that Chris would have gotten a kick out of it.

I’m awake and my nerves are taut, preventing me from relaxing. I wish I could cry, but so far I’m having no luck. I just feel a dead weight in my heart.

And I still feel like a made a HUGE mistake losing him, like I must have done something, or forgotten to do something, like I left the baby on top of the car.It’s an awful feeling of having forgotten to do something.

Oh yeah! I forgot to keep my husband! Of course.

Validation

Talking about how I’m doing helps me cope. When somebody I see regularly suddenly comments on how I seem to be doing or asks me how I’m doing, I feel better. It’s easy to feel alone in my position and when somebody lets me know that I’m not alone just because a period longer than a year has passed, I feel embraced, accepted and free to share my experiences.

I rode the train home with my boss this evening. She is an incredibly wonderful person who is very warm, unafraid to be herself, spirited and just plain adorable. We chit-chatted about many subjects and just a few moments before the train reached my stop, she asked me if I have noticed, since Chris died, that having time to do nothing is more difficult. Before I answered, she added that although she does not see me in my darkest moments, she thinks I am doing a remarkable job coping, considering the short amount of time since his death.

I replied that time alone is especially difficult when I am sick because of the isolation and my half drugged-out state from any cold medicines I ingest. I elaborated that having all of that time and a whole lot of tendency toward daydreaming/imagining causes my grief to multiply and wreak havoc.

Basically, I can daydream myself into believing that Chris is coming home tonight, that he'll walk through the door just like he used to. I can still hear my favorite sound, that of his keys turning the lock in the door and my brain enters a state of nirvana in which all is right with the world. Inevitably I come to, as I must, and realize that I have just been daydreaming. At that very moment, Chris dies all over again in my mind and a tidal wave pulls me into the grief undertow, slamming me around on the jagged rocks below and gashing me open, blood flowing out of me like scathing red tears.

Spending three days at home, sick, alone and having wonderful daydreams crash back into reality is exhausting business and, at times, returning to work can be more restful than resting in bed.

I need to talk about what happened. I need to talk about Chris. I need to talk about cancer. For some reason, I feel better when I talk to people who ask me out of curiosity and not out of obligation or for therapeutical reasons. I’m not sure why. For some reason, I’m able to talk to these people without crying, stating the facts of my situation and my fears without losing control.

People that talk to me matter-of-factly about what I have been through and what it was like and the worst of it and the start of it and the end of it make me feel as though I am being acknowledged. It happened. I don’t have to bury it with the passing of any certain stretch of time.

In just a few moments of conversation, my boss validated my feelings and my process.

My Love

Today, on day five of my common cold,I caught myself thinking “I’m going to be sick forever.” I felt ashamed as my mind shifted to thoughts of Chris and how he truly must have felt as though he was going to be sick forever. He endured fourteen months of fatigue so overwhelming that all he could do was remain on the couch or in bed, sleeping for five days straight every two weeks. How does a person go on, find hope or find the strength to entertain the idea that things might turn out okay in the end?

I don’t know how he held on. I only know that he let go with the arrival of the second diagnosis. I could tell something was different. His fight was gone. I knew he wasn’t going to fight this time. Mentally, he was exhausted and beaten.

For the past four days I have drifted in and out of sleep, my mind taking me on trips through memories I would rather not explore. In my half-conscious states of this past weekend, I have remembered diagnosis # 1, Chris’ phone call to his family to break the news, all of my fears of the threat of his death, his hair-loss and loss of dignity and countless other points on the timeline.

I also remembered his sweetness, the way he looked at me, the rose he brought me when we met for dinner at Bangkok Basil, the boxes of four Godiva chocolates he periodically surprised me with, which I always split with him.

There were times this weekend when I forgot that Chris is dead. Of course, the trouble forgetting he’s dead is that after each warm memory, he dies all over again and again.

I have loved and trusted nobody in my lifetime the way that I loved and trusted Chris. He trusted me, too. I would give anything to have him back in my life

My days can be so cold. This morning, in my drugged out flu-ish state, I drove my car to the shop, left it and walked home the fifteen minutes in the cold. Later on, I walked the fifteen minutes back to the garage in a feverish spacey haze, picked up the car and went shopping for food. Again, I was struck with memories of teamwork past. Chris would drop off the car. I would pick it up. I would be sick. He would go grocery shopping while I slept. and when I staggered out of the bedroom, too well rested to go back to sleep, I would sit and watch the Red Sox with him.

God, I miss the Red Sox. It just isn’t the same without him. I hated sports. He made me like baseball. Chris knew so much. He knew stats, history, players, injuries, strategies. No matter what he said was happening, Jerry Remy would repeat it seconds afterwards amazing me the way a magician amazes his audience. I was truly impressed’

I’m in a little bit of a rut today in which I feel as though I am never going to feel better. I just want him back. Chris was everything to me. I don’t even know if I can ever give another man a chance. The way I feel now, he could never fill Chris’ shoes, never be as funny or as loving or as perfect for me. What if I’m alone for the rest of my life?

It would be my own fault. It would be God’s fault. It would be my own fault. I don’t know who’s fault it would be. I’m still mad at God. I loved him, too, but I really don’t understand how this happened. I try to believe that I’m part of something bigger and that everything that happiness has to happen in order for us to reach our destiny. I don’t want to be alone. I want to go see Chris. I want to be with him.

If I could disappear and find a place where I could curl up into a ball with Chris and put my arms around him, I would tell him I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry you had to leave. I’m sorry you had to hurt. And I’m sorry I have to live out the rest of my life without you. If I could wrap my arms around him the way I did every single day, I wouldn’t have a shred of worry left in my entire being.

I have so much pain.

Welcome Back, Grief.

Well, I guess I’m done suppressing. Grief came crashing down on me again, reducing me to a puddle of incoherent, quivering jello.

My vacation from grief was a nice, much needed one which I enjoyed for its duration, but tonight I had to fall. Everything got to be too much.

I spent about forty minutes this afternoon scrolling through personal ads, looking at pictures of men whom I can never imagine sitting across from me. Nobody looked like Chris. Nobody is Chris.

I don’t want somebody new but if I want somebody at all, I have to get used to the idea that he will be new, different, not at all like Chris. We won’t meet the same way. We won’t be the same way. He won’t love me the same way. We won’t go to the same places or do the same things or talk to each other the same way.

I don’t want to try. I just want it to happen. How can I be ready when I can’t even stop crying?

I wish I got to see how Chris and I would have turned out together.

I am aware that I sound like a broken record. The broken part is right. I am broken. I wish I had something new to say, but the truth is that the same thoughts penetrate my consiousness every moment of every day of every week.

I miss him. I want him back. I want him well. I want him to have never gotten cancer. I want us to have the chance to put it all back together on the east coast the way that we planned. I want us to be as happy as we were that first week we arrived back in Boston. I want to still watch “The Sopranos” with him and I want to come home to him cooking dinner for us. I want to wake up knowing that I have to be quiet for a couple of hours so he can enjoy the morning paper, even though I’m busting at the seams to talk to him.

What we had was special. It was close. Warm. Trusting. A true partnership.

I must not be ready, yet.

Thank You and good Night?

I hated every minute of my therapy session yesterday. I had nothing of note to say because it seems as though nothing is bothering me since I made a decision to step out of my grief. I voiced my worry that I was completely disinteresting to Clay and now he wants to delve further into why I think I’m boring. Things got way off track.

I still feel horror when I say the words, “since Chris died” in a sentence. I said them to my mother a short while ago.

I have my third cold since Chris died. The entire time he was battling his disease, I was as well as well can be. I had nary a common cold the entire time. I guess I knew I couldn’t be sick. Getting sick would have jeopardized his health, so I just didn’t do it.

I talked with Clay about how bad I feel that I couldn’t help Chris with whatever horrors that were in his own head during his illness. I know he must have been terrified, depressed, freaked out and a whole host of other feelings that must come with the knowledge that you’re toting a grapefruit sized tumor around in your stomach. I wish I could have helped more. I’m sure he felt very isolated.

I feel more well than I have felt since this entire ordeal began, though. My decision to push it all aside seems to be helping. We’ll see how long that lasts or if it does become semi-permanent, save for those moments when I’m alone with myself, what gifts will come my way as a result. Love? Maybe.

The second spring is in the air. I can remember last spring and how the sun couldn’t penetrate the clouds in my soul. There are cracks in the wall now, though, and the sun is beginning to seep in and warm the coldest part of my heart. I guess healing happens, despite the guilt that can threaten to keep it at bay.

I will love my husband forever, to the extent that my own heart remains outside of my own body, stretching into the direction of my sweetheart, wherever he may be these days. He taught me how to love.

I think I’m getting tired of hashing and rehashing it all with Clay. I mentioned that to him yesterday and talked about how long I’m supposed to keep coming. Time time may shortly arrive when it will be time to say “Thank you and good night.” and my Thursday evenings will, once again, be mine to do with what I want.

Next Tuesday

During this past Sunday’s 5-mile run, I had a short, fleeting thought. I just now realized that the thought I had is actually a recurring thought for me.

Sometimes I remember that Chris died and I become shocked because I realize that happened to me. It happened in my life. I’m the one who was left behind. When I feel that shock, my soul bottoms out.

Sometimes that shock can knock me into next Tuesday.

Toggle

I feel fake.

I just e-mailed with a friend of mine from Los Angeles. She asked me to look at her portfolio and give her my critique on her work. I did it.

There are a few pieces I found particularly moving so I e-mailed her my excited commentary on her work.

Her husband fought on the front lines in Iraq. He just returned home a short while ago after watching young men, like himself, get shot and killed right next to him.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I have suddenly become angry and I’m not entirely sure why.

Maybe I’m angry because he came back to her. Maybe I’m angry because she used to complain about him all of the time and she still got to get him back. Maybe I’m still angry at Los Angeles. Actually, there is no maybe about it. I still hate L.A. and I’m still very much in pain over the fact that the last few years of my and Chris’ life together were tarnished by misery, the misery of living in a city we both hated, the misery of being diagnosed with cancer, the misery of chemo therapy and of the loss of control and of the loneliness of coping with a disease that was growing inside of him, eating him alive and stripping him of his right to have choices.

I’m still not touching upon why I am angry . Have I so successfully suppressed my grief that even I cannot find it? I like suppression. It works. It’s helping me. I have heard it said that suppression is a way of coping, but I don’t think so. I think it spares me from having to cope at all. I don’t have to deal now. I like this. I’m scared of it, but I like it. It’s better than crying all of the time.

Today, I took a really long walk after work, through Boston Common, The Public Garden and the Esplanade. On my way through the common, my eyes fixed on the grass, I saw a shadow on the ground coming toward me. In a millisecond, I came to believe that Chris was walking toward me. My heart jumped and my entire chest cavity filled with excitement and so much love and I felt seconds away from running toward him and embracing him. I felt the love I would feel if that really happened. My entire soul collapsed the way it did in the hospital when his doctor told us the surgery went well and that they got all of the cancer out of him. Joy is what I felt and abandonment of fear and sadness.

I didn’t realize that I was the least bit moved by that little jaunt into my own wishful fantasy until right this minute, four hours afterwards.

I feel encased. Safe but not satisfied, like something is unfinished.

I’ll have to remember to ask Clay if he thinks it’s possible to toggle between suppression and emotion at will.

The Art of Suppression

Since I made my conscious decision to suppress all of my feelings, I have not cried for more than five minutes on any given night. That’s quite an accomplishment from somebody who cried for five hours straight last week. That five-hour cry was the catalyst for my decision to stop entertaining my grief for a while.

I thought my therapist thought suppression was wrong, but in actuality, I’m the one who was wrong. He did caution me about suppression and I perceived his cautionary comment as disapproval. He doesn’t disapprove of suppression, though, and he seems to agree that ignoring my own feelings and thoughts of grief is working for me, at least for now.

At the moment, the fact that I am not crying every single moment I am alone is a huge relief. I feel better. I am, however, entirely aware that I am shoving all of what happened into a secret compartment in my brain which I am going to keep closed for a while, maybe from now on.

Do I still feel the empty hole? Yes. At the present moment, I feel as though I’m going to feel that empty hole for the rest of my life. I hope I don’t, but I feel as though I will. Even in the midst of my suppression, I can calmly admit and maintain that I loved my husband very much and I will miss his company, sense of humor and his love for the rest of my days.

My reluctance to pick myself up off the couch and go to bed has returned and lately, I generally sit here until I am way too exhausted to walk. Suppression has its downfalls, but truth be told, I’d rather be exhausted than grief-stricken.

I suppose I ought to try to get some sleep when I’m finished writing. The clock only reads 10:44, but I have been awake since 5:30 this morning and I have grown excessively weary. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that I have been in my own company since 3:00 today and I have not shed a tear. I can’t tell whether I have made progress or numbed myself and I suppose the distinction doesn’t really matter. I made a decision to try to live my life with the same vigor with which I lived before my life fell apart and so far, I am doing it. I’m trying. I want my life to be joyous.

I want my life to be joyous.

Suppressin’ my Luck?

This week, after giving it some thought, I made a conscious decision to stop crying every single night. I wondered if this was also a decision to suppress my feelings. I’m not clear on that, yet. I mentioned it to my therapist last week toward the end of my session and we didn’t have time to discuss it in a lot of detail. Tomorrow’s session should be interesting and possibly very difficult.

Suppressing feelings isn’t good, but I have had it with the crushing breakdowns and I just want to enjoy my life the way I used to before all of this horrible stuff happened. Wow. It was just very easy to compartmentalize the horrors of Chris’ illness into a place simply and generically labeled “horrible stuff”. It hurt less and I could feel myself ignoring the entire event as though it never happened. I don’t care. There has to be something easier than crying and easier than popping antidepressants.

What happens when I “try” to stop crying is that anxiety takes over. Just like Archimedes’ law of displacement, where he discovered that his body mass displaced the water in his bathtub, I am now experiencing the displacement of my hopelessness with anxiety. Which is the lesser of two evils and can it possibly be true that evil is all that is left?

I sing. I run. I love my job. I love my friends. It doesn’t matter. Chris is still gone. When will the gaping hole in my soul fill back in? Will it? I don’t know how to do this? I only know that I don’t want to do this. That doesn’t matter either and it doesn’t matter that I have a whole bottle of Lorezapam in my bedroom because I don’t want to rely on it. I do like it, though.

This is never going to end. It’s never going to be over. If I don’t stop now, or sometime, on purpose, I just going to keep crying all the time, every night, every time I need a hug, every time I realize I’m alone for the long haul.

I don’t know what to do. I need a plan.

I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Analysis of a Dream I Had

Last night, I dreamed that I was climbing a ladder at work in my former job. I think there was somebody at the bottom of the ladder holding it. One of the executives, whom I despise, from my former job was there and I felt trapped and completely not in control of my life. I was working with a stack of paper on a giant printing machine. I had changed my name to Rosalind (Roz).

Here are the dream symbols and their meanings from dreammoods.com:

Ladder
To dream that you are climbing up a ladder, suggests that you have reached a new level of achievement and higher awareness. It is indicative of prosperity, hard work and efforts. You may also be looking things from a different perspective. Alternatively, it may indicate meditation and prayer. You are setting forth on a spiritual path.

To dream that someone is holding a ladder for you, signifies that you will find success and rise to prominence with the support of others.

Work
To dream that you are at your former or past work, suggests that there is an old lesson that you need to learn and apply to your current situation.

To dream that you are hard at work, signifies success and merit. Alternatively, it may suggest anxieties about a current task or project. You may need to "get back to work" and stop procrastinating.

Boss
To see your boss in your dream represents the bossy or authoritative side of your own personality. Your boss may reveal self-confidence and the assertive aspect of yourself. It is telling of your issues of control and authority. Alternatively, to see your boss in your dream may indicate your over-involvement or obsession with your work. Negatively, the boss in your dream may symbolize your limitations and lack of freedom/originality.

Nickname
To dream that someone is calling you by a nickname, suggests that you are trying to change they way you and others see you.

Paper
To see a stack of papers in your dream, denotes overwhelming responsibilities and stress that you are having to cope with.

Machinery
To see machinery in your dream, suggests that you are going about your way without much thought. You are making decisions without thinking it through. You need to get out of your boring pattern. Alternatively, it indicates that your self-image may be in need of repair.

Stuck
To dream that you are stuck, represents helplessness and feeling of being unable to escape from life's problems/stress. You have lost confidence in yourself and in your ability to move ahead in your life. Your lack of clear goals and low self-esteem may be a common cause for such dreams.

I Hope

Riding the redline to Cambridge, yesterday, I became fixated on two young ladies who were sitting across from me chatting. Each of them had luggage and they were conversing about their travels. Suddenly I found myself longing.

I remember what life felt like when nothing horrible had ever happened to me. I, too, sat talking with friends about topics that seemed so much more important than they do now. I walked around the city with a carefree skip in my step and a light mind. I could breathe in the air, then, without immediately spitting it out along with the survivor guilt-toxins that now contaminate my mind and body. I yearn to go back there and since I can’t go back in time, I must find a way to go forward into a new form of that soft and gentle state of being. And I must come to a place where I can believe that Chris’ feelings wouldn’t be hurt by such a brash move on my part. I don’t know why I can’t believe what others believe, that Chris only wants me to be happy. If he was alive, I would believe that. I did believe that when he was here. Somehow, I have never been able to let go of the responsibility of taking care of him. I still try to, even though it will never matter, again. I have become some sort of martyr-freak, overly concerned with the feelings of a dead person.

I know this spring is going to be wonderful. I know this spring is going to be followed by a wonderful summer and that both seasons are going to be filled with lots of physical activity for me. Running, biking, walking, hiking and just being out of doors. I can feel it, already in the way that the sun comes up earlier and sets later and in the way that I can shed my horrible winter coat that I bought when Chris was still alive. I’m going to donate it this year and rid myself of that coat of grief-armor. This year, the sun will come back into my life. I hope.

Philadelphia Trip

Last night, instead of learning the music I was supposed to be learning for the show I’m in, I cried, off-and-on, for five hours. It started the very second I walked out the door from work and ended, pretty much, when I fell asleep.

I choked back the tears on the train, as usual, and then on the short walk from the train station to my home. Along the way, I decided to call my mother whom I knew was incensed by the fact that I hadn’t called her in over a week. The argument that she hadn’t called me either is always a losing one, so I simply told her the truth about my emotional descent. The moment she heard me cry, all was forgiven. I guess I chose that moment to call her because I knew a full pardon would follow.

Before ascending the stairs to my 3rd floor safe-haven, I stopped to chat with my landlord who just lost her sister-in-law (her husband’s sister) to cancer. She had been taking care of her for six months and the woman finally succumbed to her disease a couple of weeks ago. We talked a bit about the ugliness of the disease and she stated that she and her husband would like to take me to dinner. I told her that sounded lovely but made sure she knew that if she wasn’t feeling up to it, she shouldn’t feel pressured by the fact that she had already mentioned it to me. I reminded her of the importance of taking care of oneself in situations such as hers and conveyed my belief in the act of collapsing in my tracks and falling apart whenever I feel the need or want. That’s exactly what I did the moment I entered my apartment.

Last night’s tears were, once again, tears of utter resignation, of crushing despair. The inevitable changing of the seasons seems to have a profound effect on my grieving process, thrusting me downward into pits of anguish and pools of tears reminiscent of those I cried in the hospital upon receiving the news that Chris was being released into the care of hospice and sent home to die.

Sitting on the couch hunched over my oversized rust colored throw-pillow, I cried and cried, tears that seemingly had no end and crying with such abandon felt quite cleansing. I needed to do it. I needed to purge emotion for all of the sadness I experienced and all of the horrors Chris experienced.

I pulled myself together in between my breakdowns to cook dinner, organize schoolwork and talk with a friend on the phone, but the in-betweens did not last long. Finally, as the hour grew late, I tuned into HBO and the last forty-five minutes or so of the movie “Philadelphia”, knowing full-well what I was about to witness on my television screen. With only the slightest trace of trepidation, I sat up and readied myself for the ride.

I’m sure I ignored the actual message of the movie and I want to watch the entire film from beginning to end, but last night, “Philadelphia” was a movie about love and a movie about Chris and me. I watched Tom Hanks’ character deteriorate and I felt his humiliation at the changes in his body, the invasive, visible symptoms of his disease and his battle for his life, or in this case, for his rights.

The movie concluded with his frail body in a hospital bed and his family and friends surrounding him, loving him, each of them telling him they would see him tomorrow.

The sight of him lying in his hospital bed, void of hair, very weak and ravaged by his illness sucked the life out of me. There was something eerily familiar about that scene. The frame, the shot of the hospital bed at the same angle on my screen as Chris’ hospital bed was in life swallowed me up in a grief tsunami which engulfed me so completely that I could do nothing more than experience it and wait for my emotions to release me.

After the storm, I picked myself up, powered off my television and made my way to the bedroom, where I finished out the night in defeated and exhausted tears, fell asleep and dreamed about centipedes.

Not Quite

I’m having a tough day today. This morning on the subway, a man wearing a brown corduroy jacket just like Chris’ with a bag that was the same style as Chris’ bag sat next to me. It was very easy for me to look at him from the feet and up and imagine that Chris and I were, once again, riding the train together. I remembered, both mentally and physically, the way it felt to hook my arm around his and hug onto it as we rode together. I miss that. That was my Creej’s arm. I rode the train in choking back tears the entire way.

There will never be another man quite like him. I will never love quite like that again.

Sopranos Solo

Sometimes, running loosens up my psyche and when I’m finished feeling the endorphin rush that follows, I begin to cry. Exercising has a way with unlocking emotion and allowing sadness to come flowing out of my body.

Tonight, I began cooking when I suddenly felt a surge of panic threatening to take me over. I started to suppress my thoughts and feelings but instead I gave up and willingly fell into an incolsolable sadness. I cried for an hour, stopping only to periodically laugh at The Simpons. I ate almost none of my dinner, pushing it down the garbage disposal and grinding it into oblivion before taking an Ativan in an attempt to smooth the edge off of my anxiety.

Now I’m hungry.

I just ordered HBO so I could watch the new season of The Sopranos, the show Chris and I never missed. We watched it together. Now he isn’t here to see what ends up happening. I almost don’t even care that it’s on. I’m trying to pay attention without feeling guilty. The Sopranos feels funny without Chris next to me. It hasn’t been on since Chris was alive. I’m scared, but then again, scared is part of my new normal.

I start my Psychology class tomorrow evening. I’m looking forward to it. I did some homework this evening, too. I ran 5 miles today, spent some time with my father and his wife and managed to spend the past nine hours in solitude, which is exactly what I wanted to do today.

I hope that someday I can stop crying every night of my life and I hope I can do that without feeling guilt and sadness.

Wellness Junkie

Depression, depression, depression, depression, depression.

I am on my way out to increase my running distance from four miles to five miles. Exercise is so important to me in my dealiings with my grief. My problem today is a combination of grief and PMS. I have experienced a definite pattern concerning the two, I simply cannot sit still during PMS without crying and without putting myself through the horrors of Chris’ cancer over and over until I find myself twisting about and contorting my brain trying to dodge the thoughts and memories of his illness. Running takes it all away. Singing takes it all away. So I run and sing as much as I can in my quest for forward movement.

I am coming to believe that Chris will not be angry with me for moving forward. That’s progress.

I still wish he was here with me. I’m not sure whether I will always wish that for the rest of eternity or whether my life will take over and place that book on the shelf. Time and tears will tell.

My therapist is so valuable to me. My weekly session with him is my anchor point. I go there every week and power-up from his support and when I leave his office, I am good for a few days before I begin the countdown to my next power-up session with him. I suppose I have developed a bit of an addiction, but there are worse things in life to which a person can be addicted. Some take to the alley and jab needles in their arms. Some take to the curb with a bottle of booze or their poison of choice. My poison is actually an antedote. I’m addicted to learning about my grievous condition and molding it into something I can work with and something I can live with, something from which I can move on. I suppose I am a wellness junkie.

Only five more days until my next fix. Until then, I will take to the streets, my iPod in tow on my right arm and my Nike airs cushioning the concrete that regularly breaks my fall with a painful SLAM. Still, things could be worse. I am thankful that I land on the cement and not on a bed of nails. How’s that for optimism?

Shneed

PS - Hey Bonnie, I'll call you later on today. I love you. -Shneed

Sharing at the Buffet

Breakfast went well. We met at the hotel, took advantage of the buffet and sat and talked for an hour and a half. We shared our stories about cancer and how it claimed the lives of our respective spouses.

Janet had lung cancer. She had been smoking for years. Both of them had been smokers. One of her doctors missed the cancer. When Janet complained of a pain in her back seven months earlier, the doctor told her it was all in her head, to quit her job and get into a profession that would make her happier. Fast forward seven months and the diagnosis, along with a life sentence, was handed down. Janet had eight to twelve months to live. She thought she was stronger than her cancer and when the doctor asked her what made her think she would beat the odds, she replied, “Because he can’t raise these two kids on his own.” Sadly, he has been raising his two kids on his own for the past three years.

I told him about Chris, about the way we came home from Los Angeles full of hope for our futures, our newfound love for Boston propelling us into life. Fast forward four months to Chris’ diagnosis which lead to a fourteen month battle for his life for him and a fourteen month battle against my own menacing panic.

I shared with him the tale of Chris’ last moments and how I talked him through to the end, hoping he trusted that we all really wanted him to go, to escape the pain and the fear, even though the thought of his not being in our lives would forever destroy our lives as we knew them.

He listened, becoming teary-eyed. He understood the love, the fear and the loss that I and the others left behind by Chris’ death now understand. We understood each other as we sat there sharing our hurt and our wonder with one another.

During those seventy-five minutes, sitting in the hotel restaurant with it’s fancy white linen tablecloths, tapestry carpeting and chandeliers, we talked about our beliefs concerning the dead, spirit communication and the ever-mysterious “veil” and found that we are in a similar place as far as our beliefs go. We want to believe and sometimes we do believe and sometimes things happen that make denying those beliefs absolutely impossible.

I’m still processing this morning’s encounter. At some point, I’m sure I will come to rest on it’s purpose and on ways my thinking has expanded as a result. I wonder if and hope that he found some comfort in knowing that somebody he knows also knows something about what he has and continues to go through.

PS…the guy from work continues to be like Chris in so many ways.

Bonnie's Bytes (Deck of Cards)

Chris' mom, Bonnie, belongs to a writing group where the meeting organizer brings a basket of items to spawn writings from several people who have lost loved ones. Thank you for sharing, Bonnie.

---

February 2006 - The prompt for his writing was a basketful of miscellaneous items.

I am drawn right away to the deck of cards. I learned after Chris died that when he went to Vermont to visit his college friends, they would stay up all night playing cards. I was so surprised at that. I don’t remember Chris being especially interested in cards except for the usual childhood games like “Go Fish” or “Crazy Eights”.

Something about this mysterious card playing both shocked and amused me. Although I thought I knew Chris, here was evidence to the contrary.

A small detail, to be sure. But what else don’t I know? Somehow I held the assumption, unknown to me consciously, that because Chris was a part of me and I was a part of him, because in his early years I knew him so intimately, that knowledge grew with him. Not true. Another maternal assumption bites the dust, like the assumption that I would be able to protect Chris from all evil, from the evil of cancer.

Now there is yet another piece of Chris to mourn the loss of. I have lost the chance to know Chris past, Chris present, and Chris future.

I have been in touch with A.J. Chris’ best friend from Vermont and fellow card player. But so far I haven’t asked A.J. what card games kept Chris up all night. Why not? Such a trivial question. I can only guess that I don’t want to add “poker player” or “whist player” to my already long, sad list of things I miss about Chris.

As I finished writing, I noticed that the ace of hearts was the top card. How apropos!

This Is How It Is

(normalcy)

I ran four miles yesterday and then ran another four today. I’m very proud of my accomplishment, even if my left calf is mad at me. I came home and got showered and blow-dried and drove to my director’s house to have a private rehearsal with him, which went very well. Today was a wonderful day to be outside. I dropped by my friend, Carol’s house for coffee. Two of my other friends were there, too. We had a nice time. I did my grocery shopping came home and ate and I’m sitting on the couch now. All in all, today was a nice day. I was very happy.

Flip...(grief)

After becoming enveloped in my own anguish for fifteen minutes, I swallowed my zoloft, which I had forgotten to take today, and washed it down with a swig of red wine. I like wine.

I don’t really know why I am feeling so sad tonight. This feeling is definitely sadness as opposed to anger. I just feel completely beat.

I thanked Chris for being so good to me tonight and told him that I appreciate him coming into my life and staying for a while.

Even though I know my friends and family care about me a lot, tonight I feel like Chris was the only one who ever cared and nobody else ever will. I suspect that grief is just doing it’s thing, twisting truths and draining my strength and any sense of reasoning I might have by way of my tear ducts.

Chris did me so much good. I’m so scared that I’m beginning to let go and I don’t want to. I want to hold on to him, but every day life is loosening my white-knuckled grip on him and skewing my memory of his face, his voice, his walk and his touch. I do not’ want to let go, but I think he wants me to. I’m too scared. I’ll never get him back, again.

I’m very tired. I don’t like life too much these days. I can’t really see the point in most activities other than filling up time and trying to stay occupied until we die. I feel like we’re all just a bunch of gerbils running on wire wheels, not really getting anywhere. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why having somebody special in our lives makes us feel like we have purpose in life. I’m not even sure if finding somebody new is going to restore my purpose. I fear that it has been completely destroyed and it’s not coming back.

Will I spend the rest of my life waiting for life to end? I’m just hanging onto everyone’s belief that my grief will get easier. It has to, because this really sucks. Holding on sucks. Letting go sucks. Not doing anything sucks. It all sucks.

I’ll keep pluggin’ away, feeding off of the good moments and the good days and screaming through the bad ones.

Flip...(normalcy)

I’m going to make some hot chocolate, relax and think about what I’m going to wear to work tomorrow .

Shneed.