7 Years and a few days

The 7 year anniversary came and went. I called his sister and his dad. I tried to go visit the neighborhoods where we lived in the beginning. I ended up lost. You can't go home again if you can not find it, even with GPS. I have been thinking and dreaming a lot about all the people I have lost, all my loves and my mom.

Sister, Mom, Husband - Need

I saw Shutter Island with my friends tonight. Leaving in the car I cried for my sister and what I have lost with her due to her mental illness that did not occur until her late 20s. Then I felt such a longing for my mom. My life is in a lot of turmoil with major decisions required and soon to face substantial personal losses. I have been under extreme stress for six years and the grief for my husband was only the beginning. If I cannot have a husband to comfort me and provide me guidance it would be nice to have a sister which leads me to really needing my mommy.

5 Years, 5 Months - Healing

Healing has been a non-linear journey.

5 years, 9 Months - Holidays

My mother's birthday, the anniversary of our engagement, Thanksgiving, the anniversary of my mother's death, Christmas, my birthday, New Year's Eve... if only my husband's birthday, the anniversary of his death, our wedding anniversary and Valentine's day could be squeezed into the same two months. Then all the bad days would be done with for the year. There are too many, too close together, as I fall with Autumn to the darkness of winter.

5 Years, 8 Months - Feeling Your Soul Enter Me As You Died

When I felt my husband’s energy pass through me I knew it was his soul departing and it left through my body.
When I told my religious uncle this story, he said it was because when we marry our souls join. When my husband died the part of his soul that was in me left too. I entertained this idea. However, I have to go with my initial feeling because I felt the energy enter through the center of my chest where his head was resting. I think his soul left through the top of his head, entered me through my heart, it filled my entire chest cavity and then the energy centered itself in my spinal cord behind my heart, and after a brief pause, shot up with intense speed. I felt what I could only explain as energy go up my spinal cord from that center point to my head and then from the center of my brain it shot out of the top of my head. I do not know how else to explain it. It was such an amazing phenomenon that part of the reason I wanted to care for my mom while she was dieing was in selfish hopes of experiencing this feeling again.

2 Years, 2 Days - Regrets of a Daughter

I cried for mom today.

I cried for all the missed opportunities. She took care of grandma for so long. Then grandma was gone and we were both widows. I thought we would go to North Carolina. Perhaps the first of many trips together.
She had such a kind heart and I waited until she was dieing to realize it. She said since I was 18 it was a few phone calls a year, a visit for half a day every few years, an odd holiday. How sad. How selfish. I just thought she would always be there. Of course that is what I thought. I was so busy in my life. She was a picture in my head, mom at home. I did not think I needed her. I did not even think I liked her. Yet, in those few days before the pain medication took over her thinking, I really loved her. I wanted so much for her. I could have done so many easy, little things to make her life better. I was her oldest daughter, her baby girl, and I shunned her. I talked bad about her. I avoided her.
I moved in with her when she was dieing out of love and caring for her, not out of any sense of duty. I knew first hand, or rather second hand, how scary it was to die. How she could not possibly live alone with cancer. It was then I saw what a truly beautiful women she was and I realized she had always done for others. She was such a loving soul. I truly miss her. I sadly miss the relationship that could have been if I took the time for her, or judged her as an adult, if I did not listen to anyone else but saw for myself if I enjoyed her friendship. I have lost again. I have lost my husband. I have lost my mother. I realize I have also lost the chance of having a close, loving relationship with my mother.

I am adrift, alone, and the tears drip from my cheeks and run off the edges of my nose onto my husband’s sweater.

1 Year, 9 Months - Suicide

I try to think of reasons not to kill myself again.
I picture curling up in child’s pose and slicing my wrist, pealing my rib cage open or taking a gun and shooting my chest.
I try to convince myself it is just the financial worries and I have been worse off financially. That it is not the ache I still have for my husband, the constant unsatisfied yearning for him to hold me, to let me feel loved, to know that I will be all right. That it is not my mom dieing. Memories of her naked in pain, saying she was a good person, why was her life so hard. Why is my life so hard? I am good. I try to convince myself it is only money. Just wait. Don’t kill yourself today.

1 Year, 8 Months - Fading Memories

I curl up. I lay in yoga position of sleeping child. I try to remember you.

Remember more than your name, the thought of you, or visiting how I loved you, visiting my ache of missing you. I see only photographs or scenes from the day of those pictures in my mind. I want new memories. I do not want to be limited in my memory of you. I want to see a vision of you including your head, which seems to be fading. I want to remember your smell, your voice, your smile, your eyes, your body, the way you moved, where we were, all at once, without the need to focus and recall. I want memories of the everyday, driving, waking, watching TV, and eating. Oh, and to hear your treacherous snore!


And in the other bed my mom is dieing.

2 Years, 3 Months - Dove

A dove flew inside my car today. Its wings above, its body forward, hovering for a brief moment like a hummingbird, faced towards me, belly side up. I was startled, then amazed, and unsure of the significance.

2 Years, 2 weeks - Sibling Wars

I am back in Seattle. My brothers are so mean to each other. My older brother is mean to me. Mom would cry. Dieing is such sad business.

2 Years, 1 week - After Mom Dies

Off to Seattle. Ugly brother wars. Sadness. Stress.