how did i get here?

my husband, my beautiful Dragon, died suddenly at 12:03 AM on 9 February 2009. there was a cold, lovely full moon and 3 feet of snow on the ground. i "slept" for the following 10 months and "woke" to the physical and emotional pain and torments of deep grief. i "woke" to find i had moved the day of his funeral and that i am lost. i am looking for me while i figure out the abstract, unanswerable questions that follow behind any death. my art has evolved. his death changed that as well because i am forever changed and will forever bear the mark of losing the only man i can ever love.
there is alive and there is dead and there is a place in between. i am here wholly in my heart for my children, but i feel empty inside at this time. i miss him. i have not gotten very far in my grief journey. i make no apologies for this.
this is my place, my blog, where i write to tell the universe that i am still here.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

the lingering cloud

i am bumming. this whole week. bumming. i found out the extent of my poverty has been made a little bit more public. it makes me sad, and, do i say it? ashamed. i do not know why i am ashamed because i have no regrets. i love him and the choices we made were made for our children. what happened to us was beyond our control. we were so happy. we felt such peace together.

i was also told that, still, there are people who choose to judge those who "put their families through divorce." there is a chasm that splits the "divorce isn't the answer" group to the "why do you go back to him if he is abusive? group." in making the decision, i sought help from my priest and a doctor. it was taking into consideration the fears and pleas of my children and my own fear and exhaustion after 20 years of pain that i made the decision. when i am judged as "putting my children through a divorce," i remember what our lives were like and how hard i tried for all those years. i recall a night when my daughter sat with me and begged me to leave him before she left for college. she was worried about me. so those who stand on that side of the fence, judge away. i did what i had to do in accordance with my beliefs and in adherence to the Church. comply, comply, comply. i did it all. what i did not do was make the decision lightly. it was 2 years in the making.

no regrets. i found my Dragon, or was found by him. and i was safe. i was whole. i had warmth and love, so much unconditional love. he always called me his bride. he whispered in my ears how happy he was. he crooned to me about where i was and who i was with when i had flashbacks. i know it is from a movie and sounds cliche but it is true. "he saved me in every way a person can be saved."

and now he is gone and i am as alone as i was before he was in my life. and i miss him. at times the sorrow of his death seems unconquerable.

i need to find my way out of this lingering cloud i am in. but to get out of it i need to keep going through it. if i suppress what i am feeling, ignore it, or shove it aside, it will only come back to me in spades. so i am going with it.

and to that end, here is Wordsworth. it is one of my favorites. and while the new tune is playing, i am working on my own quilt now. finally. i have some time to myself while i wait on another commission. maybe that is why i am hurting so badly. i am asking myself the same questions i ask everyone i have made a quilt for. the difference is, this is my journey, and there is not anyone here to hold my hand like i try to be there for the ones i make the quilts for.

i wish he were here to whisper in my ear.


she dwelt among the untrodden ways
beside the springs of Dove,
maid whom there were none to praise
and very few to love:
a violet by a mosy tone
half hidden from the eye!
---fair as a star, when only one
is shining in the sky.
she lived unknown, and few could know
when Lucy ceased to be;
but she is in her grave, and, oh,
the difference to me!

2 comments:

Judy Miller said...

People that judge have never "walked a miles in your shoes" or they would know exactly of what you write and speak. I stayed for 27 years--for the children--and it was only when my 19 year old daughter asked me why I stayed did I finally feel free to leave. They were on their own and I no longer needed to stand as their protector. When is that damn VA going to come through for you? Steady On.

abandonedsouls said...

Judy, you are one of the few people i have "talked" to who can read between the lines. the damn VA is waiting on Social Security now. i wish we lived closer.

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