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.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

intimate thoughts

i miss him. it is not really getting any better. it is just longer between heart-wrenching crying jags.

"being in grief, it turns out, is not unlike being in love. in both states, the imagination is entirely occupied with one person … everything that touches us seems to relate back to that center; there is no other emotional life, no place outside the universe of feeling centered on the pivotal figure." ~ Mark Doty

i had always sort of wanted to wander around this place, inside as well as out. it is an old place that had its exterior done over after a huge storm one season. but i have seen photos of its insides. just a few, in the basement of the Rockport Library where the historical documents are kept. it has its secrets. i always wanted the chance to explore this place on my own. now i only dream about it.

"to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it:
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go."
~ Mary Oliver, “In Blackwater Woods

"there is eloquence in screaming." ~ Patrick Jones
and i have screamed into my pillow quite a lot of late.
especially with this third bout of pneumonia in this year of our Lord 2011.
i need his care and comfort.
i need his hot tea.
i need his warm body to keep mine warm.
i need his cool cloths to keep my fever down.
i need his big hands to rub that stinky Vick's on my chest that he never minded doing,
so i can breathe.
when i had pneumonia while he was alive,
he would put his large, warm hand on my chest and calm my fears,
help me relax to find my breath.
he would breathe with me,
unison,
symmetry,
each inhale a little deeper than the one before.
i want him back.
3 times in 8 months is too much to do alone.
i think the worst part of this is the incessant remembering that i couldn't save him.
no one could save him.
in this day and age of commercials saying,
"i survived the widow-maker; take this pill and you can, too,"
no one could save him.
least of all me.
and he is better, handsomer, cuter, more needed by me than those actors on those commercials.
i love him best of all.
i need him most of all.
"i have ever since {he died} seemed to myself broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction, or fixed point of view;
a gloomy gazer on the world to which i have little relation."
~ Samuel Johnson

i sometimes wonder how i am doing this alone and then i remember,
i don't have a choice.

they tell you, "just breathe."
easier said than ..........

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Ambassador Bun is on her way once again

she's been all "around the block" a few times.
Canada, England,
Wales, Australia,
Arizona, Alaska,
Houston, and now she's headed to....
Elmendorf, Texas. after that, she heads to Maine.

the Traveling Ambassador of Grief and Whimsy has visited
some very wonderful people.
she has listened to them,
gone to work with them,
slept beside them,
but mostly
she has
listened to them.

and in the end,
that's all we really want;
for someone to come where we are sitting quietly,
grieving,
and listen to us.

after Maine, she may head back to Texas for Thanksgiving and Christmas,
or to South Carolina and then Texas.
after Christmas though,
the Ambassador moves on to
California, then Chicago, and then St. Paul.

and finally, she will be returned to me.
i miss her. silly i know with all the bunnies i have here,
but she IS the Ambassador of Grief and Whimsy.
she's my girl, my bun, my creation.
i dreamed her up over the sad, lonely Christmas of 2010.

her tour has taken on a life of its own.
i am proud of her and what she does.
i am always a little caught off guard that
everyone responds to her as they do.
she's just a stuffed bunny,
but it's her face.
her lovely, gentle eyes and her soft Bunny face,
i think,
that captures everyone's heart.

if you have already had a visit from her, i hope it was as wonderful as your photos look.
if you have not, she is coming. i promise. i am manipulating her itinerary so that
she comes to you as you wish as best as i can.
i hope she is worth the wait.
she is such a snuggly Bun,
such a good listener,
and her journal is ready for you to write in.
her little patchwork bag has a small gifty in it for you.
everyone gets one.
the widow in South Carolina already has
more to put in her bag to make sure you all get one.

the Ambassador Bun is on the move again.
she will get to you. she promises.

peace to all who read.
peace and light to all who grieve.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Bunny's desperation

Bunny is sick. she has a cold. she is snuggling up close to her humidifier. nice humidifier. good humidifier. take care of Bunny. help her get over this. please, please don't let her get pneumonia again.

i miss you, Carl. i miss you more and more with each little catastrophe. i miss you more and more with each nice little thing that happens that i cannot find you to tell you about it. simply put, i miss you. and time is not easing the ache. not yet anyway.

a hug. come give me a little hug. a hug is all i need and i think i can do this a little longer.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

anachronism

there it is. just one line up from these words. i keep dreaming of it. looking at photos of it. my world. my home. where i walked with him. where i was happy. where i had a smidgen of peace.

the most beautiful place on earth, as far as i know. which is not much. i have been very few places. can count them on one hand. i have never had the chance to travel. but i got to live here. Whale Cove. Rockport, MA. so raw and austere. so windy. so cold in the winters. so powerfully alive in the summers.

i miss it. i dream of it. i fantasize of it. all with him there.

i had a nightmare last night. horrendous. i will not sully your sensibilities with the story line. suffice to say, it was heartbreaking, blood-curdling, and one that i could not return to sleep from.

and i had no one to tell. no one i would call to tell of this dream to. i know a woman who has said i can call her. i do not. it is my fears that keep me from doing this. my fault. mea culpa. i think it stems from the fact that i keep watching people walk away from me very easily.

they are busy. they are bored. they have nothing they want from me at that time. or worse, they do not want anything more from me again because i have done all that they have asked. like a tramp i have quickly given to them all they asked for hoping they would like me.

my life has never made enough of an impression for anyone to stick by me.......except him.

i am an anachronism. i think i am a widow from the old days. i am obviously alone. obviously sad. obviously still so very much in love with my Dragon. so very much in pain. 2 1/2 years out and i still suffer so. no desires in the nether regions ~ except for missing his touch. no desires for companionship except from maybe a friend who does not want anything from me; who would listen to me talk for once.

i miss my grief friend to whom i wrote. bless her heart. her life has taken a turn for the worse so i feel terrible missing her for my own benefit, for me to be able to talk to someone. too many times i've tried to talk, to find someone to listen, but no one lasts. no one stays. no one, well, just no one for me.

i am an anachronism. the world and society and expectations of widows make me what? ashamed of myself? not really worried about myself. i just see that i am out of step. i am on my own very, very different path. i have no money. we were living to pay off debt from my divorce. i got nothing. no, that's wrong. i got my children. we gave them college. i had my Dragon and he had me.

i fell hard when he died. for many months i lay there looking up at the sky, the clouds; laying on that ground feeling each and every rock digging into my back. but i was so numb to it. i had lost my Dragon. my beloved. the only man i will ever want.

i remember a widow from that first group i met at that church. "how can you live alone? i moved into my parents' house, fortunately they live down the street, the day of the funeral. lived there for the first 18 months until i started dating again, and now i'm getting married and will move back into my house with my kids and my new husband. how can you live alone? you should date. you need to find another man so you aren't alone."

an anachronism. widows that i remember from my childhood were alone. they seldom dated again unless they were really young. really young. but my age? they were married to their dead husband's for life. no one questioned them. no one told them to get up, get back out there, and not be alone.

"date. have sex. get married again." i can't. not yet? probably never. he is it for me.

an anachronism. i remember widows who cried occasionally at church. even after years of widowhood. their other widowed friends gathered them into their arms and comforted them. no one told them they were being ridiculous. no one told them they needed to get over it. there were the nods from others who were so sympathetic to their losses. "bless her heart. they were such a lovely couple. so devoted." "bless her heart. we should send her flowers. we should invite her out to the cafeteria some afternoon for an early supper." "bless her heart."

i wish people would think of me that way. bless my heart. bless my poor, aching heart. i miss him. we were a lovely, devoted couple. bless my heart. my handsome Dragon and his odd little Bunny of a wife. such a lovely couple.

i do things. i am living a little, doing more than merely existing. i work very, very hard. i give of myself to everyone. too much of myself. i bend over backwards and lay down and let people walk on me, and then past me, and then far away from me. i struggle up and all i see is their backs, getting smaller and smaller. and then they are out of sight.

if you had known me with him, and then saw me now, you would not recognize me. i am smaller somehow. i am quieter. and that is a shocking statement as i was very quiet before. but not with him. never with him. he wouldn't let me. unless i was writing, or painting, or making stained glass, or sewing, or taking photos......you get the idea. he would not let me be afraid to speak. gently, oh, so gently, he encouraged me to talk. how? by asking questions. he'd ask. he'd engage me in conversation. never was i allowed to talk as i was with him. never have i been allowed to talk since, not as i got to do with him.

i miss him. a darkness has fallen around my life that i am getting used to. quiet life. rise and then work. and then bed. talk at the store. do not talk back at the apartment. very quiet Bunny. you only think of her as gregarious because she is such a wordsmith.
my life, i think, will be spent living on the edge of this dusk looking back at the light that was in my life when he was alive. but i am closer to the darkness than he ever allowed have happen to me. ever in his arms, i was safe; in the light; in the warmth of his love and devotion.

i am an anachronism. if widow's weeds were still worn, i would be wearing them, still, after 2 1/2 years. it's just now, people would be disgusted. not like they were before, during the dark ages, back when i was a child. that was a time when people seemed to, if they did not understand that kind of loss yet, they were still very much more forgiving of widows and their tears, and their particular kind of grief.

i miss you, Dragon. i still cry for you. i still love you. i always will because i am a widow out of step with this world. and i really do not give a flying fuck about doing anything about it.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

happy anniversary, my love

"may you live a thousand years, and i a thousand less one day, that i may never know that you have passed away."

i live loving you. i will die loving you. there can be no one but you. it's not that i refuse to try to move on. i am moving forward in my life, with you on my mind. it's not that i refuse to try and find love again. i had done that, with you. i have a fairly gracious outlook on life. i look out on life believing you wait for me.

it's not the years i have lived so much as the mileage. i have seen. i have experienced. i know my heart. i know my soul. i know i want only you.

so.....

"may you live a thousand years, and i a thousand less one day, that i may never know that you have passed away."

but you did die first. and it has been more than one day.

still......

still......

all i want is you.

happy anniversary, my beloved Dragon.
with love, your wife.

Monday, August 8, 2011

8th/9th ~ 2 1/2 years

he started dying on the 8th of August at 11:40 PM. he was gone at 12:03 AM. full moon. 30 below.

tonight it is not a full moon, nor is it freezing outside by any means, but i am chilled inside my soul. it is halfway through the second year and i have a heavy heart.
i miss you terribly. i miss you night and day. i love you with the same passion that i always did. time has not lessened it at all. but then you were quite the man. i was always incredulous that you loved me in return.

you are the most amazing man. you still are. and i am still yours and you will always be mine.
"....the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Awww!' " ~ Jack Kerouac

Friday, August 5, 2011

happy birthday, my love

"i wish for a moment that Time would lift me out of this day, and into some more benign one. but then i feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say i’m sorry until it is as meaningless as air." ~ Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

zero

heavy heart times, and not even an asterisk.

busy people, busy lives. it's me. it isn't me. i'm hurting too much thinking about the 5th, the 9th, the 11th. people don't know what to say. they don't care to say anything. what words to use? choosing to say nothing. too many others with more upbeat attitudes. they witness the power of running to the light, opening doors and windows, positive thinking. Bunny does that, but only in real life. here? she expresses in honesty what is inside her, trying to box it up and be done with it.. but know this. Bunny is very well liked by the guests in the store. she has people return to her, people who have heard about her and are sent to her, people who just look into her eyes and gravitate to her. Bunny does positive, likeable things at the store.

was sent a website for Canadian pharmacy. no other words. just the website. the only drug they offer that Bunny takes was 10 times more expensive than she can get it at Target. nice thought though.

the woman Bun writes to for grief counseling will probably not be able to write back anymore due to her own sorrowful life happenings. wishing her the very best. will always think of her and remember her kindness. should Bun try and find yet another grief counselor? strike one. strike two. strike three. Bun's out. she'll keep it all inside. seems that's what life wants.

maybe she was meant to tell her story differently. she'll sew and embroider her life story. if anyone cares, it will be her art that speaks now. Bunny talk about what hurts her? not so much anymore. going to do things differently. not be different. just do this different. try to be more entertaining? appealing? don't know what it will take. but......thoughts gather. something will be different.

the pain she's poured out here of late has met with some silence of late. zero. 0. it stings. Bunny hangs her little head. "spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart." comments disabled ~ no unkindness, no expectations, no hurt feelings, no wondering where everyone is.

stop looking, Bunny.
Bunny walks away towards the 5th, then the 9th, and then the 11th.

peace.