the Dragon speaks again

i haven't spoken since December 2009. a long while by what you know as time; by what i used to understand time was. time is nothing now, except i am waiting on her. i know she wishes that. i know she deep down believes i am. she always had faith in me. always. it never wavered.

i wish she had faith in herself. what she has is the strongest sense of survival i've ever seen in a person. but surviving is not living and if anyone deserves to allow herself to feel all that she has inside her, it's my Bunny. my sweet, beautiful wife. she deserves to live with a free and peaceful spirit.

i watch her day after day. she's tired; so very tired. life is running her over time and again and i never could figure out why. but she is the poster girl for getting up and continuing on. three recent things have pissed me off and i wish i could interfere.

that mess last weekend with Voldemort. appropriate name for him. arrogance. a sense of entitlement that far exceeds his worth to this world. he needs to be reminded what he is inside. he needs to see his soul as i do. i'd like to turn him inside out and show him.

my Bunny got her lab results yesterday. it is definitely diabetes. and she cried a little. she sat for about 15 minutes holding that thin sheet of paper. she started to say something out loud, but then she looked at the urn she keeps that is surrounded by my old stuff, my old medals and knives, and the flag she got at my funeral. she was going to say something to me out loud, like she forgot i died. but i heard her. i am there with her. i can hear her before she says it. my poor Bunny. she cried harder then. not for herself but for me.

see, she worries about me. i wish i could hold her and make her feel it. but she is too deep in her grief to do that right now. she reads about others who have had "signs" and she thinks she has had two. the radio i made turn on the night after i died. i made it play "Angel," that Sarah MacLachlin song. and then the heart cloud she saw when she and our daughter crossed the border into North Carolina when she moved down there.

i was with her then. i am with her now. but she is afraid to see any signs for fear she is tricking herself with a lie. my poor Bunny. afraid she will get into trouble by believing in something that isn't real. but she does believe in love. my love. our love. she clings to that like a shipwrecked person clings to a bit of debris. she will never let go of our love.

the last thing that i wish was different, or that she hadn't overheard was at work. if anyone comes into that store who has a life crisis; heartbreakingly divorced and searching for a stuffed toy for their children, dying and family members are having that one last visit where they can record the dying person's voice, or if someone is buying a bear to put on a grave, they all go to my Bunny. she opened the door to the back room and overheard someone call her the Duchess of Death. it was meant as a joke, but my gentle Bunny was already drained from just having dealt with a woman who was in stage 4 cancer who had been given barely this summer to live. her daughter and granddaughter had filmed the whole heart ceremony. they had had this dying woman record her voice on those little sound boxes. my wife did not cry. she held up well and made it a soulful and memorable experience for that daughter and granddaughter, but it pulls something out of her each time she does it. she is exhausted.

and then she heard, Duchess of Death, and it went into her like a knife. the little group hushed up, and my wife smiled at them. but she was bleeding inside.

i wish i could have held her then. i wish i could have comforted her and let her know that the impact of being there for those people as she was, with the depth that she was, and giving of her whole absent heart as she did, was so very important and powerful. but she doesn't see it that way. she can't and probably never will. my wife is anything but vain.

she is doubting herself. she is asking about Heaven. what is it. where is it. if it even is. she does not doubt God. she doubts if she will get there. she wonders where i am. she prays for me all the time, for our son and daughter, and lastly, for herself. i wish i could reassure her. i wish she could feel me close. i wish she didn't doubt. love does conquer all. even death. her prayers are heard. her love for me and her children is so strong, her ability to empathize with others, not just feel compassion, but truly empathize, is so vast, she will find me. we will be together again.

she is so tired of struggling alone. she needs someone to talk to about all that has happened to her. she needs to sit beside someone and that someone needs to feel. that someone needs to feel anger for her and see the pain. that someone needs to look my wife in the eye and tell her what happened to her was a terrible thing. i wanted to kick that counselor in the ass who told my Bunny that her mother was nice now and to remember that rather than speak about all the bad things. that's like cementing over a wound and not letting the poison out. you have to clean the wound before you cauterize it, otherwise the infection stays. any field hospital knows that. you have to bleed before you can sew it up.

my sensitive little Bunny. she cannot stop people from hurting her. she cannot prevent some bad things f from happening to her. but if she cannot stop Voldemort from rearing his ugly head, if she has to live with always working to control her diabetes, and if she continues to be the Duchess of Death, i wish she would know this one thing.

i am waiting for her.

i have a place in mind for us for when she comes to join me. i will be the first thing she sees, even before she is fully gone from this world and only part way into this next one. this place is everything she's ever wanted.
i will be with my wife, my funny little Beach Bunny, for all her days. one day this intense sadness she feels will lessen and she will feel me beside her. she will know i walk beside her, stand with her, and sleep next to her all night long. i am with her because, to be honest, i couldn't leave her.
i may have died, but i never left.

Bunny has a new puppy

i am so down. oh, Lord, i am down. depressed. sad at the thought of what my life has become; what it is without him. i am so very sad.

i know it will improve a little. probably a lot over time. you know, 11 years from now i may not be this sad. hey, i may not even be here, but if i am, i probably, might not be this sad.

so i had to do something whimsical. my Ambassador is out there in the world for all of you. my Bunny needed to do something silly for me, so yesterday, Mother's Day, we were at work together and she ran to the back. she got into my locker and dug in my purse for my debit card. she came running back out and dug through our little "kennel pals" and found the perfect one. Bunny bought her.

here she is.

here she is up close.

silly Bun. she bought herself a puppy. we have decided to name her Juliet. yes, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Juliet said in Act 3, Scene 2:

"and when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of Heaven so fine and all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."

Bunny and Juliet love looking at the night sky. they think it is easier to see Heaven, and certainly it is easier to see the moon.

pssst. he is coming back. the moon. isn't he beautiful up there? that is tonight's moon. the moon of the 9th of this month. 2 years, 3 months tonight. we were out there gazing at it with what i know was intense longing and sadness reflected in our eyes. i sighed as i held Bunny in my arms and she signed as she held Juliet in her little fuzzy arms.

i love you, Carl, my beautiful, handsome Dragon.

my Dragon has a name

i am autonomous now. i am my own country. i am the Widow Bunny living in the Land of Forever Grief. i am the Dragon's wife and it is time i stand for him. that person out there {Voldemort} can wound me but he can no longer reach out and hurt me. he no longer has control over me. i am on my own, finally, frighteningly, but out of reach of the harm that he can cause. so now, it is time. i feel it in my heart.

you've "met" my Dragon. you've seen the photos i've posted. you now know his smile.

you've read where we lived. beside the North Atlantic. so beautiful. so austere, even in our short summers. we truly lived, he and i. we were so terribly poor but we were wonderfully happy. we had all of the great outdoors as our playground. we had the ocean and all its gifts. we had our island. we had each other.

i've told you all about my Dragon, the kind of man he is. he still is that kind of man because only his body died. not his soul. he has transcended this life but he is still the man i love. i've told you of his sacrifices for his country as a Marine. i've told you of his sacrifices as a {step} father to my two children. such a wonderful man. his laughter, contagious. his smile, warm. his hands, strong and always there for me. his heart, faithful and courageous in the face of hardship. he is as permanent in my life as the granite boulders that surround where we lived and loved together.

and i have told you how he died. i have told you that it was sudden and shattering. i told you of the terrible cold of that winter night. 4 below zero. we already had 3 feet of snow on the ground on that frigid 8th of February at 11:45 when he was rushed to the ER due to a heart attack. 12:03 AM ~ 9 February 2009 ~ he had to go where i cannot as of yet.
he flew to the other side of our moon. the Dragon and the moon. now Bunny and her moon. so lonely standing out in the dark looking up at the sky. or during the daylight hours on a waxing moon as Bunny searches the sky for Dragon.

Dragon has a name. Carl.

Dragon, dear, my dear, sweet Dragon.....

i desperately wish that you hadn't died.

existing

2 years hit like the ACME safe from a Warner Bros. cartoon only the door did not open and i did not come comically stumbling out. it hit and it hit hard. and i am just existing.

it is a word i use deliberately. i feel like i am only existing. i am jumping through the hoops. i have no interest in life though i do everything everyone expects of me. work is performance art. i am "on" when i walk into the store. i pay my bills the day i get them. i do not buy anything extra. no luxuries. well, i got a haircut and she gave me the mousse/gel stuff. i don't know how to use it. i suck at being feminine. i bought sunglasses for Bunny. she needs the UV protection for her soft brown eyes while we drive to and from work.
but i miss him. with every breath, every sigh, every tear, i miss him. i ache for him. since Brick died, it's like my Dragon died all over again. no more stories. and that makes me a selfish witch. i mourn for Brick. but am i mourning him, or the loss of the stories he shared with me? i feel awful. i don't know. i never met him. his death has made me miss my Dragon even more. i look at my photos of him and pine.
i miss our home. i miss our town. i miss our walks. i miss being outside like we were. my hair a mess of tangles. my skin ruddy from the cold and wind. collecting rocks and shells and all the photos i took of him.

it can bring me to my knees. i put my head down on the desk and sob for what i can never have again. him. Rockport. home. ocean. rocks. him. home. him.
i am grieving. i am in mourning for my lost love. lost love. is he really lost? or am i lost? i am hurting so much. 2 years. 2 short/long years.
my only whimsy is Bunny. the Bun. my alter ego who understands the way of the world so much. she is the Oracle at Delphi. she is the go to girl for all the answers. and her silence is the answer because she knows, omnipotent Bunny, that there is no answer. it is what it is. it's life.
she is quite the Bun. she is a fashionista. she is a good listener. she keeps her moon necklace close and her thoughts even closer. her lips are sealed. all secrets are safe with Bunny.

if i had not come up with Bunny to stand in and stand up for me, i do not know what i would be doing to keep my sanity. or maybe i am insane and Bunny are these voices inside my head all in one cute, fuzzy package.

i miss him. i long for him. i am empty without him.

so is Bunny.