Green Frog

a length of green fuzzy fabric and some fuzzy fabric were laid out and stamped with a pattern. they were cut and sewn together. big plastic eyes were inserted and anchored down. two red hearts were machine embroidered on a yellow foot and lastly a red ribbon with gold hearts stamped on was tied around his neck. and voila, a silly green frog was made to sell for Valentine's Day 2009.

he was put in a box with other green frogs and shipped to the airport in Atlanta, Georgia where he was put on display in a store in the Southwest Airlines terminal for a quick and easy gift for a passing traveler.

he waited patiently. his big, friendly eyes wistfully tried to lock on to passersby. Valentine's Day was approaching. there was a narrow window of opportunity to attract a buyer and he was determined to find himself a home.

fate waved a hand over the world and circumstances were set in motion that put a young man in the terminal on Monday, February 9th. he was tall and very handsome, but he looked grim. Green Frog thought maybe he was worried about a girl. he said to himself, "hey, maybe a silly green frog would be just the thing to take to his girl." and he sat up straighter, smiled brighter, and let his eyes shine with his gentle inner light; the light that all stuffed animals carry inside when they hope and pray they find a good home with someone who will love them.

the young man sat down across from the store and stared at nothing. his thoughts were deeply dark and secret. his body was restless as he waited to board the plane. suddenly the young man's gaze lifted up and into the store. he spotted Green Frog. getting up he walked into the store to stand and stare at him. Green Frog shifted just a little to draw attention to himself. he repeated a little mantra to himself, "i have a purpose. there is a reason for my being created. Valentine's is coming and i am important. he will pick me."

and the young man did. with a grim face and sad eyes he lifted the green frog into his arms and carried him to the register, bought him, and stuck him in his carryon.

Green Frog didn't mind being stuffed into the bag. he was flexible. and he knew he wasn't meant for the young man. he was obviously meant for a girl. no young man could look that sad before Valentine's Day and not be worried over a girl. Green Frog was almost giddy as he knew, just knew, he was a gift of love. and what greater gift is there than love?

he felt the plane land. he felt the bag with him inside being put in a car and felt the motion of the car for a while. then suddenly the car stopped and the bag was hurriedly unzipped. he was yanked out and held by the young man who was now with a young woman. the two of them walked to a door. they knocked on the door and Green Frog smiled his biggest smile. he wasn't meant for the young woman standing next to him. he was meant for the girl who would answer the door.

the girl wasn't what Green Frog expected.

she was older. she was the mother of these two. and she was crying. her face was pale and strained with the heavy burden of some great sadness. when the young man handed Green Frog to the woman, she looked at him for a moment and then hugged him very tightly. she buried her face in his green fuzzy fur getting him wet with her tears.

he snuggled close into her embrace so that she would feel comfort. oh, the poor woman. something was making her so sad; and so close to Valentine's Day. well, Green Frog would make her smile again. he was sure of it.

the days leading up to Valentine's passed and each day he was left on the bed. but each night, the woman hugged him tightly and cried. Green Frog was feeling terrible. he wasn't making any headway with the sad woman. he couldn't understand how she could not smile at his adorable, smiling, fuzzy face. but each night while he was being held, he snuggled close to the woman. and if she slept at all, he slide his soft little arms around her so she might feel his presence and maybe feel better.

the day before Valentine's, Green Frog watched the woman and her children leave. he waited and waited for them to come back. when they did, he finally realized why his woman was so sad. she carried an urn and she carried a folded American flag. oh, gosh. oh, Lord. she was a widow. he, a perfectly pleasant Valentine Frog had been given to a weeping widow. he wasn't meant to be a reminder of love. he would be a reminder of love lost. oh, no. he wasn't trained for this. he didn't know what to do.

Valentine's Day arrived and Green Frog waited and watched. the little family was obviously going somewhere that morning. he watched them all get ready. his woman held the urn and the folded flag in what could only be called a lover's embrace. as they were about to leave, his woman asked her daughter to bring him. he was grabbed by the leg and put in the car.

the little family went to the funeral for his woman's husband. so sad. he sat in the car while they went into the church and left him in the car, but he knew what was going on. sadness. tears. lost love. and on Valentine's Day. such a bad thing to have happen on Valentine's Day. his woman will always remember that her husband had his funeral service on this day of days, this day of flowers and hearts, and love.

after the funeral Green Frog was put in a moving truck and his woman and her daughter drove for two days. there was such heaviness in these two women's hearts. he felt terrible. he was supposed to represent romance and love and frivolity, wasn't he? instead he was a gift of sorrow. he had hearts embroidered on his little foot. he was smiling all the time. he was supposed to be for romance and happiness. instead, inside him, his heart was breaking.

eventually they arrived. everything was unpacked. the daughter was setting her mother up in a tiny apartment. Green Frog understood that this was to be his woman's new life. alone. silent, so silent. and sad.

each night his woman held him and cried. at first she cried every single night. eventually she stopped crying every night but it took months and months. but every night, when his woman laid down in bed and pulled the quilts up over her, after her little dogs settled their furry bodies near their "mom," she would reach for him. his woman would reach for him and hold him in her arms. sometimes she would sigh heavily. sometimes she would say her prayers out loud. and sometimes, even now, she would, she will, put her face in his fur and cry for her lost love.

and Green Frog was always there waiting for her.

he had been created for one thing. Valentine's Day. but as it turned out, he was meant for something else. he had thought he was made for romance, but he had been made for forever love. he had thought he had been made for fun, but he now meant for a higher purpose. he had thought his purpose in life was frivolity. it was not. he was meant to offer comfort. he was something soft and safe to hold onto in the darkest and loneliest part of his woman's grief.

his dreams of being a special Valentine's frog had not come true. but then, neither had his woman's dreams come true. or maybe they had, but for far too short a time.

but one thing came true. he was important. he was needed and desired. he had a home where he was loved and held and cherished. this was the reason he had been created.

his name was Green Frog, but sometimes, every once in a while, his woman called him Carl. she held him tightly every single night. and he was there for her and would be for all the nights left to her.

and every single night he would whisper to her, "happy Valentine's Day." he does this because he knows Carl would want him to.

p.s. and no worries about Green Frog. his woman's daughter has already promised that Green Frog will come and live with her after his woman passes to be with her beloved.

it's coming

it's coming. that period when all i can do is think of that moment in time, and of the passing of time.

Valentine's Day is staring me in the face at work. hearts and bears and love and kisses.

all i can think about is the love he had for me, i have for him, the embraces we shared, the touching, the constant touching.
i have vivid memories that include sounds and smells, the feelings i had about where we lived.
"i love thee, i love but thee with a love that shall not die, 'till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old." ~ Shakespeare. what he recited to me as part of our wedding vows.

"and when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars; and he will make the face of Heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun." ~ Shakespeare. recited by my daughter for me at his funeral on Valentine's Day.
because i had not voice.....because i could not speak. and i write here rather than continue to try and find someone to talk to anymore, because i still need to have a voice.....because i have things i'd like to say......because i still have not had the chance to actually speak to a living person about him. so writing is my voice. the written word is my way of speaking about him.

i bought myself something. when it comes, i'll post a photo of it. {Bunny loves cliffhangers.}

it's coming. that period of time when all i can think about is him, and time.

i am still in love with you, Dragon. so very much.

14 February 2011 // SSSF's gift of a book

tomorrow is Valentine's Day. there will be gifts or the memory of gifts. there will be affection and passion and romance, or the memory of such things.

it will be all those things for me and one more thing. it is the anniversary of my Dragon's funeral. bad family things happened at his funeral that i have not surrendered to the universe. i am working through it, but just not quite there yet. no one to forgive because no one has asked.

i thankfully work tomorrow. i hope the day is as busy as Saturday was. i hope today is crammed with people so i am focused on the here and now.

but ever present in my mind is him. my strong, magnificent, beautiful Dragon. such a man.
none will compare. i feel no connection with anyone. i have no interest in sex or romance, or passion. i had so much overwhelming, heavenly, incredible sex, romance, and passion with him that, well, his scent is all i want. his touch, his voice, his love.

i am reading the most wonderful book anyone has ever clued me into since my Dragon's death. thank you SSSF. Madeleine L'Engle. "Walking on Water Reflections on Faith and Art." i love this book.

"in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." ~ Aeschylus

i love you, my handsome, lovely Dragon. i miss you. you are my sunlight, the stars in my sky, my happiness, my breathe, my life. and now you are my moon. happy Valentine's Day. you are my heart.

Valentine's Day ~ Dragon's Funeral One Year Ago

i got the quilt in the frame tonight. i'm working hard i think to bury what day tomorrow is. Valentine's Day.

it had always been a day we spent together honoring our love and our marriage. we did it right. cheap and intimate at home. being me, i made him books. i wrote stories with illustrations inside. i spent a lot of time on them. i loved doing it for him and he always loved getting them.

he told me that he'd never had anyone love him as i do. and i do. i love him. that his funeral was planned on Feb. 14th, what that day meant, never occurred to me. maybe it was fate. for my last Valentine book that i made for him, i'd researched the origin of the day, of the Saint. i read Dan's blog earlier tonight and he mentioned St. Valentine. for my first Valentine's Day alone, i mean the one that isn't his funeral since i was never technically alone, i think i want to relate what i gave to my Dragon two years ago, our last Valentine's Day together.
"Valentine's Day has it's origins in blood, violence, persecution, and sacrifice, all the things that make love so infinite and worthwhile. Valentine's Day has evolved into something that is a mere shadow of the power it once held. except for us. you and me."

i use several pages to explain all about why i love him, admire him, and am in awe of him. i give him the words to make him smile, blush, and shake his head at my adoration. he is so funny when he thinks my writing enters hyperbole.

at the end of this book i wrote and made for him, i tell him why Valentine's Day is so special.

"you, my love, are a warrior and you above all should not be in the dark about Valentine's Day. the priest Valentius secretly married soldiers because he felt Claudius's edict that no soldier should marry was wrong. if anyone should have a blessed eternal, sacred love, it should be a soldier. thrown in prison and awaiting execution, he had hope enough to fall in love with his jailer's daughter and he sent her love letters signed 'from your Valentine.' he was executed on February 14, 270 AD.

Valentius died for love while loving someone. he was a warrior as well, albeit on a different battlefield. we celebrate this day as we do every day. for you and me, for all of us, a priest risked his life for the warriors of his parish and they risked all seeking him out for the sacrament of marriage, for love. love is never a waste. you and i share a love that is a sacrament, that is a bond for all eternity.

never wonder how or why i love you. never wonder why i am here for you. no one deserves love more than you and no one can possibly love you more than me. no one will quietly hold you in the night, stroke your hair, your arm, or speak in low, soothing tones to you like i do and always will. i'll face down your demons and banish them all from your mind.

i am the person your soul talks to in the night. i will always be there....

because i love you."

my Dragon is my life and i was his. we had talked once about what to do if one of us died. we had also talked about how we thought it would feel, how we’d “be” when the other had died. he and i both spoke of it as if we were the same coin and one side had been obliterated. damaged. we spoke of it as if we were Gibran’s “lute quivering with the same music.” yes, we were two individuals but our lives, our dreams had evolved to become one instrument, Gibran's lute. i know if a string breaks on an instrument, the musician simply replaces the string but in a marriage such as ours, the string cannot be replaced. they don't make them to fit the instrument that is us, the Dragon and his woman from the shadows.my Dragon is a Marine, Force Recon. he fought hard for his country and his will to survive was very strong. there were a myriad of reasons he earned his nickname. his inner strength to live and get his men back home was one of them. "Dragon" was an honorable name to be given. his stories are wild and simply incredible to me. he told me once, though, that nothing he did or endured during his years was as bad as the mere thought of having to live without me.

"if you died, i would continue. that's all. i would just continue like a wolf that had lost it's mate. i would lose the sun and the moon and the ocean. i would lose my joy of watching you live. i would just continue and wait to be able to join you."

i feel the same. i have no idea if this Valentine's Day culmination of my first year without him has me so deep in melancholia that i am wallowing, but i will ride this ride to the end. i will feel fully what my heart and my mind give me to experience. i will fully live this grief until it evolves. then i will experience that.

as Jimmy Bufftet sings, "some of it's magic and some of it's tragic but i've had a good life all the way."

i had a good life starting when i met my Dragon. i had a wonderful life with him. and i will have a life as his widow albeit a sadder, lonelier one. i will hold my memories of him and keep his stories safe in my heart. maybe next year i will be able to hold a special celebration for him.

my warrior. my Dragon. my beloved husband. "my immortal beloved." you are worth all this pain. i love you. i always will.

Bunny is not a Phoenix

my daughter and i went out together, just the two of us, for supper last night. Olive Garden. it was nice. just the two of us. i wore my pendant as i always do when i leave the apartment. the waiter saw it and thought it was pretty. he then asked if anyone was joining us and my daughter said, "my husband is at night school." i touched my pendant and said, "my husband isn't here tonight."

we went out together because she works all weekend and knows how bad Tuesday was, and how bad Sunday will be. she’s upset that she cannot take off to be with me but that’s life. she works so hard and i put on a good face for her. “Sy Fy weekend horror movies, honey. sewing, quilting. i’ll be fine.”

but Sunday will be the last day of my personal week of this Powerful Omniscient One Year Milestone. i’m thinking of hosting it every year. i’ve learned things i knew and things i didn’t know. i’ve learned that i do not match anyone else’s journey.

i read and have been told that the anticipation of these milestones is sometimes far worse than getting through that day. my own year milestone for him, over him, whatever, has lived up to my imagination’s hype. instead of being worried over something that played out less than expected my mind was preparing me for what it knew my soul would feel.

it was rough. the echoes of that day, that week, the funeral on Valentine’s Day are in my head and try as i might, i cannot push them out. they are unconquerable right now so i’ve let them take over. maybe it’s supposed to be this way for me. maybe it's the healthiest way for me. i am such a sensitive person. i focused on sewing as i cried. i kept the television on with one ridiculous show after another, while i cried as i worked, but i was alone for the period of time when i most needed someone with me. some lives do not allow for what we need even if we try to make arrangements, but oh, what i would have given to have someone come sit with me. stay with me. hear me talk about him. he is such a lovely man.

i needed someone with me to talk to, to be with me, to talk about him to. i love him so very much. oh, God, it’s like a fire licking away at me. i burn with it. i love him and he’s not coming back. he’s gone and i break at the concept. how can i do this without him for another day much less another year?

i miss his touch. he was always touching me; my hand, the small of my back, my hair, my skin. he loved touching me and i loved being touched by him. my mother wasn’t affectionate. my first husband hated touching me. i think he’s a closet amoeba. if he could have reproduced alone, he would have. but my Dragon loved touching me and taught me that my body wasn’t abhorrent. he taught me how to make love and be loved.

snippets of songs run through my head whether the song pertains to my loss or not.

“give me a kiss before you leave and my imagination will feed my hungry heart. leave me one thing before we part, a kiss to build a dream on.” ~ Satchmo

“10,000 miles, my own true love, 10,000 miles or more. the rocks may melt an th seas may burn if i should not return.” ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter

“i’d rather be dreaming than living, living’s just too hard to do. it’s chances not choices, noises not voices, a day’s just a thing to get through, living’s just too hard to do.” ~ Loudon Wainwright

the night after my Dragon died, my children were with me. we were together sleeping in the same room. there was a radio in the next room, unplugged. never worked. we all woke to music. Sara McLachlan’s “Angel.” the exact part that was playing was the chorus.

“in the arms of the angels, fly away from here, from this dark cold hotel room and the endlessness that you fear. you are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie, you’re in the arms of the angel. may you find some comfort there.”

that’s the part that was playing when my son got it to stop. and by that i mean he set the radio in the middle of that room away from the wall because it still wasn’t plugged in. but it was the room where he died. it was the room of the door crashing open and the paramedics and police coming in to fail us both. we had all three heard it and we all wanted so much to believe it was a sign that he was "in the arms of the angels." i can’t listen to that song without sobbing.

i love him and i wish i could talk to him. i just want to see him once more. i want to see his eyes smile at me in love. i want to hold his hand and walk along the beach.

i want what that song says, ‘love will come and set me free.” ~ Brett Dennen

so as you can see i’m having a very rough time. for me, there has been no glimpss of sunlight. there has been no release from this since that moment his heart seized.

“cast me gently into morning for the night has been unkind. take me to a place so holy that i can wash this from my mind, the memory of choosing not to fight.” ~ Sarah McLachlan.

we drove away from the ocean after the funeral, after i put all the rocks and shells and sand dollars i’d collected back on the beach, right at twilight, at the water’s edge. i have all the ones he collected. only his. because I want only him.

we made it to New York before crashing at a motel. i have no idea what the desk clerk thought as i walked in carrying a black box of ashes and a folded American flag and a broken arrow. i don’t give a flying f*ck. it would have been dishonorable to leave the flag and the broken arrow and i was not leaving my Dragon alone in the truck. oh, God, the thought brings me to my knees. him alone in the dark. but he's not afraid of the dark and i love it because i can see Heaven better.

the next day when we saw the sign for the state line of where i am supposed to live now my daughter pointed out a cloud. the photo is below.

i had been crying thinking he would not know where i was when she pointed it out and said simply, “he knows, mom. he’s watching over you.” she went into this monolog about how he’s the Dragon and covert was his middle name and black was his favorite color. she said he knew where i was every moment he was alive and that it was a little scary how good he was at it. so of course he knows now that he’s really become a dragon and is flying about in Heaven.

so if you’re watching and listening, my love, i miss you. i love you. i want you. it will always be this way.

~~ the year has been hard. the anniversary has been awful. i’m his Beach Bunny, not some beautiful golden phoenix. i am not rising from the ashes, his ashes, “a new person with a new life filled with wonderful memories of his shining love to carry with me on my new adventure.” (someone actually wrote that and got it published.)

i’m not like anyone else. i’m like me. my life has been different than some. i had no loving childhood, no happy first 44 years of my life. my happy life didn’t start until i was 44 and my Dragon found me slinking from shadow to shadow trying to stay out of sight. i'm so very tired of living but living is all i'm left with. just living day to day. i’m doing what he and i talked about. Bunny will stay his bunny keeping his ashes close until i die. then our ashes can be blended and given to the ocean we both loved so very much.

as for Valentine’s Day? let it come. let it do it's worst. i’ve already drowned. i’ll look at the majesty of the rollers coming in from the bottom of the ocean.

the perfect metaphor

when i was twelve, my leg caught on fire.

i was very introverted as a child, always drawing and reading. my mother found a local artist who sometimes took in students. he didn't like to take them younger than twelve but i was so quiet and respectful, so much wanting to draw and learn to paint with oils that he took me at seven. i stayed with pencils and charcoal for years until he finally gave me my first set of oils. i was ten.

everyone in the class was older than i was until i turned fourteen. then i had peers but i had such seniority that it was like i wasn't part of the class.

i took lessons from this man until his death when i was sixteen.

back to the fire. we had painted a still life that had these wonderful drippy candles. it was clean up time and the boys were acting up. or out. who knows with boys. anyway, one of them spilled turpentine on my bare leg. i was wearing cutoffs. then i was shoved into the table where the still life was set up. candle fell. flame found the turpentine on the back of my calf.

i remember staring at it. i can still close my eyes and see that flame on my leg. it sizzled and popped. i remember being absorbed in staring into that flame, not feeling it at all. yet. i felt distanced from it.

my teacher came running up and lifted me up and then down onto the floor. he had an old shirt to cut off the oxygen from the fire.

cutting to the end of the story, i had second and third degree burns on my calf. i was lying on my stomach in the back seat of the car while my mother drove like a manic to the hospital. i remember it was almost summer in Texas (where i grew up) and i was shivering. i thought that was odd since i had been burned, the flames almost burned onto my retinas, or memory as it seems, but i was so cold. i don't remember much after i got into the ER but i remember it was the first time i ever remembered spending the night at the hospital.

i remember waking up in the night alone in a hospital room. back then parents didn't stay. no one stayed. nurses came and went but no one stayed with you, no matter how young or scared you were. i woke up because i hurt. the pain was terrible. i don't even remember labor hurting as bad as the pain from that burn.

and i stayed cold.

shock. numb. cold. and then the pain.

that's the way i'm feeling now.

the fire is my Dragon's death. the shock is that he really died. the numbness lasted for so long. through the funeral, the move here, trying to find an existence where he wasn't there, my daughter's wedding, the holidays, and the 11th month. my birthday, our birthday, my daughter's and mine, is Saturday. she and her husband have a gift certificate left over from their wedding. they are taking me, and her, out to an Italian restaurant Saturday evening for our birthday. Italian food, wine, my daughter and her husband. and then home alone.

i thought the pain had started but it hadn't. i think it was the discomfort of the numbness wearing off. i'm cold now. and i hurt. i don't want February 9th to come. i definitely don't want Valentine's Day to come.

the 14th can come but the thought of hearts and lace and couples is bothering me. it shouldn't. they have what i had. they should be allowed to have it. i envy them because i don't even have to close my eyes to feel his touch, hear his voice, smell his skin, or remember his love.

everyone should experience a love like i had (have) with my Dragon. but now that he has died, i feel a niggling bit of envy at what i lost. it's not that i want what they have. it's that i had all i could ever want and had to watch it go away.

it's the perfect metaphor ~ at least for me. it's like a fire. it's like being badly burned. you see it start to happen and you can't react fast enough. there's nothing you can do to have stopped it happening because what happened was beyond your control.

first you go numb. then you get cold. very cold. the only thing comparable is experiencing hypothermia. and while you're still freezing cold the pain hits and there is nothing like it. it splits you from your body until all you want to do is leave your body, get away from the pain.

like i want to distance myself from the idea that my Dragon is not going to walk through the door of my apartment, take me in his arms, and take me to bed and make this all a very long, bad dream.