Soul Widows Spiritual Retreat ~ Seven ~ Saturday ~ My Private Talk

i worked hard and with purpose on my journal cover. i felt a push inside me as i always do when i get to work. i admit i was quiet for some time as it fell into place for me but then i was more present with the other women. it is just that, well, it is a journal i fully intend to use and i wanted it to speak to that weekend, and him, and how i felt about it all. but mostly i wanted it to speak about him.
i put the old flag on it and the full moon. i also put a photo of star trails and then i found a castle. dragons like castles and just because you cannot see them does not mean they are not there. i put a photo of a rainbow over a waterfall in Hawaii. paradise on earth. i told them that i wanted this book to show that there was nothing he was afraid of. there was nothing he could not do.

he just could not stay.

we took a break in our art therapy to go shopping. well, the other women went shopping but i got to have a private conversation with our Fiery Fairy. i hope she knows how grateful i was.

time has always been a problem for me. at the old group, i had a literal 1 or 2 minutes. wtih the nun grief counselor at the Church, i had 55 minutes but she controlled the talk. she asked questions and i had to answer. she wanted to talk about ancient history. i wanted to talk about my Dragon. then i had the free therapy for 2 sessions. i got to talk but she did not see my anxiety. bless her heart, she was so overloaded with work. i could not add to her stress.

i know. i know. i am stressed, too, but her telling me i am doing very well in spite of my isolation and in spite of my financial duress, well, i knew her heart was not in it. and i need someone who sees something in me worth saving.

we went on a couple of errands for her and the sky was beautiful. while she got gas for her car, i stepped to the curb and took a breath. and took a photograph.

we went to a store for her to pick something up. i have not been in such a fancy store since my Dragon died. 21 months. i lightly touched scarves and blouses. i touched a nightgown that had embroidery on the yoke. so lovely. the store was in an old building and it had old wood floors. the sun was pouring in. i glanced around. no one was looking. i took this photograph. it seemed a metaphor for an open door before me and stepping out into the light, out of the cramped confines of my little apartment. it may never actually happen for me, but i have this photograph now that i can turn to and dream. sometimes all we need to keep are our dreams.
i talked. i told her one thing i have only told one other person. my Dragon. but this weekend was like flash paper. here and gone. i felt i had only one chance for someone else on this planet to know one of the terrible things that had happened to me to make me like i am. my Dragon, the one i had trusted with this story was not gone. i have been alone with it again. i am not alone with it anymore. the Fiery Fairy knows.
having someone know something about you that you never talk about but affects you every moment of every day is important. i told our grief counselor about something that happened to me when i was a little girl. a long, long time ago. a long, long time to carry this alone. my Dragon knew and he wept. he held me and it felt good that someone finally knew this. when i told our Fiery Fairy she was upset for me. i do not know really what she thought of it since i did sort of dance over it, but i think she was horrified. i kinda hope so. i needed someone else to know this. i had kept it to myself for 40 years. then for 8 years i had my Dragon to hold me. i do not regret telling her. i do regret that i danced on it though. it really is more important to me than that. it changed who i was. but at least there is one other person in the world who knows. i am not alone.

i had walked out onto the porch alone for a moment. this wreath of tin stars caught my eye. it is weathered and beautiful. it made me smile. after a day of revealing one of my two darkest secrets, i had to take a moment to be outside where the world is old and time passes with care. the star wreath grounded me back to the porch. it is whimsical. i need whimsy in my life. it is my daily therapy. Bunny and her moods and her way of speaking in third person. distance. whimsy creates distance for me from the pain.

hey, some people drink themselves into a stupor. whimsy, i.e. Bunny, is not a bad vice to have.

my birthday thoughts

if you are reading my words and are among us who mourn your spouse/fiancee, there is nothing i can tell you that you do not already know.

if you are here reading and have never known such a tragedy, there is nothing i can tell you either for there is no way to prepare.

my birthday is Saturday, the 16th, the first since my Dragon's death. i feel a wave of depression coming on that i do not know how i will handle, but probably i will not say anything. i mean what's the point. most of you reading here understand. so i will do something different, something to argue with the cold that lives inside me. i want you to meet my Dragon.

i know. you've read about him, BUT, you haven't been introduced to him. you only know him as my hero. let me introduce you to the man.

he hated having his picture taken. he was wanted in several countries for patriotic actions against said country and having his picture taken went against the grain. he never got a tattoo for the same reason though he let me paint a dragon on him once. that was a fun night.

he was my height which made kissing him and dancing with him in the sand perfect. he had big shoulders and thick muscles. his back even had muscles. his legs were tree trunks but speaking as an artist, he was perfectly proportioned.

i could wear his shoes but he could not wear mine.

he loved black coffee but being a Marine that kind of goes without saying. Rule #23. Never mess with a Marine's coffee if you want to live.

his favorite color was brown until i showed him the color of the ocean before a fast moving squall when the sun was still out. "turbulent sea foam turquoise-y green." (i reserve all rights and privileges to the use of that color name though i don't think Crayola will ever be upset or make a crayola long enough to stamp it on the sleeve.)

i was the only one who could tell him to do something and forget to say please and thank you but i never forgot and he appreciated that. he never "told" me to do anything. he asked sweetly and we did it together.

he wasn't afraid of anything and i had to be careful not to dare him to do anything i didn't want to see him do. he'd do anything.

he never thought it was odd that my relaxation reading was theoretical physics.

he could figure a way out of anything and contrary to popular myths about dragons and Marines, his first thoughts didn't involve violence. but he knew how to do that if it meant saving his men, his country, or his family.

he wasn't afraid of the dark or heights. for training once, they had him do a HALO dive after midnight landing on the deck of a darkened ship in the middle of the ocean. i asked him if he was scared and he said no. he said he'd been more scared of me saying no to his marriage proposal than anything else he'd ever done.

he knew a lot about survival. he hated that guy Bear Grylls but respected Les Stroud, as long as his show didn't look faked.

he'd been in every country in the world except for eleven. i'd point out a country on the map and ask, "what did you do here?" once he said, "i walked through that one to get to this one." i smiled and teased, "did anyone see you?" he smiled and said, "no, because that would have been bad." he meant it. you always knew when he was serious, even if he was smiling.

he loved the Marine Corps. he loved his country. Semper Fi.
he was the leader of his fire team. they got little ceramic skunks because they were always stuck with the "stinky" jobs.

he told me that he and his mom never admitted to each other that he'd been in Vietnam for even one tour much less three. she referred to it as that "time you were off with the Marines." her letters were addressed to California so he let her pretend he lived on base there.

he'd eat anything, cooked or raw. if it crawled, walked, swam, or flew, he had a recipe for it. he'd eat a lot of things raw, too. he said that when he was away from home, he usually wasn't in the tourist part of the country so he would find something to eat and keep it down. protein was protein. but he didn't mind that i was a picky eater. he called it an "endearing quirk." and he'd eat the sides i didn't like.

he didn't kill spiders or mice, etc. he'd catch them and set them free outside, and yes, he sometimes could catch a fly in the air. he never killed those either.

he loved old houses, history, the ocean, and John Wayne movies. so did i.

he loved going to bed early and not going directly to sleep. so did i.

when he found out that i collected rocks and shells and sand dollars, he started collecting them, too. he picked up every rock he ever found.

the day of his funeral, after it, when it was time for my daughter and i to drive away from my ocean forever, i took all my rocks and shells and sand dollars to our beach. it was Valentine's Day. it was my gift back to our beach since i don't think i will ever see it again. i set all my collected treasures free.

i kept his shells and sand dollars and rocks though. i put his bigger sand dollars in my grandfather's cufflink box. i covered some of his rocks to "protect" his fingerprints which i fully believe with all my heart are still on his rocks.

he finally grew to accept that i adored the ground he walked on. i never thought he was a monster. his ex-wife learned what he did and screamed at him. she called him a murderer. that's why she divorced him. he was a terrible, evil person as far as she was concerned. he'd been divorced for 12 years when we met. i thought he was a patriot. i thought his eyes looked closed off. i wanted to make his eyes smile so i made it my sole purpose in life to let him know that his ex-wife was just a person, one person, and that she was wrong.

i told him i loved him every day, several times a day because i thought he was just so cool. he always blushed.
when he got a call, picked up his go bag to leave, i never cried. i kissed him and told him to be careful. he said he was proud of me for not crying in front of him but he knew i was scared for him and cried while he was gone. when he would come home, it would take me two weeks to stop smiling. i held his hand all the time. i would sit in his lap, on the floor at his feet asking his questions, letting him talk it out, or i would sit scrunched up against his side. he loved that i would do that.

the day my ex-husband met my Dragon, he had dropped my son off from taking him out to supper. my ex was upset about something and called me out to the driveway. to make his point he grabbed my hand and bent it back in a way that physiology and nature did not intend it to go. it was just what he did and i never showed emotion or he'd get too excited. if i waited him out, he would stop and let go. but my Dragon didn't think i needed to wait like that. my Dragon came out and said in a voice that was low and soft and devoid of emotion, "release her." when my ex did, my Dragon slapped my ex with an open hand. the crack was very loud. louder than they ever show on television when someone does that. my ex fell on top of the hood of his car. my Dragon leaned over him and said, "if you ever touch her or her children again, i will come into your home and wake you up. mine will be the last face you see. i know how to do it. it's what they trained me for and i have to tell you that for you, my moral compass would bend way back, as far back as you had her hand. that means that for you, i would enjoy it."

my ex has never touched me or either of my children. i still ask though since my son has elected himself as the ambassador to keep the peace. he still goes to see his father but only, as he says, "you keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

i never saw my Dragon threaten anyone before that or after that. it was a side he didn't let me see. he was upset that i saw it that time, but i told him, "i know you only use your powers for good." he hugged me. it was a turning point for us. he believed i was in his life to release him of his demons. he said, "because you love me, i'll find absolution." i cried behind his back because it hurt me so much that he felt that way about himself.

he thought it was funny that i don't care for diamonds. but he wanted me to have one so he found the ring you see below. the diamond is very tiny. it's called a "pinpoint of light." it made him think of a star in the sky. it's my engagement ring. the other band is my wedding ring. it has "love always" engraved in it. i've taken the set off twice since he gave them to me. the first time was when i sat beside his body in the hospital after they told me he was dead. i took the ring off and turned the heart that he had facing out towards him, back towards me. my heart is his. it is not for anyone to feel is open to them in any way but a quiet friendship.

the second time i took my rings off was for this photo. so you could see how well he knew me and accepted my jewelry quirks. i put my rings back on before i uploaded the photo.
he taught me all i know about love.

he isn't here for my birthday. he died. i believe the world is a darker, colder, and less safe place because of that. i'm sure there is someone out there who has taken his place in the seedy, not tourist parts of the world, where things need to be done, but i think my Dragon was the best and most honorable. but that's me.

i miss him. terribly. and now with my birthday coming i feel a darkness rising up, threatening to make me hurt hard again. so i wanted to introduce you to the man i know. now i don't have to think too hard. i can come back here and read on Saturday when i need a fortress against the pain.

thank you for sticking with me. btw, i love him.

inventory and a question to everyone

in the Language of Flowers, the sunflower means "adoration" and the daisy means "loyal love."

for the last three Tuesday's, and from now on until she is better, my phone rings at 9:05 PM. you can set your clock by it. a widow i have gotten to know in this new city needs me to talk her home. she gets off work at 9 and always before she'd call her husband to talk with for the drive. he'd be waiting there with lights on and a warm supper waiting.

i've offered myself as a very poor substitute. i stay on the phone with her, either as a sounding board or to fill her ear as she sobs while driving, until she is safely home, the lights are on, and the door is locked.

J-in-Wales's most recent post was of her and her husband's schedule and how it's so different. he worked away from home all week and she looked forward to the weekends, and the calls every night. there would be the news of the day exchanges, the shared stories, and the quiet "i love yous" to slowly end the call. it's another thing she has had to adjust to, endure.

at my daughter's wedding, a list formed in my mind of more things i missed because my Dragon died. they are like razors that cut from the inside out. i fell apart once during the day and got to the restroom. i looked in the mirror and saw a woman i didn't know. she looked shell shocked, haunted, and so sorrowful it hurt to see her. this is how i appear now. lost in a world of pain i can't get out of and am not doing too much to try to.

since the wedding i had a bad turn from the ex that got rectified by my son and more little things to add to my list, and a new list forming in my head.

it all brings me to this. it seems, and i'll just say i here because i don't know if J-in-Wales would really agree or if the Tuesday night widow would either, but i am still taking inventory over what i lost when my Dragon died. it's like a robbery and the police make you write up a list of what is missing. you think you have it all, but then weeks and months down the road, something else is missing and you have to add it to the list. belated but through the panic and shock, you didn't know it was yet missing.

immediately i lost my best friend. i lost my lover. i lost my husband. i lost the only man i could ever love. i lost the only man who has ever seen my scars besides the one who put them there and a doctor here and there. i lost the only person who could keep me safe. i lost the one who had loosened my laugh. i lost the only person who'd ever loved me even after he'd seen me eccentricities and all.

his funeral was on Valentine's Day - a day that will forever be shrouded in sorrow. it is also the day i drove out of our little village by the ocean and drove 1209 kilometers to where i am now. i lost being able to see the ocean and pick up shells for him, for my shrines.

in the first couple of weeks, i realized he always made my pitcher of tea. magic tea we called it because it was one of the little things he liked doing for me. he'd keep watch and then take the pitcher from me when he saw it was empty and he'd make more. i have come to realize i've lost our getting ready for bed together and our whispering in the dark. we always went to bed together, neither one of us staying up beyond the other. bed together. whispers in the dark. spooning to fall asleep.

and with the email from the ex after the wedding, i realized that i not only lost my Dragon, but i've lost a man who is elemental, who knows how to turn a phrase into a veiled threat to protect me from someone who is at the very least a sociopath. i'm vulnerable at a time when i am on my knees begging God for just some acknowledgment that i'll get to go be with him when it's my time.

my inventory will never be done of all the little things i miss since my Dragon died.

enter my son, my youngest. twenty-three and so handsome. he's a gentle spirit with the mind of an intellectual and the heart of a poet. he's a teacher at the university he attended. he teaches 3D and 4 D Cinema animation - computer stuff. he's done work for Universal Studios and a lot of his free lance can be seen in the commercials and transitions on the Golf Channel. he's 6'4" of kindness and decency, a soft heart who likes to read. the toughest thing he does is go surfing and play paintball.

but he loves me and though i thought he was sheltered from what he father is, i suddenly realize he knows. he knows almost all. enough to break my heart and make me ashamed that it happened to me. but he doesn't believe i was a doormat. he knows i was trapped financially. what i didn't know was that he can confront.

my Dragon could do it with words that were aggressive and that held promises he could and would execute. my son did it with shame. i've never seen shame work on the ex before but it did when it came from my son, his son. truth and shame were very effective. and my son's follow up email stated this: "i love you, mom. you made me the man i am today. only you. i won't let anything happen to you. you are safe. i know you miss him and i can't fix that, but i can promise to protect you as he would. call me anytime for anything. i'm here now."

so as i said, my inventory of what i miss now that the Dragon has gone ahead will be endless. but i have a new inventory to take. my son knows more and more what i went through. his father isn't as careful with his mask now. my son is having to handle his father, not like a son, but like a man who is protecting someone. it's heartbreaking.

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and now, randomly, i have a question i'd like to put out here for anyone who cares to respond. since my daughter's wedding, i've been dreaming more and more fitfully, and waking up exhausted. i dream he's still here, that nothing bad happened. but even in my dream part of me knows it's only a dream and i'm so sad. then i wake up startled, suddenly. and i'm bereft. i want to just go back to sleep so i can see him again and have that interaction. but, and i guess thankfully, my dogs prevail or i think i would sleep a lot. has anyone done this? the dreams that they were still with their spouse? am i losing it but only at night? though the day could be speculated on.

dark secrets and the man from the sun

someone once loved me, for as long as he could, he loved me. you'd have to know me to comprehend the magnitude of that statement. i've never been loved before. yes, my children love me but i took care of them, i protected them, i guided them and then let them go to live their lives. yes, i had parents but they didn't love me, not like you think parents should or can. i wasn't what they wanted. to my father, i was a female, not a son. to my mother, i wasn't a cheerleader-flirt-most popular blonde in school type of girl. i was a philosopher, someone who studied life and all the minute details that make it what it is, both good and bad. i walked looking either straight down for beautiful rocks, or straight up at clouds, rainbows, birds. my imagination lent itself to wondering what tribe of fairies lived in flowers growing out of the moss rather than what purse went with what outfit. i was a disappointment and she told me so quite often. all the way to her deathbed. "you're not what i wished for; not exactly."

i'm not what anyone would wish for. my first husband saw in me a gentle soul who kept CPA perfect ledgers, a clean house, "did art" for extra money, was a great mother, and an asset in the intelligence department. i wasn't good enough at cooking, driving, sweeping a broom (don't ask), or anything else a wife does. He didn't like me in that way. Humiliation. Absolute Humiliation. you can't possibly know unless you've stood and been angrily lectured to not touch someone because you're not good at it. there it is out on the table. it's only one of my terrible secrets but been one of the darkest, one of the ones that hurt the most. and now it's out of me after all these years of silence. i spent decades knowing i wasn't good enough, of being unworthy of being taught. i had years of criticism and my own self-hatred being laid at my feet one brick at a time. i had taken each brick and built a circular tower wall around me that keeps everyone out so they won't be disgusted, but it also keeps me inside, safe from anymore harsh revelations.

and then i met my Marine. and i was good enough to be seen with, talk to, hold hands with, to touch, and most of all, to love. i was loved for who i was. i was loved for my mind, my heart, my spirit. what i said had value. what i thought was important. what i felt was even more important. he loved me and i wasn't alone in the world. he found a way in and brought me out into the sunlight. it's a metaphor but it's also the truth. his smile, his eyes - the way he looked at me. it was like he was a man who came from the sun and brought it's light to me. he loved me. i hope he still does. he was always this broad-shouldered silhouette back lit by the sun, bringing it to me, making it shine on me, and warming me. because of him people saw that i existed.

and then it ended, abruptly. i look in the mirror and see who i am now since his death. i remember who i was before. i also know who i could have been before, from when i was a little girl who had her own dreams and the confidence to think they would come true. i didn't take the wrong road or make a wrong turn. i did nothing wrong except be wrong. i wasn't good enough compared to the daughter someone wanted, the mother someone came from. i wasn't prepared for how life was going to turn out and for how hard it was going to be from the start.

i have a fantastic sense of humor that only my children know about, and my Marine. he got it out of me. he saw me for what i could have been, was meant to be. there’s always one in any room, the one who smiles but says little. i am the one you see across the room at a party who is nothing if not polite, but pays no respect. i'm the quiet one with eyes that take it all in, that hide unspoken opinions. my Marine loved my opinions. i could make him laugh until his sides hurt. no one who knew me from before ever knew i had it in me. i can be caustic. i can be lethal with tongue and pen. especially pen. the sharpest, most permanent weapon.

my husband was the only one who wanted to hear my voice. he said he liked the timbre of it. he said i sounded like Suzanne Pleshette and looked like Candace Bergen. i would laugh and clean his glasses. but i would laugh.

there is this scene in the film Titanic in which the wonderful actress, Gloria Stewart who plays the elderly Rose, says, "he save me, in every way a person can save someone." my Marine did that for me. he saved me. and now he's gone. he died just when i was out of the brick tower, just when i thought that, though life had been so bad for the first 40 years, it had saved the best for last for me. well, it only gave me a taste.

i don't talk a lot now. only when my daughter calls, or my son. i wonder if my voice will completely disappear from lack of use. i wonder if what's left of me will start to fade away, like a ghost when someone gets too close. i wonder if there will be any sign that i had ever been here since i've left no real mark on the world. i have my children and they are leaving their mark so in a way i can stand off to the side on that one. but as for being remembered for something? only he would have remembered me. my passing would only have affected him. i think back to his funeral and see all the people who came. then i superimpose my funeral and see only him and my two children sitting there. i kid you not. there is no one that i mean enough to, friend to grieve or foe to dance, for anyone to come. no one knows who i am. no one knows me at all.

no one knows me at all. i'm womanNshadows. i'm sitting just outside the tower wall, by the door, looking for his silhouette against the sun but finding only darkness. how can i endure a lifetime of darkness after having had that one shining moment in the sun, after finally knowing what it feels like to be loved?