is this living or merely existing?

i'm not sure if i'm actually living or merely existing now. i feel like i'm drifting in a ven diagram of three overlapping circles. one circle is fear ~ financial and health. another circle is loneliness and hesitation to call anyone to simply talk, to let someone know i'm out here. the third circle is one of shock and numbness from the toll life has taken so far. fifty-one and i'm alone, without money, and hope is slim. all these circles overlap each other in that slice that is grief. it is the largest by far and the heaviest to sit in. i try to move out of this diagram but there is no map. it's a labyrinth of twists and sudden walls. i can't see over it and i can't find a way under it. i'm walking and walking but i get clubbed in the knees almost every day.

i am short of money, again. i am rationing food, again. my ex has decided i need to learn a lesson so he won't make another payment of the money he owes me until the first of the month. i've done it before. i can do it again, but i'm so tired. i'm tired of living. it's so hard. without the strength of my Dragon, i feel myself sliding down to my knees all the time.

it's ironic how much i want and how little i think i deserve. i want a small home, a townhouse maybe with a small enclosed courtyard for my two little dogs to play in. i want a small car so i can drive myself to the store. i want my quilts to sell, my sock animals to sell, my photographs to sell. i want my novels to be accepted for publication. i want to provide for myself so i don't have to make 5 days of food stretch for 14 days, or until he decides he will lower himself to make a payment.

i'm scared all the time. it goes up into a state of panic every other day or so, but i wrestle it down. i draw on my memories of my Dragon's stories of what he went through as a Marine. i draw on his strength from what i know he endured and transform it into my own strength.

there's no other option but to keep going for as long as life lets me. it's been taking these big bear swipes at me for what seems like forever. i want something good to happen financially, just once. i wished it could have happened while my Dragon lived. he deserved so much more than he got. he deserved a long, quiet, peaceful retirement. if you are a person of faith, it can be argued that he got it. that he's in Heaven right now with no physical pain and a soul at peace from the horrors of this life. i just wish he could have gotten some peaceful time with me here in this life. it's such a beautiful world. mountains. ocean. clouds. sunsets. the smell of bar-be-que. the sight of your daughter trying on her wedding dress. the sound of your son on the phone laughing.

i miss him. he's so handsome. his smile is so contagious. he laughs with all that he is. i could go on but it wouldn't matter to anyone but me. let me just say that to stand next to him was a powerful feeling for me. i cherish him so much. i just wish he were still here with me. i sit in this little apartment and wish for all the world that he were here for me to talk to.

going through each day in fear, loneliness, hesitation to let anyone who knows me how bad it really is, all the shocked numbness that he's dead, and all this heavy, oppressive grief is not really a life. i get up and i breathe, sort of. i dedicate myself to work all day, long hours to try and get it all done so i can have some more money to try to get a foothold, only to have to be realistic and know i'll never catch a break. he was my break. being in his arms was my one break from the tragedy that is my life. he protected me. he carried me at times. he made me laugh. he loved me and there was nothing that felt greater. having his full attention on me made me feel whole. i felt alive.

i answered my own question. is this living or merely existing? he's gone. the one person who cared every minute of every day what i thought, what i felt; who sought me out and wanted my love, he died. so i'm not really alive. i'm existing right now, and for as long as this fear lasts, of dealing with the ex and his payback for the divorce by using his weapon of financial oppression, i can't grieve fully. i can't live. it's so hard and so lonely without him. my mantra isn't working anymore. i'll have to make up another one.

money. i need some. i'm supposed to get a thumb splint. i'll get food before i'll get that. new glasses. you have to shake your head and laugh sometimes, but it's a bitter laugh, hollow if it's audible. i'm out of Aleve. even cutting them in half i didn't make them last. damn. things i can only write about. could never say out loud.

i haven't been able to stay at the widow's meetings the last two times. if i speak, i don't think i'd be allowed to say it all. and if i got cut off, i'd be so embarrassed. i'd hang my head and weep. they'd think it was for him, but it would be for me.

no, i'm not living anymore. i died, i think, when he died. i saw my future without him and knew what it would be like. not pessimism. it was survival skills kicking in. i was being realistic. and it's played out exactly like i thought.

i miss him. i need him. there's so little left for me to work with. i'm tired and in physical pain. if i could just get some food and some Aleve in me. and that stupid splint. i tried it on. God, such relief.

well, pity party needs to end. i need to get back to work. it's only 10 PM. i can get in at least two more hours before i completely play out.

if you got this far, thanks for reading. i'll be okay. okay is better than not okay. i'm the Dragon's wife, after all. he never gave up. neither will i. i want him to smile at me.

fantasy versus reality

i've had a terrible day. major set-back. been knocked completely off my feet. it involves the ex and an email he wrote to me today that i cannot go into. suffice to say i'm shattered, again. i was starting to find my footing with how it's going to be for me from now on here alone. small apartment. working by sewing for a living. believing that my little Memory Quilts were going to make a difference. and i'd be gaining his help piece mail, but he's jerked the rug out from under me. i read the email 3 times. all i could do was fall onto the bed, curl up with a pillow to my stomach, and sob myself into a terrorized nap, wail for my Dragon to come back and save me, fall further than the mattress into the deepest despair. i want my Dragon to come get me.

but he can't.

fantasy: my Dragon is with me, here. we're surviving a little better than we ever did because the kids are out of college and paying their own way, for the most part. he's working. i'm here sewing for a living. we are together. small dreams. i've never asked for a lot. i only wanted a small home, children, and a man who loves me and whom i love dearly.

we'd have done my daughter's wedding together. he would have been at my side. when the ex proclaimed publicly that he had no words for his father of the bride toast, my Dragon would have stepped up and her shocked embarrassment would have turned to smiles. our Dragon rescues her by showing his devotion.

if anyone got too close, maybe to say something to me, my Dragon would have stepped up to prove that he would be there to hear it all, watching them with that look that only a dragon can give. everyone would have seen and known that i was under his protection. i was his. i belonged to someone great and powerful. maybe not a financial giant, but in the world of claws and evil, in the world where women can get trampled and abused, he was The Dragon, and i belonged to him. his hand would have strayed, often, irreverently, to my tush.

we would have come home together and enjoyed the company of my son and his girl. we would have stood side-by-side the next morning watching them drive away and i would have turned to embrace him. he would have held me tight and whispered in my ear as i cried on his shoulder, "he'll be back for Thanksgiving. we'll have them both for Thanksgiving. come on back inside, baby. let me love you."

reality: i live alone. precariously fragile, suffering over the death of my love, my friend, my soul mate, my husband. i beg the ex for the money he owes me with no recourse if he chooses to withhold it. i work hard sewing, pretending that i and my work is worth something, when all the ex says is, "charge more and i won't have to help you with the bills." even if i was paying for all my own bills right now, he'd still owe me the money.

i'm exhausted. i'm tired. i do wish sometimes that it had been me. the wedding was harder than i even imagined it would be. too many snippy girl complaints that don't mean anything to anyone but me, but yes, things were said. my feelings got hurt. i ignored the jabs. i kept my head down and was very correct in my social behavior. yes, they knew i was hurt. yes, there was laughter. i had no Dragon to turn to, to turn in his arms and feel loved. i was alone.

when the ex told the family and guests waiting at the cake cutting that he didn't have anything to say as father of the bride, i reached into my pocket and brought out my prepared toast, my poem i wrote to her, my backup little speech just in case. and yes, her shocked embarrassment was transformed into smiles as i made a jest at my own expense to distract the unpleasantness surrounding her father's arrogance.

i came home and my son has returned to Florida and i'm alone. and now the email has come that i wish with all my heart i could talk to my daughter about, but she'll be on her honeymoon until Saturday. i'm scared and afraid and terrified. did i mention i am frightened?

i wish he were here. i want him to come back to me and make it all better. he would know what to do. my Dragon would be able to keep the demons at bay. when i was crying on the bed earlier i thought to myself, "it's like he died all over again." the ex makes me see in as many ways as possible how vulnerable i am, how alone i am.

i need him so much now and i can't have him. i can't even call him on the phone to hear his voice or the heavy breathing heavy he'd affect to make me laugh. i need him and i don't know how i'll make it without him. splitting headache from all the crying. my neck is tight and stiff from bending over a quilt i'm hand stitching the borders to and embroidering tonight.

fantasy versus reality. fantasy all the way. i wish i could just crawl under the covers and dream the rest of my life away. dream myself back into his arms. stroke his beard and touch the crinkles beside his eyes. i don't want to be awake. i want to be asleep and then wake up to find i'm with him.

but i have to face this. this is what life has decided i need to endure. why, i don't know. i don't think i'm a bad person. if i was, i think life would be working out better for me. the bad people i know seem to have it all while i get a day like today where i get punched (metaphorically) in the stomach and end up chewing on my hair in the corner. or a night like i did on 9 February when my Dragon stopped breathing forever.

"i'd rather be dreaming than living. living's just too hard to do....."

settling in to depression

i've had to gather my thoughts about my daughter's wedding. the simplicity of them makes it harder to convey. i can't say, "i missed him," or "i am horribly ugly," or "i feel so alone" without explaining the magnitude of those words. everyone knows i miss him. no one knows that i feel ugly or why. they do know i feel alone but all believe that "this too shall pass."

it won't. nothing surrounding those three expressions will ever change. i think i'll take them one at a time and try to be brief though brevity is difficult.

1. "i missed him." i miss him. every day i wake to purgatory. no beautiful day, weather, event, or improved situation will alter that fact. i may smile, laugh, or seem animated in telling a story or memory, but i have merely stepped forward from behind the veil of sorrow that surrounds me. maybe someday there will be far less fabric to have to move aside to be truly seen. i do have moments of absolute clarity where i know that i can live with how badly i am feeling, but i also know how life is playing out. i miss him. right now i'm pathetic to see. so lonely, deeply grieving. i find i can talk too much when someone pays attention to me. i've been told that i need to tell my story of him again and again and yet i cannot find anyone who has the time. i miss him and no one compares to him. he is larger than life in the way he lived, how he looked, his character, his personality. no one can distract me from my adoration of him. he was too much of everything i ever wanted.

i miss him. i missed him. i am missing him. i always will be missing him.

2. "i am horribly ugly." my daughter and son know i feel this way. a widow from the group i attend was with me at the wedding during a moment of such absolute and overwhelming sorrow that i had had to hide myself away was caught off guard by the vehemence in my voice when i expressed this to her. it came tumbling out of my mouth between sobs. her standard response was, "you don't mean that." i snapped my head up and looked at her directly and said, "yes, i do. i am hideously ugly. and he's not here for me to see that i can be accepted as i am."

he, of course, would have been horrified to hear me say that. my Dragon would have been almost angry because he is the only one other than my daughter who knows where it comes from. forty plus years of being criticized modifies behavior. my Dragon was working with me to try to get me to see that though i am no Helen of Troy, i am his Helen. he loved the way i looked.

but he is not here anymore to defend me, even against myself.

my mother wanted me to look like Candace Bergen. i was close enough in my younger years for her to almost grasp the reality of this. but i failed. my ex started criticizing my looks when i got pregnant for the first time. "you're big." "you look awful." "are you having twins? what the hell? why do you look so big? why are your boobs getting so big?" after i had my children i did slim back down but then i didn't dress appropriately. "are you wearing that?" if i bought anything new, he would ask, "how much did that cost? why did you buy something? it's my money! you can't just go buy yourself a new blouse like that! not without permission!" so it was back to "why are you wearing that again? doesn't my mother deserve you to be better dressed than that?"

there was almost nothing left of me by the time i met my Dragon. i'm tired. i'm not grossly obese but i'm by no means a size zero. i have dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep. and if you look into my eyes, you'll see stark terror, the accumulation of abuse over the decades, and the deep sadness of having had to say goodbye to a Dragon, my Dragon, of losing the finest man i'll ever know and the only one i'll ever want.

i'm ugly. both inside and out. i dislike people. i pretend they haven't hurt me. i am untrue to myself in that regard but i am not a confrontational person. i will never see myself again as i did when i saw myself in his eyes. Dragon's eyes. his smile that filled his Dragon's eyes is all i think about. and all i know is that i'm ugly without him.

3. "i feel so alone." i feel like i exist parallel to everyone else. i'm living. i'm here in full view but i am set apart. part of that is me pulling away. i can't afford to get hurt anymore. i have only the barest minimum left to work with here. i am struggling financially. destitute really. my ex-husband is doling out an allowance to me from the money he owes me that he withheld during the divorce because of it being "his money." i'm waiting on the government to process my Dragon's death benefits. "expect a 10 to 16 month waiting period." i make the quilts as fast as i humanly can and now that the wedding is over, i can fully concentrate on them but my son and ex tell me i'm not charging enough for all the work i put into them. "charge by the hour." then no one could afford me. "at least charge more for your quilts - double even if you can." i'm afraid to. i want the business. i need the business. what if no one will pay even half more? and yet i am fully aware that with all i put into the quilts, another quilter would charge so very much more.

i'm scared. i'm alone in these decisions. i know what my work is worth. i know what i charge is so i can acquire the assignment.

i'm terrified of the future. six months down the road. two years. six years. my ex did give me food money at the very end of the wedding. my daughter was so frustrated. when she left with her new husband, he had not given me the money but told her he would. she called from the road and he still had not and we were cleaning up after the reception. she called again later on when she had cell reception again to see if i had gotten food money and i had. i had had to draw him away to get it. he was pleasant. he was smiling. i had had to beg. he was happy. i was destroyed and miserable. i sold my soul for food.

i am alone.

that's as brief as i can be. my life hasn't turned pretty. it never came close. i never had a shot at a happily ever after except with my Dragon. and they took him away from me. they didn't see fit to let me have him for long. i got a taste of something so fine that i still have not found the words to describe it, even after all these posts. he was the most magical person. i can say that and you'll think, "well, of course she thinks that. she loved him deeply." but he was. he really was. he was the most magical person i've ever met or seen. people were naturally drawn to him. he was strong, appealing, and powerful. he had a aura that was visible and yet indefinable. he had survived so much war and he deserved such lasting peace. but i wanted that peace to be here on earth with me. at least for a while longer. 30 more years. was that too much to ask for? i just wanted 30 or 40 years with him. i wanted him so badly when we first met. i want him back so much.

i am glad my daughter's wedding is over. i felt so self conscious. a couple of remarks were made about my appearance. i was the only female at my own daughter's wedding who hadn't been to the beauty shop. i was the only one who didn't wear makeup. i worked like a dog through the whole thing. but she loved her day. she was blissfully happy with the small exception of her dad and the money, and missing our Dragon. everything was beautiful and exactly how she wanted it. she was so grateful. we hugged so tightly before she left.

it wasn't all i wanted for her but it was all i could swing. between using all my quilt money and begging her dad, i got her the wedding that she wanted simple though it was.

so this week, my son has promised to call more often. there are people i can call in an emergency. but for the most part, i will be very much alone. i won't be using my voice at all except to talk to my little Carmen Sophia and Scootie Wootums. my Scotties are happy to have me back here again full time. no more galavanting around for me. i'm housebound with no car and now no wedding to run errands for with my daughter. this week i won't get a day off. she's gone on her honeymoon and i'm very much alone for the first time since i got here. i'll walk to the library and to the grocery store monday with my fresh $100. i'll be relieved to be able to get quite a bit of food. in fact, i won't be able to carry it in one trip. i'll have to shop 2 days in a row to carry what i need back. i get tired of walking and carrying heavy stuff. it makes my hand and back hurt. but i need the walk to lose more weight and to "get out and get fresh air."

if it's possible, i miss him more than i ever did. i am settling into a deep depression that no pill can alter. this is grief defined harshly. this is something that has to be worked through in my heart and in my mind. i have to arrive at a place i will have to accept and become familiar with. i will be alone for the rest of my life.

time is moving forward and i'm crawling to keep up. but i keep looking back to the past and my memories of him. i keep looking off to the side, lost in my own little world where i am safe from remarks that hurt and i can pretend that he has just gone to the store. i keep looking forward, past anyone in my line of sight to see if i can see him waiting up there for me.

oh, please be waiting for me. i need to see that. i need to know that you are up there, my Dragon, my love. i'm so tired. i can't do this alone. i really can't. i'm the weak one. it should have been me.

i wish i had a river......

the culmination of all my sewing and planning with my daughter and all my organization is today. her wedding.

i made it through last night's dinner by sitting in my seat and talking only to my son and his girlfriend. i was animated, regaling her with stories of him. we three talked "shop." my son and his girlfriend are both creatives. their work is on computer - 3D and Cinema 4D MoDynamics animation, computer elites. besides his "day job" teaching at the university he attended, he does free lance for Universal Studios and the Golf Channel. he's a nice young man and he respects my background of having been an art director for an advertising agency out in Dallas where all my creative work was done on the board. so the three of us talked about clients and the difference of my having to wrist it all during meetings on paper or paper napkins while they bring laptops and "clamshells" to meetings and render on-screen. very different world.

we three sat and talked and i didn't have to think about everyone being paired. i didn't have to answer questions about "how are you doing?" there was only a couple of "oh, you poor dear, so alone now and still so young." one, "it's going to be such a long life for you and yet you're too old now, I guess, to find anyone new." and one very random, "did you love him?" to each one i said, "excuse me, i need to go take some photographs for the wedding album."

i didn't cry in public. i couldn't cry when i got back to the apartment because my son and his girlfriend are staying with me. nice. this is the first time since i got to this town after my Dragon's funeral that i haven't been alone at night. i can't like it too much or think about it at all because my son and his girl leave for their respective homes in Florida Sunday. *sigh*

i laid awake until 3 AM thinking of my Dragon. i wish he were here. it's that simple. i wish he were with me for this. i don't know how to deal with people. if i don't talk too much because of my aloneness, i shut down and am in my own world. i'm not good with people beyond being a vendor of advice, work, or favors. when the attention is turned onto me, i do not know how to act/respond/be. i'm a behind the scenes person.

so i laid awake and cried alone in the dark. silent crying unheard over the fan and the itunes. my little dogs snuggled in close and knew, "it's one of those nights." i thought about my daughter going away on her honeymoon. i can't ask her to call me to check in everyday like she does normally. it's her honeymoon. i can last one week without speaking to anyone. can't i? then i thought that one thought that was the worst. i'll really be alone for the next week. my son's schedule is crazy wild and he calls only once a week, sometimes twice. but it is my daughter whose my "daughter all the days of her life." but she deserves a break from me.

hell, i deserve a break from me.

which brings me full circle to my Dragon. i want him back. i want to lie down with him in the circle of his arms and have him whisper to me all the sweet words he used to say. i want him to finger comb my hair and tell me it's all going to be okay. that he loves me and i'm beautiful and he'll never leave me. he always promised he'd never leave me.

why did they make him go? why did they take him from me when i'm the weak one? i've been so alone all my life, defending myself during childhood, protecting myself and my children during my first marriage. always alone. always the one out front taking the hits. i was already so whipped and tired. i was already so weak, my strength gone, my inner reserves almost depleted.

and then i met my Dragon.

and i wasn't alone. but now all my dreams have been shattered. all my hopes are shot so full of holes they are unrecognizable. i'm terrified. i have nothing left inside me to give anymore because i trusted that it was finally my time to have something good and i gave all of myself to my Dragon, because he told me every night before we shut our eyes, "i love you. you are my whole world. i'll always be here for you. sweet dreams, my love."

i haven't heard that in 7 months now. 7 very short, very long months.

so the wedding is today. all the people will come. i have a lot to do before it starts. i'll have a lot to clean up after the happy couple leave. and then i'll be alone again. i have no money to get anymore food until i finish another quilt. my daughter is working on her dad to loan me some but so far...... he loves the control. i have a court document that says he owes me 300K left over from the divorce that he refuses to pay saying "it's my money." i know he won't let me starve but the games are exhausting and demeaning for my daughter and me. she sees him now without the mask of "dad" attached to his name. he's let her see who he really is and she gets nauseous sometimes. she's so worried and it's her wedding today. her last comment to me last night as we parted was, "i'll talk to him again. we'll get you some money, mom." my last comment to her was, "don't you worry. i can take care of this. please, relax and enjoy all this. he's not going to keep this up much longer. he'll give me some money to last."

we hugged. we had tears in our eyes. two women who knew the unspoken. i might not be alright, not without giving up more of myself in whatever way he wants. he may want me to sew something for free. he may want me to acknowledge how he holds all the cards. and i'll diminish myself and do it. acquiescence isn't submission. it's just another strategy until a better one presents itself.

oh, God, i am already so tired this morning. i wish you could have let me have my Dragon for a little bit longer. i wish you could have allowed his deals to close before he died so that i wasn't in this financial position.

"i wish i had a river i could skate away on....."

my daughter and me ~ missing my husband and our cove

our cove. i wish somehow i could have managed to still be there. but i'd be more or less at the end of the world out there.

today my daughter and her fiancee's mother and grandmother picked me up and we went to order the wedding cake. so much talk about everything. i stayed quiet and listened. her fiancee's grandmother wanted to pay for the cake. so nice of her. her contribution is most gratefully appreciated. but both women were telling my daughter what she needed to do, what she should want. they neither one were really listening to her.

i took one of the napkins the lady had given us to taste some choices and i started drawing while listening to what my daughter wanted. i drew the cake she was dreaming of. i silently nudged her the napkin and signed quickly under the table, "this is what i hear you saying. if so, get what you want. it's your wedding. yours."

she smiled and nodded, then took the napkin and placed it on the table and said, "this is what i want. it's understated. it will be less expensive but it's also perfect for me. this is what i want." and that's what was ordered. both of the other women were simply being overly helpful and my daughter needed to just step up a little bit.

after the bakery, my daughter and i were taken to Michael's to get other things for the wedding that i really have no idea what for. they bought nothing. i think today was just an excuse for shopping but it was 5 hours away from my sewing and quilting here. my daughter and i followed in the wake of her fiancee's mom and grandmother. we talked when we were spoken to, otherwise we signed to each other so no one would understand our conversation.

i wasn't doing well today and my daughter, of course, sensed it. she and i are very close, always have been. she learned ASL with me/for me when i started slowly losing my hearing a few years ago. i have horrible tinnitus that goes through my head like a nail sometimes. nothing to do about it. my husband used to do this cool thing with my feet, rubbing them and flexing my ankles to either distract me or help me relax and it always worked. it didn't diminish the tinnitus but it made me feel so much better. i can't do it for myself. it was just something he did for me one day when i couldn't hear him over the din in my ears.

the pressures of this wedding that i'm keeping off her, shielding her from, playing mediator, and shielding her from her dad as much as possible is wearing me out with the depression i feel over this weekend's 6 month milestone of my husband's death quickly being followed by his birthday and our wedding anniversary.

i'm so tired. i feel bad when i'm told that i need to remember how much he loved me. i do remember. i don't want these blogs, my writings of grief to give the impression that i sit here and wallow day after day and think he stopped loving me because he died. i am simply grieving for him. i want something i can't have. i want him and it's not childish behavior or being petulant or sacrilegious to wish he were here with me right now.

i'm tired of the money situation.....the fact that i don't have any. i work my tail off for so little and make it stretch so far. i'm paying for so much of this wedding and making so many things for my daughter simply because i can't afford to buy them. her dad, Lord, her dad just....what do i say? i've had to sit alone on the phone and literally beg. i've had to cut deals and be dictated to, be criticized about my Memory Quilt business, about how little orders i have, should be better at marketing myself, how i'm failing in getting it off the ground faster. every time i have to talk to him about something it's like i've been hobbled and forced to run a gauntlet being beaten by horse crops and coat hangers. don't ask me how i know what that feels like.

but i do it for her. i'd do anything for my children. the job isn't over just because they are grown. they still don't know what to do when they see it coming. they still get afraid. or they get too hurt or angry to strategize properly. it's an acquired skill. i wasn't born knowing how to do this. i learned from a very early age to read calculation and anger and malevolence in people's body language and voices.

i wish my husband were here. all this would go so smoothly. my husband would have figured a way out for him and i to pay for this. he always did come up with the money my children needed. he always answered the phone if "he" called so "he" would know i wasn't vulnerable anymore. my husband would sit beside me when i had to do my thing. then he'd take my hand and we go for a walk down on the beach of our cove.

the wind, the salt air, the gulls, the waves. it soothed me. his hand in mine as we'd walk out across the rocks and look northeast to what i thought of as my island. isla womanNshadows. i'd tell him we just needed to move to the abandoned light keeper's house and live there away from everyone. he'd tell me everything was going to be alright. he'd tell me we were in this together, that no matter what hell life brought us, it brought it to us. us. our lives may be hell but our marriage was a blessing. it was everything i'd ever wanted my life entered into that sacrament to be. i love him so much. he inspired awe in me. and he loved me for exactly who i was. it amazed me that he found anything of value in me. but he did and i now know that one person loved me. i have that on my resume.

my children love me because i am their mom, because they know what i've sacrificed for them, and that i would give up my life for them. they love me because i'm cool to know. but they have their own lives also. i gave them that. self-sufficiency and freedom. they just need me for this one last thing. protection.

it's still my husband and me. it's still us but he's the silent partner now. now it's me that has had to get back up in the line of fire for guard duty. and God forgive me but i am so tired. i miss him more on days when i've had to beg and think so fast on my feet. i sit at home and look at my husband's picture, that smiling face of his and i want him back so much. i'd handle it every day all day long....i'd endure anything if i could just fall into bed with him and fall asleep beside him. if i could just feel his fingers combing my hair as i closed my eyes. have his deep voice in my ear telling me everything is going to be alright.

the tinnitus is pretty bad tonight and i didn't get to go to the cove after dealing with "him." i'm no where near the ocean anymore. i just have to endure this. it's the gift that is my life.

i love you, husband. one minute more. i'm going to hang on one minute more. i learned how to do that when i was a very little girl. i endured childhood. then i endured the first marriage. then i was blessed with you and hanging on one minute more was easier with you beside me. i love you. i'll love you forever. i'm still hanging on.