happy birthday, my love

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

Floss and Beaded Gypsies

it was my husband's birthday this past Wednesday. i didn't know what to expect. i didn't fall asleep until 3 AM and my little dogs have little bladders so i was up at 7:30 AM. first thing i did was get hit by a wave of pressure on my throat. my chest started heaving and the tears came flowing, exactly like they had done when the ER doctor and nurse took me in to see him after he was pronounced dead. i lay there for i don't know how long. eventually my little Scotties dancing and licking my face forced me to get up. they had to go out. they day had to start. both my children called me several times that day. my son who lives in Florida especially felt far away from me. his voice broke on the phone when he knew i'd been crying. "mom. i wish i could be there with you. i miss him so much. i sometimes don't know what to say. i love you, mom. i'll be up for a visit soon."

i bent my head and worked all day on quilting the current Memory Quilt that's in the frame. i went back and forth between it and the embroidery work for my daughter's wedding. but i ran out of floss. i switched back to the Memory Quilt and worked until after midnight.

then it was Thursday, my daughter's day off. we went to a discount fabric store that sells embroidery floss 3 skeins for $1. i bought 48 skeins - getting all the colors that i had in my head for the design i needed. if you click on the photo you too can delve into my tiny wonderful world of floss. i got back home and my daughter had to return to her home. i was alone again so i bent my head, as i do every day, and worked.

today my daughter stopped by before she went to work. she had been cleaning out a drawer that had her old jewelry box in it. she opened the box i had gotten her as a young girl and the little ballerina in the pink tulle tutu twirled on her little gold spring. and lying on the pink felt inside was the beaded gypsy earrings and bracelet that my Marine had made for her when she was still in high school. she gave me the earrings and wants me to keep the bracelet with her wedding things. she's going to wear the bracelet when she changes into her going away clothes.

i cried when i saw it. another punch to my stomach. so much love and thought went into his beading these little things for her. he knew her so much better than her own father. my Marine is Native American and Russian heritage and he had attended powwows where he danced. [he had always said he was just an Indian but i am trying to be correct as not to offend anyone who may stop by to read this.] he knew my daughter was a free spirit, artistic, emotional-heart on her sleeve kind of girl. he knew i had called her my wild gypsy baby when she was an infant and toddler. he found the pattern somewhere and beaded it for her 18th birthday. that photo also enlarges with a click.

and now we have it again. her finding it was a lovely surprise. we both cried as we looked at it and touched it. he's here in so many ways and yet he's gone from me and all these lovely memories come up and slam into me. but i wouldn't trade the tears and pain for not having had him in my life. he gave me everything. he gave me hope and gentleness. he gave me laughter and love. i could go to him at anytime and say, "i love you so much. i just need you to hold me for a minute," and he would smile. it always reached his eyes. he would open his arms and i would sit in his lap or he would come lay with me on the sofa or bed and we would just hold each other and talk quietly about the most important thing in our universe. not money. not our what the future will bring. we talked about how much we loved each other.

next Tuesday, August 11th, is our wedding anniversary. if his birthday hit me like a seizure i am not going to try to imagine what i will awaken to on Tuesday. i'm just going to bend my head down and quilt, and sew, and embroidery. i'm just going to dream of him whether asleep or awake and i'm going to keep going.

i told someone that i will be grieving for him for the rest of my life. i will get past this painful gut-wrenching part eventually. i will keep working. i will do things. i will laugh. but there will always be a part of me that is with him in a very profound way. i've been through too much with the first marriage to have to tell someone else what happened and why i have so little self esteem and too much happened that i could not not tell. there are too many very obvious scars. and my marriage to my Marine was too deep, too wonderful to be repeated. he was too much of everything that is good and decent and loving to ever replace. no one that moves into my field of vision could even slightly dim the vivid memory of his smile, his touch, and his voice in my head and heart. i adore him. i miss him.

so, the floss and the beaded gypsies came at a good time. i've come up for air between his birthday and our anniversary. i'm going to wear the beaded gypsies all day Tuesday. and if you're reading this and all set to worry about me, don't. Tuesday is my daughter's day off and after she goes home and i am alone, i have my Marine living in my heart. i'll never leave him.

very rough spell

i'm going through what my grandmother used to refer to as a "rough spell." it was used in her day for any time when a family or person was having a hard time due either to financial hardships, ill health, or grief. i've got two out of the three. i am having a hard time financially but that is just something to endure and keep working my backside off to cope with. the worst is the grief.

i don't know if i was ever actually doing "better" in the six months since my husband died but i know i am definitely doing a bit worse. i am having a very difficult time vocalizing my feelings because i look at someone and can't say it. here i am alone and can write it. it's not my voice but my heart that is saying it and there is no one for me to look at and feel any kind of connection to start the tears.

i'm crying all the time again. it's been 6 months. his birthday is Aug. 5th. he would have been 57. Aug. 11th is our wedding anniversary. it is also the anniversary of our first date. together 8 years, married for 7 years. only 8 years with a man to whom i gave my whole heart and soul. i would have given my life for him but i wasn't given the option.

i'm planning my daughter's wedding and i'm trying hard to feel happy, but i cannot right now. maybe on the actual day i will feel something other than this deep intense grief. for the short time that i get to actually be with my daughter making plans, fitting her to her dress and veil, going with her to pick up the fabrics, ribbon, and things she wants, i can fake it. i swallow hard and tell myself she is my little love and very much deserves a mom who is all there and doesn't unload on her. it can wait. she knows though. she knows that i'm hurting and she's been so good. i try to make her laugh which is easy to do. i am a very good liar. always have been.

i lied to my children when they were little about why their dad didn't seem to like mom. i lied to myself that i could take it one more week, one more day, let the kids get a little older. i lied to him to save myself from harsher beratings. and now i'm sort of lying to my children about how i'm feeling inside. maybe if i lie enough even i'll start to believe it but i don't think so. all i have to do is look at his picture, see his smile, the laughter in his eyes, and his broad back in the photos where he's walking ahead of me and i crumble.

crumble is the perfect word.

"i sat evaluating myself. i decided to lie down." i'm not sure where i read that but i was still in junior high school and i remember it was during the summer of love - '68. i think it was the poet Rod McKuen. whomever wrote it, it also fits my mood perfectly.

intense grief has taken over again and all i want to do is lay down and cry. i miss him so.

"oh, come through the darkness and save me

for i am alone."