1095 days {blind faith}

{the 8th/9th will be 3 years. i've already written this post for those dates. i'm going to be swamped with work after today, my only day off, until after Valentine's Day. if you will pardon the expression, i'm buried in work. so i'm posting my 3 year missive today.}

it feels longer. it feels like forever. and then it hits me. again. he's never coming back.

i don't know if the shock has worn off yet. i guess it has, but i keep getting hit over and over. he's gone. i'm not going to be seeing him again.

he always seemed invincible. he was so hard and rough. he was a Marine. Force Recon. he was a sniper. he would be gone, but then he would come back to me. sometimes, when he would be gone, i would curl up in a ball on the bed and sob with worry that he would be lost out there in the world and they would not be able to bring him back to me; not be able to retrieve his body. the places they sent him to, the things he did, he couldn't tell me. i just knew from the look in his eyes and the additional scars on his body.

he hurt outside, and inside. he would hold me and ask for absolution.

i heard this soliloquy. i wrote it down as fast as i could. i hit me so hard when i heard it. it made me think of my Dragon.

spies live in the shadows but they dream of the light. when you work in covert ops for low pay and in life threatening conditions, the idea that your work won't remain secret forever keeps you going. one day, the world will learn what you've done even if your name is never known. some of the sweetest moments come when the job ends and the bullets stop flying ~ that is unless one of those bullets rips through your chest.

he always got home to me, even if bullets did rip through him, and believe me they did. and knives. i would take care of him and he would heal. and for that space and time, we were one.

and then he would go back out again. and our one was split; two halves separated waiting to be rejoined. and i would take care of him again. we would hold each other and his body would shake with sobs that would never come to the surface. he wanted absolution. he craved salvation for things he did for his country that he could never speak about.

i love him. i will always be in love with him. i feel like i am living without air. i've learned to breathe underwater because he would want me to. new life. new location. new job. all without him. all so different. like i am on another planet.
what we had together......the things i could tell you......the way he was with me. i don't know if it was rare. it was rare for me to be loved at all. and his devotion, that was all so new to me, to be cherished like that. and short. such a short time to be with the person i was meant to be with. the only one. my only love.

he is gone now and it has shaken me to my soul. what does it mean to die? where did he go? Heaven? Purgatory? no one can answer me on this. i hope no one tries. when i close my eyes and die, will he be there? we all say it to each other, "he's waiting for you." and we mean it from the bottom of our hearts. we want to offer comfort and reassure each other that the one person we connected with here is waiting for us there. but do we, in the dark of our own grief, fully believe and embrace it to the point where we no longer have any doubts when we are on our own? ever? even when we are very tired or stressed?

is he happy? does he remember me? is he safe?

we never really know how much we believe in something, or trust it, until it is tested. i always believed, you die, you go to Heaven, or Hell, and most certainly i have tried to be a good girl. but how narrow is that opening to get into Heaven? do snipers get in? do widows who grieve and ask questions, and have doubts get in?

i always trusted that, if you were good, you got into Heaven. it was supposed to comfort the grief-stricken. but now that belief has been tested with the death of my Dragon. i am finding myself worrying at times, in both the day and in the dark, about Heaven, and if God loves us enough. have i been good enough? have i said enough prayers? have i been humble enough?

all i can do is keep going. keep praying. and hold on to a faith so blind that i am stumbling a bit.

a woman wrote me yesterday through one of my hubpages articles. she is terribly worried and wanted to know what i thought about something. her father had died and she is grieving for him. her Aunt says her grief is out of proportion and that she is keeping her father's soul from entering Heaven by "calling him back with your grief." i wrote to her and gave her my opinion in a gentle and delicate, and faith-based way with full consideration to her feelings. but between you and me here, in a nutshell, i gave her the long version of this: i told her her Aunt was a poisonous bitch who was either stupid or cruel.

i hate cruelty. there is absolutely no reason for it. none.

i made a Bunny for the Grief Project. i sent her off believing i would never seen her again. but one day she appeared at my door. she came to visit me through my Dragon Days. is this a small sign? is grasping at straws and calling them signs a sin?
she brought a card signed by people i have never met. it said i could lean awhile. the little girl on the left, the one who's leaning, her expression......that bewildered, slightly hurt, little bit fearful expression is one i mask every day i leave the apartment.
but i did. i leaned on Lucy. i cried and could not speak. i cried and finally spoke.
i talked about my fears. i talked about my worries. i talked about my Dragon, my now immortal beloved.

my Dragon has left me here alone, testing my belief in Heaven, leaving me here with only blind faith. and i am so very blind.

the only thing i have is a song.

exactly on the nose 24 hours after he died, a radio that had never played before turned itself on and played Sarah MacLachlan's "Angel." to be precise the chorus played: "in the arms of the angels far away from here....."

that song is all i have really have to cling to, that and blind faith ~ the biggest test of all.

it's a very pretty song.

"...what we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."

i read other blogs, blogs that have nothing to do with grief. i found this one and i cried. the tears were from the emotion of seeing what this young man did.

please go here and look at the photos. i looked this story up and the little dog was swept off the pier by gale force winds. this was down in Australia. the young man who jumped in to say the dog, Bibi, was on the pier with family dispensing his grandmother's ashes.

and here is my hero doing something no one saw but me, and the old lady.

we are all heroes. we have all done something that speaks to our character, to the person our husbands and wives fell in love with. this is one small part of my Dragon.




i know my Marlene Dietrich friends are my heroes. i know my children are as well. i hope i am to someone. i try to be everyday when i look into the eyes of the people i perform the heart ceremony for at work, and with every stitch i take while i sew for someone else. i am not saving the world. i am not even saving a small dog. but i hope i am saving something inside someone.

that's what i'd like to bring to my Dragon when i meet him again after i die. i want to tell him i did a very small something for the world. Bunny wants to, too. that's why she's on her world tour.

i wish peace and light to all.

"turn on the light" or Bunny makes a short independent film

Bunny made a little film. it is short. it is startling. it is not for the faint of heart. but sometimes on a widow's journey, people need to be startled. they need to be drawn up short. they need to understand how dark it can get. how lonely. how frightened a widow can become with all her worries and all her wonder about her husband.

so this little film is one that Bunny made. what an actress! wow, Bunny can be very dramatic. love what she did with the lighting, and getting the camera to focus close up on her fuzzy little face there at the last second before the scream. love it. love it all. Bunny did a great job. okay, maybe she got a little carried away but when the creative juices are flowing, there is no telling what can come up.

Bunny has been so very tired lately. she is doing so well at work but she gets scared. work hours are performance based. they have some new hires, all young people, and Bunny is being the best little Bunny bear associate she can be. she says "yes, yes, yes" to everything. she needs the hours she has, if not more. she got a 25 cent an hour raise. 25 whole cents an hour.

ah, the world of retail. where you give your all and get the pat on the back with a quarter more an hour. *sigh*

i do not know what i wish anymore. i know my Dragon is in a better place. he has to be happy where he is. it is what i pray for countless times a day. just a quick, "let him be in Heaven."

me? the Bun? definitely Purgatory. i miss him fiercely. i miss the way he smelled. i miss his voice. i miss his hands reaching for mine, or for some other body part of mine. i need his counsel. i need his eyes looking into mine with his wild love and solemn promise that he won't leave me here.

having said that, scroll up and hit replay on the little film that Bunny made. it's dark here where i am. not outside. inside. i feel dark inside. i am on the down turn of this roller coaster right now. i know there will be an upswing, but for now, my art of grief is dark. as are my thoughts. as is my mood.

someone please, "turn on the light."

Dragon in Stone ~ because Lonesome Dove asked

i have insomnia. i had it as a child, a teenager, and an adult. i sleep fairly light. i think i am always on guard. sometimes i read. sometimes i give in to my imagination that works such overtime hours and get up. Marilyn's Melrose Inn was too beautiful to try and doze when i knew my time there would be so short. Marilyn had collected treasures from years and years of searching or stumbling over all the things she has placed in her inn, her home.

very early one morning, i wandered into the expansive dining room. we had talked about isolation the day before and i was feeling it close in on me as the weekend was coming to a close. i would be going back to my apartment that i am very grateful to have, but i would indeed be going back to physical isolation. not mental because i know how to entertain myself. i know how to sit silently in a room.

i found this dragon. the morning sun was streaming in from a window far across the dining room. in that early silent morning when i was the only one awake, and up, wandering around, it seemed to me that the sun had traveled 93 million miles plus 20 feet to touch this little dragon sculpture that had been placed in this stone. it is an igneous rock. the dragon was created to be a fierce creature moving through its hard, impermeable mass as if it were water.
it took my breath away. he is gold. he is handsome. i got teary.

he was in a hutch in an area that is probably not investigated very often. he is small. those are flower ceramic pots he sits beside. it made me think of my Dragon. my husband. the man and the myth.

so i took this photograph.

my husband was known as a good man whose job took him "out of town" at times. he was a Scoutmaster. and that's all they knew.

i knew him as the Dragon of the Corps. i saw his scars. i knew his stories. i was there the times he woke up fighting a foe from long ago, or last month. i was there when he would get caught in a moment, something in a film we were watching that caused a flashback to a "brother" he could not save.

i knew him as my husband who held my hand and had my back. he kept me warm when i was cold, yes, even metaphorically cold. life cold. he kept my feelings safe and my mind entertained with laughter, his irreverence, and his teasing. he was a very earthy man, tactile, sexual, sensual, and affectionate. we were guilty of mild public displays of affection.

i knew him as my companion and confident. i could tell him things that no one knew. and he believed me. he saw my scars and kissed them as i had kissed all of his. we validated each other.

i also knew him as My Dragon. i saw him confront the demon in my life and teach him the meaning of fear, and the truth that he would follow through with his promise should either my children or i be hurt.

i knew him as my lover. he gave me tenderness.

i knew the man and i knew the myth that surrounded him. he was the Dragon but he was my Dragon and i knew both sides. i knew the man ~ his tenderness and love and search for absolution for the service he gave his country. i knew the myth ~ his emotions shut off as he left for a trip to i never knew where, or if he would come back.

the Dragon is more than a nickname. it is his legacy. protection, loyalty, rule-breaker, fierce, lover, loner, family man. in every dragon i see, i find something of him. i miss him desperately. i need his strength. i want to be the dragoness but my scales are slow in growing. i think exhaustion and worry, strife and sorrow are preventing them from coming in quickly. i am tried. i ache. i ache for him and for relief.

but i am the Dragon's wife and, if i wake up, i will get up, and i will keep going. as much as i am further away from when we last touched, i am closer to being with him again, however time and life and fate plays out.

Dragon in Stone. it is a beautiful image.

Soul Widows retreat ~ to heal or not to heal

she leaves in the morning; getting picked up around 9:30 am. the Bun is packed. she is ready to go and try to find something she thinks is missing from her life; her right to talk about him to someone other than her daughter and son.

she writes about him all the time. she thinks about him more. every stitch she takes with a needle and thread, or floss, is in his honor, for his memory. she even stitches her signature to sign her work with his initials and hers.

but she has not been able to, or been allowed to sit with someone to really talk about how she feels. okay. that is not entirely accurate. she got to talk to a nun who is a counselor. but for that one hour, the nun wanted to know about her ex-husband and those years. and then Bunny could not pay for any more sessions.

then she got to talk to that grief counselor through the hospice once face-to-face, but then only once more via iChat. she was told she was doing quite well for the life she had faced, the life she and her Dragon had dreamed of and then lost when he died, and the life she is facing now with her peculiar set of circumstances. "quite well." uhmm hummm. okie dokie.

but even if Bunny is doing "quite well," she felt it would be nice to have someone to talk to for a little while longer on a regular basis. "quite well" is all well and good, but there is loneliness and the feeling of not ever getting to really talk about her Dragon. to be able to just tell some stories with her voice, see someone else listen to her and acknowledge that they recognize what her Dragon means to her.

well, the Bun is packed and has dragged her bag to sit beside the door on the floor in front of the television. she has her camera and her new jacket. she knows it will be cool where she is going. she has her robe and slippers in case there is a kind of slumber party aspect later on one evening. she is excited in anticipation of getting to sit with a small group of women where everyone gets a turn.

now, now, Bunny knows her place. she isn't going to gab, gab, gab. she knows she is not that exciting to listen to, but she is just so happy to be allowed to go and share a little bit.

but will Bunny "heal?" what is healing anyway? Bunny has put a lot of thought into this lately. how does one define healing? is she healed if she smiles more? is she healed if she laughs more? is she healed if she gets her job and is more 'productive?' but then who is harder working or more focused than the Bun? oh, my gosh, she works upwards of 12 - 14 hours a day as it is? she bought a can of frozen juice just to keep in the freezer to hold in her hand to help ease the aches in her hands when it gets really bad.

what is healing? is she healed if she dates again? {yech.} will she be thought of as healed if she {gulp} gets in a relationship? she cannot bear the thought. she was married twice. once to a not-so-nice man. and once to her other half. she has too many scars. she has too many memories. she was so very happy with her Dragon. to have that again, seems as remote as the sun exploding tomorrow. to have something less will be a terrible thing to do to the other person. it would have to be something so different, so unexpected, but then her Dragon was so very unexpected. kismet. soul mate. once in a lifetime fairy tale stuff. and who is the Bun to think she deserves something nice again? she got heaven and the moon and the stars with her Dragon. what else is there?

so what is healing? what does Bunny expect from a spiritual retreat? nothing more than to be able to share what her life with her Dragon was like. nothing more than to be able to share how much she loves him. nothing more than that. she just wants to be able to talk a tiny little bit about her Dragon in a comfortable setting with loving and open hearts around her. she does not want to be judged, or critiqued, or dismissed. she wants to quietly and succinctly speak about her lovely Dragon and what the loss of him has done to her, to another human face who does not have her on the clock. that's all.
Bunny's babies are a little worried and clingy and sad. they saw her pack. Mr. Scootie Wootums of the Stardust Eyes who is Lord of the Dance is a little down. Bunny is having to give him lots of hugs and kisses on his curious little nose.
Miss Carmen Sophia the Wild Gypsy Girl with the Sensitive Soul has her goosey-goose toy with her and keeps trying to sneak it in the bag. she wants to go. but Bunny's daughter is taking care of her fuzzy babies. Bunny loves her fuzzy babies so much. they have been there with her in the trenches of grief. they have been beside her, pressed so close to her, when she has howled in deep sorrow and despair.

and if you remember, rabbits only howl in death. maybe it was her Dragon's death that happened but Bunny feels like she died, too. her goal? if Bunny can stop howling with grief in her mind in the dead of the night, she will believe some healing has, indeed, taken place. if she can simply stop howling over and over, get the night of his death to fade a bit, then the Bun will count her blessings and present that as proof that healing has taken place.

see, Bunny is better.

peace to all who read. peace and light to all who grieve.

epiphany

last night was a bad night for sleeping for some reason. maybe because rent is due tomorrow and i am waiting on the transfer. maybe because it feels like Fall outside right now. it rained yesterday and all last night. there is a cool wind. leaves doing their fluttering leaf thing ~ dancing and playing with the breeze while hanging onto their tree, in total control, until fate decides for them to let go.

then they seem like a kite with a broken string, going where the wind takes them, however far. but then i thought, maybe they were not in control while tethered to the tree, but only after they were free. maybe life really starts for them after they let go. maybe they aerodynamically control where they want to land. it is not for us to really know. a mystery of life. but it gave me an idea that my Dragon was let go so he could be free to fly in a different albeit more beautiful place.

i had an epiphany late last night, or early this morning, whatever your frame of reference.
it was like Dandy up there. the light shone in my brain and it felt like all the clutter of my sorrow and grief were stripped away. like Dandy, i saw the sky clearly. i think i know why my Dragon died first.

i have lived a loner life. i stayed out of range of my parents. i skipped ahead in school and therefore was not a peer of the people in class. i kept my back to the wall and strategically planned each day during my first marriage. when i met my Dragon, it took a moment, but i ultimately gave in body and soul. he is so strong. he is so resilient. he had survived so many things. he was a loner like me. and we had found each other. we did not have to be alone anymore.

we took so many walks. everyday we ventured to a new area to see what beauty was hidden up in somewhere. and we talked.
he told me his stories. he told me of his life. he told me his dreams, his hopes, and his wishes. he told me he loved me and that he knew he could not face a life without me. i thought he was being cute and romantic. never dreamed he was speaking seriously because, well, look at him. he is a Marine. he has been everywhere and done so many things in life and death situations. he is invincible.
he was my scavenger. he found shells and stones for my sculptures. he kept me safe while i looked through the camera lens. he kept me warm when it was cold. he swam with me in the ocean and taught me how to be free no matter where i am or how locked down i was. he taught me how to be wild and free in my mind.
he died so suddenly. one minute he was with me, beside me. his arm was behind me and his fingers were stroking my arm. then his fingers were digging into my arm and he was gasping for a breath.

i do not know this for fact because no one with medical training was there, but i believe he was gone before the EMT's got there. there was no light in his eyes. there was nothing in his eyes. he left me to be alone in this world that is, quite often, cold and cruel.

i have been cleaning out things. i have been tossing things i do not need to keep just because he touched it once. i found a letter written on the back of a hand-drawn map. i had never seen this before but it was in his "go bag" so i never had reason to go through it. but he has died and i have finally had the courage to go through it. these are the things he used when he would go "out of town." on the back of the map he wrote, "I need to go first. I can't live without you. You think I'm strong but I'm not. It's bull-headedness. I'm only strong enough so I can get back to you. But if something happened to you, I wouldn't be able to take it. All the light would be gone and I can't live in the dark after I've been given the light of your love. You're aren't living in the shadows. You're only the silhouette that stands behind the light you shine on me. Don't ever leave me. Don't die before me. I'm not strong enough. Only God knows how much I love you."

so you see. it had to be me here alone. he thought i was strong enough to be alone in this life without him. he is wrong but i am going to let it slide. it is the first time he has been wrong.

i always did what he asked of me because he asked so little and he always asked with a kiss. well, i will try to do this. he said he had to go first. he knew the ending of "Bicentennial Man" would not happen for us. so did i really, but i am an artist so i am always dreaming, conjuring up something magical and beautiful in my mind so i do not have to face reality.

i will do this for him. i will live as best as i can. he thinks i am strong enough so i will not give up. i will hold my head up to keep an eye out for danger, and to take my pictures of the full moon. but i will mostly keep my head down and sew and sketch and write. i will continue on in the shadows because the light he believed i possessed is shining forward, looking for him.

Bunny at 15 months out

it is 15 months today. it is just after 9 AM and i am weary. i keep thinking of the Saracen Tower escape. i realize there are as many options as i have an imagination out there waiting yet financially the wherewithal is as limited as a choice of one. pick a card and there is only one in the hand that offers. so i pick, uh, that one. thank you. no, seriously, thank you. i am grateful to have the apartment. in 10 weeks when i am allowed to eat regularly i believe it will be better. hunger and pain do are not easy to live with for 3 months but there is that light at the end of the tunnel the last week in July. some do not have the knowledge of a light.

i am hopeful that if and when the VA determines what my husband's time spent as a Marine is worth, i can make a couple of changes. it is a dream and all i have at the moment. i can make it enough.

for now, i have my Saracen Tower fantasy to serve me until reality forces itself on me. so here she is in all her silence. Beach Bunny making a break for it in her mind. inside our minds is all we have. we can be beaten. we can be broken. we can be made to serve. but no one can take our minds ~ unless sodium pentathol is involved and then it is all up in the air. {parenthetically speaking - my Dragon knew how to beat it. it comes with on the job training. the man had his stories. i really miss that side of him.}

dreaming of the Saracen Tower that is for sale, Bunny stares at her photos of it, of the little village that sits quietly in the valley carved out so long ago. she has her fantasies of living there in an "Under the Tuscan Sun" vision. guess it would be "Under the French Sun" which does not flow off the tongue as nicely but it is where the Tower is located.

she sees the lovely village and imagines all sorts of eccentric souls living there who would be her friends. open air markets, cobblestone avenues, smiling people who would take the time to know her and who would be happy to see her. and Bunny would sew for them and take pictures, maybe make stained glass for the church or for little restaurants there. she would carve wood for them into scenes that try to capture the ephemeral beauty of living in such a place.

so many fragile silk threads that weave together to create a full fantasy. Bunny has the silk thread. Bunny knows how to weave. she does it all by hand, and in the creative part of her mind.

Bunny would love to meet the ironwork artist who created the massive gate that protects the Tower's entrance. the large, round stone that is encircled by an iron arm makes Bunny think of things that have no beginning and no end, like her love for her Dragon. Bunny thinks the artist would understand this because no one can create such tender beauty from such an unforgiving medium without understanding love.

Bunny stares wistfully at the kitchen 3 stories off the ground. she knows how much her Dragon would have loved to cook in such a kitchen. he loved cooking and Bunny loved watching him. spices and herbs were his speciality. Bunny's speciality was growing them. she imagines Dragon calling down to her from 3 stories up while she is in her garden. "oregano, and some thyme. and parsley. you love parsley. bring some of that up, too, my love." Bunny would never have taken for granted the peace of their little world there in the Tower.

the bedroom is at the highest level of the tower and Bunny imagines the view out the window. if she could live there with her Dragon, the 875 year old stone walls would feel the deep love and enormous peace that emanated from them as they loved then slept there in a tangle of arms and legs. as life played out, Bunny knows she would set up her computer in this highest room to write her books. she would gaze out at the mountains and the village for inspiration. up this high, Bunny is closer to Heaven. and her Dragon.

today Bunny's Dragon has been in Heaven for 15 months. that is a long time for her. not as long as for some nor as long as it will be for Bunny. it is longer than others at this point and Bunny feels sorrow for their grief. Bunny does not compare or contrast. grief is what it is.

what Bunny does do is live in her head. it is where her memories of her beloved Dragon are. it is where she centers herself to try and find peace. it is where all her creativity comes from. Bunny protects her mind. it is pretty much all she has left since she gave her heart to her Dragon so he has something to remember her by while they are apart.

Bunny lives in a kind of tower as it were. she looks for friends. she has few options but she has not given up. Bunny is constantly on the look out for friends. she tries very hard. she has gotten her hands slapped but Bunny has been hit before. stinging is not the same thing as hurting.

so, until Bunny can find a friend, or a friend finds Bunny, she has her little Saracen Tower fantasy. she lives there when life is hard to face. she smiles there when there is nothing to smile about. Bunny does imagine living there with her Dragon, but even in her fantasies, she can quazi-face the reality that he has died and flown to Heaven. so Bunny brings him to the Saracen Tower with her. she keeps her Dragon safe inside her mind. her love for him is active. she cannot control her love. see, Dragon was that cool. a one-of-a-kind sort of man for Bunny. the only Dragon Bunny wants. like the Highlander says, "there can be only one."
i love you, Dragon. i miss you. you are my dream and my fantasy. all i have to do is close my eyes.