Ho Ho Hell

I've been quiet as of late.  Not because I haven't had anything to say, but because I haven't had the energy to find the words to say it.  I'm getting rather disheartened with the reality of the situation.  Becoming complacent.  Believing that this is where I will always be.  And when I get like that, the words on this page just seem empty.  Pointless.  A lot of effort for minimal results.  No one really reads it anyway.  And if they do, they don't really care.  I might as well be talking to the wind....

I shouldn't be surprised this slump is coming on.  The holiday build up is again upon us.  And I'm finding this one harder than last year.  Much harder....

I used to love the holidays.  My mind can easily rewind to those days years ago when my mom and I would spend every weekend out looking at the different ornaments.  The highlight of my year was dressing the tree.  Putting up the lights.  I loved everything Christmas.

Kurt didn't share the same excitement I did.  So I made it my mission to convert him.  To make him love it all as much as I did.  Year after year, I got frustrated as he sat on the couch watching while I decorated the tree alone.  He said h didn't want to do it wrong.  I think it didn't really matter.

And then Gavin came along.

That first Christmas as a family was the holiday of my dreams.  He decorated the tree with me, our infant son watching.  He was actively involved in selected the gifts.  He turned on the Christmas music.  It was the first holiday as a family - a real family.  Just the three of us, alone, in our house.  Starting our new traditions.  It was perfect.

It was our only holiday like that.

Next Christmas, Kurt would be dead.

The joy of the season was shattered along with my heart.  I still love Christmas lights.  I still silently stand in awe at the perfectly decorated Christmas tree.  From a distance.  But to partake in the build-up, the festivities is different.  As Gavin gets older, and gets more excited about the holidays, I know I should too.  Instead, the list of things to do reads to me like a grocery list.  I'll get them done.  I'll feign a smile.  I'll cry an inward tear.  There is no joy in what is happening.  As wonderful as it is to watch my son's face light up - as much as that part still does bring some amount of genuine joy - the activities surrounding the season are chores more so than celebrations.

Buy the gifts.  Check.  Order Christmas cards.  Check.  Picture with Santa.  Check.  Put up the tree.  Check.

Just more obligations - things I must do in my attempt to give Gavin as normal a life as I can.  Things I must do to show the world that life does continue to go on.  Its like the crystal vase that is dropped, shattered, and glued back together.  Parts of it still sparkle.  Its still functional.  But its full brilliance is gone.

Its never the same.....

I'm finding this year bothers me more than the past.  I've been away for the past few weeks, on the other side of the world where, apparently, there are more important things to worry about than flaunting materialistic ambitions in pursuit of the perfect single day.  When I left this country, Halloween was just leaving the shelves.  Trees were popping up in department stores, but for the most part were still undecorated.  Things were still relatively normal.

Returning, I have found myself thrown full force into ho-ho hell.  Christmas is already all over the place.  My facebook feed is full of pictures of trees brightly lit.  Christmas specials are appearing in prime time television.  My house is covered in Christmas lights.  The radio advertises a 24-hour Christmas station.  Santa has arrived in all the malls.  Even though the calendar still reads November, with exactly one month to go, it is everywhere.

I went from none to all overnight.  Thrown into the deep end without a chance to find my life preserver.  And I find myself swimming against the tide in an attempt to catch up....

Don't get me wrong.  I don't expect to hate everything that the next month has to offer.  Gavin's enthusiasm will, I am sure, rub off a little on me.  The one thing certain to make me smile is a smile from my little boy....  But even in those moments of joy, something will be missing.  My perfect holiday will never again be.  Christmas has lost its charm...

I know I should stop reaching back for perfection and try to be happy with what I have been given - cracks and all.   I'm working on it.

Now can someone please pass me the crazy glue......

Through The Eyes of a Child

My son is grieving.

I don’t talk a lot about Gavin’s journey. In part, because I don’t really understand it. He was 10 months and 4 days old the day his daddy died. I don’t think that the three year old boy he has grown in to remembers much about those first ten months. Or the man who loved him more than anything in this world. More, perhaps, than he loved me. I hate the fact that Gavin does not, will not, and really cannot know his dad.

But that does not mean he cannot grieve him.

As he is getting older, the comments and questions are coming more frequently. Mommy, where is Daddy? I love my Daddy. I miss my Daddy. I shutter every time they come from his mouth. Because I feel too emotional to deal with them. Too ill-equipped. I don’t have any answers. I don’t know what to say....

I watch him watching other daddies interact with their children. He and I both know that our lives are not the same.

I arrive late to pick him up, and he clings to me crying. “Mommy, I thought you weren’t coming.” “I’ll always come, Gavin.” “I thought you died like Daddy.”

It doesn’t matter who you are, words like that from such an innocent source will break your heart.

There are days that Gavin will come to me, give me a hug, and start to cry. “Why are you crying, Gavin?” “I’m sad.” “But why are you sad, lovebug.” “My daddy died. I miss him.”

I don’t know how much he actually knows. How much he understands. Or how much is parroted from things he has seen his mommy do and heard his mommy say. But I know these moments are often spontaneous. Out of the blue. And as a mommy who wants to protect her little boy from the harsh realities of what can be a cruel world, they hurt.

I cannot shield Gavin from the truth which is his life. He has known death far, far too soon. People – even daddies – die.

I wish that weren’t the truth. More than anything on this planet, I wish it weren’t his and my truth. I wish my little man had no reason to suffer.

I haven’t walked Gavin’s journey. I’m 35, and my daddy is still living. My first funeral was for my grandma when I was a teenager. The first thing I remember dying was a budgie named Teet. But I do know my role in Gavin’s journey. And its two-fold. First off, it is to stand beside him. To walk with him. To answer his questions. To reassure him that in the end things will be okay. And to do everything I can to fight my own demons, so Gavin does not lose me as well.

And second-off, its to be there, when he is ready, to talk. About the man that is – and always will be – his dad. About dying. But also about living. To impart stories. Share memories. And hopefully, in some little way, bring a part of his daddy back to life...

Today is Children’s Grief Awareness Day. Through the virtual young widowed community I have grown to trust, I have been introduced to so many children like Gavin. Children who have had to face death far before anyone should have to. Children that are out there asking the questions none of us have answers to. The biggest being Why...... Their needs are different. And often overlooked to the larger community. But these children are my idols. My heroes. Because whatever bad hand they have been dealt in life, they constantly rise above it. Often carrying their surviving parents on their backs, they learn to live with death, because that’s the only life they know.

I may have to teach my son lessons on death. We have many more conversations ahead. But at the same time, my son is teaching me lessons about life....

Counting the Days - An Act of Remembrance

Image can be found here...

November 11. Remembrance Day. And I’m remembering. For all the wrong reasons...

It was 27 months ago today that my world was knocked off its axis. And in a cruel trick of fate, today I reach another milestone.

Kurt lived 12 816 days on this earth. Today is my 12 817th.

He was born two years before me. And I am now officially older than my older husband will ever be...

I look in the mirror today, and don’t see someone who is old. Not by society’s standards anyway. But I feel old. Not only because of what I have weathered, what I have endured. But because I intimately know that I am old enough to die...

How did Kurt feel that day when he looked in the mirror? Like a young man, ready to take on the rest of his life? Or a young man knowing this was the last day of his?

I can’t really get my head around the fact that I am now older than he will ever be. That his life really was that short. Or that my days really are that numbered. All I know is that I will wake up tomorrow – on my 12 818th day, and on the day following, and so on and so forth. Gradually aging in a manner Kurt was never allowed to.

Many years from now, I will look in the mirror at an old – or at least much older woman – and still see my husband as a young man. Frozen in time. Stuck in his 30s.

Will he still want me when our paths do cross again? Me, an old woman who has lived out her life. Him, a young man, who was never given that opportunity?

Its just another day I never thought would come. That I am trying to make sense of.

12 816 days. It really isn’t that long. I wonder how much older I will be, how many more days I have, until I am finally again with him.....