The Ties That Bind

I did something people told me never to do today.  While cleaning up my Facebook Timeline, I journey back to August 11, 2010 and took a moment there to pause and reflect.  I so clearly remember that moment.  Sitting at the computer, my uncle downstairs waiting for me.  I was gathering a few things for Gavin to get us through the day before leaving the house for the first time not as a wife, but a widow.  And I felt the need to let the world know something... I didn't know what.  But I needed to tell everyone I was here.  "Chrystal Wigton is numb.  And alone... I love you, Kurtie."  I don't have to look back to remember what words I typed.  That's just one of those things I don't forget.  How I felt on my wedding day.  Where I was September 11.  The time of birth and birthweight of Gavin.  And my first facebook status after Kurt was gone...

Its not easy going back there - seeing those moments recorded online for posterity.  The outpouring of support in the moments that followed.  I clung to that support for days on end, spending hours at the computer just reading the comments and messages people had sent.  It made me feel just a little less alone.  But things have changed.  Time has marched on.  So many of those people who wrote that they would always be there for Gavin and I have not spoken to me since the funeral, or at least in the past 6 months.  Many have dropped even their facebook connections, unable or unwilling to see my sadness through.  I now understand that sometimes "We're there for you" simply means "I don't know what to do or say".  I'll never tell someone who just lost a loved one I am there.  I will show it.  Because I know what the difference is, and how hollow those words sound when you realize they are just that - words.  There are people in my life today.  A select few I see regularly.  Even more with whom I can share.  But most of those people did not even know me then.  They were not connected enough to read that empty status sent out as a cry to the world.  Many, in one way or another, I've met through tragedy.  Brought together through my suffering, or their own.  Some virtual.  Some living next door.  Its a different world I surround myself with.  In happy times and in sad.  But I guess that makes sense.  They say tragedy changes you.  I'm still not sure how this has changed me - I'm still trying to find the me hidden beneath layers of complex intense emotions.  But I know under the mask I wear I'm different.  A different form of the same person....

Some things haven't changed however.  I still often feel numb.  I still often feel alone.  And I still love Kurtie.  And part of me longs for those connections of yesterday.  Part of me hopes those people will read this, see themselves in it, and drop a line, even if just to say Hi.  They are the ties that bind me to my past... woven into pleasant memories of me, him, and us.  They represent a part of my life I don't want to lose completely.  A me I don't want to forget.  The "me" that formed "us".  

I'm here and waiting.....