Write On...

They come from way down in my soul
The core of my spirit.
In succession they rise,
to help express.

To help the frown emerge from the root of my being.
May salt water
Splash
Down cheeks of scarlet.
To express the feelings inside....

I wrote that in grade 5.  I would have been about 11.  It would form the base of my first published poem, "Feelings".

It was my fifth grade teacher who really encouraged me to write - to explore words and their relationship to paper... and to me.  Ever since those moments, I have found something cathartic in the written word - putting pen to paper in an effort to express things which may otherwise go unsaid.

I've had people ask me what this blog does to me.  Why I write if it forces me to remember.  And if remembering forces me to be sad.

Truth is, I'd remember anyway.  Writing doesn't make me sad.  It does, however, force me to acknowledge my sadness.  To put words to thoughts and emotions that appear ineffable.  And to share the burden those emotions create with you - whomever you are.  Its said that a shared load is a lighter load.

I have two other collections of writing.  One is letters to Kurtis.  I started them when he was alive - writing him notes at both significant and also spontaneous times, just to express what I cannot say.  I continue to do that today.

My second collection is a series of letters to Gavin.  I wrote the first one the day I found out I was pregnant, and continued through my pregnancy, and his life.  The tone of those letters has changed in the past 18 months.  But I continue to write to my son.  Each letter starting simply with "Dear Gavin".  And ending just as simply with "I love you.  Mom."  Some day I hope he'll read those letters and realize how his mom tried.  How she hurt.  And how she survived.  And how much he really means to her.

Putting pen to paper continues to be one of the best therapies I have.  My writing is both a mirror on myself and a vessel to the outside world.  Its my way of deciphering whether I'm happy, sad, lonely, or all of the above.  Of simultaneously patting my back for where I have come to and kicking myself in the pants to push me farther.  Of sharing a little piece of myself with everyone else.

It makes me feel bad, yet better at the same time.

As the last line of my poem feelings puts it, it "helps express.  To help show the real me."

In the raw.  Its what I need right now.

Thats why I write.....

Questions and Answers

Photo courtesy of Michel Filion...

"Run away train never going back... Wrong way on a one way track... Seems like I should be getting somewhere... Somehow I'm neither here nor there..."  (Runaway Train - Soul Asylum)

I was derailed twice today - at the same time.  First it was literally.  A train parked on the tracks ahead at rush hour on our way home.  Gavin watching the choo choo out the window.  And mom impatiently drumming the steering wheel, eager to get home.

The second derailment happened while we were waiting.  Completely out of the blue.  Get Ready to Wiggle playing on the radio (yes, Gavin gets to choose).  And then from the back seat...

"Mommy, Daddy dead."

"Yes honey, Daddy is dead."

"Okay."

A few minutes later.....

"Mommy.  What dead."

Now I really want this train to move....

"Dead is when the person goes bye-bye and doesn't come back.  But you can still love the person and talk to them."

"Okay mommy."

More silence....

"Daddy best in whole wide world."

"Yes honey.  Daddy was the best in whole wide world."

Fruit Salad is on the radio now.  He starts singing.  Mom swears at the damn train taking so long.  Its a good thing I'm in the front and he's on the back once again occupied by the world outside so he can't see the tears...

Okay, so it wasn't the best explanation in the world.  But it was all I had at the moment.  It once again got me thinking though....  How long have those questions been formulating in that little mind?  Was my answer good enough?  And what questions are yet to come?

My grandfather died when I was a matter of months old.  I have no memory of the man.  Really, my entire image of him is taken from one frozen frame taken prior to my parent's wedding.  I didn't hear a lot of stories.  But a part of me grew up wondering... enough so that when I was older and asked who I would like to meet, living or dead, the man I had never met was my first and obvious choice every time.  Probably followed by the New Kids on the Block....  Even today, I wonder what he would have been like.  What our relationship would have been like.  What sort of memories I missed out on.

If I wonder that about my grandfather, what will Gavin wonder about his own dad?  What will he ask? And will I know the answers?  I don't know it all.  Do I know enough?

When I was in high school, I read a book called "The Giver."  In the book, a single person is trusted with all the memories of the past.  And it is his responsibility to pass them down to the chosen of the next generation.  Its a huge responsibility.  A painful and isolating one.  One he doesn't relish.  In so many ways, I can empathize with that character.  I know that as Gavin gets older, my current answers will not be enough.  When I tell him how he is like his daddy, he will ask how.  When I scold him of touching the red model car that he current stares at through glass in our curio cabinet, he will want to know why.  And when I tell him something about his dad, he will want to know more.

And I can only hope the answers will come....

I gave up a long time ago trying to be both Gavin's mother and father.  I had to admit to myself that it was hard enough to be just mom - that he would not have dad like so many others, and that I could never be that dad even if I drove myself ragged trying.  But wherever possible, I want to give Gavin enough that he feels he knows who his father was, even if he never knows his father.  I want to fill in all the gaps possible, because I know there will be enough that I cannot help with.

Kurt left a big gap.  Some pretty big shoes to fill.   Its gonna take a lot of questions.  A lot of stories.

Image found here

I hope I'm up to the task.....

All in Your Head

This has been sitting in my drafts folder for a few days now.  Of everything I've ever written, its the one I want to share the most, but am finding it hardest to do so.  I want people to understand.  But am afraid of looking weak.  Of admitting I am.  Its time to let go of that pride.  To let the demons out.  I'm not asking for sympathy.  Or pity.  Not even understanding as I don't think you can truly give it unless you've been here too.  All I'm asking for is the recognition that what you see isn't always what you get, it isn't as black and white as it seems, and that some things are much more than skin deep....  


And maybe a hug if you see me and I'm looking down...  Some days that helps more than anything else...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Its all in your head.  Such is what people say about any form of mental illness.  I won't dispute that.  But what I'm going to do is blow the rest of that myth out of the water.  What's in your head can be very, very real...  Its not always "just grief."  And sometimes it takes more than just time to heal...

I don't think my "issues" all started the day Kurt died.  I've always been a glass if half empty kinda gal.  Some would say pessemistic.  I called it realistic.  I can't say I was ever really happy, totally happy.

Until I met him.  And my glass overfloweth.

And then he died.  And my glass shattered.

I couldn't refill that glass if I tried.  And in its shattering, it cut me in places no bandage could heal.  With that, came the depression.  Full blown, all out.  Laying in bed not finding any purpose strong enough to drag yourself up.  Not wanting to.  Sitting on the couch, staring out the window because you don't know what else to do.  And wouldn't have the strength to do it anyway.  And wanting nothing more than to die. And be willing to do just about anything to do it.  I've been there .  I also know the little white pills to combat that work, but not as the miracle drug I hoped.  They don't make me want to live again.  They don't take the hurt away.  But they give me enough get up and go to get up and go.  To do what needs to be done.  In essence, to try to live.  And I am trying.

I hate that I need them.  Hate the fact that two or three days without them puts me right back on that path to no where... on that path to Kurt.  Hate the fact that I depend on them... that they are in many ways keeping me alive.  I've tried to take myself off.  Tried to tell myself I was okay.  Only to find myself up at wee hours contemplating life and death in ways no person should...  I know I need them.  I hate that I need them...  But right now I need them...

Then there's the anxiety.  Before Kurt, I was self-conscious, but comfortable.  Able to speak in front of crowds.  Sit in groups and not feel like every eye was on me.  With Kurt I didn't care how many eyes are on me.  Without Kurt, I feel as though everyone is watching me, judging me.... and I don't like it.  Its like the room is closing in.  Even in smaller, intimate groups.  The breathing speeds up, the chest constricts.  The stomach knots.  The world goes fuzzy.  Sometimes they leave me on the floor, gasping for air.  Sometimes I can walk through them as though nothing is happening.  But on the inside, I feel it.  There's drugs for that too.  I used to hate them as well.  Resist taking them until it was too late.  Until the mental pain turned physical.  Now I depend on them.  To get through that which involves a crowd, be it a dinner out, or a meeting at work.  Sometimes just to get through the moments alone.

Sometimes, I worry, that I need them too much...

And then there's the ones that the pills don't help.  The big white elephant in the room, that only I seem to see.  The one I can't talk about....  That only a select few know about...

Until now...

The mental health professionals call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I hate that name.  Personally rebel against that diagnosis.  Not sure I believe it.  This wasn't trauma.  Trauma is long and repeated.  Its big.  It happens in the middle of military combat.  The result of repeated violations.  Huge natural disasters.  Not by simply finding your husband dead in a tub of water.  Not even witnessing.  Just finding.  In my eyes, that this has affected me so profoundly is a sign of my weakness.  My inability to deal.  To accept. To cope.  It has not happened to me.  I have done this to myself.  People have survived worse than this - horrific acts.  And been "okay."  I am not strong.  This is my failure.  Which is why I fight against it.  And yet I'm losing the fight.  Which means I have failed even more.  It's a never ending battle....

But whatever the name, the effects are real.  The flashbacks come with little warning.  A bathroom door.  A police car.  Running water.  A flashing light.  They take me back to the moments like I never left.  Put me back in the situation, like I am living it again.  Like I could touch him, feel him.  Save him.  Even experienced as often as they are, the emotions are as raw as the day they were new.  And every time I emerge from this alternate reality to find him still gone, the guilt that I could do so little comes back stronger and longer.

Its my own personal chokehold on the past.

Just as real as the memories, is the never ending sense of dread.  The constant belief that someone close to you will die.  The huge lump in my throat when I walk out of my son's bedroom at night, fearing he will not be alive the next morning.  The vivid images of our car going over the bridge, him in the back seat and me unable to save him.  Our house burning down with only me escaping.  The panic when he makes so much as a sigh in his bedroom.  The panic when he doesn't make a sound.

Afraid of reliving the past in my dreams, I lay awake some nights, reliving the past in my present.

When I'm alone, I escape.  Go somewhere else, to a place I'm not even aware of.  No awareness means no hurt.  No pain.  No guilt.  No memories.  And even when my mind tells me its time to come back, there are moments my body resists.  Its safer there.  Or at least it hurts a little less....

They say time heals all things.  I'm not so sure.  I fear I'm broken beyond repair.  That there's not even enough of me left to salvage.  The Chrystal I was - she lays under the rubble somewhere, perhaps already ashes like her husband.

Maybe it is all in my mind.  I'm no expert.  This territory is new.  There's a lot I don't know.  But I can tell you the mind is a very, very powerful thing......

Sometimes too powerful.

Try as I may, I can't seem to defeat it.

What I'd do for his love....

Image can be found here...

Valentines Day.  Its nothing but commercialism.  Red roses, chocolate kisses.  Real romance isn't bought in Hallmark or Walmart's seasonal section.  I know that.

So why does it matter?

In our years together, Kurt only bought me one Valentines gift.  A white stuffed teddy bear holding a heart.  Our first year together.  And he bought it for me February 15 - at 50% off.  Nothing says true love like a good discount.  But that was the way were were.  Nothing the day of.  A surprise the day after.  Not because the calendar said we had to.  But because we could.

We wanted to.

So why do I miss the roses that never were?  Why do I cry at the cards we never bought?  The chocolate that he ate?  Why does it bother me now?  Not because I don't have it... because I can't have it.  Not with him.  It was taken away.

You take a day for lovers, remove one half of the equation, and what do you have left?  A whole lot of lonely.  Him and me without the him.  It draws attention to what is not here.  And to me.  What I don't have.  What I want to have again.  Still.

Tomorrow as people around me are holding their loved ones close, I'll be holding a picture.  A memory.  And a tear.

Tomorrow I'll cling to Gavin, and pretend he is all the Valentine I need.  But I'll still probably go to sleep next to a large white teddy bear, with thoughts of an even large teddy bear running rampant through my head.  And as much as I want them to be, neither Gavin nor the bear will be enough.

And I doubt they'll buy my flowers or chocolates either....

What I'd do for love one more time.

What I'd do for his love.....

Wow

18 months.  

A year and a half. 

So much has changed.  In me.  In Gavin.  In our lives together. 

Where has the time gone?  Wasn't it just yesterday?  How have I survived thus far?  

Some days its better.  Easier.  Some days its worse.  Harder.  It still isn't easy.

Some days its black.  Some days its grey.  It still isn't white.

What I would give to see him.  Feel him.  Hear him.  Speak to him.  Have him.

I have nothing more to say but Wow.  That's a long time.  And yet it isn't...

And I miss him.

And Love him.

Are You There, God?

Image can be found here...

My mom still says when I was young she was afraid I'd become a nun... I remember those early days of Sunday school, when perfect Sunday school attendance meant so much.  When a week of vacation bible school was a holiday I looked forward to each summer.  Even then, my faith mattered.  I believed.  And then came the days when I was too old for Sunday school.  When my dad was my regular Sunday morning date in the pews.  Yes, I usually brought along a "Black Stallion" book to read during the sermon, but I was there.  Every week.  That faith really didn't waiver.

Even in university, when the day of rest took on a different meaning and sleeping in Sunday morning became the norm, I knew what I believed.  I packed a cardboard picture of Jesus to hang above my bedroom door.  The one my grandmother gave me when I was baptized.  The one that has hung above every bedroom door I have ever had, until Gavin was born.  The one that now hangs above his.

After putting down the university textbooks, I would pick up the bible.  In between chemistry and Shakespeare I read it cover to cover during those 4 years.  Twice.  Two or three pages every night.  I minored in religion.  My favourite class was Professor Bolen's Jesus of Nazareth.  I knew what I believed.

There was no debate on whether we would be married in a church.  Whether our son would be baptized.  Whether we would go to Christmas Eve and Easter services.  Even while I struggled to find a parish I wanted to call home, while my outward expressions of faith were negligible, I knew what I believed.

Until the day my husband died.

People say tragedy will either bring you closer or take you farther from what you believe.  There is no doubt which way I went.  That day my faith was shattered, like a piece of glass flung from the highest peaks.  I no longer know what I believe.

I cannot reconcile my God with my life.  With Kurt's fate.  I cannot find the reasons why.

And beyond the answers, I cannot find peace.

I step forward and am met with road blocks.  I talk, and no one answers.  I cry and am met with silence.  Never would I compare myself to Job... but I feel as close as I've ever felt before.  And try as I might, I can only come to one of two conclusions... My God is not listening.  Or He is not there.  

Either way, I now find myself on the curviest of paths without a road map, a life line, or a guiding light.  Lost.  Abandoned.  Forgotten.

Shortly after Kurt's funeral, I found myself drawn back to the church.  I went with the excuse of Gavin.  That I wanted him to have the same exposure.  I wanted him to know - one way or another - what he believed.  But more and more I'm coming to understand that I'm there as much for myself.  Hoping I can find some resolution to the conflict between my beliefs and my reality.  Hoping I can find reason to believe.  Hoping, one way or another, to once again know.  There's comfort in knowing something.  Anything.

I think I know what I want to believe.  I'm just looking for something to give myself permission.  And I'm not sure what that permission is...  I don't know how much longer I'll keep searching.  Whether its worth expending valuable limited energy on something that may or may not be... and if it is, doesn't seem to care that much for me.

But every week I once again find myself on the thresh hold, standing amongst the familiar, feeling very foreign.  And asking silently, to anyone who may listen...

"Are You there?"

Image can be found here...

The Rose

Image can be found here...

"Just remember, in the Winter, underneath the bitter snow.  Lies a seed, that with the sun's rays... in the Spring becomes the rose...."   

There's two plastic containers that sit on the top of Kurt's dresser in our bedroom.  My dresser in my bedroom.  One is full of a variety of dried flower petals.  The multitude of flowers people sent me upon hearing of Kurt's passing, painstakingly dried on cookie sheets for days in the cold oven.  It was my mom's idea.  One of the best she had.  They say that the nose has a memory - that smell is a powerful scent when evoking memories of past places and times.  When i feel really low, really down, I can remove the top from that container, run my hand through the petals, and breathe in their fragrance.  Taking me back to the days where my kitchen became a florist shop.  Reminding me how people showed they cared.

The second plastic container is also filled with petals.  From 11 red roses.  Those petals represent who I was.  Who I still see myself to be.  And who I hope to someday be again....      

There's a story to those petals, which starts and ends with tears.  On July 04, 2007, Kurt came home with 11 roses.  With those 11 roses in hand, he asked me to be his wife.  He then proceeded to tell me the reason for the 11.  He said I was his 12th rose.  I completed the dozen, just as I completed him.  In true love.  I said yes.  And the tears fell.

From that moment forward, Kurt never gave me a dozen roses.  It was always only 11.  Every bouquet, every time.  Until the day he died.  So it was only fitting that I give him back the 11 roses.

He couldn't have 12.  He couldn't have me yet.

He didn't need 12.  He already had me...

Two bouquets flanked his urn on the day we said goodbye, each with 11 red roses.  From one bouquet I painstaking removed every petal, and dried them with the rest.  Those 11 roses sit separate from the rest of the dried flowers.  They are not representative of the people who grieved with me, who cared for him.  They are him.  I finger them, take in their fragrance when I need to call him near.

The other 11 roses were also dried, intact.  They sit in the same vase as they did that day.  My silent memorial to him.  In a place of honour, flanked by simple words of inspiration.  I go there to talk to him sometimes, when his urn and his being seem so far away.  To seek guidance.  Support.  And strength.  And to just spend time with my husband.

His final bouquet to me.  My final bouquet to him.

The day I laid Kurt to rest, I placed a single red rose next to his urn.  His rose is never far away.  On the day I join him, it is my hope that the 11 roses are also returned with me, reuniting in a perfect dozen.

12 roses.  Him and I.  The way it should be.  For all times.

Playing the Part

Image can be found here

So a week ago I had a list of things I wanted to write about.  Both the good and the bad.  My mind was composing the start of posts on my head.  That's the way my head works in a good time.

Today, when I sit down at the computer feeling a need to write, nothing.  Nilch.  Nadda.  All those ideas gone.  Call it bloggers block, if you will.  The inability to use logograms to form morphemes, let alone linguistic strings.  No act of metafiction to be found.  An empty screen power by a silent keyboard.

In other words, I'm stuck.

And when I'm stuck, it usually means one thing... I'm tired.

Physically tired of long days with little down time followed by long nights of little sleep.  That - my life - is the definition of sleep deprivation.  Look it up in the dictionary - I'm there.

But more so, I'm mentally tired.  Tired of trudging through life with this monkey on my back.  Grief.  Saddness. Call it what you will.

Tired of juggling a multitude of confusing roles - roles I am forced to play but don't really feel as though I qualify for the part.  Daughter, friend, mother, employee, manager, patient, client, widow.  And a host of others.  None of which I feel fully comfortable with.  Square pegs for me a round hole.  The holes that fit me the best, I can no longer call myself... wife, partner, lover, Chrystal.

I'm no longer me.  That's the crux of my issue.  And the crux of much of my fatigue.  For trying to find out who you are on the inside, while the rest of the world expects you to be... well... you is an exhausting concept.  Its like the actor, on play for the entire show.  Without an intermission.  Or a script.  Or even a vague plot summary.  With an audience who is not going home.  Who expects Academy Award winning quality.  And no curtain to be found to end the show....

I just want to go to bed and sleep until Kurt comes to get me.  Or until the world makes sense.  Whichever comes first.

I never was a good actress.....

Tale of a Tricycle

Image found here....

Society isn't built around odd numbers.  You find the pairs.  And cast the lone left over into the lost sock pile.  If you're single, you know what I mean.  If you're not, you've probably forgotten.  I know I had...

But seriously...  Look at restaurant tables.  When did you find a table set for three?  Tables are square.  One person is sitting alone, with an empty place setting beside them.  Even round tables have the chairs placed directly across from one another, so the third person is staring at the wall.  Or the table of two directly across from them.  Why aren't tables triangular?  Or heptagonal?  With one chair on each side so everyone is sitting alone?

Even conversation is really built for just two people.  Eyes can't focus in two different directions at the same time.  Even in a group of people, you're only ever really talking - making eye contact with and directly engaging - to one.

The tricycle says it all.  Two wheels side by side, running in tandem.  One wheel stuck out on its own, all alone.  Children aspire to graduate from the tricycle to the bicycle... seldom do they remain in three, or attempt to ride a unicycle.

I'm used to being coupled.  Having someone beside me, across from me.  Even when its not at all intended, or probably not even the case, I feel out of place.  Isolated.  Different.  Alone.

Much like that extra wheel.....