Waiting For A Miracle

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 "Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, "Christ is risen," but "I shall rise." ~ Phillips Brooks

Easter is a time for Christians to believe in miracles. In rebirth.  In a life beyond.  And so I look to the new dawn on this new day with confusion.  My Christian upbringing telling me there is promise for tomorrow.  There is opportunity.  There is a day I will be with Kurt again.  At the same time, this new part of me - the more jaded, cynical part that isn't sure what the world holds - looks to those same proclamations with questions and doubt.  My world still seems dark.  My doors still seems closed to opportunity.  My gut screams that there is no life beyond death.  I go to church trying to grab at what has now slipped through my fingers. And as the people around me rejoice in Alleluias, I find myself asking where is my sign.  My promise.  

Where is my Easter miracle?

I don't expect Kurt to come walking down the road, alive and living.  I'm not asking for that.  All I am asking is that today, on the day which represents rebirth, that my path ahead seem a little lighter, my burden a little less heavy.  While many's Easter miracle taken the form of life, I am seeking a different four-ltter word.

I am seeking hope.

Even the pre-Christian pagans saw this day on the calendar as a day to commemorate life.  The end of winter's gloom, and the promise of spring.  As I look outside, I see it all around me.  The snow is melting, revealing the Earth below.  The water is running.  People are spending more time outside.  After months of seeming hibernation, our communities are again coming alive.

I want to feel that.  Share in that.  On more than just a surface level.  But inside, its winter all the time....  Not for lack of trying, I've been for the most part unable to escape the grey that is the colour of my life.  Unable to turn that frown upside down.  Unable to turn away from the past and look to the future with any amount of optimism.  

I'm dead.  Maybe not hanging on a cross dead, but dead inside.  Just waiting for my body to catch up.  

If the dead really can be brought to new life, why not me?  If its not possible to bring back Kurt, why not me?  Where's that light switch that will brighten my darkness?

Basil C. Hume once said that "The great gift of Easter is hope..."  I'm waiting.  If you can make a dead man rise, surely you can inject some life back into me.  Somewhere, there must be hope....

Source can be found here...

Eleven

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Let's face it.  Bad things seem to happen on the 11th.  November 11th we commemorate war.  September 11th.

And August 11.

Every month, as this date rolls around again, I pause.  Count.  And remember.  Its not something I want to do.  Force myself to do.  It just happens...  And every 11th the number of months between he and I increases.  The rawness fades.  But the longing remains.

This morning, for the first time in thirty-one months, however, I did not wake up with the calendar heavy on my mind.  I made it until almost noon before the date hit home.

"Holy shit.  It's the 11th.  And I didn't even know..."

The reality of that is both depressing and liberating at the same time.  Like so many things, its both good and bad.  I know the fact that it wasn't the first thing I thought of means that I may be moving forward.  That perhaps the date I have come to hate is losing some of its grip on me.  That every 11th needs not be an anniversary I mark.

But deep within my mind, that's bad too.  Because it means I am moving away from him.  Drifting away from the day that, really, has defined me probably more than any other.  In some strange way, I'm afraid that forgetting the significance of the date will diminish the significance of the day.  And him.

I'm happy it took me nearly 12 hours to remember.  And guilty about the same.

I don't know whether the date passed me by for as long as it did because I really am moving forward, or because I am just so damn depressed at the moment that I really don't care what date it is.  Even the 11th doesn't matter.

Either way, part of me feels I owe Kurt an apology.  An explanation at last.  Because I promised him I would never forget.  Because moving forward does not mean moving beyond.  I don't think I'll ever do that.

And I still hate the 11th.  And can't wait until midnight so its all over....

Talking to the Wind...

Source...

I've been struggling as of late.  Really struggling.  This isn't so much grief any longer.  Actually, part of it is still is.  That's what triggered it, fuels it.  But its morphed into something much more sinister...

And so I find myself writing here because there is no one to talk to.  No one who hears me.  I'm hoping that you - whoever you are - is out there, listening.  That maybe you understand.

Or want to.....

I've fought this monster called depression for most of my life.  I'm just coming to terms with that fact now.  Its always been there in some shape, some form.  My glass has never ben full.  But its only in the past little bit that it has really reared its ugly head.  Making me question myself, my existence, my happiness, my future, my hope.

Only now, when I look in the mirror, does no one stare back.  I wonder not whether my days on this earth are numbered, but when they will end.

I know I should be happy.  I'm in the prime of my life.  I have a wonderful child.  A loving family.  A decent job.  A house.  Financial security.  On the outside, it looks like I have so much to be thankful for.  But the outside is only paper thin....

I'm not happy.  Far from it.

And when i reach out, looking for someone to share my life with, I always seem to come up short.  Empty.  Alone.  Not because there is no one out there.  But because I don't feel like I can trust anyone with this side of me.  I'm protcting myself.  And hurting myslf in the process.

Which is why I am here today, right now, writing to no one in particular.  Talking to you.

Its like throwing your voice - your hopes, dreams, desires, fears, sadness, and everything else - to the wind.  Hoping the breeze will carry it far enough away that someone will catch it.  And care.  And be able, in some way, to help...

This is my breeze.  This is my wind.  These words are my story.  This is my last chance to be heard.

Are you out there?????

Ghosts

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There are some days that I still see him.  Not in clouded memories.  Not in chilling flashbacks.  But here, in my life, beside me.

I was sitting today in our former office.  It's now our son's room.  It has no resemblance to the room he knew, the room we shared.  But as I sat there, starring the corner where our computer desk used to be, I saw it there.  And he was in it.  Th walls were no longer little boy blue.  It was just as it was.  As it should be.  

And for that brief moment, where he and I were together - back then - everything seemed okay.  

And then the blue returned.  Both on the walls, and in my heart.  And he was gone.

I live for those moments.  I long for those moments.  Brief flecks in time where things are right, okay.  Where family is not an abstract term.  Where my husband and I live together.

Yesterday, building snowmen which my son in the yard, again I could se him.  Beside us.  Building right along.  I heard his laugh.  I saw his smile.  I felt his warmth.

Deep down, I know those moments are not real.  He is not here.  He no longer exists.

People have asked me why I still live here, in the place he died.  There's practical reasons.  But there are emotional reasons too.  There is memories of pain, but many more memories of joy.  And when a happy memory collides with the physical space in which it occurred, it becomes something you can touch, taste, feel.  For a very brief moment in time, the memory lives a life of its own.

I hate living in a place where the ghosts of the past are all around me.  But every so often, in a moment like today, sitting on my son's bed, I'm glad at least I have the ghost to keep me close.

A ghost is better than nothing at all....