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?

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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

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"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

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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.....