Carpe Diem. And Then....

Taken from a hot air balloon - Aug 2012

Cleaning up a drawer that has been cluttered for way too long, I threw out Kurt's old accounting textbook today.  With a second glance and a longing look, but no regrets or tears.  I think accounting is pretty dry.  And he never really got to use that particular book anyway....

To be honest, there has been a shift as of late.  I've felt it for a while, slowly growing larger, but struggled to acknowledge it, admit it.  Even now, I feel guilty typing it.  But with the third year anniversary looming large things are... different.

I still miss Kurt intensely.  I still wish I was with him - dead or alive.  I still talk to him daily, and think of him constantly.  I'm still grieving my husband.  And finally starting to understand that I probably will for a long, long time.  But - and I hesitate to say this lest I slide and things change - I think I am slowly reclaiming my life.  I see the Phoenix I have become, rising from the ashes of not only us, but also of me.  And I'm okay with that fact.

I don't like it.  But I'm not fighting it.  I guess its just a part of my life.....

In the past 12 months, I have done things that I would never have done before.  I've soared in a hot air ballon.  Swam with the elephants in the jungles of northern Thailand.  Cuddled with full grown tigers.  Fed giraffes and rhinos.  Ziplined inverted through the lodgepole canopy.  Atended concerts and musicals.  Lost nearly 50 pounds.  Started going to - and dare I say enjoying - a gym.  I've looked at problems in the eye.  Faced the self-defined impossible.  And I have done each of these things alone.  Without someone familiar walking beside me.  For a girl who would not play in the basement or backyard growing up without someone else, that is huge.

Over time, something good has come from Kurt's death.  I have, in my own eyes, been given permission to live fully.  For today.  I'm not reckless.  But I'm also no longer bound by the I shouldn'ts, or I can'ts.  Because I have touched death intimately.  Kurt's greatest lesson - his biggest gift to me - was the deep seated understanding of how fleeting our mortality really is.  How fickle life can be.  And if I can help it, I am not going to live waiting for tomorrow at the expense of today.  Not going to wait for someone to take my hand and accompany me through life.  Because that person - that tomorrow - may never come.

Today may be all we have.

This knowledge, this understanding - and the life it will bring me and Gavin - is his final, and perhaps greatest legacy.  It won't change the world.  But it will change ours.....

Nearly a month ago now, I flew to San Diego.  Again, alone.  To an event called Camp Widow - a gathering for men and women on a journey similar to my own.  I have thought about blogging about that experience since returning but, honestly, haven't really known what to say - or how to say it.  So I haven't said anything.

In the keynote address, we were encouraged to find our "And then..."  To carry on our loved one's legacy, and life, by living our own.  I'll be honest - I walked out of that room thinking I have done a pretty poor job of that.  Thinking how the past nearly three years have been about reliving his death, not honouring his life.  But the words have stuck with me.  And just this past weekend, as I stood on the top of a 60 foot rope ladder I had just scaled, preparing to launch off my first zip line, I had an epiphany of sorts.  About how this past year has been different.  About how, in the midst of moments of intense, sometimes crippling grief, there has also been bursts of equally intense, liberating life.  Despite my struggles, my failures, and my tears, I am not only surviving.  I am actually, once again living.  I know that would make Kurt proud.


And because of that, I know I am, despite of myself - or perhaps because of it - succeeding.  I am creating an "And Then."  And because he is intimately a part of me, it is not only mine, but his as well. I will, after all, always be half of us....

As I mentioned, the three year anniversary is looming.  That day - and the days immediately before and after - weigh heavily on my mind.  I know in the weeks to come I will get caught up with, swept back to the past.  To a place and time I wish I had never been.

But my nightmare is also my privilege.  It has given me wisdom, knowledge, and gifts which I believe make me a better person.  Wisdom, knowledge, and gifts which those around me have never had the fortune - and misfortune - to acquire.  And I know that despite the darkness, there will be moments of light.

My job is simple.  But also very complex and difficult.  I have to find those moments.  And in them, in not only big ways, but also in smaller ways, I have to live.

When I Grow Up: Two Out of Three

Image can be found here

Gavin announced today that he wants to be a pilot when he grows up.  Its the first time I have heard him express his desires for the future, aside from wanting a trip to the playground or Grandma and Pappa’s house.  And while I know it will change once, twice, or a dozen times between now and next year, let alone the day he turn 18 or 21, listening to him express dreams, goals, and desires – listening to him talk about the future – makes my heart sing.

Growing up, one of my first aspirations was to be a mommy.  That and a figure skater.  And at least half of those childhood dreams came true.  As I aged, the latter one changed.  Teacher, nurse, astronaut, pharmacologist.  Along with it, though, I always wanted to be a mom.  And, as I became old enough to appreciate the fairy tale wedding and the notion of prince charmings and happily ever afters, I also wanted to be a wife.

Which takes us to today.  I know I should feel lucky – blessed even – that two thirds of my dreams came true.  While I never landed a triple salchow, flew to the moon or discovered medication that would cure cancer, the ones that really matter I got to do.  Got to experience.  And I know through them I will leave my mark on my little part of the world.

I am a mother.  And will be a mother until I die.  I am bringing up our son in a manner I hope his father would be proud of, so our legacy can make his mark on the world too – and perhaps someday fly a plane. 

I was a wife.  I stated my vows, and kept them until death did us part.  I saw that journey through to completion – as long as I possibly could.  I never fell out of love.  There were days I did not like everything about my husband.  But I never did not love him.  And in a society where the divorce rate exceeds the success rate of marriages, few couples can honestly say that.

Kurt and I never really spoke about what we wanted to be as we grew up – not in a meaningful conversation that I recall, anyhow.  I know he never really thought he would be a daddy or a husband, but don’t know if he even dared to dream for it.  I hope he did.  While I know his final career was not the life he had envisioned, I hope he died having met many of his future aspirations as well.  At least two out of three.  I hope he died happy about where he was, what he had, and what he had accomplished. 

I often wonder what the last thing on Kurt’s mind was before that fateful moment.  And while part of me hopes it was of Gavin and the more selfish part hopes it was of me, another part – the part that hopes Kurt was really, genuinely, happy – hopes that the last thing he thought was “I did okay.  I did well.”

Two out of three ain’t bad.

How Did This Happen To Me?

Image can be found here...

There are moments, some fleeting, some lasting, where all of this seems surreal.  When I watch my widowed self go about my current life from a distance, and shake my head at the absurdity of it all.  When I just can’t help but wonder why, and how.

Everything about this situation is unreal, illogical.  It defies the natural order of things.  It definitely defies my order of things.  Yes, I heard about it happening to others.  But not to me.  It was not in my plans.  Even though I always had concerns about something happening to Kurt, I never really thought it would happen like this.  And that everything since would play out the way it has.

This is not my life.  This is not me.

As a young girl, you see your wedding.  Your children.  Or at least I did.  A happy family sitting around the table, laughing over Sunday supper.  I was not supposed to have to do it like this.  Not supposed to have to do it alone.  Not yet, anyway.

I always, deep down in my heart, in the secret places I never told anyone about, knew that some day I would have to bury my husband.  I knew – not just suspected – that I would outlive Kurtis.  But never, in my wildest dreams or darkest nightmares did I expect it to be then, like that.  So soon.

It just isn’t the way things are supposed to be.

And so I sit here today, living a reality I never imagined, let alone wanted.  Trying to make sense of the insensible.  Find logic in the illogical.

Asking why, but knowing no good answer exists.

Asking how, but knowing no good answer exists.

From a distance, seeing me struggle with the remains of a life that once was so idyllic, pitying the person who has to survive it, yet admiring tht same person for doing so.  And asking again “What am I really doing?  How am I doing it?  Why do I have to?”

How did this happen to me????

Fathers Day

I've really struggled with Fathers Day this year.  The need to commemorate vs the need for self-preservation.  To remember or ignore.  As we sit on the eve of the day set aside to mark Daddys, I'm still not sure whether we will do anything special, or let the day pass unmarked.

I know however, that the day will not go unnoticed.  While Gavin may still be too young to read a calendar, I am not.  Even without the BBQs, cheesy cards, and wrapped power tools, I know what tomorrow is.  Who it celebrates.

And who is not here.

In some ways, I find Fathers Day one of the hardest, most lonely days on the calendar.  Because no one stops to think about just how hard it is when the man who made me a mother, the man who was my son's daddy, is not here for me to share it with.

I've been told to direct my attention to the father figures in Gavin's life, using tomorrow to thank them for the role they have played in shaping my son.  But honestly, there has yet to be a man to step up to the plate and help much in that regard.  I haven't really needed it yet.  Gavin is only starting to need it a little now.  And besides, tomorrow is not "Strong male influence day".  It is father's day.  And dead or alive, you only have one father.

Gavin only has one dad.

No matter how many men come and go through my son's life, I hope he always remembers that, understands that.  That he knows just how much he was loved, and how much he meant to his dad.

That he realizes his dad would be here if he could.  And that his dad is always with him in some manner.

That he is so very much like his dad in so many ways.  And that that is not a bad thing.

I want to say Kurt would have been an amazing father.  I still believe he would have.  But cruel or not, the harsh reality of the world is that we will never really know.  He was still finding his place as a dad when he was ripped from our lives, when father and son were torn apart...

So I don't know what will be on my mind tomorrow.  The dad Kurt was.  The dad Kurt could have been.  The dad Kurt would have been. Or the dad Kurt never got to be.

Irregardless, I know I will be thinking of him.

And wishing he were here.

If you are a father for an hour, a year, or a decade, you are someone's father for life....

Happy Fathers Day Kurt.  We love you.

Yesterday

Source unknown

I don't talk a lot about the day-to-day struggles that come with PTSD to anyone.  In many ways, its my own burden to carry, my own cross to bare.  I'm not really sure anyone would really get it if I tried.  I'm afraid of the "Oh come on now, Chrystal, its been three years" look that I see in everyone's face - even when they aren't really giving it.

You don't get it until it happens to you.  And even then, I'm not sure you really ever understand...

But lately, the PTSD has reared its ugly head.  Out of the blue, when I thought I was getting a grip on things, the flashbacks returned.  And if you've never experienced them, I'm not talking memories that won't go away.  I'm talking full out out of body experiences.  One moment I am here, in my room, my office, my car, or wherever.  The next I am in the bathroom, with Kurtis.  No obvious triggers.  No warning.  Just a snap of the fingers and I travel from here to there.

It's disorienting.  It's frustrating.  And its just plain hard.  Because I am throwing all my energy into overcoming the obstacles of and moving beyond the chains of the past.  Yet my mind keeps bringing me down, holding me back.

I really am chained to yesterday.

The day before yesterday I was a wife, not a widow.  I saw a future.  I smiled, I laughed.  I loved.  I lived.

The day before yesterday was about life, not death.  Now, not then.

Then yesterday came, and took it all away.

I know there are lessons in the events of yesterday.  Many I have learned.  Some still remain hidden.  I know I had to get through yesterday to become the person I am today.

Yesterday really was the most defining moment of my life thus far.  I'm not sure any future days will top it...

But I'm going to be frank.  Yesterday sucked.  And I know how it ends.  I really don't want to keep going back there.

So how do I tell my mind to settle down?  How do I really put yesterday aside so I can appreciate today and step unfettered into tomorrow?

A psychologist recently told me that there must be unfinished business in yesterday.  That pieces I have ignored, forgotten, or blocked hold the keys to unlocking the chains and moving beyond.  That I have to go back and uncover all the mysteries in order to go forward.

But its a little like being forced to watch a bad re-run over and over again.

I don't want to go there.

Yesterday is behind me.  It happened.  There's nothing I can do to change that.

I just wish it would leave me alone.....