Candlesticks

I learned how to make homemade candles at girl scout camp.  Each scout sat in front of a large coffee can of melted wax, dark blue.  A smaller can contained cold water.  With those two cans and one piece of string, we created candlesticks - a dunk of the string into the hot wax followed by a dip in the water to cool it.  Wax again, adding another layer.  Water again.  It was slow, but tangible and satisfying work. By the end, a misshapen, bottom-heavy, drip of a candle was there to show off the patience and the repeated motion building it up.  I think of that process often when I'm feeling inexplicably strong or layered with extra insulation from hurt or sorrow.  Like my navy blue scout candle, that insulation I feel is both slowly built of many, many layers and very easily melted.

I've been trying to write for almost a month.  Below my cursor are many started, but unfinished paragraphs, thoughts, beginnings that aren't quite how I feel.  But today marks a month after the anniversary of this loss and a desperate need to finish my thoughts crept in when I realized the date.

The week leading up to October 17, 2014 was a terribly long and miserable one for me - it is amazing what the broken heart and the wandering brain can do when they are conspiring together.  I was weak and waiting for that Friday, for family to come into town, for my half marathon race the day after, for the year to be over.  I was also terrified to know that I would soon be unable to say, "a year ago we were here/there/doing this/saying that/happy" - that I'd know he'd been gone for over a year.  I'd have to say he'd missed two Christmases, two of Daphne's birthdays, everything two.  I'd have to do it all over again.  My brain had turned reaching the year mark into such a goal, it slammed into me with the force of a tidal wave that it was not finished, but just starting over again.

I was at the bottom and the week was a mountain. Saving my injured leg for the half-marathon, I couldn't run, so my nervous energy came out at work.  I felt a little crazed and a little too outwardly cheerful for the crumbling happening inside.  How strange to know your energy is unusually manic, but with little power or desire to stop it.

Originally, I signed up for the half marathon in order to have something positive to strive for during that time since my natural tendency is to wallow.  I'm good at it (the wallowing) and knew that I could choose to roll about in it or I could choose positive endeavors.  So scared by what my life could become, I've been trying to choose positivity to avoid the abyss - this was no exception.  The timing was perfect.  It was the first day of my second year without him. I wanted to honor his life by accomplishing something I never before believed was possible. Something I knew he'd be immensely proud of.

I knew it would be emotional.  I knew it would be incredibly difficult for this unnatural runner - both physically and mentally.  I wasn't expecting my body to unleash a physical reaction to the stress of the past year and the emotions I carried through the run - pride, reverence for his memory, utter sorrow because no matter how hard I ran, I would still have to be without him.  I finished that race, but only with the strength of the people who left notes or messages, those who showed up to cheer me on and the women who literally surrounded me, held my hand and pushed me up hills while I was on that trail.  I left a lot of things out there that I can't explain.  I also took a lot home with me when I crossed that finish line.  I regulated breathing through tears, ran through physical pain, focused on the mantra (I AM STRONG) written on my hand in black Sharpie, and conquered my biggest physical challenge (other than childbirth) to date. I triumphed over something inside - a wall made of fear, sadness, doubt, uncertainty.   I did it for him, but it turned out to be for me, too.

After all of that, I felt like I had been dipped and dipped and dipped in wax.  In the days prior to October 17th, I was increasingly panicked.  After closing that year and running that race with so many supporters, I was insulated somehow - on my way to being a whole candle once again.  For a few weeks anyway, I slept a little better, my tears were fewer and the world seemed a little easier to tackle without Matt by my side.

This race was not everything, but it is an accidental symbol for my year.  So much work.  So many long stretches to navigate.  Such a mental struggle requiring so much resolve to keep going. So many giant hills that are defeating in so many ways.  A lot of people helping me, cheering me along.  Accomplishments I never thought I'd be able to (have to) claim.

 As I nurse my injured leg (four sad weeks of healing and counting), I miss my training - the release of anxiety, the camaraderie, the choice to do something for me and for Matt.  At the bottom of a year again, unable to run, settling into winter, headed for the holidays, sadness creeping back in, I feel my outer layers threatening to melt.  The extra bulk my candle gained in that last weekend of my most awful year is starting to go, but I'm so thankful to have had that extra boost for even a short while.

Blue and Pink

I don't believe the sky has been so breathtaking my entire life.  Call it global warming, tunnel vision, or all in my head, but it has been beautiful more than I've ever noticed since last October.   I would have considered myself a sky person, too - not just sky, but mountain, quiet forest, large body of water, fog, sunset-over-a-cornfield kind of person.  And what I mean by that is that there is something spiritual about those things, the way they make you feel.  Powerful and so small all at the same time.

I recently found a journal with some of my notes from a family trip to Colorado.  While full of embarrassing nonsense about some old fixation with a boy who does not matter, those notes also contain my first ever written attempt at expressing my appreciation for the spirit of nature, specifically a sunrise over the Rockies, and its effect on me.  I wrote them ten years ago.  This is my second attempt.

I might as well just say it.  I think Matt might have something to do with the sky - the light, the clouds.  I also think I might be losing it.

The day of his funeral was the first time I noticed.  The pink and purple ropes fanned in every direction, glowing like something I was supposed to hold onto.  Something I couldn't reach or capture on film.

The highlights...

I'm facing the water on lake Michigan on a day that has been nothing but clouds.  I'm missing him like mad.  I need him and his hug.  At the moment welled-up tears become too much for my eyes to hold in, the sky abruptly opens up and light reflects in one long line from a point on the horizon all the way to mere feet in front of me where waves are crashing.  The clouds are moving fast and the sun is both setting and bursting.  A few minutes of bright.  Just as quickly, it is gone and does not appear again until the next day.

I'm about to go for a run with a friend.  I am at the tallest point in a small public park and have already silently noticed every fluff against the bright afternoon sky.  Hoping that he'll shield me from some of that sun and make this run more bearable.  Before I put in my headphones, she points to the horizon and asks me if I've seen what my man made for me.

I'm driving with Daphne and she talks about the clouds.  She tells me about how they are "getting bluer" and how much she loves them.  Thinks "they are beeootiful and perfect for outside."  Her frustration over the dump truck in front of us blocking her view is palpable.

Daphne asks my sister who painted the sky on our way home from an event that was important to Matt.  He wanted to make it a tradition to bring Daphne there every year.  Sister tells me I should write Daphne's poetic question down and that she doesn't know how to respond because she doesn't know what I'm telling her about things like that.  I say nothing.

Today's morning sky was brilliant - another one of those days when the sun and sunrise were pretty, but more than that.  They were contagious.  In all four directions, the sky was pink and orange.  And blue.  And purple and white.  Daphne asked me again who painted that sky.

She said, "The sky is so pink today.  It is so beautiful.  Who painted it, momma?  Is it a man?  I really love him.  That pink is so beautiful for you."

I have not said these things to her.  Maybe someone else did.  I simply say I love the sky and I think it is beautiful.  Those other blanks... She filled those in herself.  For now, I'm opting out of anything more than agreeing with her.

Stages Three

Grief is so unique and so recursive that I'm not sure I can explain my personal experience accurately, but I feel like it is important for me to reflect on this process, lest it sweep me away like an angry river.  Since losing him, Matt has been just as much at the center of my world as he was before, but in such a different way.  And at some point, I realized I was letting sadness swallow me and I made a promise to myself not to force anything that didn't feel right, to try and feel what I need to feel and process what I need to process.  It is important for my healing - important for Daphne.  I want her mom to be a whole person who is not defined by losing her love.  Shaped by it, yes, irrevocably, but not defined by it.

I know when I've moved on to a new stage or phase or mood, only when I have a moment (hour, day, week) of regression.  I fall off that platform and when I'm back down at the bottom, that is when I notice where I had been, what place I had reached.  This week has been one big crash and the trigger is unknown.  At this point, it could still be anything and sometimes the catalyst is something small that only I would connect to Matt instead of something obvious. What would have been my fourth wedding anniversary passed weeks ago with incredible sadness, but not the giant, slow, lingering pit of sorrow I had planned to battle for a whole week.  I went to dinner at a bluff top winery and left for a trip the next day which were welcome distractions.  But now I'm back home and the little things are hitting me harder than they had been before we got out of town.  I hadn't realized all of that had let up a little bit until now.

It could be Daphne.  She is talking about him. A lot.  Today she asked me, "Where's my daddy?  We gonna go find him at the restaurant?"  She asks everyone where their dad is.  Twice she has woken up from sleep and in her groggy babble, she has told me about him.  A dream?  Or is she seeing something reflected in me?  I knew she would start to ask about him one day, but I'm not quite ready and I'm not quite sure what is triggering these questions now.  The eery way she asks as she sits quietly makes me believe she thinks about him more than she might verbalize.  The way she asks me if I need a hug from him when she is in trouble is unnerving at best - both because of her mention of the very thing I need when she is acting like a true toddler and because her level of skill in the art of manipulation terrifies me.

Maybe her questions have me slipping, but I just really think it's the ebb and flow happening.  So far I've outlined these three stages of my personal grief and the only one I haven't revisited multiple times is the first one.

1.  Utter shock and devastation on a level I cannot accurately describe.  It was as if reality was suspended and language, visuals, sounds, smells, no longer made sense even though I knew they should.  Speaking was difficult, tiresome.  I alternately fought urges to stay in constant motion or sit catatonically on the couch.  The exhaustion was so deep that sleeping eventually became possible, but waking was excruciating because I had to remember.  Other people literally held me up - held up my body so I would not fall over.  Apparently someone took care of Daphne.  My clothes didn't fit after not eating for two weeks.

2.  Continued shock and surprise over the facts.  Sometimes I just can't believe it.  A friend recently told me it still all seems surreal.  That's true.  Absolutely.  But I've had to deal with the nuts and bolts of survival for the last nine and a half months so it feels pretty damn real a lot of the time.  The nuts an bolts have been distraction enough to grant me brief reprieves from descending too far into my sadness.  But then, brushing my teeth, driving to the grocery store, or visiting the coffee shop where we met, it will hit me all over again.  Bam.  Alone.  Widow.  He's not coming home tonight.  How can this be true?  I am still swiftly rocked by the idea that he's gone and that I can't hear about his day.  Sometimes I have to hide or wait it out in my car.  If I'm at work, I just go to the restroom.  Everyone is kind enough to pretend not to notice.

3.  Missing him.  A month or two ago, I realized I was physically aching for his presence.  Instead of shock, losing him is a horrific reality I am constantly aware of, but not surprised by.  It isn't the sharp pang that stops breath momentarily, but instead a deep missing him so great I can barely stand it.  My whole chest feels like it is caving in and it sticks with me for long periods of time without a break.  At first I thought this was a better phase - not so sneaky, constant, a little more predictable.  I was wrong.  It is persistent, unquenchable and never-ending.  In this stage, I've been predicting how he would feel about something, what he would say about this or that, picturing him there, thinking about how we'd be planning to expand our family, wondering how it would be if it hadn't happened this way or what we would look like as the old couple at the grocery store. Hating that old couple at the grocery store because I feel so cheated.  Dangerous.

I've found myself mentioning him in small ways just to test the waters.  I don't realize I'm doing it until it's out of my mouth and I see my friends and family brace themselves when they hear his name.  Is it just a mention, or a floodgate bursting?  That all depends who I'm talking to and where we are.  Mentioning that he liked a certain food/tv show/song/city in conversation with a friend is just a shout out.  Mentioning that we lost her dad to Daphne's new preschool teacher is a floodgate.

I wish I could say I understand it.  Not understanding is something I don't handle well.  At all.  I don't need to be good at a task as long as I comprehend the logistics, but none of this is logical and I swim back and forth between stages two and three without conscious choice.  For a person who likes to be in the know, needs to be in control of herself if nothing else, and has a difficult time with change, it is still a rough journey.  The fact that my thoughts are coherent enough today to delineate my biggest grief stages is a step toward understanding that I'm beginning to believe is essential.  I may not have answers to most of the questions my brain asks every day, but I can at least start by analyzing where I've been and how I'm changing.  Maybe one day the crumbs will all fall into a pattern on the floor.

On Daphne's Memory

Daphne is a seriously like her mom in one way:  she notices details and has a very specific, but sometimes selective, memory.  She pulls out references to exact phrases I know I said only one time and months ago, but can’t (won’t) remember to sit, instead of stand, on her chair at the dinner table.  I remember what I wore to the Forest Park Balloon Races with my immediate family and maternal grandparents when I was about nine years old (a long-sleeved technicolor t-shirt and jeans), but I remember surprisingly little about my master’s thesis or what I had for breakfast yesterday.  

I’ve made it through a few sad milestones lately and I think she knows.  It started when I began to pack up all of her baby clothes.  I took them out of their clunky tubs in the closet and put them in vacuum bags that shrink down and save space.  I touched all of those small outfits and soft shirts and couldn’t help but sink into sadness over their lack of use.  They were intended for more babies.  More babies I was supposed to have with him.  And he touched them and folded them and put them on our baby girl.  And now he’s gone and there will be no more babies and no more Dad caring for Daphne in that way.  I was not yet crying, but I was quiet and had my back to her as she read books in her rocking chair.  Without saying a word, she came to me and grabbed my cheeks in the adorable way she has been doing when she wants to kiss my forehead.  But instead of giving a kiss, she said, “Momma is sad?” And then she gave me a hug with a pat.

I’ve stopped lying to her.  I tell her I am sad, but that I’ll be okay.  When she asks me if “Daddy is sad, too?” I just tell her how much I miss him.  And that I love him so much.  And that’s usually all I can choke out.  

Here’s the thing.  Every time I talk about him with her, I start to cry.  I want to build memories and fight science, the laws of nature, and developmental speeds to make her -  force her - to have real memories of him so she can confidently say she remembers her father instead of feeling like her memories are fabricated by pictures and stories told.  So that she knows how much he loved her and supported her every move. I don't want her to be sad when she thinks of him.  But I can’t do it yet, and I have to wonder if I just should rip that bandage.  We say goodnight to him every night.  She tells him to have sweet dreams.  That might have to be enough for now.

A few weeks ago she asked me if we could go to the garage door in the laundry room and wait for him to come home.  We used to do that a lot when we arrived home before he did in the evenings.  It has been eight months (yesterday) and I have not mentioned it to her once.  I haven’t told her how much I miss it because I thought it would confuse her, make her think he’s coming. Does she really remember that?  She must, but how?  And good god, how can I make her keep it?  I know I can’t really force those memories - even training her to think about them now would be planting them in her little brain, but lately she’s been asking if he’s “just not home yet” or if he’s “just driving.”  She tells me that she “loves Daddy.  I miss him.  He’s in heaven.”  Or when I was crying (secretly and silently, I thought) on the way home from Saint Peters on Father’s Day, she asked me if I was a little sad and if I needed a hug from Daddy.

She also told me he was in the brown closet with some dirt.  She struggled to spit it out, but said it was a “Different closet. Dirt in the closet.  He’s all fixed now.”  This was also on our drive home, and she was in and out of sleep, so I am choosing to call that some dream talking instead of thinking about it further. I have too many other waves to jump.

Eight days ago would have been his 34th birthday.  Three days ago was Father’s Day. Twenty-nine days from now would have been our 4th wedding anniversary.  It’s a minefield.  I’m sad and I’m treading lightly.  I’m trying to be strong but also nice to myself and make sure I’m in a safe place when I need to be, but she is watching me.  She understands and I can’t decide if that is good or bad.  She is mine and I am hers and we have to do this together either way.  Maybe she’s the only one who really understands even if she can’t tell me how or why or what she actually remembers.  And that might be all I need from her - just to remind me of him and to know what I am going through on some primal, animal cub level.

Goose

Do geese mate for life like emperor penguins?  I'm not sure.  We had two geese growing up and one of them was named Charlotte, but the other name escapes me now. Maybe Fred? No matter.  I was four or five years old and whenever I asked, my dad always told me that the one on the left was Charlotte.  Always. They did move as one, almost synchronized, so I believed him and didn't realize why his own answer made him giggle until much later in life.  I don't remember what happened to those geese, but I remember them being together always, and then they were gone.

In my part of town, I don't see a lot of geese.  If I do, they are usually flying across the sky instead of walking in duos like Charlotte and her friend.   A few stressful and gloomy mornings ago, I saw one goose fly over the highway while I was on my way to work.

I watched it and watched it. It was airborne and headed south, but it seemed wobbly and unable to stay consistently at the same elevation.  Hurt maybe.  It also struck me as odd that it was alone since I usually see pairs or flying V formations.   This time, there was just one lone bird headed in the right direction, getting the flight done, but struggling to make it happen.

I can relate.