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I want everything to go back to normal. I want to put the kids to bed with my husband. I want to sit in the living room and watch a tv show while he falls asleep on the couch with his arms folded. I want to him to kiss me goodbye before he goes to work and hear him start up his motorcycle in the driveway. I want my inbox to have emails that say Joe Chalifour. I want phone calls from him. I want to hear his voice and see his face. I want to do the regular...mundane...every day stuff we used to do.
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I want to stop thinking about death and the kids growing up with no father. I want to stop thinking about if I am going to be in pain forever. I want to stop wondering what the rest of my life will be like. I want to stop worrying about how I am going to get through the day. I want to stop worrying about what painful thing that I am missing that I haven't thought of yet. I want to stop wondering if I will be alone for the rest of my life. I want to stop worrying about the kids' future despair.
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I need a break from this and there is no peace. There is no solution. There is no place for me to go. There is no comfort.
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I feel vulnerable and crazy for writing this stuff in "public". But it's the truth.

Monument

Today I had to go to the monument place to figure out what kind of stone to put at the cemetery. The whole thing is just unbelievable.....these things that I am doing....I keep thinking to myself....this is CRAZY that I am doing this. How can I be sitting at a monument place deciding what should be written at Joe's grave? It's all just completely insane. The last thing I want is to see his name written in stone with dates next to it. So I don't know. I think I pretty much decided to get a granite bench, and just have "Chalifour" on it. Later on I can figure out what I want for a "marker" as it's called (a flat piece of stone with his name/dates/saying or whatever). I think a bench might be good though. That will alleviate the matted down patch of grass where I've been sitting. Word is probably circulating through town..."who's that crazy lady in the cemetery?".

25

I have this "thing" with the number 25. If you asked Luke what mommy's favorite number is, he would tell you "25". It's always been my number since I was young. I think when I was a 11 or 12 something good happened on the 25th of a month, and specifically, ironically enough, I think it was July 25. I don't even remember at this point what that was, but 25 stayed with me through all of these years. I may have even told some of you at some point "good things happen to me on the 25th of a month". This is probably stupid to say in a public forum, but 25 is attached to almost every password I've ever had. It's my number.
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When I looked at the calendar the week before the accident, I thought to myself with a smile, I am going home on the 25th to be with Joe.
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And now I am haunted by the date. July 25.
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It's strange.
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Heavy

Today is a very heavy day. I don't know how to explain it but everything feels awful. It started this morning when I put Luke on the bus. I feel on the verge of tears at every moment. I feel like nothing is right. I miss Joe so much and the weight of it feels like it might crush me.

First Day of First

So, today was Luke's first day of school. It was rough for me because I know that Joe would have stayed home to see Luke off, I would have pictures of them together, etc. Luke doesn't say anything about daddy not being here for his first day, and I don't even know if he thinks about it like that. As I've said before, his loss and my loss are very different.
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Last night I started to wonder how on earth I was going to bring Luke into the school and be strong enough to hold it together for him. I remembered what he said to me a while ago, which was "mommy that would be really awful if you died instead of daddy". I know what he meant. It does not mean that Luke doesn't love his dad or that it doesn't hurt that he's gone. What he was saying is that if I had died, his daily life would have been so much more impacted. I've been with this kid pretty much every day since he was born and he knows that. Maybe not to put directly into words, but he knows.
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So I decided to listen to what Luke said and be happy that I have the opporunity to take my son to first grade. I kept saying to myself, "I am so grateful to be able to take Luke to first grade" and "Luke is so lucky to be able to have his mom take him to first grade". It gave me something to focus on so that I could drive there, park the car, walk him into school, shake hands with his teacher, give him a kiss and a smile and walk out the door without thinking about what we don't have. So that got me through.
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Then I went to the cemetery and cried. I told Joe "I'm sorry you didn't have the chance to see your son go to first grade".

Chalifour Family vs. Left

The purpose of the Chalifour Family blog was always to focus on the good moments in our lives. When I sat down at my computer (usually at night) I would say to myself "what good thing happened today?" That is a great thing. It causes a person to appreciate the little things in life and remember that among all of the chaos and "living" those little moments are important. I explained this in a post once called "Why I blog".
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It is important to me that I keep on the same path with the Chalifour blog because, now more than ever, we need to appreciate those moments. However, I cannot deny the sadness, pain and confusion that is going on right now. To leave it out of the blog makes me feel like I am not being truthful. To put it in makes me feel like the blog is taking a new direction, which I don't want.
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So I have created this blog. I understand that people are concerned about me and I appreciate that. I don't want to close people off when they ask me "how are you" and I don't have the heart to know where to begin, or wonder if they really want to know the answer. So you can find out here. If you want to. And if you don't, then you can keep checking on the kids on the Chalifour Family blog.