In the Fall of 2006 Joe was on his way home from work and a car took a left-hand turn right in front of him. He could not avoid the car, and hit it. No one was hurt. He was in his brand new truck. He was nice to the girl because she was young and obviously shaken up. Joe's truck had to have some body work done on it.

He said to me, in somewhat of a serious tone, "good thing I wasn't on my motorcycle".

I don't know what to write here......................I just am at a loss. Mostly at the moment I can't write here because every other word that goes through my mind is a swear...like if I was talking I would have the mouth of a truck driver (sorry truck drivers). I just feel ANGRY and pissy most of the time. Luckily when it comes to my kids they make my heart melt and I feel a warmth from them. EVERYTHING ELSE SUCKS. Even when I was watching Extreme Home Makeover last night (which I rarely watch but the house was in NH so I watched), I couldn't help feeling somewhat angry because so many problems have solutions, but not mine. The people had lost their house in a flood, they were going to lose their land, etc etc...they've had an awful year. But they had a solution and they are happy again. Me....no solution. No Extreme Makeover here. Just suckiness. There's just no way around this, nothing that can be done to make it better.
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I know that everyone deals with death at some point so I know my situation is not unique. Death of a person you love is hard.
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26 weeks.
1/2 of one year.
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Generally speaking I don't look too closely at the pictures around my house these days. I don't move them for the sake of my kids but it's also hard to look at them or think about them too much. Tonight I stood upstairs and stared at a picture of Joe for a long time. It's weird but I feel like I can practically hear his voice and feel his whiskery face. He's so alive. I can't believe I will not see him again.

It kills me that his face, along with the rest of his body is in a grave a mile from here. That sounds so harsh and awful but it is reality. Regardless of any beliefs anyone has about what happens to a soul when they die, there is no dispute about where the body goes.

That's my husband's body with no life in it. It's the body that used to walk through the door every night at 5:30 and yell "daddy's home!". The one that made fires for me in the living room. The one who's arms wrapped around my children every night. The body that held more knowledge about me than anyone else on this earth. The one that I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

The same body that I saw laying in a hospital bed one and only one time in all of the years that I knew him.

That's my husband's body with no life in it.

Why did I have to see that?

Weeks later I am still trying to figure all this out.

I have been able to realize now that I have two separate areas of loss that I am dealing with (this is all aside from Luke and Alyssa). One part is trauma and one part is deep sadness.

The "trauma", and I have no idea if that is the right word, is remembering (involuntarily) the night and days immediately following the accident. It is words that people said to me, things that I saw, things that I heard, thinking about other people's reactions, events that took place. This stuff flashes into my mind and some of it makes me lose my breath and it is a sharp/stabbing/hurtful/desperate kind of pain. Weeks later I still don't know what to do with those feelings. I still have the same question as to whether or not I can stuff that somewhere deep within and hope it doesn't ever come out again. Or I wonder if I am supposed to voluntarily face the thoughts that are so painful that I can't even deal with them, and don't seem to fade in intensity. I don't know what to do.

The other thing that I deal with is a deep sadness/longing for my husband. This would be similar to what most people are familiar with in terms of dealing with loss. The nothingness of it all. The wondering what the future will be like. The days without him. The holidays, the seasons changing, all of it. Thinking about him and what a healthy 37-year-old, happy, good, funny, kind, loving person he was and how crazy that one minute he can be here and the next minute gone. It's insane and sad beyond words. And in terms of Luke and Alyssa, sad beyond belief.

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At this time the "trauma" seems worse and more difficult for me to deal with than the sadness. The sadness is kind of an even flow of thoughts...thinking about things, etc etc. The trauma is...........just.............worse. I can't explain it very well. I guess I feel like it's possible to **survive** and go on being sad, but when I have those awful traumatic thoughts I want to run somewhere....scream....bang my head until the thoughts are gone.

I am so thankful that Luke and Alyssa do not have the "trauma" part of it. At least I hope they don't. They have to deal with the sadness and they will mourn their father in the years to come, but I am hoping that they were spared the sharp/stabbing/hurtful/desperate pain.

How do I turn this around?
How do I give meaning to something so tragic?

I have been having work done on my house for the last few months. There are many reasons for why I chose to do this. In a nutshell, it's a big part of what has kept me going.

I believe that Joe would like everything that I have done. Still, sometimes, I have these images flash through my mind of what it would be like if he walked up the driveway. I can see the look on his face of "what has gone on here?" and I think about taking him through the house to see what has changed. These thoughts I have are kind of scary for some reason.

All the changes to my house have been things that I've wanted, asked for, and for the most part I love everything that's been done. But there is part of me that is sad when a new project is completed. As much as I want to make things more beautiful, I sometimes feel like I just want to change it all back to the way it was before.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would live in the shack for the rest of my days if I could have him back in my life.

There is a comment on a post below about a "dream I had when I was inside and all the doors were locked". I don' t know who wrote the comment....and I don't remember the dream. Did I have a dream like that? Whoever wrote it email me and refresh my memory.

Alyssa talks about/mentions Joe a lot. She does it in a "remembering" type of way usually, like "remember when daddy....".

Last week we were driving in the car and she was quiet for a while (unusual) and she said:

"Why I can't hear daddy?"

At this point I didn't answer right away because at that moment it was hard for me to say the words again that daddy died... So before I said anything she said:

"Does died mean all gone?"

In that moment she was realizing a little more that she is not going to see her daddy again. I answered her:

Robin: "Yes, Alyssa, died means all gone. Daddy is in heaven, and when people go to heaven you can't see them or hear them anymore. Daddy still loves you from heaven and he misses you just like you miss him."

Alyssa: "Why daddy calls me his princess?"

Robin: "Because daddy loves you so much and he felt like you were his little princess"

Alyssa: "I want him to color with me."

Robin: "I know Alyssa."

She then completely changed the subject and told me what she wanted to play when we got home.

Honestly, I can't believe I am having these conversations with my daughter. I can't believe that I have to say these awful things and she has to hear them. I hate it. I have grown accustomed in the last 24, yes that's right, TWENTY FOUR weeks to saying things, hearing things, doing things that I never ever in a million years would want to say/hear/do. Putting the lights on my christmas tree alone (something Joe and I always did together) was horrible; Luke's christmas card "To mommy and Alyssa" just about broke my heart in two (as if it's still in one piece) and filling out the christmas gift tags:

FROM: mommy

over and over and over was one of worst things I have done so far. It's not just christmas though, it's every day. I feel like a walking lie. I feel like a dead person that is still living.

I can't believe that my time with him is over. That there will be no more pictures of him. There are no more memories to make. All that is just done, final, complete. How can that be?

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Joe's new year's resolution for 2007 was "to plan ahead".
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Joe was the epitomy of the phrase, "enjoy the ride". He was a happy person who found fun in the journey of whatever he was doing. He was not hurried, and generally did not feel the weight of the world as many of us do.

He did not take himself too seriously, and was always the first, to all of our delight, to put himself in the center of a situation.

If there was a party that needed a person to break in the dance floor, Joe was the man.

If there was a Bruins game that needed someone to stand up and yell something silly, Joe was the man.

If there was a campfire that needed a funny, outrageous story to be told, Joe was the man.

He was such a great, free spirit. I don't think I could ever stop missing him.

Some people may know that I am kind of a news junkie. At night I flip between Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. (Now.....don't post your comments about my "other side"....the one that reads a People magazine or US Weekly from cover to cover....that's some sort of weird phenomenon that I can't explain). ANYWAY...

So, tonight I was flipping, and I watched John Edwards give his speech in Iowa. He was talking about the millions of people who go to bed every night without health care; the people who will be diagnosed with a horrible disease and will not be able to get treatment; the hundreds of thousands of veterans who live on the streets in this country, on and on.

It is freezing outside.

All of sudden I felt like I have been..............kind of............. selfish in the last few months for forgetting about the rest of the world. Almost every moment of my time has been spent thinking about my kids, my husband, my life, my, my, my. Listening to Edwards talk tonight about single mothers who live on the streets with their kids, reminded me that my children and I are lucky in a lot of ways.

My kids ate breakfast, lunch and dinner today and many snacks in between. Luke went to school today on a bus and got a library book and was taught by a great teacher. Alyssa played with her toys and went shopping with me and got to wear a dress. We played Scene It tonight in our living room and I read Luke a "chapter book" before bed. They got gifts in the mail. Our woodstove has been burning all day and our furnace will be all night.

Sounds like we've got it made. In many ways we do.

Still, through the whole day I thought a million times about what Joe is missing......How much he would love to have dinner with his kids.....to hold them....kiss them goodnight. I thought about him playing the game with us and I even thought of what he would think of John Edwards speech.

Life

It's different for everyone.

And it can change in an instant.

I wish I could focus on what I have 100% of the time. That doesn't seem possible for me at this time. Maybe as more time goes by I will be able to do that.
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I was attempting to get my thoughts out of my head and "on paper" and the last line of what I wrote said:
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New.
I hate "new" and yet it’s my only hope.




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