I have a lot on my mind. There are many things coming up that seem hugely sad to me and put all together I am feeling overwhelmed. On Saturday my daughter turns 4. I had such a hard time even thinking about her party and of course a 3-year-old deserves to be nothing but excited and fully engaged in her soon-to-be-fourness. The problem is that I don't want her to turn 4 without her father here.

Every party I have ever had for my kids has been a process that included seemingly endless planning, running around, cleaning, buying, decorating, cake making, on and on. You all know what I mean. Every single day-before party day Joe and I would have a list that we would work from and usually I would get completely annoyed because all of a sudden he'd throw on there "clean the garage" or some crazy thing that in my mind would take a week to do it properly and who the heck is going to GO in the garage anyway?? But everything always got done, or done enough anyway. All day during the party we would both be busy, apart from each other, and then after everyone left he would hug me and look me in the eyes and tell me what a great job I did. He would tell me I was the best mother in the world and how lucky my kids were to have me. This year there will be none of that.

I do not know how I am going to get through this weekend. Honestly, it's going to be tough.

And beyond this weekend, there is another day which I am dreading which is Joe's birthday, May 4. I don't even know what to do on that day. Luke will surely say to me "today is daddy's birthday" and I will probably smile and say "I know!" and we'll be silly and yell out a happy birthday daddy. But all I will want to do really is curl up in a ball on the ground.....and go to sleep....until it is over.

I keep reminding myself lately that days last 24 hours. I find that if I remind myself of that then at least the day has an end in sight.

Tonight my kids were playing in the living room and I stood in another room and stared out the window at the driveway. I was imagining Joe riding in on his motorcycle, helmet on, sunglasses on, looking at the house to see if any of us were looking out at him. He did this evey day from April to October, weather permitting, for four years. Our ears were trained to hear his motorcycle as it came down the street getting closer to our house and one of us would yell out "daddy's home!" and 5 minutes later after he put his bike away he would walk in the door and he would yell "daddy's home!".

I stood there leaning on the window imagining him for a long time. I was crying and I couldn't even believe I was letting myself go there in terms of imaging if he would come home because I never do that. But with the nice weather there are motorcycles everywhere now and we hear them all the time even from our house. The image of him riding his has been on my mind constantly.

I turned around and Luke was standing there. He saw my watery eyes and I just walked over and hugged him. I told him that I was sad about daddy and I miss him. I feel that it is okay for Luke to see me sad sometimes, as most times we talk about Joe we smile and laugh, but he deserves to see that it's okay to be sad too. His usual reaction is to do something silly to make me laugh and it is obvious to me that he is nervous. My poor child, I hate that he has to deal with this. But I just always tell him the truth and I always tell him "I'm okay Luke, you don't have to worry about me" and I say it sincerely. And then we move on. I hope and pray that his little mind processes the whole package..."she was sad but then she was okay again" and doesn't just focus on the sad part.

With the warm weather I am faced again to figure out the stone that will be placed at the cemetery. Last Fall when I first started this chore it was too terrible for me to think of Joe's name being there with with two dates-a birth date and a death date. I put it off because I just was not ready and even now I am still not ready to see that, but I guess I never will be. As I was thinking about this I had the thought that when I die, they should put July 25, 2007 on my stone too. I feel like I died that day. I have guilt for feeling that way. I have two children that are the lights of my life. They make me laugh and smile a hundred times a day. So how is it fair to them to have a mother that feels that she is dead inside? I just don't know. I just have to acknowledge that I don't feel that way all the time, I have to keep trying to not feel that way and above all I have continue to have hope for the future.

I have many more things on my mind. As I said, I am overwhelmed.

Remember last summer when I said I was going to need your prayers and thoughts at times, well now's the time people. Pray for me.

I can't really explain what an exasperating day Friday was for me. I feel like my stress level has hit an all-time high. However, the end of the day brough r-e-l-i-e-f. A huge part of my stress was from a situation that came about in the past few weeks which I have posted nothing about, but has been huge in my life. What happened is that two Mondays ago my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Yesterday she had a successful operation which they are very hopeful removed it all. She'll have quite a bit of recovery time now, but she'll be fine!

This situation brought about for me the most desperate time of needing my husband. From the moment my mother told me, which was on the phone because she had been waiting for biopsy results from the doctor, I felt a genuine need for Joe. Not a missing or a longing as I usually feel, but an all-business, this is serious, I need my husband type of feeling. It was awful. Many nights in the last two weeks I would cry and think, "God...not my mother.....I can't lose my husband and my mother....". I know I am crazy in that way...that my mind goes to the worst place and honestly I tried not to dwell and I think I did well, but at night when I had nothing else to think about those nasty fears would hit me. But now, thankfully it is over. And I am so thankful that we got good news, and that we have good doctors and that they caught it early enough to treat. I know that many families do not get good news, and my heart breaks for them.

I LOVE YOU MOM!!!

And for those of you who can....hug your husbands/wives....they offer comfort in times of crisis.

Cross 2

I was told today that Joe's father and brother went to find out where the cross is that so many family and friends signed, that stood as a roadside memorial to Joe. They went into the office of the company where the crash occurred. They were told that the company "wants to move on" so they took the cross down and gave it to the state.

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Cross

Someone just told me that the cross is no longer beside the road where Joe was killed. It was there until a couple of days ago.

Hello

Hello people.
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In my grief meeting thingy they wanted us to think of something that we are grateful for.....I can think of a million things, that's not my issue. I know I am extremely lucky in a lot of ways. I have everything, just not Joe. That's a lot.
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However, usually on the way to the meeting on the road that I go on to get there, there is a huge Harley Davidson billboard that says "You're journey begins in 4 miles". It is an advertisement for a Harley store 4 miles down the road. Every time I passed that billboard I cringed....ironic. Last night when I was driving to the meeting though, they had taken it down. I am grateful for THAT!!!!!!!

Weekends

This was one of my worst weekends since last summer. I woke up on Saturday morning after maybe 3 hours of sleep (I have not been sleeping well which is definitely part of the problem) and I was so DESPERATE at the day that laid out before me. Weekends are usually hard because obviously Joe should be here all day on those days. I took the kids out and we did some things but there is this constant agonizing emptiness inside me. On Sunday, same thing. The time goes by and I am thankful that my kids have so many people who love them, but nothing makes a dent in my loneliness.
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The worst part is, there is no end to this. It's not even like X will happen, and then I won't be lonely anymore, or X or X or X. Nothing.
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What do I do?
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Children shield your eyes

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Last night I went to bed laughing because I crack myself up sometimes. I sent my friend Jamie an email earlier in the night and I decided to post it here for a future laugh. I'm laughing about this now, tomorrow I'll probably be crying...who knows. The one thing I know for sure is that my emotions are unstable, but at least my sense of humor, as weird as it is, is not completely gone. Here is part of the email:


"I was thinking yesterday two things….One is that now that I am single I wish there was some sort of service where I could hire some asshole to sit on the couch and watch tv with me at night. That’s all I want. Nothing more than that. I’m just lonely. Second of all, in a magazine I saw a picture of an adult lady with wings who was sort of fairy-ish in an adult-sexy-kind of toothfairy way (this picture was in Country Living magazine so don’t get any ideas) and so then my mind started wandering....…you know how the terrorists think that when you die you go to heaven and get 12 virgins or whatever? Well I am wondering if Joe is with 12 virgins. Probably. Here I am pining away for him and he’s with 12 virgins. I can picture him sitting high with a long robe on and the girls at this feet reaching up to him….loving every minute of it. Robin who?"



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