Five Years

This week is set up exactly like the week Joe died. On Sunday night I saw him for the last time alive. He left from camp to go back home. Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday I talked to him on the phone. Emailed with him up until 4:30 on Wednesday.

And that was it.

So it's been 5 years since I saw him, 5 years since he died.

There is something about "5 years" that makes this year seem like a bigger event. I suppose after 5 years there's no denying, he's not coming back. 5 years is a long time.
 
In some ways it feels like a long time, in many ways it does not.

These days in July are hard every year. For me it's 10 days of memories- hurtful, happy and painful all confusingly intertwined. 10 days when highly charged emotions sit just below the surface, ready to explode and constantly bubbling to the surface. I blink a lot of tears back. I talk a lot and try to keep busy with anything I can. I have flashes of memories I'd rather forget that are brought to my mind by the similarity of the time of year, weather, sounds and smells. The 10 days start with Luke's birthday, 6 days later Joe's death and 4 days later my wedding anniversary which is no longer.
 
Every single one of those things is a huge life-altering event and they come at me in ten days. Maybe I should be glad that I get them overwith in a short period of time, but truthfully it just feels crushing sometimes. Part of me would like to go straight from June to August, but of course a bigger part of me would never in a million years want to miss watching my son have a birthday. To help him celebrate and be excited by it like you only are when you are a kid. These days of the year should be a happy time. And I do my best to make them go by with laughter and fun around me. But the pain is there also. My heart holds an ache with every year that ticks by as my children get older.

One of the deepest pains of my life is that as a mother, I will not ever again see my children with their father.

I long to see my daughter with her father in a way that I cannot explain. Trying to put it in words almost makes me feel angry because I don't believe there are any words that do the feeling justice. She was so little when he died. She is so much like him.
 
I am angry that this joy will never be part of my life experience. I will never again have that pleasure as a mother on this earth, ever. 
 
And she will never experience the pleasure as a daughter of being with her father again on this earth, ever.
 
There are many, many layers of loss that come with death. Some of them are felt only by me, some only by my children and some only by you. We all loved Joe differently. His death impacted us differently.
 
It's been a crazy 5 years. I consider myself incredibly blessed in every way imaginable and have a life that is wonderful. I consider us to have moved through an incredibly difficult time as unscathed as possible under the absolute best of conditions. Still, it all hurts, and we are permanently impacted by what happened.
 
After 5 years, I am confident in saying that it always will hurt. Life is not easy. Not for anyone, I know that. We all have pains and scars that run deep and stem from a wide variety of personal tragedies. It is a brave choice to keep moving forward, to want better for ourselves, to search for peace and happiness. As adults I hope my children understand this-


Happiness is a choice, not a feeling that comes to us and stays indefinitely.
 
 
There will be times in life that they are effortlessly happy, and there will also be hardships, sickness, loss, and sadness. Days when they may not want to get out of bed. Days when they want to wallow in how unfair life is. I hope they allow themselves to feel that hurt, and then make a choice to not let it define who they are....to focus on the good things in their lives and be grateful for what they have. And move forward.

I acknowledge that for every time my heart aches at the thought of not seeing my children with their father, there are a thousand other beautiful, wonderful things I DO get to see. In my mind I accept the pains as they come to me and then consciously move the spotlight to what I do have. It is hard at times, but it is the only way. And it works. And it IS work. It is work to live happily.

I will always love Joe and be grateful for all that he gave me. I received the comment once (not meant to comfort) "You can find another husband and move on" and to me that is the most cold-hearted comment a widow can receive. It belittles the loss, it belittles marriage, and it implies that people can be replaced. And in my life, Joe will never be replaced. He was my husband and that meant something to me. I loved him with a fullness and innocence that is gone forever. I will never forget him, try to replace him or "move on" from him in any way that separates me from the beauty of his impact on my life. I will continue to live, be corageous enough to risk love, continue to believe that great things are in store for me. But I will never forget Joe. He is the father of my children. The man that chose me to be his wife. The man that shared anything I asked and was true to me "til death do us part".

He is part of me.

Forever.  

We will always be his. He will always be ours.


And we move forward.


 
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I'm about to make the final payment on Joe's truck. He only drove it for a short time before he died, but he loved it. I haven't been able to get myself to sell it, even though it hasn't made a lot of sense to keep it. When I drive it, I feel a little closer to him. For a long time I'd open the center console and look at the change in the slots and imagine his hands putting it in there. I think of him driving to the dump on Saturdays with Carlie, and how happy he was doing that. He was such a happy guy, always finding joy in the littlest of things. He had fun along the way in life, it is something to be admired.


Paying off the truck feels strange to me. I will be happy to not make the payment anymore, but something about it feels sad. Somewhere inside me I must have felt it was something I was doing for him, maybe a way I was keeping him with me. It's another end to a very long chain of endings.

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Five years ago I had one month left with my husband.


I didn't know.

A widow friend of mine posted the poem below on her blog a while back. I remember reading this poem a long, long time ago and liking it a lot. I was probably early twenties at the time. I thought I understood it then. I did not. Not the way I do now.


Comes The Dawn
Veronica A. Shoffstall, 1971

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn...
With every goodbye you learn.

I really can't read that without having tears come to my eyes. My life has changed so much in the last 4 years. I have had many ups and downs, many steps forward and many steps backward. I honestly cannot believe how much time has passed, how my kids have changed, how I have changed. I can't believe how our lives have continued on, the things we have done, without Joe with us. I have made new friends who I love dearly, who I can't imagine my life without. Not a day goes by when I don't look at one of my kids and think how Joe would love to see them as they are now. Every new step I take without him, every big decision, every small one that I know he'd be involved with, feels like a step away from him and I hate it still. Yet at the same time there is no other way. I never talk about all the things swirling in my head, because I know it is impossible for anyone to understand, and I can't explain things with the depth that they feel to me. But it's still always in there, and probably always will be.

I know that my "self" as I knew her, died that day with Joe. All of a sudden my whole present and future changed. I was going to grow old with this man. We were going to raise our babies together and live a life that we planned. All of it was gone in an instant. The moment I saw that motorcycle on the ground a new person was born. I am still navigating a life that I never dreamed of, with all its ups and downs, greatness and sadness, and learning about the person I have become; the good parts, the bad parts and everything (new) in between.

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I read this quote in a book recently and although the book itself was just okay, I have thought about the quote below a thousand times since reading it. The guy is referring to his wife (Mary) who he was once deeply, deeply in love with, but their marriage did not last.

"I carry a tattoo of Mary on my arm that I wear like a badge, a jewel, a wound, a way to remind myself that love and pain, like blood and ink, swim in the same sea." - Scott Weiland

I think the reason why I like these words so much is because they remind me we are all a sum of all that has happened in our lives, and we should not ignore those things, ever. We should not go on and try to forget pain and pretend it never happened. To go on and face the future with hope despite all the hurt in our past, is courageous.

Pain is a reminder, that love is real.

And in my opinion, in the end, love is all there is.

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Passed by the door to get to Heaven
Seven trumpets big and bright
You hear it coming in the middle of the night
A caution to the children
Time to turn your crimson white

We’ve all got reservations

Trials will come suddenly
And without explanation
But you were born with goodness
You were born with goodness
Wherever you go now

I’m right behind you
In the light of hope
I’ll be beside you
On that dusty road
And if you get blind, well that’s alright
Wicked winds blow with grace and might
Cling to the ways of my name
When you touch the stone

Break your word over me
Sinking in the quicksand
Break your word
Don’t you see?
You’re breaking me down now

I’m right behind you
In the light of hope
I’ll be beside you on that dusty road
When no one expects you to deny
And no one accepts your reasons why
You cling to the ways of my name
When you touch the stone

No one expects you to deny
And no one accepts your reasons why
You cling to the ways of my name
When you touch the stone
..........................-Brandon Flowers, Right Behind You
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Soon after school ended last year, I took my kids to the cemetery for the first time. Luke was 8 and Alyssa, 6. Almost three years since their father died.

I hadn't intended to take them on this particular day, but then I never planned or intended to take them on any day of my choosing. I always knew that we would go by their schedule- when they asked to go there, I would take them.

We were on our way home from somewhere, all of us happy and fooling around in the car. All of a sudden Luke asked "Can we go the cemetery mom?"

My heart sank and I felt like I couldn't breath. My first instinct was to say "No, not today" and I wondered why on earth, how on earth he could be thinking of the cemetery when we were having so much fun....fresh out of school on summer vacation, a gorgeous day, lots of promise for more laughs to come. Then it hit me, of course he would be thinking of his father on this day. Just as I do. Even when things are good, great even, they are just never quite right.

"Yes" I said.

We drove passed our house and up the hill to the cemetery where Joe is buried. I had no idea what I was going to say to my kids, though I had thought of this moment a million times since he died. Suddenly I was at a complete loss for words and could only think to take my next breath.. My kids drive by the cemetery twice a day, every day when they ride the school bus. I have told them there is a bench at their daddy's grave and because of that they know right where it is. My heart breaks to think of them looking out the bus window at where their father is buried. It's just not right.

We drove in and I stopped the car. They both got out and walked straight to the bench and looked down at the name for the first time. There in big letters, their own last name was inscribed:

C H A L I F O U R

I could see the mixture of emotions on both of their faces. As a kid you must not be able to help but think it's kind of neat to see your name written on a beautiful piece of granite, so important-looking and official. Yet somewhere deep down I could tell they were feeling the pain of what it meant to have that name there. Alyssa literally stood quiet for a minute and then skipped off singing to herself, looking at other gravestone and flowers. She was escaping. She had her fill of what this meant to be here and at another time, in another moment, she would process more of this event, but for now, she was done.

I stood there not saying a word, just looking at my kids and their reactions. Luke was looking down at the marker with Joe's name and the date of his birth and his death on it. He looked up at me and I could see the stress in his eyes. He blinked back some tears as he looked at me. I did nothing but look at him, ready for whatever happened next, but having no idea what that would be.

"So how does this work?" he asked. "Daddy's body is down there?" He asked questions he knew the answers to, but he needed to hear me say them.

"Yes Luke, his body is in kind of a fancy box called a coffin buried under here" I knelt down and touched the marker with Joe's name on it. For a moment I felt the strangest dynamic with Luke, no longer mother and son, but equals, two souls facing extreme pain in loss. I felt like a child in some way, knowing all the logistical details but having no real, concrete answers for many of the questions death presents. I looked at Luke wanting so badly to do right by him, to be strong and answer his questions. I have no idea what it is like for him or for Alyssa or any child who has lost a parent. I just try my best to watch and help them through their grief as best I can.

"Can he hear what we're saying?"

"His body doesn't work anymore. His ears don't work and he's not alive, so no, he can't hear what we're saying from down there." I answered.

"Wouldn't it be cool if we could just go down there and open it up and say "Hi daddy" and he would be there?"

I knew what he was saying. Wouldn't it be great if he were still alive. If we could see him, talk to him, if he was still here, with us. I half-smiled at Luke and stood up again.

Luke stood there a few more seconds and then looked to his sister. He ran off in her direction to look at other names and dates on more stones.

For now, he was done.
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