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My husband died in a motorcycle accident.
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The Heating Guy

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I stood in my basement today for two hours (literally) talking to my heating guy. He was here to do yearly maintenance on the furnace. Joe and I met this man in 2004, and he also had a motorcycle. The two of them formed a friendship and would sometimes ride together.

We talked about a whole bunch of different things, and honestly, most of them were very unlikely topics for two people standing in a basement. However, it was such and informative conversation for me. He lost his father at age 4 to a heart attack. I had the opportunity to ask this grown man about what it was like for him through the years, growing up without his father. As you can imagine, I have a whole bunch of questions about how my children might be processing this loss. Luckily he is a talker and was able to articulate answers for me, though I understand that grief is a personal thing, and different for everyone.

Still, I appreciated so much the conversation because I was able to see a grown, functioning, "normal" human being standing in front of me that lost his own father at a young age and got through it.

At one point I started crying (in the basement with this person I don't know very well) because he said that my situation as a single parent is most likely "temporary". He said that I will probably meet someone again that I will love like I did Joe. My reaction was "I doubt that" and I immediately started crying.

I just can't imagine that I will ever love anyone as much as I loved Joe. And I can't imagine anyone loving me as much as Joe loved me. I can't imagine that I will ever have that love relationship again. That makes me feel so awful, like the best part of my life is over. That is so hard to deal with.
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My Musical House

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One of the first things that brought Joe and I together was music. You could trace the paths of my childhood by looking at the mixed cassettes that I made year after year. Joe was less of a cassette-maker, more of a band lover, but we were equally moved by what we considered to be good music.

Soon after I met him I got into his truck one day and a song was playing. It is one of my earliest recollections of thinking "WOW" in terms of Joe. As I looked at him with my eyes big, he looked back at me and said, "What, it's not what you think.." I knew what he meant because this song was often confused for a different song by those who didn't know it... I reached into my bag and pulled out a cassette and showed him on the mixed label the name of the song "Yellow Ledbetter". That was the song that was playing (note that this was way before most people ever paid any attention to this song). Our musical respect for each other deepened in that moment, and to music lovers, that means a lot.

Through the years we both went through musical changes. We would say to each other "you have to hear this song" and play newly discovered songs for each other. Lots of times his music was too angry or mean for me. And lots of times my music was too (something) for him. But lots of times, I would find MY CD's in his truck and he would find HIS NEW FAVORITE TRACKS on my mixed CDs. It makes me tear up to just think of this connection between us.

Before the accident, most of the time, on any given day, there was always music playing in my house. During the day it would be some mixture of kids music and adult music that was (mostly) family friendly. Since my kids were babies they have known me to, at some point each day, turn up the music and be crazy with them in the living room. At night, especially on Fridays in the last year, we would play all types of music. We would play it LOUD and it would sound so good in our house. Joe would, well, be Joe. Sing...dance...be a one man band. The kids would run around and be crazy. I would think "my God, it really doesn't get better than this". It was pure happiness. Pure joy for each of the four of us in our family.

There have been only a few glimpses of my musical house in the past two months. A few times I have put a song on and sat in the living room and listened. And it sounds so good. But it is so sad.
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I know at some point my musical house will return. I have children. I want them to continue to experience joy and part of joy to us is music. But it is painful right now.
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...'til death do us part.
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I just have to write something here because I feel so overwhelmed and I feel myself pulling away from this blog. It is so hard for me to put into words when my sisters or parents call or people ask me how I am. The truth is that even those people who love me the most get a lot of their insight into how I am feeling from this blog. So I don't want to stop this because I don't want to break the lines of communication. But I am finding it harder and harder to put my feelings into words.
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Please don't give up on me and stop reading.
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It helps me to know that people care. I don't know what to tell them to do or say, but it does help to know that people are still "with me". I feel so alone in my own head.
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I just want someone to tell me that everything will be okay at some point in my future. And more importantly, I want to feel that way. Sometimes I do, but as more days go by it seems that my feelings are intensifying.
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How could this have happened?
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I had a life full of happiness and promise and everything good. Now I can't even make sense of tomorrow. All I know for sure is that my children and I are here. Left.
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I hate everything right now.
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The walking wounded
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That's a line in a Pearl Jam song that often comes into my head. When I see people who have been deeply affected by what happened with Joe, I hear in my head....the walking wounded.

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