Sunday, January 31, 2010

Stagnant

I feel like my life is stagnant right now. I am not getting over this loss though I try and move forward everyday. I am just at an impasse. Things that need to get done are moving at a snail’s pace and I am frustrated with everything. Life seems to be the same everyday and I am frustrated. I am sad and missing him and working hard to keep my children busy and distracted. Rinse and repeat. This is my life and nothing I do seems to change it.

I feel very boring. There is nothing new in my life except death. After three months this is old news to many – so I have nothing to talk about. My friend’s father wrote to me that I need to find others in my situation because my friends will soon move on to their own lives. I hope they are – moving on that is. I hope no one continues to feel like me – cause being me really sucks.

I spent yesterday at a bowling party with some of my favorite families. I tried not to think about it being a Saturday and just tried to enjoy my friends. I just kept looking around for my husband and thinking how much he would have loved the day. Being around people he cared for and could talk to and just enjoy laughing at the children attempting to bowl. It was fun on some level for me and utterly awful on another. Mostly I feel like maybe I am not ready to be social, but I force myself. I am not ready to smile and laugh but I force myself. I have a battle going on inside my head and it keeps me distracted from what is going on outside in the world.

My sister asked me last night if I am still angry. I said no. I stopped being angry a long time ago. The more I learn about depression – the less angry I am at my husband, but the angrier I get with myself.

For almost a year I saw my husband struggle, yet it never occurred to me he was depressed. I saw him stressed and upset, sad and angry and also happy. I thought it would get better. He never said he was depressed, but maybe he didn’t have to. He wasn’t the man I married for the last year, but there was a lot going on – and so much out of our control. I really and truly thought if we got our lives back on track he would be back to his old self. I never thought deeper and wider like I should have. I never really looked at him and asked myself what is really going on here? I never imagined he would kill himself - never, ever, ever. I never saw where his life was leading, where he was going and that maybe it wasn’t really his fault. So no, I am not angry. I am so upset with myself for not seeing what was right in front of me and doing something - anything.

Maybe this blog means I need therapy to start soon. My family thinks my once a month group is not enough. They have no idea how painful therapy is and I am truly grateful it is once a month. I am dreading going again and yet wondering what keen insight I will grasp this time around.

At night I still feel like my husband is just at work. I don’t know when this disbelief goes away. Every night still feels the same. No matter how many times I say it out loud, read the note, visit the cemetery - this just doesn’t ever seem real. I feel sometimes like I am forcing myself to accept what is reality and yet my brain and heart are conspiring against me, as they just refuse to let it in.

Like I said I am at an impasse – not moving forward and not looking back. Maybe I will tell the group at therapy about the turtle. Maybe they will kick me out for being insane and I won’t have to go anymore. That at least would be new.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Turtle

I woke this morning knowing I was going to the cemetery. I walked my son to school, only to discover it was snowing. I then drove my daughter to school and by then the snow was coming down even harder. I told myself to go anyway. I really wanted to see you and was trying not to be discouraged by the weather. By the time I got to the cemetery it was a blizzard. I could barely see in front of me with the amount of snow falling, but I persisted. I thought maybe I would drive right up to the grave instead of walking. I drove in but my wheels started to skid and slide. I stopped and turned back to the parking lot. The last thing I needed was to get stranded in the middle of a cemetery during a snow storm. That would just be my luck.

So I bundled up and walked in. I trudged through the snow slipping and sliding my way around. I thought at the very least I am entertainment for the ghosts, as I fell a few times and got soaking wet.

I found your grave and was relieved to see your name covered with snow. I knew it was there, but I didn’t have to see it right away. It was a peaceful sight with snow covering the ground and the graves. The gigantic, beautiful flakes that fell from the sky were just perfect. I find sometimes the need to visit your grave to make everything seem real. I still see your face and hear your voice so perfectly clear in my mind – it is impossible to imagine I will never see you again. Not in this life anyway.

I started talking to you. Well, I started complaining to you. About everything bothering me and stressing me out and then the crying started. I am sobbing very loudly and just can’t stop. I don't want to stop - I am trying to push every ounce of sadness out as tears fall from my face. I told you how impossible my life feels right now and how I just don’t know how I am supposed to do it all alone. How much I need you today and everyday and hate being on my own. I feel like I am lost in a swirling chasm of chaos and everyday feels like the same – one big mess. I am trying to just get through the day not hating everything. I am trying to get through the day being a good parent and taking care of everything that needs to be done. Some days it seems possible – some days it feels like the weight of the world is tearing me to shreds.

I cried for quite a while and talked more and more. About important things, about nonsense, whatever comes out. I was freezing and getter colder by the second, but I couldn’t leave. Sometimes I feel the cemetery has become my new hide out; a place where I can escape from the reality of all that encompasses me. No one can find me, no one can bother me and I can escape somewhere inside myself. I almost feel like time stops when I enter here and I can breathe again. But then I look around and my breath gets stolen, as another part of me just wants to run out. The reality is my dead husband is buried beneath my feet and it is an awful, gut-retching feeling.

It is a bizarre dichotomy of feelings – not wanting to leave and not wanting to ever have to be here in the first place.

I brushed the snow off your sign so I could see your name and left a hand print in the snow. I left rocks on your grave from our backyard, where you and I slaved over last summer and will now never appreciate. Maybe if I come enough times I can just transport our backyard to you.

Alas, eventually I left to face the life of the living and deal with whatever comes my way. It is inevitable. The snow was almost completely gone two hours later. It was like someone or something was trying to keep me from visiting you. Maybe it was you telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself – or maybe I am just reading too much into the weather.

Later today I took my four year old to the doctor for her shots. I felt very alone and sad as my strong girl screamed the entire time. Though I usually was the one to bring the children to all their doctor visits, I would always call my husband right after to give him the update. There was no one to call and it left me feeling very empty inside.

I promised my daughter a hot chocolate from Starbucks for being so brave. She and I sat on the couch; lounging and acting carefree when I asked her if she wanted to call her Nana. She said O.K. and she talked for a bit. As soon as I started to talk she said, Mommy get off the phone! I asked her why. I want to call daddy now, she said. I told my mother I had to go.

I looked at my daughter and asked her what she said again. I want to call daddy, she repeated. I was a little worried, so I said to her – you know honey that we can’t really talk to daddy. I know, she said, I just want to leave him a message. I wanted to laugh and then cry. I pondered the situation for a moment. I suggested we call the house and leave a message for ourselves. She loved that idea and so that is what we did. I feel like I am constantly grasping thin air trying to diffuse situations and sometimes, I just hope I am doing the right thing.

My six year old went on a field trip this week to an Environmental Center. I could not go and he was devastated of course. Many parents that did go made a point of telling me what a great time he had. I felt better. But many also told me about how this turtle seemed to stare at my son forever. It just kept looking at him and would not turn away from.

I thought about this all day. I remembered how much my husband loved turtles. When he was a child he owned two, named Myrtle and Gyrtle the turtles. I am convinced that my husband was inside the turtle that day, looking in wonder at our beautiful son.

I know this sounds crazy, but I really believe it to be true. Or maybe I am just reading too much into nature.

Monday, January 25, 2010

New Normal

I started reading some of my death books last night. I read one line which forced me to close the book and chuck it across the room. It said, “Suicide leaves the family with visions of doom enough to haunt them all the days of their life.”

Just fucking great. Like I needed a book to tell me that which I fear most. That I will never forget this and never get over this trauma. Not what I want to read. I think about all the other tragedies I have read or heard about in my life. I feel like people can go in two directions when the worst thing possible happens to them. They can fall apart and live in misery forever or they can look at what a wonderful life they can have, if they just try to move forward and work through the pain.

I want to be the latter. I don’t want to feel destroyed and miserable forever. I don’t want visions of doom to haunt me either. I want to work hard and make a better life for my children and myself and be the pillar of strength I never was. But just as I feel like I can be O.K. I have a vision of my husband or see a photo and hear his voice in my head - then my breath is knocked out of me and I am falling further from my strength than ever before. It is a winding roller coaster this thing called grief. These moments of strength come few and far between and I am grasping at them to keep from drowning.

I am trying to think about life in a different way. These past few months all I have focused on is how awful my new life is. This is not helping me at all. Today my sister and I talked about how my life is just a “new normal”. I kind of like this term. It doesn’t sound as depressing as how I have referred to my life previously. There is no before daddy died and after daddy died life – this is my new normal whether I like it or not, so I guess I better start embracing it.

I have yet to feel good about feeling the slightest bit happy. Every moment where I start to smile, every time I find myself laughing out loud, I want to chastise myself for having good moments. I feel like I should not be happy – not yet. But what am I waiting for? A sign from the grave to let me know it is time to laugh again. My marriage was filled with laughter – it was the foundation of our love. That is why it just feels so wrong to laugh without him. I think sometimes I just want it to happen naturally, to feel happy without immediately feeling regret. My emotions are all over the place and no longer controlled by me. I find I can be doing something fun with the children or my friends, then there is a little voice inside my head that yells at me – “Hey your husband killed himself and you couldn’t stop it – do you really think you should be laughing?”

Good times in my world – oh yes – good times.

Sometimes at night while waiting for the Ambien to kick in I look on-line at suicide websites. Last night I Googled “widows”. I found one site written by a woman who lost her husband after 33 years and she was giving advice to another woman who was complaining about losing her husband after 35 years. I thought they were lucky to have their husbands for such a long time. Their grief was real and sad, but their children were grown, their husbands died of natural causes and I was having a hard time feeling sympathy for them. I was married for seven years and am left with two small children. I guess someone else would find me lucky – but I haven’t met them yet.

This widow’s website gave advice on ways to keep you happy and distracted from your grief. She said to take walks in the rain and blow bubbles – um well today I walked in the pouring rain as I took my cranky children to school and there was nothing enjoyable, fun or happy about it.

Maybe it was because I forgot the bubbles.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Reds

I didn’t cry once today. Probably because yesterday all I did was cry, scream and have my own melt downs. Yesterday was one of those awful days that I hope the children won’t remember and I try to push far from my mind.

We had an early morning appointment and the children were not listening before we even left the house. They were cranky, fighting and needy and I was just out of patience. I promised to take them to McDonalds and though they were misbehaving – I still went. We walked in and before I was even on line to order one was running away while the other was flinging himself onto a chair and spinning around. I asked them to come back to me and no one even acknowledged me in the slightest. I said if you don’t come back now we are leaving – nothing. So I did what any insane mother of two children who lost her husband to suicide 13 weeks ago would have done. I dragged them both by their coats kicking and screaming out the door while every single person in the place glared at me.

I sat them on the stoop outside and reprimanded their bad behavior. They didn’t hear a word I said over their wailing. I realized at that moment they weren’t being so horrible, but I have a tendency to over react when they don’t listen and I am really hypersensitive to every little thing these days. I calmed down, got them to stop crying and we walked back in to try again. Everyone was starring at me and in my mind I was daring someone to say something out loud. I had the words rehearsed to anyone who dared to question my parenting. Fortunately for them, no one said a word to me. The kids ate and played and then we went home so I could cry and cry and get all my stress and anxiety out. It was a Saturday – I should have expected this all along.

There was a light at the end of tunnel for me though. Last night my three college roommates and I went into Manhattan for dinner. An event that is a rare treat as one of the girls lives in Australia. We are all redheads and have been friends over 20 years. I have lived with some of these girls almost as long as I lived with my husband. No one in the world knows me better and it lifts my heart just to be in the same room as the three of them.

We are also extremely bad influences on each other – but really, in a good way. When we are together no one in the world exists, as we are immediately transformed back into our younger selves trying to take over the world – one drink at a time.

We spent the night laughing like we can’t with any other, reminiscing about stuff we can only talk about between the three of us and making a scene like there is no one else around. We love to take pictures of the four of us together – to document our time out. We had an entire photo shoot at the bar making complete strangers take photo after photo of us and then changing positions, fixing our hair and lip glossing our way through it all. It would be embarrassing on a normal night – but when we are together there is nothing but us. Every problem is gone, every stressful situation and worry is out the window and we are just the REDS.

These girls have seen me at my worst and have been there for me every step of the way. They have come to my house over the last few weeks where we have sat and cried and talked. Tonight it was a relief not to talk about my dead husband. It was wondrous to be transported away from all my sorrow and misery even if it was for just a few hours. To remember for a moment who I was a long time ago; to remind myself that I used to be a normal person with a normal life. Even though now everything is just totally fucked up – I have friends who can bring me back to where I started. Maybe someday I will see her again on a regular basis, as I feel like that girl is long gone - but for one night it was fun to pretend to be me again.

As I sat with them at the dinner table I was a little bit sad. I have been a bridesmaid at each of their weddings and they at mine. They are all married with children now and we are all very different from our younger days; well maybe not so different. We just have more responsibilities and concealer. But it is hard to think of starting my life over again when everyone around me is just settling into theirs. It is hard to think about the future stretching ahead of me. I didn’t want this challenge of starting fresh. I was very happy being married and raising my family and living the life I had 13 weeks ago.

Today I made amends with my children and we played all day long; board games and dress up – we just played. I need to remind myself that though a lot has changed in my life, many things have not. My children still love me and need me to care for them and make their lives fun and enjoyable. All my friends new and old are here for me, love me and want the best for me.

I have no choice now but to embrace this life and make the most of it - for better or for worse.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Underdog

My six year old cried himself to sleep tonight. This time it is my fault. He wasn’t listening to me and was talking back, so I took away his flashlight and wouldn’t let him read books in bed. He went hysterical and had a melt down, the likes of which I have not seen in years. I feel terrible beyond belief and almost gave in – but I held onto my convictions and just let him cry till he passed out. This is the first night he went to bed without telling me he loves me – it was painful.

This single mom parenting is so difficult at times. There is just no way around it. I feel like right after my husband died I gave into their every whim. I didn’t punish and didn’t yell – they have truly been taking advantage of the situation. I have started to pull in the reins so to speak and insist they abide by house rules and at the very least stop yelling and speaking snotty to me.

I miss my husband tonight because I feel like I am the underdog when I deal with the children. I am out numbered on a daily basis and there is no one else to turn to when I need help dealing with a four and six year old. Forget the grieving for a moment, that our lives are completely turned upside down and that the future holds more questions than answers. Just dealing with our day to day lives is exhausting and stressful and difficult.

Just being a parent is an impossible, never ending, thankless job that my friends and I all deal with and share together. Being a parent has never been easy, but sometimes I just feel like I am failing miserably.

I wish my husband was here with me to share the highs and the lows. I am tired of missing him so much. I am sad being all alone and just wish he was alive. The children need a father and now he is gone and I am struggling daily about how to keep the children in a happy place in our home. I am trying to be a good mother and not sad all the time. It is exhausting being a parent, it is exhausting to grieve and mourn and it just feels overwhelming to be me.

Last night, however, my six year old son was a pillar of strength. At bedtime we started to pray to G-d and when it came time to say “please bless daddy in heaven” his face scrunched up and I thought it was going to be a tearful night so I stopped talking. He looked at me with his huge brown eyes and whispered, “Mommy, don’t stop talking, just keep praying.”

I started to cry a little and he just looked at me and said, “It is O.K. mommy – just keep praying.” I was amazed at his inner strength, he is so sad and yet he is building up a tolerance to the grief. I asked him if he wanted to talk about anything or cry about anything. He sighed and just said, “I can’t believe our first daddy died.”

I asked him what he meant about his first daddy. He just said, “I can’t believe the first man you married died!” I almost laughed out loud at the awful statement. I said, “No kidding, you are telling me!”

Then he asked, “Do you really have to kiss someone on the lips when you marry them?” I replied, yes and he made a gagging noise. Then thankfully the conversation spun itself into something completely different.

As I kissed him good night and left his room he said to me, “Mommy, I am still really sad that daddy died – goodnight I love you.” But there were no tears from him and none of the usual drama that can accompany nights like this. He is so strong and smart. He knows how to be sad and grieve without letting it get the better of him.

Some nights I idolize his strength. But nights like tonight I want to scream and cry right along side him and make this madness go away.

I wanted to go to the cemetery today, but I didn’t. My heart was tugging at me all morning and after a short fight with the car, that seemed to try and take me there – I just didn’t go. I had a choice this morning – to go to your grave and cry and cry and cry or get caught up in my life. Today life won.

I know I should not let bad times like this get to me. I must remind myself that sometimes all I need is a good nights sleep to make the sadness not feel so sad and embrace the children’s crazy behavior. They are after all just little kids thrown into a big fat mess. I am trying to see the good in the world, regardless of the blackness that follows me.

I wish I could just fast forward these next few months. I want to envision the children and I in a happier time and place. Where there isn’t any yelling and crying and the sadness is at a minimum. I don’t think I am asking too much.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Just Horrible

I have been putting this post off for days now as I hate to upset people. But then I remember that this blog is supposed to help me get things out of my system – so here it goes.

Maybe because I am on day four of being home alone with sick children – maybe because we are smack in the middle of winter – maybe just because – but there are awful images in my mind that just will not go away.

I could be washing my hands in the sink or walking up the stairs; just being in some random mundane moment that allows my mind to wander even for an instance and I see your face.

Let me be more specific and more horrific, as is the case with me.

I think about the day I walked into the house and found your note. I think about how I ran to the garage calling your cell phone, begging you to pick up. How I heard the motor running inside and started to throw myself into the metal door crying and screaming your name, while simultaneously speaking to the 911 operator trying not to sound like a lunatic. But I was utterly and completely insane.

I am so haunted by this day that I don’t think I will ever, ever forget it. Maybe the pain of losing you will someday subside – slowly ever so slowly. But that day and everything I experienced – it is so truly horribly X-rated that I feel like I am scarred for life. This is coming from someone who can’t watch commercials for scary movies. Yet I feel like I have lived the scariest and worst thing I could ever witness in a movie first hand, real life and all.

I find myself constantly thinking about how I threw myself against the garage door until some random strangers came and pried the door open. I saw you lying there and ran in without another thought and pulled you out onto the sidewalk – someone must have helped me, I don’t remember. Then I was lying on your body screaming your name, and though I have taken CPR and know all about First Aid – I did none of this. I just clawed at your shirt screaming don’t be dead over and over – then someone pushed me out of the way to start mouth to mouth - I didn’t know who. Not until he knocked on my door a week later to tell me how sorry he was that he failed you.

My beautiful amazing friend was there with me – moments after I pulled you out and I just remember her gripping me in her arms as she and I lay on the wet rainy sidewalk. She held me so hard it helped me focus on her and not the utter madness we were witnessing. She said lets pray and I know she said something meaningful but all I remember is whispering then screaming, “don’t be dead please g-d please don’t be dead” till I couldn’t see or talk anymore. I was crawling on the ground back and forth wanting to see what was happening to you and then just wanting to get so very far away. Then the ambulance came and the fire trucks and the police and all I remember are people standing around me as my friend and I lay on the wet ground sobbing and screaming and just praying that you would not be dead.

I don’t remember any more specifics – that moment blurs through my mind – just the crowd of people, the noise and lights and the ambulance workers taking you away. I really just recall my friend gripping me even tighter – keeping us both aware of the other so we didn’t have to be aware of anything else.

I am sorry that she was there with me to experience this terrible moment that haunts me and I know it haunts her too. She is just as sorry that I was there at all. This is the love of good friends – when you wish the other person didn’t have to experience the most awful of horrible moments.

I think about your face that day and just your body lying helpless on the ground and the images just don’t go away. Later that day I spent waiting in my kitchen for the police to come, to tell me what I already knew, that you didn’t make it. Sometime it feels like I was watching the entire event unfold from somewhere else. That it didn’t happen to me and though I saw it all, it didn’t happen to me. But these lasting, haunting memories that follow me where ever I go are a reminder that I did live through this, that it is real – every single moment happened and I can't stop thinking about that day - I just can't.

I don’t think any amount of therapy can erase what is burned into my mind. Sometimes I think maybe I want a vampire to glamour me or a magician to hypnotize me to make me forget what I lived through. Because I hate the things I see when I close my eyes and then when I open them – they are still there.

Maybe this is what the doctor meant when he said I might have post traumatic stress. Maybe I just need to get out of the freaking house, breath some fresh air and push forward like I do everyday and really hope that this all will just somehow go away.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

24

It is amazing to me how one bad night can make the world seem so bleak. Maybe it is the rain. Maybe it is an ear infection that kept my six year old up and screaming all night. I can’t decide.

Today I feel a million years old and unable to focus on anything. I am feeling the enormous pressure of being a single mom and the helplessness that comes with the job. I could not even run to the pharmacy without calling someone for help. Thankfully my wonderful neighbor was home to sit with the kids for ten minutes so I could go alone. But before I called her I was panicking. Do I really have to get the kids dressed and bring them out, sick and miserable, to make a two minute errand? I feel incredibly frustrated that I must rely on so many these days. I am used to being able to deal with my own problems on my own and now I just can’t. How am I supposed to do anything at all by myself? How can I possible raise my two children properly all alone and expect that we will all be just fine – I just don’t know.

Tonight I am so tired that the weight of the world feels heavier than usual. Everything looming ahead of me seems impossible and scary and awful. I am feeling sorry for myself again and I blame it on the lack of sleep. But still, I am missing my husband and really could have used his help last night and he was nowhere to be found – just gone!

More importantly I don’t know what to do about 24. Jack Bauer and I have come a long way together and my husband was the only man who got between us. It was the one and only show my husband and I could agree to watch together. Otherwise he was knee deep in politics while I am totally into vampires – but 24 brought us together.

Tonight is the premier and I am taping it as I don’t know if I can actually watch it. I want to but feel like I will be looking over at the empty seat on the couch wondering if ghosts can watch television with me – and really just missing him even more.

I know this sounds absurd – but in my world it seems easier to obsess on the most ridiculous than focus on what is really going on. I can’t believe my husband killed himself without knowing what was going to happen to Jack. If anything would have kept him going – I truly thought this would. He used to pretend that Jack was giving him secret messages through the TV and that he was a secret agent. I know if you knew my husband you would understand – he only wanted to be Jack Bauer. So tonight I must decide; do I honor my husband’s memory and watch alone or do I erase the past and leave 24 with everything else that causes me sorrow and grief.

I should probably not even dwell on this tonight and try and catch up on sleep. But as is the case with me on most nights – despite how utterly exhausted I am – sleep will elude me until much much later.

I can only hope that we all sleep through the night and tomorrow is a better day. Maybe I will just go to bed and start reading the many books of mourning that lie untouched waiting for me to start the healing process. Books like “Why Me G-d, a Jewish guide for Coping with Suffering” or “The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning” or “How do we tell the Children?” or “Remember my Soul.”

On second thought – Jack Bauer is starting to look better and better to me . . .

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Three Months

Today is three months that you are dead. I know we are all thinking about it. I know because everyone I called today the first thing they asked me was, “are you O.K.?” My answer, “I am fine.”

Your dad had a small stroke yesterday and I am worried. He is in the hospital in Florida and I feel helpless. I need him to get better soon for so many different reasons. Mostly I want him to get better for him; I also need him to get better for this family. I don’t think any of us – my brother-in-law and I - can take any more stress right now. We have more than we can handle as it is.

Last night I talked to my father-in-law’s new wife. She called to update me on his condition. My first thought as I got off the phone was I needed to call my husband to let him know what I learned. My second thought took my breath away. Still after three months I go to call, forgetting for the briefest of moments that he is gone. It still just doesn’t feel real, not his death, not his absence, not this life that I am living.

I took the children ice skating today. I feel the need to do something every Saturday to make the day seem not so awful. I tried not to look at the clock all day. I tried not to have an anxiety attack when four o’clock came round. I try not to think about the day you died and how nothing has been the same since. I am trying.

I have been thinking about therapy a lot. Trying to get a handle on what I heard people say and how I feel. One man, who lost his wife and found her body, told the group that he is haunted by her face the day she died. I too share this feeling of being haunted. I try not to think about this moment – but it comes to me every Saturday no matter how hard I try.

Today I read your note again. I read it sometimes to make these feelings seem real. Today I realized how matter of fact the note is and how sure you are that you made the right decision. I have been so angry over these past three months. Angry that you left your three children and I to battle lifelong demons and despair. I realized today after reading your note again that you really didn’t mean to cause us pain. Deep, deep down in your soul you thought you were doing the right thing and you thought we would be better off.

My anger seems to dissipate over time. I don’t blame you for your actions. I am trying not to blame myself. Everyone in my therapy group feels responsible for their lost loved ones. Everyone feels like they should have known what was coming and not a single person did. We discussed how when a person says they want to kill themselves, it is a cry for help, they want to be stopped. The people who actually commit suicide without any forewarning – they were the ones who made up their minds to do it and nothing was going to prevent it.

Does this make me feel better – no not really. Does this make me feel less responsible – not yet. Over time I feel like I will eventually put to rest my own demons, but right now they sit bedside me, lingering for a while.

I look forward to a Saturday when my first thought is not - today you died. I wonder how long I have to wait. Three months have gone by and there is still so much unsettled in my life and the children. Three months and there are still monsters in their closets and monsters in my head.

Three months is such a short span of time and yet it feels like you have been gone for a long, long time. You have just missed so much life in three months. I wish you were here every single moment of every single day. A part of me is scared and sad for wanting that to go away. But it is painful – wanting you around. It is an awful dichotomy of feelings enslaved inside me.

I will miss you forever and love you forever – but the pain – I want it to go away forever too.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Therapy

This has been another rough week. I am a mess. I cried all week no matter what I was doing. Making breakfast, taking the children to school, brushing my teeth - it didn’t matter. Salty tears marked my face and no amount of make-up could hide my grief. I seriously challenged my waterproof mascara and it lost.

I have not been getting enough sleep and wake up not ready to face anything. My children are not happy and I realize it is mostly my fault. If I am stressed and cranky they are doubly so. I am my own worst enemy this week and it sucks. It is very hard to reel your emotions in when dealing with small children. I tried not to lose my temper and let my stress and sadness get the better of me. It is hard to be everything to everyone and still maintain some semblance of yourself.

Wednesday morning was the worst. I cried and cried out of frustration, anger and annoyance with myself. I am just stressed and sometimes even the simplest things seem so impossible these days.

Driving home from New Jersey to start the second half of my crazy day, I remembered that group therapy started tonight. I really did not want to go. No really. But it only meets once a month and I didn’t think I could take another month just on my own. Not if the days are going to be like today. I really wanted to wait till February – but I realized I owe it to my children and myself to take a different route than the one I am currently on. I called one of my friends who was more than willing to come over and put my children to bed.

I left the house with enormous knots in my stomach. I was worried about the children being without me at bedtime. I was worried about so many things. I tried not to think about where I was going. I was so nervous; I really thought I was going to throw up on the subway. Walking in Manhattan was upsetting to me. At 6:30 p.m. everyone is going to dinner or meeting for drinks. Everyone but me. I kept thinking that none of these people are going to a strange room to talk about their dead husband. Just me.

I didn’t want to go, but I went. I wanted to walk into a bar and do shots. I wanted to do anything but where I was headed. I pushed myself and walked in. I almost walked out. I didn’t. I learned that the rules of therapy are like Vegas. What is said in therapy stays in therapy. I very much respect these rules, so I will just talk about me.

This group is only for people who have lost loved ones to suicide. Some have lost close relatives, some spouses and some lost children. As we went around the room saying our names and who we lost, I was already crying. I said my name, that I lost my husband 11 weeks ago and that I cry a lot. That was all I said for a long time. I just listened to everyone else. It was almost as painful to listen than it was to speak. It was very difficult listening to the parents who lost children to suicide. I have decided that is the worst thing ever. Losing a spouse is awful of course, but a child, there are just no words.

I didn't expect to be so unnerved by everyone else’s stories. I think I was so consumed by my own grief and anxiety, that I never even thought about what brought other people to the room that night. I just never once thought about anyone but me. This small room full of sorrow and despair put me in my place. I am not the only one.

It was awkward and awful listening to other people’s pain. The words and feelings pouring from the group scared me. Everything they all said I have thought and written about as well. It is oddly comforting to know that I am not crazy or depressed. That every emotion I feel is being shared collectively in this room. Just to hear another person say out loud my worst fears and my guilt and anguish makes it seem more real but possibly more manageable. I never expected to feel connected to a complete group of strangers – it was very awful and very nice.

The moderator was very helpful. I didn’t talk for a while as I didn’t know what to say or where to begin. After a while he started asking me questions. Then others started asking me things. It was easier to talk when I had a direction. Then of course I would just cry.

Sitting there listening and talking may have been one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It was almost harder to hear other people talk about their pain and misery. I have been living with these feeling for almost three months now and I am saddened that other people feel like me. It is just unbelievably painful.

They all said it doesn't get any easier and this bothers me. I think it would have been nice to hear something positive. I don’t know what I was expecting as it is a freaking suicide group. I guess I can’t expect miracles right away.

I left quickly, totally exhausted and anxious to get some fresh air and home to my children. I didn’t look at strangers on the street and think how no one else feels my pain or is grieving like me. I didn’t feel sorry for myself at all. I felt more connected to the world than I have in a long time. I have seen the faces of others who deal with their pain day by day. I don’t feel so alone.

I am just truly thankful this group is only once a month.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Don't Think

There are things I try really hard not to think about. Then there will be days like today, when I am consumed with all the memories and ideas I have fought so hard to keep away.

Today all I see is your face when I found you. Then I see your casket as it was lowered into the ground. I think about how your little girl doesn’t have a daddy and how your youngest son will never have you for a soccer coach. I can’t stop wondering what your eldest son, father and brother must be going through. How people in the neighborhood are still mourning your loss and wondering how they missed the signs.

I just try not to think about how I must have failed you. How I missed every sign of your pain or dismissed it as nothing. Or maybe I was so wrapped up in my own life; I didn’t take a good long look at yours.

Deep, deep down, in the pit of my soul, I do blame myself. I know that I am not supposed to, but some days I just do. I try not to dwell on this feeling. I push it away and know that rationally it isn’t my fault. But there are moments when I just have to wonder how you hid your pain so well from me that I didn’t have a clue.

The only day I really saw you different was on your last day. The only day that I felt something was wrong was the day you died. I certainly never left the house thinking you were going to go kill yourself – but deep down I knew something was going on. I asked you if everything was alright and you said yes. But I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. I didn’t ask the right questions that day and I just didn’t know how wrong things really were.

Maybe if you had acted more like you did on that last day, I would have reacted differently. But everyday you were the same. You went to work, spent time with your children – you lived your life as I have always known.

I remember leaving the house thinking you were really distracted about something and as I went on my way I thought we would just talk later. I hate this feeling that gnaws away at me – this idea that I could have somehow changed the course of events if only I had done even one thing differently. It is an awful feeling.

I guess I could spend the rest of my life dealing with the “what ifs.” I know that I need to focus on the right now and not look back. But there are some days that I can’t get over what happened.

I think I just really miss you. I find myself at times still wandering around the house looking for reasons to make sense of this all. I found a bizarre website dedicated to suicide notes. I read them all trying to find some missing link that would give me better incite. It didn’t work. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between any of them. Nothing these random people wrote makes sense to me. Your note makes no sense to me.

I wonder how you did it sometimes. How you could have left us like you did. I just don’t want to believe it most days and pretend like it didn’t happen. I try very hard not to dwell on these feelings. Some days I just try not to think. It is just so awful and so sad and such a waste of your precious life. There is so much to live for – so many wonderful opportunities to enjoy. Your beautiful amazing three children are just enough for me – why couldn’t they be enough for you too?

I hate money and I hate everything that seems to make people crazy. There is just so much more to life than having money, yet it seems to be the driving force behind everything. I just couldn’t care less about materialistic things. I never did. Which is why it bothers me so that you couldn’t look past these inconsequential issues and see the bigger picture. How you couldn’t look into the future and think about your life in terms of your children and their future. How you could only see and focus on the right now. Your children were everything to you and you left them.

Maybe it is inevitable that I have these days and these conversations with myself about you. Suicide is not a normal ending to a life. It has left me with more questions than answers and more grey areas to ponder. How can I not feel somewhat to blame? How do I wake up everyday and not feel you chose the worst case scenario instead of just trying a little bit harder. Maybe if I had just pushed you to talk to me or been a better, more attentive wife, life would be different today. How can I not wonder what might have been. This was not how you were supposed to die.

Everyday I try and focus on the future and what is most important for my children and me. I am trying to make the right choices and the right decisions to give us a better life than what we have right now. Sometime though, I can’t even decide what socks to wear – how I am making important life decisions is almost a joke.

Every few days or so I fall backwards into time and wish it wasn’t so. Maybe this is what I will learn in therapy – that I am not the only one with regrets. Maybe when I finally get myself there it will help me come to peace with all that has happened. Or maybe it will just teach me how not think even more.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Table

I will never forget the day I had to tell my children their daddy was dead. I sat them down at our kitchen table, loaded them up with their favorite dunkin’ donuts and told them the news. This was all I kept thinking about tonight at dinner. It is hard to sit and watch them eat while horrible memories swirl around me at this table.

Tonight at bedtime my six year old was crying again about daddy. Every night when we say our evening prayers we pray to everyone in our family and then end with, “Dear G-d, please bless daddy in heaven.” I hold my breath every time we say it as I am never sure how he will react. Some nights he lets it slide and we go on to our snuggling. Most nights though, he starts to cry. He wanted to know if he would see daddy when he got to heaven and I said yes. He then asked, what if daddy dies in heaven before he gets to see him. I told him once you are in heaven - you are just there.

He is upset that daddy never got the chance to see his magic tricks. He told me he wants to bring his box of magic with him to heaven. I told him O.K. He asked me how he will know when he is going to die to bring it with him. I just want to vomit. I hate when he talks about going to heaven. It is painful and awful and it hurts. So I just tell him that he would not be going to heaven for a long, long time. But someday when he is an old man, I bet G-d will have a box of magic waiting for him. This did not really help his tears as they still fell from his face and I just lay with him snuggling as he cried on and on about how much he missed his daddy.

Last night went better as my father and step-mother were staying with us and I think the company helps distract him. He just kept saying tonight that it is hard that there are only three people who live in this house now. I just nod my head because I am trying so desperately not to get upset. Afraid if I speak anymore I will just cry too.

We had such a busy weekend and all of it was fun, good stuff. Yet I am just miserable. I can’t find my happy place anymore. I feel like I am racing from one event to the other, only thinking about where I have to go next. I can’t seem to be just "in the moment" and relax. I find this depressing. Then I wonder if I am depressed or if this is just part of the grieving process. I try so hard to appreciate my life and my children, family and friends. I am just not succeeding.

I don’t think I was good company for my dad and stepmother this weekend. I am just not myself and can’t seem to carry on a normal conversation or focus on what is right in front of me.

I went out last night with a group of girlfriends. As I sat in the cozy wine bar I just kept thinking about the fact that it is another Saturday. 11 weeks now since you have been gone. I drank some wine and had a smile on my face, but I am not the same person I was 11 weeks ago. I wonder if everyone can tell by looking at me how I really feel. I am trying to act normal, but just feel like I am not normal and don’t think I will ever be the fun-loving good times girl I once was.

I am going to get everyone therapy. I was fooling myself when I thought we didn’t need it. I thought the children and I would be able to deal with our problems on our own. But I realize that we can’t and probably shouldn’t. I don’t really know any details yet, but I am going to try. I will see how it plays out over the next few weeks. By February I should have us all in something and hope it helps. At this point it certainly can’t make things worse.

I am going to try and be a better parent this week. I failed miserably last week and feel awful about everything. Maybe I will start by getting a table cloth and just try and hide any bad memories under the rug so to speak.

Friday, January 8, 2010

No Stopping

I am too tired to cry. I want to but I am just utterly exhausted from this week. I feel like I started out Monday on a race course and I don’t see the end in sight. It has just been a long freaking week.

I am a little proud of myself for all that I accomplished this week. My multi-tasking has hit an all time high. I scrub the shower while I wash my hair, I brush my teeth and fold laundry and eat dinner while I blog. There just isn’t down time – not now and not ever.

I am not happy that I have rushed my children through this endlessly long week. There was very little fun and barely any laughs or smiles from any of us. I have not enjoyed this week at all and their childhood has been pushed aside for things that must be done. I have more respect for my working friends than ever before and more so for any single moms I know. Ladies – I don’t know how you all did it without bitching and moaning like I am now.

I have a night stand full of books I never get to read. They are either Jewish books of mourning that people send me or give me or vampire books that I look at every night before I fall into the abyss of my bed – for an hour or two. I have so many shows saved on my DVR that I can’t watch and a boot leg of New Moon calling to me – but I have no time for relaxing – those days are far far over.

This weekend does not look any easier as far as I can tell. I have birthday parties and ballet and family coming to visit. The non-stop world I now live in is not giving me a break.

Would this be the life my husband wished upon me? I don’t think so. I don’t even blame him for the mad mad world I now embrace. Most of my life is very much the same – there is just more work, more planning and more sadness added to the mix. I haven’t had time to mourn him this week – expect for my brief visit to him on Tuesday – I haven’t had time to think about our life together and what has happened. Are these distractions a blessing? I am still not sure.

I seem to think about him here and there and then I realize I am going to cry hysterically and just stop myself. There is no room for sorrow right now. I must just keep going.

I am thinking about thinking about going to therapy next month. My friend found a group that meets once a month – “woman whose husband’s have committed suicide”. I guess that would be me. Though when I think about group therapy all I picture is “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and I worry about who is going to be there. I picture all the crazy people talking to invisible pets and yelling out curses and all the insane people who seek out group therapy. Then I think about “Fight Club” and all the people who join group therapy just for the thrill. Maybe I am looking for reasons not to go. Maybe I will fit in perfectly to a motley group of woman who have lost everything and need to vent.

I think mostly I am afraid of sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers and then I will start to cry and not be able to stop. I have never been good at first impressions and don’t see me starting now.

I am too tired to write – I feel like my thoughts are all over the place this evening and I must stop. I don’t feel inspired like I have in the past.

Let me sum up – I miss my husband so much I can’t breathe. I feel like a crappie mother and my house is a disaster.

I pray for a better way to live. I pray that all that haunts me soon has some closure and I pray that my children sleep till 8 a.m.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Your Name

I woke up this morning and took my two children to school. I got into the car and it just started driving to you. I don’t know what possessed me, but I was on a mission. I blasted my ipod in the car as I was trying to drown out the thoughts in my head. I tried to sing along to distract me, otherwise I would just think about where the car was taking me. I drove like a mad woman. I was honking, swerving around cars and yelling at every idiot driver on the road. I just could not get to you fast enough this morning.

The last time I visited the cemetery your grave was barely filled in with dirt and there was no sign indicating where you were. I called a while back and complained that your grave looked terrible. I had totally forgotten that I had even done this until today.

I walked into the cold, dreary and desolate cemetery and started talking to myself. I always look at all the graves as I meander through and notice there are a lot of couples buried together. It is a very, very old Jewish cemetery and all the graves are mashed up and on top of one another. I always picture these old Jewish men and woman sitting around the cemetery waiting for someone to visit them. I feel like they are watching me as I walk past their tombs, head down, hurrying along.

“Look”, they would say to each other, “There’s that girl again. Poor child, look how sad and alone she looks. Doesn’t she have anything better to do than to come here?” I have this whole show in my head about all these dead people talking to me and about me as I walk toward your grave. I guess sometimes it is easier for me to live in my own made up world inside this cemetery, then to think that I am here to visit my husband.

I always get lost in here. This has become a running joke to me. I feel like you would be laughing, if you saw me each and every time standing at the cross roads. Sadness to the right and misery to the left – which way do I go? I need GPS to work my way around here.

When I do get to your grave I notice that they have filled in the dirt and it looks much better. Then I see the marker sticking out of it with your name and the day that you died. I open my mouth to say hello and the hysterical sobs just come pouring out instead. I am leaning against a very tall tombstone crying and crying and crying. I can’t breathe and I am shivering and freezing and crying hysterical.

I didn’t realize the impact of seeing your name stuck in a pile of dirt could affect me so horribly. It just destroyed me.

I am struck by how absolutely horrible this is. How awful my situation is. How really terrible it is that you killed yourself and now you are dead. I just can’t believe you are in this pile of frozen dirt and I just cry and cry and cry some more. I forgot my tissues in my haste to get to you and I am wiping my nose on my scarf – gross I know – but I was desperate.

I look around and wonder what your neighbors must think of me – that your crazy sad wife is here again and she is hysterical again. I decide since I can’t stop crying, I will just talk through my tears. I tell you whatever random thoughts pop into my head and I know I am not making any sense. Then again, standing in a grave talking to my dead husband – what could possibly make sense ever again.

I tell you that I have forgiven you and hope and pray that G-d has too. I tell you about your children and that I am so sorry and miss you so much. I can’t really talk to you like I did the visit before. I am just starring at the sign with your name on it and all I keep thinking is, this isn’t real. I am so annoyed with myself for calling the cemetery and complaining. I want to take the sign and throw it away. Visiting your grave is hard enough. Seeing your name on a plastic sign is just horrible beyond belief.

I am thinking about how one day I have to get you a headstone. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can even think of words appropriate to put on a slab of marble that can tell the world how much I love you and how much you are missed. Nothing carved in stone can relay these feelings – I don’t even see the point.

I am still crying and now I am really really cold. It is 9:30 in the morning and I am numb. I head back to the car now much slower than before. I start to drive home much much slower. I am more respectful of my life now and not in a rush to go anywhere or do anything. I am just driving and crying and trying to collect myself.

As the day progresses and I immerse myself in normal life I start to feel a little better. It is sometimes easiest to not think about where you are and what has happened. It is easier to just take deep breaths and move forward with the day and with my life.

Your four year old daughter started a sentence today with, “Remember when daddy was alive and he used to meet us at the park to play?” I just kept thinking that no sentence should ever start this way. Even though she speaks without tears or remorse there is a little sadness in her eyes and my heart is just breaking.

Tomorrow when I wake up and get the kids to school I will go off to work. I will not let the car take me anywhere I don’t want to go – unless it involves strong coffee and donuts . . .

Monday, January 4, 2010

Not Funny

I tackled the GWB today. I figured if I am going to spend a lot of time with this bridge, I really need to get over it soon. It was the hearse that seemed to follow me all the way home from New Jersey that really pushed me over the edge. I am wondering if you are sending me bizarre messages from the grave. Trying in your own sick sense of humor to tell me that you are around, watching over me and protecting me.

I have a better idea honey – send me mysterious flowers or make me trip over something while a Led Zeppelin song comes on. Hearses following me home for over 30 minutes – so not funny!

Overall I think the day went well. I didn’t get fired and I didn’t get lost. I was able to pick up my son from school, while a friend picked up my daughter. Another friend had pizza delivered to my door so I wouldn’t have to cook tonight. I received a lot of encouraging texts from my fab five. I have really really awesome friends!

The only thing I kept thinking today was, OK I got through this day – what about tomorrow? I know I really can’t think about tomorrow in this way. I have to look forward positively and joyously and believe tomorrow may bring a great many things.

It is amazing to me that I spent all day missing my children, all day thinking about them and hoping they were OK on the their first day back. Then when we finally get to sit down to a family dinner they are yelling and fight about silly things. They won’t eat their vegetable and only want ice cream and I am wondering if I can start sending them to school for 24 hours.

I am exhausted and am missing my husband tonight. I still every once in a while go to pick up the telephone to tell him something. I do this in a very absent minded way. I never actually get to phone as I seem to catch myself as I am looking for it and then I realize I can’t call you. It is very upsetting to me when this happens. For a split second I have forgotten you are gone and then I am reminded painfully that I will never hear your voice again. Will never hear your reassuring voice and will never be able to share how wonderfully annoying our children are these days!

I still have not had any dreams about you. Maybe the Ambien is a dream blocker. Maybe you are just too busy to come visit. I keep seeing signs in the world and think maybe it is you. There was a Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve - for anyone who knows me – they know how significant this is for me. I thought this truly must be a sign from you. You somehow wanted to share this night with me and this was your only way.

Maybe I am going crazy and just really looking for some sort of connection to you as time moves on. I am really feeling like I want to visit you again but the fact is I am such a woose. The idea of standing in a cemetery freezing my ass off crying and chatting with you – well we’ll see.

I wonder if I will ever be able to take the children to see you. If I will ever have the strength to bring them. Not until they are much older of course – maybe they won’t want to go. Maybe it will just be my thing that you and I do alone.

I miss you and your really bad sense of humor. I need a good laugh right about now. I wish you were here tonight to make me laugh. But if you are watching and you have an inkling of what I am going through – no more hearses please. Anything but that . . .

Sunday, January 3, 2010

New Life

My new life starts tomorrow and all I want to do is vomit. I am so sad and missing you today and I am so resentful too.

Tomorrow will probably be hard for a lot of people I know. Tomorrow school starts after a long winter break. Tomorrow my glamorous, luxurious life as a stay at home mom comes to an abrupt halt. I start a new job in New Jersey and I am terrified. Not of the job per se but being so far away from my children. It gives me anxiety.

I am putting my four year old in school for a longer day and have all kinds of back of plans if I am late to pick up my son. I have a laundry list of changes that will occur tomorrow and I can’t breathe. I must now rely on my friends more than ever and I feel bad. I feel frustrated that I must ask so much of others when I was once so independent and able to handle my life and my children on my own.

Forget about the millions of other items I must care for on my own – I feel like I have more pressure on my shoulders than any one person can handle. I am trying to figure it all out and yet just when I think I am doing OK, I realize that I still just want to sit in the dark and cry and miss you and not do a dam thing!

I have this house to worry about, bills to pay and a budget to sort through. Dinner and laundry and a home that looks like a wreaking ball went through it. I don’t know where to start and where to find the time to even think about doing something. At the end of each day my children are still crying for their dead daddy and are having nightmares and I just lie in bed unable to sleep and weep for us all.

Sometimes I think there isn’t even time to grieve. Maybe this is a good thing. I am just too freaking busy. I know I said I would look into therapy for my children and myself. I can’t even keep up with the day to day life that I wonder when I am supposed to squeeze therapy in for us all. I have to get the children their 2nd dose of swine flu and I have no idea how long it has been. My almost 4 and half year old never got her four year check-up. I am so annoyed with myself. This used to be things I was on top of and now I just can’t keep track or keep up.

This crazy I life I lead would be so much better if my husband were still alive. I need his help so much and he isn’t here and I just can’t stop crying. I am so tired and I can’t sleep and I am so stressed out that I just feel stuck. I know deep down I have the strength to do this – I just need to focus and not let every little thing drive me crazy. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed about being a single mom it is a terrifying thought – that for now and forever it is just me me me.

It doesn’t matter how much help I have or who is there for me – nothing matters when the one person who was supposed to be here with me day in and day out – to help with all the minutia of life is just gone.

Well I have to stop feeling sorry for myself. I must be strong for my children and myself and look at change being a good thing. My new life will better – it just has to.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Movies

I thought somehow my first post of the New Year would be more positive and uplifting. I am kidding myself if I think something as inconsequential as a change in the calendar is really going to alter anything in my life so quickly.

I woke up this morning and decided to take the children to the movies. After spending yesterday in the house, I thought we needed to get out and do something.I tried not to think about the Saturday that occurred ten weeks ago. I tried not to think about it – but all I did was think about it.

Ten weeks ago today was a rainy, yucky day. We ran out of the house so we wouldn’t miss the movie and said a quick goodbye to you. You were supposed to be going to work shortly after we left. Instead you wrote me a note, left the house and killed yourself.

I tried not to think about that day. How the line at the movie theatre was so long I thought for sure we would never get in on time and I almost left. How much I wish I had just come straight home. Maybe I would have found you in time to save you. I really try and not think about this a lot.

I unsuccessfully tried to get the children to go to a different theater, but they said no. So off we went today to the movies. I really didn’t think I would ever go to the movies again. But on a cold Saturday with nothing else to do and the winter break feeling like years, I thought maybe I can do this again. I tried to think of ways to make this experience different. I ended up doing everything almost the same.

I sat in the theatre with the children eating a large popcorn all by myself out of stress and tried to focus on everything but what happened ten weeks ago. Of course the first preview was of the movie we saw that fateful day coming out on DVD and I almost threw up all the popcorn. The next image on the screen was a car commercial for your car – the one you killed yourself in. Now I am really dry heaving and wondering why you are torturing me. I have never ever seen a car commercial in the moves before and a part of me is thinking maybe this is your way of saying hello to me.

The movie begins finally but I am already crying. The children don’t notice as I am covering my sobs with fistfuls of popcorn and trying to calm myself down. I am trying to just get through this first movie experience without having a nervous breakdown and so far I blowing it.

I don’t remember the movie at all. I remember the children giggling and repeating funny lines and a lot of annoying squeaking from the chipmunks. That is it. Mostly I just sat there reliving the day you died over and over again and thought about how different life is for us all now.

We came home and I tried to get the children to go play. I needed a moment to myself to collect my thoughts. They never left my side all day. They just wanted to fight and scream and play and do it all on top of me. I let them help me make dinner instead of trying to get them to go away.

I feel like every Saturday at 4 pm my life unravels before me and I am left gasping for breath. It doesn’t seem to matter how many Saturdays go by and what I do differently on each and every one – the same thing happens every time.

I think about finding your note and then your body and I think about how much I lost on that day and I just can’t do anything but sob.

I miss you more than I did yesterday and will probably miss you even more tomorrow. I stayed up and watched the New Year come in. I can’t believe it is a New Year and you aren’t here. I just still can’t believe it. You were always so funny and so alive that it is very difficult and painful to realize that you are dead.

At bedtime tonight I asked your four year if she missed her daddy. She said, “No”. I asked her why not. She said, “Daddy is still here – he is just at work.” I didn’t say anything because the truth is sometimes I still believe this too.

Maybe next Saturday will be better. Maybe we will go bowling.