Another year without your voice

My dearest Tim,

Here it is, May 16th.  How is it even possible that its been two years since I heard your voice? I wrote about this last year in my post Reliving the trauma – a year without your voice, and so tonight I pulled up old videos, to do just that: to hear your voice.  It’s so good to hear it.   But hearing it reminds me how MUCH I miss it.  How much am I allowed to sit in that pain?  How much do I need to let go?  I tell anyone who asks me to let themselves simply feel what they are feeling.  Don’t rush, don’t try to force yourself to feel differently.  But that is advice that its so much harder to give myself.

I miss your voice, I miss your FACE, I miss your LAUGH.  I miss your big, lanky SELF.  I miss the way you (impossibly) tried to make yourself small.  If you had told me this was coming, and asked me what I would miss, all of that is obvious. All of that I could have predicted.  What I would not have known is how much I even miss the things about you that got on my nerves.  There are times now when I find myself seriously missing and longing for the things that drove me crazy in life.  That would surprise you even more than it surprises me!

How is it possible that I’ve had two trips around the sun since I last heard your voice? Since we last talked and joked with each other, and the nurses? Since they told me they would need to intubate soon?  Since you told me you were just so tired, and just wanted to sleep?  I do not know how it is possible, but here we are.

I spent some time thinking of this letter and the things I would want to tell you if I had just a few minutes to tell you things… the very very top is this:  Oh if you could see them, Tim!  The other day I said out loud to someone “my oldest was in Kindergarten when my husband died” and I saw the effect that had on them.. this person who knew I had three children… my OLDEST was in KINDERGARTEN.  I saw it, but it wasn’t something I had thought about before.  I thought about it tonight when I looked at videos with you and the kids. How YOUNG they were in the videos with you.  How evident your love for them is in each one. Goodness, Tim, how they’ve grown!  A has improved her speech, and is playing lacrosse and loving it! She can be a total jerk to her siblings, and as a fellow oldest child, you would have more sympathy and understanding for that than I do.  She is thoughtful, her attention to detail and memory is incredible.  She absolutely LOVES when we have visitors, she gets SO excited when we have guests.  She loves to have anyone and everyone come, and yet she is the one who thrives most on one-on-one attention.  She is the MOST looking forward to your baseball game next month!  R is in kindergarten now!  And the end of the year is approaching.  Two years ago, just before you got sick, A brought home a packet of Patriotic songs, for her June 13th patriotic performance.  All through the time you were in the hospital folks at the house sent me video of her practicing her songs.  Then the performance was two days after you died.  I went faithfully, but when they got to “My Country tis of thee” and Annabelle faltered on the line “land where my father died”… I LOST it.  Now, R is preparing for that same concert.  We shall see how it goes.   R is a goofball.  She is not serious like A.  She has a great sense of humor, just like her Dad.  Also like you, things tend to come easily to her, especially writing and math.  She FEELS BIG like you as well… which can be so beautiful, and can be so challenging!  D just potty-trained!  And he rocked it!  He also has a great sense of humor!   He’s less good about sleep.  But, I think he’s a genius.  I love to watch him play on his own and use his imagination.  You two would have so much fun playing together!  He absolutely LOVED the hockey game, and the basketball game this winter.  I think he will be addicted to sports like you.  And I think he’s going to be a leftie!  But even better, he has a kind soul.

I’d want to tell you about the disappointing things going on in our country and in the world… I’d want to hear your outrage – not because I want you to be upset, but because it always inspired me, and because I’d know there was one more white male in this country who GOT IT.   I’d want to tell you what has happened with me, with my work,  ask your advice, report on friends, with other family.. well, I’d want to tell you everything.  But you probably wouldn’t let me get to it if we were short on time.  All you’d want to hear would be our children. I wish you could see them now!  I like to believe you can.  I wish we could see you!   I guess I do.  I see so much of you in them every day.   No matter what, you live on in us.

All my love, always,

MaryBeth

Mothers Day 2019

I shared this on Facebook but later thought it important to capture here for the kids. This past weekend was Mother’s day weekend. I took off Friday. Specifically to do the three day potty training approach. Man did our guy rock it. Yes, it’s still a work in progress moving forward after this weekend, but he took to it better than I imagined! That was his Mother’s day gift to me ♥️ What more could I possibly ask for?! He and I had a really great day together Friday, I love learning more about his personality. He and the girls both brought home amazing homemade cards and gifts.

There are many emotions on Mother’s day. A hyped Hallmark holiday… and yet we want to be sure to send love to all the mothers or motherly in our lives♥️…and yet it is a day of many emotions, and difficult for many, either due to the loss of a mother, the loss of or longing for a child, or an estranged relationship… I was blessed with a wonderful mother, I was blessed that motherhood came to me relatively easily. And for these things I am sincerely grateful.
But mother’s day will also be forever the last weekend we were together, the Gaige party of five. I am grateful for the reason to have a card in his handwriting from that last weekend, with words I look at often when mothering seems more than I can handle. But I will never again be greeted or reassured on Mother’s day by the man who made me a mother. This heavy sadness of the day is unshakable. Yet I count my blessings, for they are many. What ever this holiday stirs in you, Happy Mother’s day to all my beautiful village. ♥️

Second Annual Tim Gaige Memorial Event

This year, we will again hold the Tim Gaige memorial sporting event in June at the Potomac Nationals stadium. Thanks so much to everyone who came out last year!  I love that the kids have a fun way to honor and remember Daddy while giving back!

This year’s game will be held at 6:35pm on Saturday June 8th, at G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium 7 County Complex Ct, Woodbridge, Virginia 22192. Potomac Nationals vs. Lynchburg Hillcats – It is Military Appreciation Night, to include Camo Hat giveaway! Fireworks! and Kids Run the Bases!

To read more about why I chose to benefit Together Rising, you can go to last year’s post.

The link to buy tickets is below, $20 each. This year $14 of your ticket will go directly to Together Rising to help people in need. You have to use our specific link for it to go to the fundraiser.

We will sit in the Grandstands on the first baseline. If we sell 100 tickets, we will get to throw out the first pitch! (Like Declan and Lucas did last year!)

To make it easier to spot me on arrival I plan to wear an orange tshirt because it was Tim’s favorite color! I would encourage you to wear orange too if you have it!

https://pn1.glitnirticketing.com/pnticket/web/gpcaptchaRC.php?ordersrc_id=200&gpid=284
password is: gaige

For those interested in donating to the cause, but who can not join us for the game:

https://app.mobilecause.com/vf/GAIGE

Gaige #partyofFive (one in utero) enjoying a Potomac Nationals game in May 2016

A reminder… They can feel it too

It was a rainy day but we were mainly on the go… It was a difficult day. I was close to murdering my children in Trader Joe’s when I ran into a former colleague who offered a play date if I needed a minute…. At first I said no… I’d never met his wife and short of work, really don’t know him very well. But I was thinking about wrangling a 6 and 2 year old in the pouring rain while big sis played lacrosse and said ok. I dropped the littles off for playing and lunch. They had a good time. I hate to feel like I’m accepting charity because of my situation… But I appreciated it.

This afternoon R fell asleep on the couch while I was preparing dinner. She woke up and just cried. I held her at the kitchen table for a long time. When prompted she agreed she had a bad dream. Eventually, without prompting she said “I miss Daddy.” Post-bath we talked and I agreed I miss him. She said she wished he could come back every week, and I said I wished he was just here all the time. She agreed but said “but if THAT’S not possible, I wish he could just come back once a week. But I know that can’t happen.” Then she looked up at me hopefully, exactly the way she does when she says “I wish I could have a sweet after dinner but I know I can’t…” {Eyes beg me to contradict.} When I thought she felt better, I went downstairs to get A and D… then heard her sobbing. She just cried “daddy!!” Big fresh weeping sobs like she just found out… Like it had just happened. She FEELS that one. I comforted her as best as I could… told her I wish I could offer some comforting words but I’m pretty sure she will always miss him… I tried without saying it to tell her that it’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to feel this sad.

This was out of character. I don’t truly know what triggered it. She never described “the bad dream…”

All I can think is that somehow she feels this time of year too, because she simply feels everything. It’s a good reminder to me. They can feel it too.

May

May came crashing in. I woke up thinking about the hospital time in a confusing wake up where it wasn’t clear where the dream stopped and the conscious thought began.

In some ways it was refreshing to wake up on my own like that. It’s rare. I usually awake suddenly right in the middle of a sleep cycle by one of my offspring calling for me or busting into my room.

I woke up thinking about the hospital time. And then I remembered it was May. Much like last year, all the thoughts are creeping in as the time of year approaches. As I mentioned in my post last year Pain, my body is readying to relive the trauma.

There is a part of me that wishes I could skip this part. Skip the pain …

Last night I went to the gym. Another rarity. I worked hard. At the end I felt like I was going to vomit. But I felt alive. So I’ll take it.

I remind myself what he wouldn’t give to be alive … To be here with me, with his children whom he adored. To take every chance to learn new things, to experience the world, to watch, to play, even to worry. And I know that even with all this pain, this grief, the struggles, I am so fortunate to be alive.

Last night a picture came up of the four of us (before D was born) standing at a farm in the fall in front of a field of sunflowers. I loved that photo. I think I made it my Facebook profile picture after it was taken. But as I looked at it last night on the screen I thought to myself, I never appreciated how perfect my life was. I don’t want to do that again. I’m not sure I can simply STOP worrying about the worry of the day, but I want to consciously appreciate.

Maybe my life isn’t “perfect” anymore with the love of my life dead, but here’s a thing: I can stop and think about how much he loved me and it still fills me up. It still takes my breath away. What a gift to have been loved like that. What a gift to love like that. Even if it ended tragically. That kind of Love is such a gift. And while the task of raising these three humans may seem monumental most of the time, and while I feel like I’m mostly screwing it up… The task is also a gift I need to fully appreciate.

I can be grateful. I can accept the suckiness. I can demand more. I can demand more of myself, and of life and of the world around me.

I can not skip the pain. Feeling the pain… is what it is to feel alive.

I have so much more to write, but for today, this is enough.

Here we go, May! Here I am. I am alive.

This is 6

After a big exhausting 6th birthday tea-party on Saturday, I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie with the girls.   Just completely exhausted.  That made the girls bedtime a blur… D was up a few times, but my sister got him, so I was able to sleep.  She even got up with him in the morning, so I woke up next to R, with a start. I realized I had to leave immediately or I’d miss my class at the gym, so I jumped up.  I was confused because I had just woken from a dream.

As I was getting ready and working out, it was a dream I couldn’t stop thinking about… Tim was in it.  Those happen less often these days, but I wonder if they will ramp up this April-May-June time automatically like they did last year.  In this dream, I can’t remember hearing his voice, but I remember him leaning against the kitchen counter, larger than life, as always.  I remember that my dear friend, and D’s Godmother was visiting, and he wanted to tell me something privately, so he asked me to follow him to the garage (or somehow communicated this to me, because again, I can’t remember hearing his voice).  This was not strange.  Tim loved my friends, and this friend specifically, but if he wanted to talk to me privately he would.  I assume this is a common marriage thing… in the confusion, I remember hearing R say she wanted me to help her with something, and telling her I’d be right back… I remember Tim was wearing a favorite pair of red-plaid pajama pants and a favorite long sleeve polo that had orange and green stripes and I remember thinking what a strange combo.  And I remember him looking slightly hunched, as though he was in pain. I separated myself and went after him… he had just gone into our garage, closing the door behind him, such an ordinary thing… but when I opened the garage door he was not there.  There was R on the floor of the garage, looking through an old dresser with interest.  She looked up and said, “Mom, great! I need your help…” I glanced up/around the garage looking for Tim.  He was no where to be found.  And then I woke up.  And she was lying in bed next to me.

For a little while after I woke up I was fixated on Tim.  Those fleeting moments of seeing him in a dream, I treasure.  It was a little while before I realized its symbolism.  As though, I could hear him in my heart saying to me, “All the big moments I am not here for, I know are hard on you… all of you.  You wish I could be here, I know.  Come to the garage, I have a message for you.”…  And there she is.  A reminder of 1/3 of the Tim that is still here.

This birthday, every single time she blew out her candle (there were 3) she remarked that her one wish was for her daddy to come back.  Tonight she said she knows that some people have wishes that are a little silly.  She said she knows that her wish is both happy and sad.

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This is 6.

 

 

39

Dear Tim,

Today is your 39th birthday. Is? Was? Would have been?… I’m not sure. I’m going with “Is.” It will always be the anniversary of your birth.

I just re-read last year’s posts on Milestones and Pain and wow. Year two and I feel it coming on again. This time of year is heavy with memories. And looking back, it surprises me how much I survived last year at this time.

Mostly, I think you would be proud of me. Mostly, I still think “what would Tim do” or else just do what you’d want me to do reflexively. I do that with the big things that matter. But I did do one thing for which you wouldn’t approve… and what’s worse: I did it in the name of buying myself something for YOUR birthday! I bought a new dishwasher! You would not have wanted to replace only one appliance. But the other appliances simply don’t need replacing. And man, have I wanted a new dish washing machine!

I’m doing my best. I am. I know I am. And I think I am doing ok. But this time is hard. And not just for me. Annabelle burst into tears at the breakfast table yesterday morning. She also asked several times about “Daddy’s friends” coming for cupcakes… which isn’t the easiest to pull off on a Thursday evening… Thank goodness for our friends who came with their kiddos! I think it made her happy. I think she is emotional this time of year without fully understanding it. This week I have felt detached and… confused? without being able to pinpoint why.

I’ve lately been listening to some music from the Broadway musical “Dear, Evan Hansen,” and there is a song the teenagers sing (relative to a teenage suicide)

No one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to fade away
No one should come and go
And have no one know he was ever even here
No one deserves to disappear

– Benj Pasek / Justin Paul

So many times in the hospital I told you that even if I’d known this would have happened I wouldn’t change a thing about our life together. On my hardest days, in the darkest moments, I wonder about whether that’s true. In those moments, Tim, I think about how much easier it would be if we had known this was coming to never have children and to just enjoy our time together… maybe put in for a whole lot of life insurance for you so that now I could just use that to go to some tropical island and never have to work again and not have anyone that I need to support…

But those thoughts never last very long… I know it’s true that I wouldn’t change a thing because all of it is for love of you… It was for love of you that we had the family we had in the first place. While I know how sad you would be that I have to be both mom and dad on my own, I also know that raising them on my own is the best way to live my love for you.

And oh my goodness, how much they are like you and how much you would love every minute with them… Annabelle’s love of March Madness, the way she listens and remembers these intricate facts… Rose’s humor, innate interpersonal understanding, her intuition, the way she loves so big … Declan’s absolute love for anything sports-related but also his love of taking care of baby dolls.

They are your legacy. The legacy you dreamed of… the greatest legacy you could have ever imagined. I can buy myself that dishwasher for your birthday, because the gift of mothering is my gift to you. Raising them without you is both my most tremendous challenge and my greatest honor.

Happy 39th Birthday!

Love always,

MaryBeth