missing – Gather by Image

New Year’s Resolution

Like all people, I am lousy at keeping them.

I will vow to write more, but I am unlikely to follow through.

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”

Eliza. I do. Just today I told someone who never knew him about how much he hated when people put their windshield wipers up on their car in preparation of a snow storm. Only a few hours later, a friend of his reached out to me to share a post about someone not understanding that practice – and how it will always remind her of Tim. (Because it snowed today.) Yes. That. He hated that. And he hated pie charts.

I will tell his story.

But my 2020 resolution is simply this: I resolve to fell less guilt.

Guilt runs in my veins. Catholic. Female. Not-quite-millennial. Whatever it is, I feel all the guilt. Like most mothers, I am sure, but extra as an only parent.

I resolve to remind myself that anything I do to take care of myself and be more physically and mentally healthy – is as a byproduct healthy for my children, and I do not need to feel guilty about it.

If someone – even if it is my children – look and say, Damn, she’s selfish…. This is not a thing I need to worry about. If I reach that point – I will have arrived. I have resolved.

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.

June 11th is coming.

June 11th is coming. Like a storm brewing in the distance that you are powerless to stop. Just like the freight train that May 16th was… So too is June 11th. I woke up and knew it was Monday. It’s a week from today. A week from today, it will be a year from that morning that I had to walk out of the hospital without him, for the last time.

And I remember standing at his bedside, singing to him, and telling him it was ok to “let go,” it was ok to “sleep well” and telling him I wouldn’t make a big deal of the date. Promising. Because he thought recognizing deathaversaries was ridiculous. He teased me about my “obsession with dates.”

But that was before I was widowed at 36. That was before my love, the man I gave my heart, who I had babies and plans and dreams with, died in my arms. That was before I was in the hot young widows club and was familiar with the word “deathaversary.” I think of how he responded when my friend died. How he felt for her husband. And I think he would forgive me.

But I think I can honor him by not making a big deal of June 11th with the kids. We have the baseball game coming up next Saturday, followed by Father’s day. Where we will honor him, we will celebrate and remember, like we did for his birthday. But I think the idea of them noting his deathaversary he would have really disliked. I decided to take the day off work. I could plow ahead, and work that day. I worked May 16th and 17th… I’m sure I could do it…but when I considered taking December 11th off for The half year mark, and didn’t go with that… I ended up with R in the ER the night before and taking off anyway. So I took the day off. And we’ll see how that goes. But I am not telling the kids I took off, because I don’t know how I’m going to be. And if they learn that I didn’t go to work, I am definitely not going to tell them why.

I worry about them all, constantly. This time last year top priority went with A, when her interest in what was happening was heightened… That it wasn’t just a party with friends showing up at the house all the time… But something was really wrong. And why could everyone else go to the hospital to see daddy and she couldn’t… Right now she’s the one I’m worried about most too. Will she know or find out what Monday is even if I don’t tell her? Last night she did something that upset me for the first time. At a girl scouts end of year pool party we had pizza, then she asked for a cookie AND a brownie. I was fine with it so long as there was still enough for everyone. Maybe another parent had said one or the other (my standards have dropped in the last year) because a friend said to A “no fair.” And I heard her say “don’t you know what happened to my dad?!” I was shocked and I let her know. Only one other parent heard it and it was a brownie’s mom so I’m not sure if she knows… I went over and told A that what happened to her dad is incredibly sad but it does not mean she gets extra desert. They are completely unrelated. Goodness, sometimes I have no idea how to do this. We had another sad, sweeter moment over the weekend where I chose to sit down and look through her selfies with Dad book with her. I hope it helped. Without completely understanding the calendar, I can’t help wondering if she feels what this time of year brings.

June 11th will come. I can’t help that I know what day it is. But I think I can honor him by not telling them. But I also remember that these tiny humans I look at every day aren’t only half-Tim. They are also half-me. So I have to hope they forgive me for not telling them what day it is. Some day, they won’t be able to help knowing, and they can chose to do as they want with that information. But for now, I will keep it to myself. And we’ll see how this goes.

“You have stolen my heart

And from the ballroom floor we are a celebration

One good stretch before our hibernation

Our dreams assured and we are, we’ll sleep well… sleep well… sleep well… sleep well”

~ Dashboard Confessional “Stolen” (Our wedding song)

Reliving the trauma – a year without your voice

My dearest Tim,

I had told myself this time was going to be hard. This week especially, but mostly the time between Mother’s day and Father’s day when I’d re-live the worst 26 days of my life… the memories of the hospital… when all of the sudden I’d flip the switch, and Facebook would no longer share “1 year ago” memories that you had posted…. all of YOUR posts would all be older than that…. putting you just a little further away from us.

I thought I had prepared myself for how hard this was going to be. But I had no idea. Similar to what I said in my Pain post, its hard to imagine that it’s real – the physical manifestation of grief, or that you have no control over it… much as you may WANT to be happy, to live in the present, the past has a way of sneaking up and taking the wind out of you. Even just seeing May 16th or June 11th on the calendar, or on a meeting notice that I am sent… it takes my breath away. I sometimes think that you would laugh at this… call it my obsession with dates… but I mostly think this was all so beyond your realm of imagination, that you would accept whatever I think/feel/experience as fact.

I’ll tell you what I have planned for tomorrow. Because it will make you laugh. You will shake your head because you think its ridiculous, and smile because it’s so me….

I remember what I wore that day. May 16, 2017. It was a Tuesday. I went into work my regular time after taking A to the bus stop, and taking R and D to daycare. I left work like a bat out of hell after lunchtime because you told me you had vomited and you still had a fever and were sweating through your clothes. But I often wonder, why did I even go to work that day? What if I had realized how sick you were, and simply stayed home and just lay in bed with you… sleeping while all the kids were at school or watching Netflix. What if I had had those final, quiet, peaceful moments with you? Moments I can never get back…. but I rushed to work because we were working a Task Order proposal… because I would have felt so much guilt to send the kids to school and lay in bed with you…so much guilt to not be contributing at work… I remember what I wore because I remember looking down at the skirt in the hospital. A long, flowery skirt. After that day I would look at that skirt and it would remind me that I went to work that day, instead of reading the signs and staying home with you… I couldn’t take seeing it much less wearing it so I put it at the back of the closet. So I wouldn’t have to see it, and feel that guilt and heartbreak. I will wear it again tomorrow. Because let’s be honest, I’m going to feel the guilt and the heartbreak tomorrow no matter what.

A year since I heard your voice. Since you teased me. Since I heard your laugh. Since I told you not to pull out your catheter and freaked out your nurses… who I then had to explain about my bad-patient-father who you, my rule-follower, are nothing like… who told me they thought girls married men like their fathers… and I said, not my sister and I!

So often I hate how things went down. That I never got to ask you… so many things. That I never got to hear directly from you what you’d want me to do on my own… But mostly I don’t hate it. You would have hated to face your own mortality. Better that all you knew was that you had pnemonia.

Here’s a really fun fact about the disease that you got:

Median age at diagnosis of SMZL is 69 years. The overall age-adjusted incidence is 0.13/100,000 habitants per year. The percentage change in age-adjusted incidence is 4.81%, with most of the patients being White. Gender prevalence is controversial, but there is an increasing trend to male predominance. – from the NIH at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457460/

Seriously. 69 years. You had literally JUST turned 37. What. the. fuck?

I had a dream last night in which you and Colleen were playing golf… I can’t imagine Colleen playing golf…and I don’t think you played at all since A was born… Maybe a trip or two to Top Golf with friends?… But you were in this little stretch with strips of green grass… and I had the impression that you guys were growing tomatoes in the patches of dirt in between…the area was small but it overlooked the ocean…like you guys were hitting balls out into the ocean. The kids were up a bunch last night so I was in and out of sleep… I dreamed this scene and later I dreamed it again like I was watching it on TV… with other people… remembering you and Colleen… and I told the people with me “its how I imagine them in paradise.” (Though I’m not sure if that’s true?) You were both facing away from me so I never saw your faces….but I heard your laughter...and I can hear it still.

I had another dream too, which was so much worse. All of the sudden I was at your side as you took your last breaths again. Only this time it wasn’t your dad there with me, it was my sister. And she wasn’t on the other side of you, she was behind me. I remember looking down and both your legs had been amputated at the knee. There were just two silver plus signs. I asked the nurse why and she said because you didn’t need them any more, you couldn’t walk. They told me you were gone… I was lying on your chest again, feeling the last of your warmth, the lack of machine-breathing that there was at the very end. The silence when they turned off all the beeps on all the machines for me…. I forget why but Jean said to me then that you were gone, you were not suffering… And she said that dad was suffering more, so much worse…(in fairness, I know she’d never actually say that to me, but it probably is true)… and my response was “there is nothing worse than this” and I sobbed and fell to the floor. I woke then to D calling for me, in my bed with R asleep beside me. My eyes were dry but squinting, and my whole body was still shaking from those wracking dream-sobs.

Damn, that was a terrible way to start the day. This Tuesday-after-Mother’s-day. You would tell me not to celebrate anniversaries of sadness, but I can’t help it, Tim. I can’t control my dreams. I can’t control re-living the trauma. All I can do is survive it. And keep our kids alive and thriving. I don’t know that I am doing this dead parent child raising thing right, but I’m doing my best.
I have low moments. I have low lows. Sometimes I think they would have been so much better off to have had you rather than me. But I chase away the lows, I chase away the “what ifs” as you would want me to… I don’t make you proud every moment, but damn, I am trying. I miss you as my love, my husband, my partner, my co-parent, but more than anything else, I miss you as my best friend. Isn’t that a funny thing about life?

I don’t know if paradise is playing golf into the ocean and growing tomatoes with Colleen, but I can imagine it to be the sound of your laughter. This morning I heard your son laughing in the other room. It was the most amazing sound of baby giggles. But it was also solid, joyous, sustained laughter, and I thought of you. Wherever you are, Tim, keep laughing, keep Col laughing, and I’ll do the best I can to keep your legacies laughing, until we are reunited.

All my love, always,

MaryBeth

Milestones

April, May, June. They feel big. Full of big milestones. Full of firsts. Full of anniversaries of lasts. And then I start year two. Year two which everyone says is worse than year one. Which I get. I get it – people expect you to be ok now. You’ve already experienced the first one of those without him, so… you’re ok now, right? Or, you’ve moved on. Even when you see us moving forward, my friends, we do not “move on” from this kind of loss. I will carry this loss with me… I will carry Tim with me. Always.

April came crashing in with Easter. Easter was April 1st this year. I planned big Easter bunny plans. No family was going to be in town, so I made other plans and had a big, busy, exhausting weekend. Which was wonderful. And then I had a moment when I took out the trash and I saw cardinals in the trees and I burst into tears. These are just moments I have. And Easter night was… interesting. A story for a later post. But April came in with a bang.

April 4th would have been Tim’s 38th birthday. I took the day off. I knew I’d need it. I made an appointment at a friend of A’s mother’s tattoo shop. I’d been considering this tattoo a while and knew I wanted it, and felt his birthday was the right day for it. The day he should have turned 38. But he did not. Because he will forever be 37 years old. I also bought orange star balloons and a Happy Birthday balloon at the dollar store. And I made a cake. With orange frosting. I planned to make red velvet but both girls asked me not to. I drove out to Veramar to pick up my wine and sit on the bench I bought him there. I put candles on the cake and sang with the kids, and we wrote on the balloons, and went outside and let them go. During the cake, R said, “I wish Daddy could come back.” I do too, my love. I do too. As the balloons drifted out of sight A shouted “I love you, daddy!!” Handling their grief and my own is often overwhelming.

The tattoo I got is his signature from my last Valentine’s Day card in 2017.

A friend asked me on April 5th if I’d get any more tattoos. He didn’t know this was my second. I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. When I got the first, I thought it could be my only. Maybe. But I’d be open. Tim wanted to get one involving the kids. But he never formulated exactly what he wanted. This one came to me easily. I asked one colleague what he thought about its relative visibility regarding professionalism, really just out of curiosity. Nothing was going to change my mind. He told me his wife advised against it for professional reasons. I get it. I would have done the same, a year ago. But it was too obvious to me that this was something I had to do. I didn’t want it on my wrist where it was very easily visible… but this seemed the right place.

All the decisions I’ve made lately are challenging. But I do my best to always do what seems like the right place… or what simply feels right. I’ve gone with my gut most lately.

On Thursday night, we celebrated our dog’s birthday. His adoption day really. 10 years since when Tim and I took him home. Tim loved that dog so much. He was really our first baby. When I started traveling for work a lot in 2008-09, Tim started letting him sleep in our bed and getting on the couch! In 2015, my in-laws took him for the summer while we prepped and sold our condo, bought and moved into our current home… Tim told me he thought maybe we should leave him in New York… because it would be so hard on all of us when he dies! He was literally afraid of the grief we would all experience when our dog inevitably dies. I can’t believe our dog outlived him. That fact was not lost on me as we celebrated the dog’s “birthday” on Thursday. I felt the loss.

This past weekend, I took off Friday. I took my son to get ear tubes. I was constantly reminded that Tim would have been there for that. Forms and people asked me where Tim was… who else was coming… there was a little boy (older than D) who got out of surgery just after he did who had something done on his eyes who was really hysterical. His dad was called back and I swear they asked him a half-dozen times about Mom. I was close to saying “He said she’s not here!!!” English wasn’t this family’s first language, and I know there could have been a million reasons this poor child’s mother was not there, but my heart went out to this boy and his father in such a big way. D was a trooper, and yet, doing this without Tim felt big. I felt the loss. I then went to R’s classroom to celebrate her 5th birthday. Something we had done together last year. I then took R to Kindergarten Orientation… which I attended 2 years ago with Tim, on a day where I had an ultrasound (that he also went to with me) in the morning. I felt the loss… that he wasn’t there… for R and for me. I also had a 5th birthday extravaganza at my house on Saturday… and bought her a big gift, that nearly wasn’t ready on time… and pretty much emotionally shut down at that point. It all just became too much and my brain shut down. My sister and my sister-in-law and my two college friends who flew in for the event took over, and simply did. And everything got done. And I think R had fun. All the kids had fun. That night, my father-in-law took A to the father-daughter dance with her girl scout troop. It was lovely. Beautiful. And yet what Tim wouldn’t have given to go to that with his girl? And I felt the loss.

I guess the point is that it’s impossible not to feel the loss in the big milestones. Sometimes its crippling. Sometimes less so. But its unavoidable. All I can do is let myself feel it. Feel the loss. And try to feel less of the guilt.

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them” – Leo Tolstoy

Photograph in Music (Alternate title: I’m not Dead)

I am falling behind. I have a hundred blog posts in my head and half started, but this one was longing to be written.

This weekend I officially joined a fitness place, and went to a class Saturday morning. I like it because the music is good and motivating and they tell you what to do constantly so you don’t have to think. During the floor exercises, when I was lifting weights I saw myself in the mirror, and somehow in the combination of music, adrenaline, and tingling of my soft muscles that had gone unused basically since November, I looked myself right in the eye and thought, “You are not dead.” “I’m not dead.”

I felt like a piece of me, half of me, sometimes more, died last June. In my post 6 months, an open letter to my love, I mention that sometimes I feel Tim would be disappointed in me. I don’t think he’d be disappointed in me when I do what I have to do to heal, or to survive, when I allow the kids more screen time than I ever would have “before,” but I think he’d be disappointed in me when I do more of the holding on, the feeling sorry for myself, the wallowing.

Tim had a complicated relationship with death. I believe now it was mostly a result of not ever experiencing it up really close. I think he was mostly afraid of it. Having experienced it up really close, as close as it gets, I can say there is a beauty in the sadness. This is something I’ve heard from other widows too. Living up close to death seems to be the only thing that can truly rid us of our fear of it.

But it is a challenge to always look at the positive, look for the good, find the silver lining. When I hold on too much, is when I think Tim would be disappointed. When I do things for other people, or for appearances. He always hated that. He’d tell me if he could to keep living. He’d tell me that I don’t have to wait a certain amount of time for anything; that there is no formula; that weeks, months, years from now, he will still be dead. He’d tell me: Don’t miss out on anything today because you are simply missing me and feeling sorry for yourself.

I can both love Tim, and be alive. I can stretch, strain, and push all my muscles. I am reminded of this in music. And I felt like it was a nudge from Tim that gave me that thought. It may seem overwhelming how much life I have left without him. But I have it. I have to accept that. I am not dead. And there is great beauty in that if I can find it. And live it.

My sister-in-law asked me after Tim died if I hear every song differently now, and I really do. Every love song has a different kind of meaning by me ears. All of them.

I really love Ed Sheeran’s song Photograph, and when I heard it the first time after Tim died, I heard it with new ears, and it resounded with me in many ways.

Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes
But it’s the only thing that I know
When it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes
It is the only thing that makes us feel alive

We keep this love in a photograph
We made these memories for ourselves
Where our eyes are never closing
Hearts are never broken
And time’s forever frozen still

So you can keep me
Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans
Holding me closer ’til our eyes meet
You won’t ever be alone, wait for me to come home

Loving can heal, loving can mend your soul
And it’s the only thing that I know, know
I swear it will get easier,
Remember that with every piece of you
Hm, and it’s the only thing we take with us when we die….

~ Ed Sheeran, Photograph

If love is the only currency we take with us when we die, then Tim died an incredibly rich man. He lived big, and loved big and openly, and people loved him back. So many of us loved him. He loved life. And life loved him. He took so much love with him when he died.

I can only try to live my life so that I can be as rich on the day I die.

Six months – an open letter to my love

Dear Tim,

Today, it’s been six months since I last heard your voice. Since I last saw you smile at me. Since you last squeezed my hand back. Since you last told me you love me. Since you last saw your children.

A few days later when I was on the phone with your company benefits trying to arrange short term disability coverage for you, they started talking to me about long term disability, saying that it sets in in 180 days. So, November. On that hot May day, November seemed a lifetime away. Which I guess it is…. but how is it that today is November 16th? How is it still possible that you are never coming home?

Six months later, what do I want to tell you? So much. Every thing. All the things. There is not enough room even on the internet to write it all. There is not enough time.

You didn’t have enough time. We didn’t have enough time with you.

I want you to know first and most importantly that I miss you every day, every minute. I carry you everywhere I go. I know, in theory, I don’t have to wear my wedding rings anymore… and I do catch people looking at them sometimes. But I can not take them off. Also, the day you died, I put your wedding ring like a charm on that heart necklace you bought me in Boulder… It’s heavy, so heavy,but it feels good to rub it between my fingers a couple times a day. A small piece of you. Your death, the fact that you are not here for me to speak to, to hug, to fall asleep beside, to lean on your shoulder, to talk about everything, it doesn’t change the fact that I am still in love with you. I know that I promised “until death do us part” but I had no idea that would be so soon, and I was not ready. I am not ready. I carry the weight in my heart always. I am always sad. Sometimes, I fear that the sad is contagious.

I can imagine you having two reactions to this: 1) You telling me I’m not really sad – I’m fine. I’m a rockstar, your rockstar, a pillar of strength. There is nothing I can not do. I need no one. But that is not true. I need you. 2) You teasing me about “liking to be sad” with my listening to sad music, or my Jodi Piccoult novels. And I can imagine you ending that teasing by reminding me I can’t be sad all the time, because the kids need me.

I’ll tell you this: I don’t think its obvious that I’m always sad. It’s not that I specifically am trying to hide it from others. It’s just that I smile. I try to be “normal.” I look for the silver linings. I try. I try to do all the things you would want me to do. I try to be both mom and dad for the kids. I try to pour into them all the love that they would have gotten from you. Even if I am falling short of all the sports they’d have had in their lives with you.

I want you to know I bought T Swift’s new CD this week. You would have ordered it on Amazon the day it was released. So that you could have it on your Amazon playlist, but pretend it was for me for the car… I saw it in the checkout at Target and just had to pick it up. I want you to know I took A to Mason Madness this year. I want you to know that last week on election day, our state really made history. Unlike last year, it was in a GOOD way!… Danica Roem became the first elected openly transgender candidate to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates. (And she beat out Bob Marshall, who would not debate her an earlier this year advocated for a bathroom bill! ) Kathy Tran became the first Asian-American woman elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, and she had been a refugee – her parents fleeing with her from Vietnam at 7 months old. Our state elected the first two Hispanic women to the Virginia House of Delegates: Elizabeth Guzmán and Hala Ayala. Hala Ayala is a cyber-security specialist, and helped to organize the Women’s March. Finally, (and the only one we were eligible to vote for) Justin Fairfax was elected lieutenant governor as the second ever African-American to hold a state-wide office in Virginia. (And yes, for real his last name is Fairfax.) I think you would have really enjoyed the results of this year’s election.

I want you to know I am doing all the things that I think you are supposed to do. Counseling, counseling for the kids (“play therapy” they call it), a support group (YES, I joined a support group, can you believe that?), I even joined the “hot young widows club”! I think you would really enjoy that.

I want you to know that I went to my first parent-teacher conference without you. It didn’t hit me until I was sitting in that chair, that you had gone to every single conference with me since they started them in daycare at 2 years old!! And as I was thinking of what you would say – the results were very similar to the one we had with the kindergarten teacher in May – it occurred to me that it was the first one without you. I hadn’t prepared myself for that and I nearly cried all over the teacher’s desk. For behavior, she told me A listens, is respectful, and caring. Whatever else my concerns may be, how could I ask for more? Above all, our girl is a good human. She was the apple of your eye, and you would be so proud of her. I am so proud of her.

I want you to know that for our sensitive flower, as you would expect, this has all been very difficult. As you know, she is wise beyond her years, she FEELS, she goes through life with her heart on her sleeve. And this is the hardest of the hard things to experience as a child. To lose one of the two people who mean the most to you. She loves to wear her locket and look at your picture. (Caroline got the girls amazing always in my heart lockets with your photo inside.) She loves to talk about you. Though sometimes they are made up stories. She has had true fear and anxiety about me disappearing too… but it is slowly getting better.

And I want you to know that D is still a joy. I am sure this will have a profound effect on his life – never knowing you, but for now, he is so wonderful. We have a large canvas print of the two of you from last October on his wall, and he looks at it and says “Dada” – which both warms my heart, and breaks it at the same time. That its all he has of you. That he won’t remember you beyond a face in a photo. He is walking now. He is no longer nursing. Which gives me more flexibility, but he is still Momma’s boy! You told me not to spoil him because he’s the baby. But… I don’t know that that is a doable-do now. Oh, but you’ll be happy to know the hockey sticks are his favorite toy…closely followed by a broom, lacrosse sticks, or a wiffle bat..and a ball. I can not wait to watch him grow, even as I want him to slow down!

Mostly, I think you’d be very proud of me. In small ways, I think you’d be disappointed in me. When I have those moments, I try to redirect. I’m doing the very best I can.

I want you to know about the village. You wouldn’t even believe it. All the people who showed up. All the people who stepped up. My experience with loss now has taught me what many say – which is that tragedy allows people to show their true colors. And sometimes this will be very disappointing. But I must say in only VERY extremely rare cases has this been disappointing. On the whole, I have been absolutely amazed by the kindness, generosity and magnanimity of our friends, neighbors, family, friends of friends, and the list goes on… You would have said this was because I’m a good person. But the truth is, it has a LOT to do with you! The outpouring of love for you, and for the four of us because of your love for us would have amazed you. Your family has embraced us as their own. All of it…It is truly humbling.

I want to thank you for all the gifts you gave me. The obvious ones – A, R and D. But the less obvious too. The gift of you. And of being such an open book that I knew you so well, I am almost never truly wondering what you would have thought, what you would have said. I always know. Its like I wear a “WWTD” bracelet. But its around my heart. And I try to (nearly) always act accordingly. (Admittedly, there are times when I have to agree to disagree with you and remind you that much as you would have hated it – I get the last word here. Because I am here.) You are my north star. My morale compass. You are still my partner in parenting even though you are not here.

That may be the hardest thing. The parenting without you. You were such a presence. You were so dedicated to being Dad. In the last 6 months you tried to take over a lot more of the responsibilities. We balanced each other so well in parenting. When one of us was about to lose it, the other stepped in. Truthfully, you flew off the handle more than I did… but now… when I am about to lose it with one of the kids…. there is no one there to step in for me. It’s always me. The only parent. I am always in charge.

Today was A’s school Thanksgiving lunch. Remember when we both went last year? I asked neighbors how it works – should I pack her lunch? What should we do? This year, I let her buy. And I bought the Thanksgiving lunch myself too. That was interesting! She has been obsessed with the school yearbook lately. It came out after you got sick. A photo of you and our A on your Watch Dog day is right in the centerfold. And you and A and I are all pictured on the Thanksgiving luncheon page. So I had to go. After lunch, I went back to her classroom. She made a turkey of the things she is thankful for. At the end, she said, “wait, Mommy where is the hand I listed you on?” (The hands were the turkey’s feathers.) Then she wrote Daddy on that same hand. You may have been an after thought, but she did not forget. She is thankful for you.

In summary, I can’t believe it’s been 6 months since May 16th, when I took you to the ER, when you were admitted to the ICU, when you asked me if I brought a book. When my life changed forever. I want you to know that I miss you constantly, with every breath I take. I am trying hard to keep your memory alive in the hearts of our children always. And I want you to know that I’ve got the kids… and I am doing the absolute best that I can. And I will keep trying. Every day. Forgive me on the day I get things wrong, OK? I miss you. And I love you.

Love always, MaryBeth

Day in the Life

DITL was a term in one of my jobs. It was even the nickname of one of the guys I played softball with… yes, pre-children I played a lot of work co-ed slow-pitch softball!

Today, two-thirds of my children threw up… one in the car on the way to school, one at the dinner table. They have incredible gag reflexes.

Today, after the months-long process of calling MetLife critical illness insurance to check on my claim, calling doctors, getting a friend who works at the hospital to physically stalk doctors, getting my company benefits administrator to call, fax information, seeking clarification, giving my claim or certificate number, my DOB, address and contact number should we get disconnected…over and over and over again… today, it got to me. Today, I found myself shaking with rage, and then, as close as I’ve ever come to bawling my eyes out at my desk at work. It’s dirty money. Insurance money. That’s how it feels. Critical illness, or life…insurance feels like dirty money. I remember one life insurance check specifically stating “death benefit” and it made me feel like I was going to vomit (which I know never to do in front of my little gag-masters.) But I survived, I got through the day. (Stay tuned because Critical Illness insurance is still not resolved, even though Tim was critically ill close to 6 months ago.) I even finished a compliance training. I drove home. I played with A, R, and D. We read books. We talked about the sunny, stormy, and surprising parts of our days. I got everyone to bed. I listened to a podcast while I made egg salad and did the dishes.

And you know what? I conquered the car seat cleaning. That was always Tim’s self-appointed job. There have been many car trip puking incidents… and on each one I handled the cleaning of the child, and Tim handled the cleaning of the car seat. Once, on our way to Richmond in 2015, we pulled over to the side of the road IN THE SNOW, jumped out, I cleansed and changed R, and he cleansed the car seat. We were back on the road in record time and Tim gave me a huge high five and was incredibly proud of our efficiency. Never did I imagine that was something we would get good at together as a couple, as a team. But we did. We were quite a team. We handled a puking in the car seat child with the best of them!

Tonight, I reinstalled the clean car seat cover, and the car seat back into the car. I didn’t want to, but it was a necessary evil. I missed him. And not just because it was a gross annoying job I didn’t want to do, that he did valiantly without complaint…. but because I just plain miss him all the time.

This is a day in the life of a 36 year old widow with three small children. Thanks for asking.

Time

Time marches on. It’s so hard to believe. Tim used to make so much fun of me for my obsession with dates. I’d always remember dates, birth dates, anniversaries, compare year after year, put significance in dates… when it was 12:23, I’d say it was my birthday in time… point out my sister’s birthday in time too. He thought it was crazy, over-the-top. Mostly, I think he just liked to tease me about it.

At his bedside on June 11th, I promised I wouldn’t make a big deal out of the date, because he wouldn’t want me to. I’ve mostly kept to this. I noticed 7/11… partially because it is his mother’s birthday, and because it was the date of the blood drive my company had in his name. I largely let 8/11 go by unrecognized. Mainly because I was packing for the beach. I didn’t acknowledge 9/11 in a big way other than to reflect on 9/11/2001.

But today I gave blood. Which means it was 2 months or 8 weeks since the last time I gave blood.. the drive that was in his name. The drive that was a month after he died. 3 months ago, my Tim breathed his last breaths on this earth. It’s hard to avoid all that. So I didn’t really try. One of his friends told me we have to mark the passing of time. Like it or not, I do.

This weekend we will celebrate what would have been my and Tim’s 7th wedding anniversary. I have two big events planned – the dedication of a bench at the Vineyard where we were married and the planting of a tree in a nearby park that we liked and was where we took our family photos since moving to Fairfax. It might be a lot. But I wanted to fill the time… so I can’t wallow. I look forward to this weekend and am grateful for all those who plan to join us!

It’s just so hard to believe. As recently as early May, Tim was asking me what I might want to do for our anniversary this year…that seems like yesterday, and it also seems a lifetime ago. Which I guess it was.

I can’t stop time, I can’t slow it down. I simply have to live in the present. Breathe, survive the present. Survive with my constant companion, Grief. Try to recognize the wonderful moments with my little ones as they come.

Try to make a difference.

Any way that I can.

Packing for the beach

Today, I packed for the beach.

It was really, really hard.

It should not have been. With Tim here I still would have done all the packing. But this time, I also loaded the car. That wasn’t hard. But this time, Tim wasn’t talking to me about whether I had packed yet, or whether I had remembered abc or what time we were leaving, or where was his xyz.

Mostly, it was hard because he should be here. He should be going to the beach with us. This house that we stayed at last year when I was large-and-in-charge pregnant. Where we walked on the beach together. One of our favorite things to do. And talk about the future. All the possibilities. Now I am living a future we never imagined. A future we never discussed.

Everyone worries about me and what I call “the logistics.” I understand this. I can take myself out of my life for a minute and imagine what I would feel/ think for a friend if this had happened to a friend and not to me. I would worry about “the logistics.” Because in early May of this year, and every minute before, raising these tiny humans was hard, and exhausting, all-consuming. And there are so many logistics. All that is still there, I know. But it seems completely different now. The logistics are no longer what is hard. I seem to just know that somehow (and with lots of help from a lot of amazing friends and family) the logistics will be taken care of each day. I will find the strength to handle the details – the bill-paying, the working, the child-caring. It’s the sadness and the broken heart that make the future truly unimaginable.

Sometimes the missing him makes my throat close and the air seem so hard to swallow.