Throwing Rocks at Time

The year is almost over. Thank God. This has been a year from the freakin' pits of hell. Hard and dark.
I can't even tell you how I have hated 2013. A year, in my opinion, that God sat back, nodded at whomever is in charge of bullcrap and sh#% days and said "have at it, do your damnedest ,cause as much havoc and mayhem as you can in her life and then let's see where she stands."

I have to stand on this rock or I will either fall and drown or grab a hammer and shatter it pebble by pebble and start throwing it at that wall standing between me and happiness.

All This Fellow Sees is the Happy

This fellow holds the brochure in his hand, and smiles. I wonder if I should even say anything about it or her to him. There it sat quietly for days. Exactly where I carefully tucked it in the pocket behind the paraphenilia behind the driver's seat, reluctant to bring it in the house. Too afraid of the memories each tiny slice of life would bring, I rarely look at it..well not for too long. Too afraid of the tears, I push it down to suppress memories , he pulls it out and smiles. Where I touch it gingerly and linger wistfully over each picture, this fellow grabs it with both hands , twisting and turning as he recognizes faces and speaks jibberish. I see the past and all he sees is the happiness.. I pray for that mindset.

The Phenominal Mind

There is a phenom of the unconscious mind that triggers a reaction in the human body, the conscious mind struggles to understand. 'It' is the rememberance of time. The time, hour, minute of a loved one's passing. It is that restless feeling that over comes you each month as that certain day looms nearer. It sneaks on you with an overflow of memories and urges to call and/or visit. It brings unexpected sadness and rushes of tears. Makes you wonder why you're suddenly so miserable when you were "fine, okay, and doing so well"...as you like to tell the world. I find this phenom intriguing. I marvel at the working of time on the human mind. The way that cord of relationship and recognition throbs with each of our heartbeats and pulls us a little closer to those going through the same cycle of longing and regret. The way that chord, that sour note of that unwanted, imagined alarm wakes us with the shrill cry, TODAY IS THE DAY!! There is not a day that goes by that I wish a mistake has been made. That I am in a bad dream and none of this is real. Grief takes time to adjust to, time I wish I could snooze through. If only there were a button.

For Want of a Flower

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever. "-Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Feeling of Laughter

So I had this dream the other night , well not really a dream because I don't remember anything specific except the laughter. It was as if the room was full of laughter. I was surrounded and embraced in it. I don't know if I was a part of the joke or the joke. I never saw anyone, I just heard the laughter. And it felt joyous, light, wonderful and I literally felt myself chuckle. The way infants do in their sleep. And then I heard her laugh. It was so clear, so near, as if she were in the room and it woke me. ~~~~~~
The funny thing is, earlier in the night I was telling a very comforting friend how truly sad I was. My every thought of Angela was making me want to cry. My every thought in life and sleep was cocooning me in the urge to cry. I was beginning to feel as if I were smothering...drowning. All I could see was tears. All I could dream were tears and I was crying so hard in my dreams to where my body shook, uncontrollably. Like a toddler who couldn't catch his breath after his wish wasn't met and his little heart was breaking. It was beginning to get worse with each passing moment. And then I felt the laughter. All day.

*On a humerous note: After Angela's passing, our baby sister Pansy found Angela had placed the pictures of herself on her camera.

Days Crawl, Time Flies.

 I can't believe how many days have passed. And yet it feels like yesterday.  Tomorrow it will be a month and yet it feels like one day. The days have crawled along slowly, each as horrifically sad as the other. Time has flown by. All willy nilly without a moment of empathy or sympathy for those of us stuck in a rut of some form or other.
Everyday you remember, feel, relive conversations and interactions and in doing so, you look at the clock and the minutes have gone as if in a whirlwind.  People say, 'time heals' and that's really meant to be comforting, but I don't think its true. I think time teaches you how to bury your emotions. It teaches you how to adjust your mask so no one sees exactly how you feel. Time, gives you the moments to prepare for your Oscar winning performance.  Where you're able to pretend all is well and life goes on a usual. And it does. In those slow dragging days it is best to find something to occupy your mind while your soul and spirit heals. Time won't let you forget, but it will help the remembering not be as painful.

The Sun Will Rise, Soon.

So, I lay here at five in the morning and think of Angela and I'm not even gonna cry.
All of my life I was the early riser and in recent years, she had also become a sun chasers. Calling in the wee hours and starting the conversation with' I know I'm not waking you' or 'I should've called you an hour ago'. We never talked about anything specific...our grandsons, the kids, siblings, Mom. But you know when people have a little anxiety. It's so much easier to talk about other things.
I'm not even gonna cry. 

God and I Will Box for Sure

I rarely come here to write. This is a page for those times nothing in life works and I have to rant and whine. This is one of those times. I have a bit of anger going on that I need to work through.

 I will forever think of January as the darkest month.
 For twenty years whenever the first day of the New Year rolled in I would remember my dad had died New Year's Eve of 1992, he didn't get to see the first day of '93.
This January of 2013 rolled in with extreme excitement . The past year had been awesome. The first year in years of waiting for dreaded phone calls, that none came. Many happy days of waking and not having any bad news concerning my sister's health. Great parties and celebrations. The happy news my children's books would finally 'be' in print . I texted my sister (the eldest one) immediately after midnight to wish her a happy new year, joyously proclaiming how I was seeing great things happening in 2013. She responded, in all caps- FOR ALL OF US....not even two weeks later, the phone call came.

As my sister (the youngest) and I rushed through the doors of the hospital towards the elevators for ICU I had my head down responding to well wishes from Facebook friends on my cell. Suddenly I could see my dad walk past and I quickly turned around to see if maybe I had walked too close to someone who resembled him and I would apologize. No one was there. This was one of those, 'oh, Damn moments' you never want to face. My unexpected movements caused my sister to stop,too. I explained what I thought I saw and we brushed it off and continued on our way. I kept that vision to myself, but I knew in that moment our life was going to change. Why else would he be there except to see his favorite daughter. Who else would God send, but the man who angered her the most. It gave me comfort to believe they had finally made up and Angela's soul would 'be' at rest. Needless to say, I really wanted to believe 'he' was there to comfort her and send her back to us. All the time I prayed for a miracle and wanted every twitch to 'be' a good sign, I knew better. I can't even explain the feelings of the days to come. Its as if life exploded into a million fragments in a wind tunnel made from a black plastic bag. You punch and fight to get out while trying to put your life back together. Trying to hurry and put the pieces back together and then get out of the bag before you smother in your sorrow. The only thing that will save you is acceptance . Once you go through that door, all else is easier. It doesn't get better, nothing really changes but it seems easier, the weight of grief is gone, the days feel brighter and the new normal seems promising. I still see great things happening this 2013 I just see them from a different angle.

I have to say, when my time comes and if God sends the one person who irritated me so much in life that every time I saw or thought of him I wanted to spit, God and I will box for sure.