Friday, December 26, 2008

nine months and a holiday


Yesterday, Christmas, was so different from previous years that it was hard to associate the day with our past ones. We had vowed to always be home for Christmas. I couldn't do it this year. Instead, we spent the morning at home and then head to my sister's for a fabulous dinner with great food and wonderful company. With 19 people in one house, five of whom were two year olds, it would have been impossible to lament the differences between the years and their tradition that are now lost. But today, Boxing Day, is different. Day was better. Playing Operation in the morning with Liv. Visiting with my buddy, Heidi. Dinner with my sister and her family again....And then home to an empty house. Liv is staying with my mom for a few days and going to the ballet. Briar is home with me....But there is a silence. A gross, sickening silence that is making my stomach clench and dark sadness/loneliness/fear fill in all the spaces around my heart. I thought I had made it through Christmas relatively unscathed. A few tears. A few quiet moments of sad remembering. But nothing unbearable. It turns out that it was waiting for me. For the down time. The time when I am alone. The time when Jeff and I would have sat together to do a puzzle or watch a show or talk. There are other things that I could do to distract myself but I honestly don't have the energy. I want to lay across his chest twining my fingers in his beard staring into space and thinking while he watches some ridiculous or gratuitously violent show. Occasionally talk about some moment over the last few days that will stand out in our memories as the indicator of this year's festivities. Now it's only me. My memories.
I am so lost...still. It's been nine months yesterday. I found myself bending down to tidy up as I checked the clock briefly to assess the time. Nine months exactly. To the moment of when he left. The moment I last looked in his eyes. Pulled at his beard. Not with quiet thought or snuggling. With fear. Terror. Sadness. Today, I turn back to that moment and all that has changed since that tiny second and the doctor's words that changed it all. I want to somehow morph my life back to what it was. Even just one moment to have him back. To not be scared. Lonely. Exhausted with grief.
Life isn't as bleak as it was initially. Not as cavernously empty. But in moments like this one, his absence leaves a vacuum sucking any joy or comfort that I have managed to scrape out of the remainder of my existence and sends a dark yawning hole where he should be. I want him home. I want him back. I just want him.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very sad post I have read:(:(:(hope you can get through it in the year comes--

Anonymous said...

Hi Jackie,

I don't have any words of wisdom, but wanted to let you know that you, Liv and Briar are in my thoughts. The universe is so random and fucked up sometimes; I am sorry your family is suffering so greatly.

Thinking of you,

j.

hippymummy said...

Jackie,
there are no words that i can think of to ease your suffering today, or any day, believe me if there were someone would've said them long ago.
You're such a wonderful mamma, your strength is amazing and your kids're blessed to have you as their mam.
It's ok for you to feel the way you do, it's not a faliure you'd have to be a robot to get through times like this without the gut wrenching, heart stopping pain that hits you without warning. The pain of your loss will never go completely away but please believe me when i say that your life WILL get better, very slowly, one day at a time.
I know that you don't know me but i've followed your story for a little while now and i just wanted to say that i wish you and your lovely family only good things for 2009, peace, love, health and happiness. There are many people out here in blogland who wish you all this and much more xXx

carole said...

You don't know me, but I've been in your shoes. Eleven & 1/2 years ago, I was exactly there. My 2 girls were left without a father after he had a massive heart attack and died instantly. He was 44. Life is not fair. This is the kind of stuff that happens to other people. Yes, I know, I said that hundreds of times. But, you will get through it, one day at a time sweet Jesus says the song. If you ever would like to talk, just email me. Both of my girls are now grown and married & have children, and we did survive. But it was tough. And the holidays still suck. :o) Praying for you, even though I don't know you and you don't me. I regularly read your blog and my heart hurts for you. It's no fun to be in this "club". Blessings.

TheSingingBird said...

{{hugging you, Jackie}}♥

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your feelings Jackie.
xo, Tanis

won said...

Yes, it always and forevermore will be waiting for us I'm afraid...

We will never be able to able to completely escape it, nor would we necessarily want to.

Our constant companion...

ZDub said...

I am so sorry. I can't even imagine how hard this is for you.
You and Jeff have such beautiful children. Lots of love to you.
Hugs~Z

World Wide Alternative said...

XXxx.

Candice said...

You know, I'm not terribly surprised that you had such an awful day AFTER Christmas, Jackie.

We brace ourselves so hard and try to be so brave and strong on the actual big, bad day...and more often than not, I get hit upside the head after I thought I'd made it through relatively okay. What you describe sounds perfectly normal to me. Awful, shitty, painful, and monstrous...but normal for this shit road called widowhood (and especially for the first year of widowhood).

It will get easier. Eventually. But there will most likely be an endless, bottomless amount of pain between now and then...and it's individual to every person. And you'll never go back to the person, to the life and traditions, you were before. But it will mellow out and soften over time, until that loneliness isn't quite as biting. It's still there, and you'll still be caught by surprise by it, but it won't be as hard as it is right now. You just get used to it....

Hugs,
Candice

Kristy said...

I don't know what to say. x

Anonymous said...

I'm so, so sorry.

Lexi:: PottyMouthMama said...

My thoughts are with you.

Jenn said...

I have only left a comment once or twice...but I recently found this and thought of you and your love of Jeff. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me!! (((((HUGS))))) all the way from Tennessee...

*i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

*i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

*here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

*i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

Anonymous said...

Ooops, that above comment was me...accidentally signed in under a different account. :(

darcie said...

Just stopping in to say I was here - thinking of you - xoxo - darcie

Anonymous said...

Delurking to say I am so sorry. I have experienced a loss similar, but no where near as tragic. It's those moments of sadness that you can almost taste that take your breath away the hardest - they last the longest and sting the deepest, but emerging from them is just as sweet, know you have that to look forward to! You made it through a "first", You did it.
Hugs, peace and thinking of you and your ADORABLE kids!
-Michelle

Nancy said...

{{Hi Jackie}}

I love the sentiments you expressed in your previous post -- all of us accepting each other and cherishing what we have now. Your horrible grief has given you that lesson, that many people never learn. I'm so sorry the day after Christmas was hard.

Love,
Nancy

Kate said...

You are all in my thoughts. I hope that 2009 brings continued healing.