Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

I did about five million things this week and it's only Wednesday. It's the Wednesday of Spring break and we tried to make the most of our vacation by going out of town. Twice. Yes it's only Wednesday.  So it's hard to figure out what of those five million tings I should blog about (I didn't have good internet access so I didn't do it at the moment.) Really it boils down to the same old thing, Dan's still dead. I miss him. We went out with friends this evening. They wanted to know how our spring break was and how my new job was going. I told them. I fought back the urge to say "and also Dan's still dead."  They know Dan's still dead. They've known just as long as I have that he died. Yet I want to tell them, you know least they forget, maybe they will think he's at work, maybe I need to remind them that he's dead. I don't. They know, they didn't forget, my logical brain knows that they know and yet something in me (my ...

I had a dream about Dan last night. I don't usually dream about him, only a small handful of times. At least that I can remember dreaming. I guess it's possible I dream about him every night and I just don't remember those dreams.  This was quite a dream, it stuck with me all day and I don't think is going anywhere soon. In my dream: Baby Girl and I were sitting on the couch at my in-laws house (the house Dan grew up in) watching TV. Baby Girl was playing on my phone (she loves to do that). My phone started ringing. I glanced over to see who it was and it said Dan Stults (fyi I got a new phone about a year ago and Dan's number was accidentally erased so it's not even in there). Baby Girl started to walk away as she answered the phone "Hi Daddy" very causally, like it was nothing, like she says that every day, like she used to.  I could hear him through the phone. "Hi Baby Girl whatcha doing.?" I got up and followed her because I wanted to ...

Baby Girl started coughing a couple weeks ago.  I said "o yup spring must be on the way your allergies are acting up."  Baby Girl kept coughing.  Usually her allergies stick to her eyes and her nose.  I commented several times on how her allergies jumped down her throat this year.  "No I promise she's not sick its just her allergies... yes it does sound awful... no she just gets very bad allergies."  Sometimes I mention she got them straight from her father.  I don't have allergies.  Dan was always clearing his throat.  Every couple minutes he would clear his throat. It was because of his allergies. He never coughed much he just always cleared his throat. When he was a child he had to get allergy shots every week.  He hated it and vowed we would never do that to our kid.  I have threatened when she won't take her allergy medicine and that usually worked. I could base Baby Girls need for allergy medicine off of Dan. It was easy. Da...

I went to therapy the other day (everyone go to therapy).  We talked about how to be happy. Weird topic I know. How do you make yourself be happy. My therapist said. "If you just pray hard enough you will be happy"  Then we both laughed out loud cause she know as good as I do that "just praying hard enough" is a lie from the pit of hell. This is why I love my therapist. But we did talk alot about being happy. It's not that I'm unhappy exactly. I have a good life, I know that, I have a beautiful daughter, a new house. and a new job that so far is going really well. Those are all good things. Dan is still dead. I still miss Dan with every fiber of my being. It tends to dampen the happy. "You will always miss him" my therapist said. I know, but how do I be happy and miss him at the same time. "Your doing it" she said. She likes to tell me that one a lot, "Your doing it" as in I'm moving forward, I'm getting out of ...

Unfortunately Dan and I did not get to grow up with Harry Potter like so many kids did. We were already grown ups when Harry potter came out. It didn't stop us from reading it though. Perhaps in some ways it was better because we could see all the meaning and metaphor behind it that kids might have missed. We did have to wait a few months for the seventh book to come out, but everything else we read back to back. Rather Dan read them and I listened. We were weird like that, the in love couple who read books together at night. We would cuddle up in our bed and I usually laid on his chest and he would read. More often then not I would fall asleep to the sound of his voice as he read. The next night I would make him back up to the part I remembered. He'd always tease me about it, tell me I had to stay awake if I wanted to know what was going on. Then he would back up anyway. We read many many books this way. I don't remember when we went on this Harry Potter binge but it w...

In case you didn't notice the title, today marks two years and two months since my one true love, my soul mate, vanished from this earth. Just vanished, most people call that vanishing trick dying, but it has the same effect, gone without a trace, never to be seen again on this earth.  I'm still in a sort of shock two years and two months later. We keep moving but I don't know how. Every month on this date, I just sorta expect everything to go wrong, there is no reason for it to go right. For two years and two months this day has just been wrong. That's what I was expecting today so I planned accordingly "I am not leaving the couch" I declared. But then Baby Girl got invited to a play date and she was actually excited to go. So I broke my decree and drove her to her friends house. As I was driving back I was thinking, "you know what crazy widow, today has been ok, nothing has gone wrong, the sun is shinning for the first time all year, today has been ok...

When I was 16 or 17 (it was honestly so long ago that I don't remember how old I was)  I was in a very minor car accident. Just a little fender bender. I was stopped and somebody ran into me.  Seeing as I was so young I didn't actually own a car yet and I was driving my grandpas red pick up truck. His truck was old school and had no head rest so when that car ran into me and my friend I smacked the back of my head against the back window of the truck. The window did not break or crack or anything. there was no Dr. visit, I just rubbed my head and said ouch. It was minor. Shortly after that I started getting headaches in the back of my head. My mother took me to the Dr. several times, I even got a fancy MRI and all that jazz. There was nothing wrong with me. My boyfriend at the time, his name was Dan. (Spoiler, I ended up marring him, also he died.) Dan had wrestled (ha there's a blog topic) pretty much his whole life so he new a thing or two about bones being out of place...

Baby Girl and I were running around town today. We drove past this very odd shaped building. It was sort of in the middle of the road. Sort of like a triangle and the road went around it. Very recognizable. Baby Girl said "hey I've been in a building just like that before. Not that one but one like it" Not paying attention to what building she was talking about while I was driving, I tried to narrow it down, "With who, Auntie?"  she replied "No not auntie, I think with you and daddy" wait did my kid just say the D word. well we can cross that off the list of the things that happen about once a month.  Then I caught a glimpse of the building in my rear view mirror. Then I knew exactly what she was talking about. "Yes, me and you and daddy have been in a building like that." It's a popular chain in the area that specializes in restaurants and hotels and loves painting odd murals on their walls.  We went to this particular one because they...

Dan always had this way about him. I don't really know how describe it. He just knew stuff. I know that sounds weird and vague.  He was the kind of person people always came to for big problems, because he always had an answer, even if the answer was "I don't know" he made you feel at peace about that answer. Sometimes I wonder if he knew he was going to die. I don't for one second think he knew he was going to die the day he did. But he would say things that now make me wonder. He always said he was running out of time. When he turned 30 he said, "I'm already 30, I was supposed to have a book published by now, I'm running out of time." I told him that writing books was something you did when you retired, that right now was the time for babies. He didn't argue that he just said he was running out of time. Dan was always saying things that frankly I always blew off. I guess thats why they say hindsight is 20/20. He would tell me he was g...

Afraid. I'm actually afraid to tell people this. Relive the night you saw your husband die, sure, no problem. But this. I don’t know if I have the courage to tell you this.  We are so afraid these days of what people will say about our parenting it might actually be easier to talk about death. I have mentioned for awhile now (like ever since I started this blog) that Baby Girl is having a hard time with this whole grief thing. That's pretty much a huge understatement. Baby Girl is basically in denial of this whole grief thing. She doesn't want to have anything to do with it. I don't blame her, either do I, but someone has to be the grown up here and since she's only 9 I guess it's me. I had a parent meeting with MTD about a month ago. MTD stands for Magic Therapy Dude. He is Baby Girls therapist. he specializes in children and he is awesome, some might say magic. Baby Girl has gone to therapy for two years now. We started going because her dad died.  ...