Broken Gifts





I went to therapy today.  She said I sounded tired. I am. I'm tired of doing this without Dan. I am really missing Dan this week. Which is funny because I always really miss him. The difference is some weeks I really miss him and it drives me to do things, to keep going, to kick the ass out of this crappy widow job. To be on top of things, because I have to, because he's not here to help me, I have no choice but to go on without him.  I have to keep going, I have to take care of Baby Girl. Other times I really miss him and it makes me go, thats it! I can't do this another day without him. This is too hard, life is to hard. I'm so lonely for him. I want to hide under my covers for 30 years and then poke my head out and see if it's worth getting up yet. But I know if Dan's not there it won't be. Whats the point. I'm telling you those widow brains are crazy.

I did something else today. I broke my chandelier, it was an accident but as far as I can tell it's beyond repair. I love that chandelier. Dan got it for me one year for our anniversary. I don't remember what anniversary it was. I remember being so surprised at it and loving it. It was an antique chandelier with glass crystals hanging off it. I always wanted one like that and Dan knew it. Now it's broken just like our dreams.

Dan was so good at buying me presents, he always got just the perfect thing. He wasn't the husband that bought appliances. He bought me beautiful antique furniture and clothes I loved.chandeliers. It seems like with all this moving everything is breaking. Maybe our stuff has just gotten old. Everything we treasured is breaking. Everything that reminded me so much of him.

He had a collection of antique glass bottles. When he was alive I thought they were quite a nuisance. Then he died. Several people told me to get rid of them and I couldn't do it. I couldn't get rid of something he loved so much. They were a part of him.  I was storing them outside and when it froze this winter a bunch of them cracked and broke. More dreams broken.

One year for his birthday I got him a statue of St. Francis. St Francis was one of Dan's heros. He always wanted to be like him, being with nature, rescuing animals, giving up all possessions and praying. I always used to tease him if I hadn't of come along he would have done just that. he'd say "yup, but then you did, and your a better gig."  We had a big wind storm last week and the st Francis statue blew over and broke in half. Everything is broken.

We talked about the future today in therapy. She said I talk like all my dreams are impossible now because Dan's dead. "Uh yup they are" I replied. "They don't have to be, you could do them by yourself or with someone else." No not really, I mean I could. but thats not really the dream. The dream is to do these things with Dan. Dan is a crucial part of the dreaming. Without him to do it with, I don't want it. Or rather, I can't have it anymore. That dream is gone. Maybe someday I will make a new dream, but I will never fulfill the old dream because Dan's not here to be a part in it and all my dreams had him in them. They are broken.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PTSD is not for sissys

Image
Do you know what PTSD is? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I bet you think you do.  You might say something like "ya its what people that go off to war have" true. You might say "It's when people see really terrible things" true. A few really smart people might say "ya my friend watched her beloved husband die and now she has it" very true. If you are a mental health professional you might say "ya a child who all of a sudden has a dad who dies will have it" also true.  I was telling a friend once about how life is now without Dan and she said "wow it's almost like you have PTSD or something." No not almost, we do. But what exactly is it? Well it's complicated. I can't describe it for baby girl because I am not in her mind (unfortunately) but I can try and describe it for me. I am hesitant to do so; it's not an easy thing to talk about, But if we are going on a the point of this blog is to be therapeutic for me and h
Read more

The Floor

Image
I pulled him off of our bed and onto the floor. The 911 dispatcher told me to. She said it would help him breathe. I grabbed his ankles and pulled hard on his legs. He fell to the floor with a loud thump. I gasped at the loudness of it, but he didn’t move on his own at all. He didn't shake his head and say, “Ow, what’d you pull me off the bed for?” He didn't do anything. He just laid there. She told me to lift his neck up to help him breathe. I tried, but it was hard to move him, and I didn't want to hurt him.  I put my head on his chest again and again, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, I couldn’t tell if that was his heartbeat or mine that I heard as he laid on the floor.  “Daddy! Wrestle with me!” she would shout, as she jumped into him and they landed on the floor. It was their favorite game. She would pound him and he would exaggerate the impact, clutching his stomach and lifting his legs in the air.  “You got me good, baby girl!” he would tell her. She would grin i
Read more

Milestones in grief

Image
                                                                Dan and I around 2011 I wrote this for a writing contest about milestones. Writing about every grief milestone would take a book and I had a word limit so I couldn't do that. I tried to do the really big ones. I have not had a particularly eventful life. When I was eight, my parents moved, but they took me with them. At ten, I had a pretty bad accident, but I came out of it fine. My husband and I met at sixteen, and at nineteen, we went against all good advice and got married. I gave birth to our daughter when I was 27.   I loved our boring, normal life. We were living our happily ever after. I was a stay at home mom, Dan was finishing up grad school. Everyone says this kind of thing at funerals, but Dan really was the most amazing person I’ve ever met in my life. He wanted to save the world: the people, the animals, the ecosystem. He wanted to make the world better, and he was. I loved our little family and couldn
Read more