Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

"Lets teach Baby kitty how to rockabye.... First mommy sits down in the rockabye chair...then Baby Girl climbs onto mommy's lap...then Baby kitty sits on my lap... then we rockabye...then daddy comes and puts a blanket on us so we can be cozy... except daddy's not here...mommy tell baby kitty where daddy is" "daddy died baby kitty, he went to heaven." Ya we did that today. Sigh.  It took two and a half years for Baby Girl to start talking about daddy. For two and a half years she barely said his name. In the last couple months though that has changed, she has started talking more and more about him. Wondering if he would like this or that. Asking me to tell her stories about her and daddy. Asking what I think daddy would have said or done. Actually telling people or rather baby kittys that daddy died. We drove past the road to our old house today. We do that a lot, it's on our way to places. Sometimes Baby Girl asks if we can drive down there and s

 So I'm reading this book about Grief.  It is one of very very few grief books I actually liked and found useful.  In fact I love it even though it's all about grief.  The book is called "It's ok that you're not ok" by Megan Devine.  You can buy it on Amazon. There is pretty much one reason that sums up why I love this book. It tells the truth. It tells the Hard, Cold, Truth. It actually talks about grief and how awful it is, how every day is a struggle to survive. Cause it is. It doesn't try to sugar coat anything or find the silver lining. It doesn't tell you to start a foundation in your loved one's name to make you feel better about their death. Instead it says why should you feel better, your life has imploded, it's going to suck, and thats ok. I was reading her book the other day and I came across a passage that really spoke to me.  This I said this! I have felt like this so many times. More times then I want to admit. More times t

"Baby Girl is getting braces tomorrow"I told my therapist when she asked how Baby Girl was doing.  "Dan's not going to be there. He's missing this huge step again. I won't be sending him a text of our kid with braces. I didn't even ask him his opinion on braces. That is a huge parental decision to just make on your own like that." I guess I know what Dan would say about braces.  His teeth were slightly crooked and his parents decided it wasn't a big enough deal to get braces. He always regretted their decision. He wanted braces.  I had braces for two and a half years, my teeth were seriously messed up. head gear, retainers, the works. I hated every single minute of it and am still not convinced it was worth it. Baby Girls teeth are pretty messed up. I'm certain Dan would have wanted her to get braces, but I didn't get to ask him. He didn't get to have a say, he didn't tell me the story of how he always wished he had gotten them. H

I feel like it's a laying on the floor kind of night. I don't know why exactly, nothing big happened, nothing significant. Just the same old grief I've had for over two and a half years now.  ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh let's go lay on the floor. I laid on the floor a lot after Dan died. Just laid on the floor. When the grief was to consuming, or life was too hard, I would just stop in my tracks and lay on the floor. If the dishes looked to huge, or I noticed his keys on the hook, If I wanted to cry, I would have this huge need to lay on the floor.  If my besties were around (which they were a lot, man I love them) they would say "do it" and they would come sit with me while I laid on the floor. If my sisters were around (which they were a lot, they know I love them) they would say "why are we on the floor" as they came and laid next to me. I usually said something like "why not" as I laid on the floor and cried. Baby Girl would just ignore her

                                                                                            Dan trying to make me laugh when I was in the hospital I miss Dan. Just miss Dan. Sometimes the grief is so overwhelming it takes away from the person you lost. Not that you have forgotten him, that will never happen, but that you are so sad and so tired and so overwhelmed that all you can do is say I miss him. When you say that, in your mind (or at least my mind) I am thinking mostly about how I felt when he was around. Happy, calm, peaceful. The way I felt when he smiled at me, or gave me a look like "lady your crazy"  I think about an all encompassing Dan, about his presence.  It is much harder to think of specifics.  Grief isn't just saddness, it's everything. Everything single thing you do is affected by grief. Memory is a big one for me. I can't remember anything. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a store and just stopped because I couldn'

Did I ever tell you what an exceptionally normal life I lead.  Really you could have made a feel good movie out of my childhood and young adult life. The main character (me) grew up in a great community with loving parents and an abnormal amount of siblings. The family always celebrated Christmas and Easter with their cousins and grandparents. In the summer they had pool parties in their giant back yard. She fell in love with her high school sweetheart. they had a baby and lived happily ever after. That is my story. Until... That high school sweetheart, the one I was still madly in love with after 15 years of marriage, the one who would hold my hand and swing it back and forth and say "I can't wait to be old with you and we can sit on our porch and watch our grandchildren play and I will still be holding your hand" The one who I am confident loved me with every single cell in his body. That one, THE ONE. He died, just died, out of nowhere. I was there. That caused s

I went to support group last night. You know where you and other people go to talk to each other about their problems. Our problem is death, specifically that we have kids who have had a parent die, which in most cases means we have had a spouse die. What a sucky group to be a part of huh.  There were some new people there so everyone goes around and tells their story, you know why they ended up in this group. Who died. So I told my story, I do this often, I even blog about it for the whole world to see. I have actually gotten pretty good at 'glossing' over it, I guess it's a skill you learn after time. I can say "My husband died two and a half years ago, he had a siezure, and I watched him die. We have a ten year old daughter" Most times now I can say it without even crying, see I have gotten good. Tonight though, for some reason I don't really know, I went into a lot of detail about the night Dan died. That's much harder, I could not do that one without

If I can manage to crawl out of bed tomorrow and make it to the couch it will be a miracle, I thought to myself as I went to bed Saturday night. My brain was fried, you know when it hurts just to think, when you have an actual headache because your brain was that worn out. Iv'e had this problem before, in times of high stress in my life. When my Grandfather died (he was 90 and lived a good long life) it was very stressful for my whole family and my brain was fried, Then I had Dan to take care of me, to help shoulder the burden, to fix me a bath and tell me not to come out till I was good and ready, to play with, distract and take care of Baby Girl. Several years ago Dan's dad was extremely ill and we thought he might die,  we spent days and days at the hospital, we leaned on each other then, we took care of his mom, I was there for Dan, for the whole family. His dad recovered and has outlived his youngest son. When I was pregnant with Baby Girl I went into preterm labor, I'