Signs

“OOOhoo Child , things are gonna get easier … OOOhooo child things will get brighter”.  I’ve been singing this song for the past week ever since I heard it on the radio.  I realize and understand that holidays are going to be a hard time ~ especially as Mikey gets older.  Easter was no exception.  When I see pictures of others enjoying the holiday with their families, a kaleidoscope of feelings - jealousy, anger, ...mainly an aching longing - threaten to make me a very bitter person.   And all I keep thinking is how Mikey is going to wonder why his mommy is so sad all the time.    

    Last night I woke up to feed Mikey and the culmination of everything I’ve felt this past week wouldn’t let me go back to sleep.  I didn’t break down, I just felt an emptiness and an overwhelming sadness.  I went into the living room and started talking to Michael.  The living room looks right into the bedroom where I sleep and I can see  Mikey’s crib.

For some reason, I kept on looking into the bedroom.  As I was telling Michael how much I missed him and how alone I felt, there was a crash in the bedroom.  I thought my mother had heard me talking and woke up and bumped into something in the dark.  But when I went in the bedroom, my mother was just getting out of bed to see what the noise was and Mikey was remarkably still sound asleep.  

    Now as I look outside , I see not the wind itself but the tree leaves that the wind touches.  You might think I am crazy or think I am just a widow in deep mourning looking for anything to make me feel better but I know the truth.  I know that Michael woke my mother up because he didn’t want me to be alone.  I was only talking for about five minutes and that is a small window of time for something to happen by just chance.  He knew I needed someone to comfort me but , for some unknown reason, he cannot vocally do it himself. Perhaps that is not how the spirit world works.  I do not have a clue but I do know he was was trying to help me out.
    And I didn’t tell this story so that anyone would feel sorry for me or sad. What I want you to take away from this writing, is be open to all possibilities.  There is more to this universe and our lives then we will ever understand.  Hold on to your feeling of happiness when you can … relish in the feeling of completeness because you never know when you won’t have it anymore.  But there is more to life than all of this that surrounds us... there is more.  

My mother told me Michael is “still taking care of his princess”.  And all I can say is … of course.

My Head

Its not only the heart
that keeps seeking
but the want that keeps repeating
over and over
a lonely dwelling ,
neglected since your absence

And the girl that haunts the rooms
cries in the corners, the bed
too cold to sleep in
surrounded by memories, your tomb

The wind whips through the open window
whispers traded between lips
no longer comfort but torture
and the love still there,
always there,still warm

Want ~
an undying echo
of all that she can no longer have
forever bouncing
off the walls
plays shadow tricks with the girl
repeating, repeating
wishes and dreams...
wishes and dreams.

Another Mark and Discovery

A couple of days ago was the two month marker. It was a very , very hard day. That day will be easier when I don’t replay that night in my head.  Would, could, and should have are three words that torture me.  So, I try to think of the good times when those images and moments assail me.  

I am proud of myself because I called and talked with my brother-in-laws daughter and didn’t cry.  I know she was hit hard by his loss,too.  I did cry afterwards though but I know Michael would have wanted me to call and check on her.  He loved his niece and I’m glad that I got to meet her with Michael.  I have a hard time calling her my niece because she isn’t much younger than me.  I don’t really feel like her “aunt” as I do with Michael’s sister’s children.  Regardless, Michael was terrible with phones and emails but he did think of others often so the family contact part was “my job”.

Lately I find myself doing things and not understanding why I do them.  A general feeling of discontent would be the best way to sum it up.  I was looking through my phone because I wanted to talk to someone besides my parents.  But I ended up scrolling through my list about five times before I realized that the person I was looking for would not be on the list.  So I just dropped the phone and talked to him.  Yes, I probably look a little crazy.

Where do I want to go from here?  I can only go forward that is obvious and Michael always encouraged me to do what I wanted.  So I have to ask myself “Who do I want to become?” I’ll never be the same person I was and if anyone expects me to well then they just don’t understand at all.  This sort of situation scars a person’s soul.  

I know I cannot rebuild myself to what I was with Michael , I have to rebuild a whole new me.  And lets face it , a lot of my reality has changed.  Life is scary in ways it wasn’t before.  Life has already taken so much from me, what else will it take?  And ,at the same time, gave me something I don’t know I will ever find again.  

I don’t have that back up like I did with Michael.  I do have supportive friends and family but it isn’t the same as having your partner in life behind you.  Michael was my best friend and ,in a spirit way, still is my best friend.  But when I talk to him, I’m looking for an obvious answer when I need to listen and be open to direction instead.

So again I ask “Where do I go from here?”. HHmmm  I’ll start off small, where would I like this blog to go?  I don’t want the blog to be about my missing Michael the entire time and I KNOW Michael wouldn’t either.  I want it to be about my son and my “new normal”.  I want my blog to grow with me.  Michael wouldn’t want me sitting here , crying over the keyboard.  Oh no, that would just upset him.  But maybe I am growing in ways I don’t notice yet … maybe I don’t want to realize yet.  

My brother-in-law posted this quote “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are” Bernice Johnson Reagan. So here I am , discovering myself.  

Thanks for reading, M

My NMM Future and Grief Relief

            Michael pops into my head all the time...

I see his smile as if were in front of me, movements of his body, how he held his hands ~ all pieces of him that flash from time to time.  I think it is the sudden images that are the hardest to deal with … memories from a time when we were happy and unaware of our future.  I guess we took our life for granted.  

As I work through living without Michael, sometimes the denial is the hardest part of my life.  My mind just doesn’t want to accept what I know isn’t really a nightmare but the truth.  So I try my hardest to take it one day at a time and that really is hard enough!  And sure there are certain triggers that remind me of “no-more-Michael”days ahead.  I try not to think of my NMM future and concentrate on ,what widows/widowers call, my “new normal”.  

For example, My Mom mentioned the fact that it will be Mikey’s first Christmas and how exciting it will be.  Her words floored me for a moment and I had to take a deep breathe.  I didn’t want to make my mother feel bad so I just said to her “That time will be very hard for me”.  

There will be a lot of Mike’s first without his Daddy.  Plans and things we wanted to do will remain in my mind forever.  Too often we said “we can do it later”.  But we never said “later” on our love.  So I’ll cry, I’ll mourn and I will make it through those hard days because Michael will be there in spirit .  

…But anyway, Onward and Forward.....

Grief Relief!

To help with my grief, I made a list of stuff that I wanted to start doing again.  This blog has been very therapeutic and ,though I don’t post all that I write, it occupies my attention for a while.  Even if I don’t finish my post, I’m really trying to make sure I write on a daily basis.

Writing has always been a good outlet for me and has always been my true love.   I’ll get back to writing poetry in a while, right now I’m going to focus on relief.  Immediate relief is in writing my blog, secondary relief will be going to a grief counselor, and another way to cope will be exercising.  

Also,I would like to get into photography again.  That is another passion that will help soothe and provide an outlet for my internal emotional flux. So much I want to do , so little time!

Wedding Photo

   I keep our wedding photo next to Mikey’s bed.  At first, I couldn’t even look at a photo of Michael without crying but I soon realized that his picture gave me some level of comfort.  Denying his existence in my life whether physical or spiritual would be harder than excepting his passing. I took out our photo and put it next to Mikey’s bed so that I could show Mikey every morning his daddy.  And Mikey loves the photo. I say “Say hi to daddy” and Mikey smiles and ,sometimes, pats the picture with his fist.  
  My life has changed drastically since that wedding photo.  I moved to NY a week after becoming a wife and ,five months later,  I became a mother.   Then under two months later, a widow.
  I have changed since that photo ,in ways that I’m just beginning to realize. 
However,  I’m trying my hardest to be thankful for different parts of my life that lead up to my current status.  Thankful for having met Michael in the first place.  The odds of us meeting were pretty slim ~ Mike is from New York and I am from North Carolina.  Quite a distance for us to become friends but ,thanks to the internet, we still found each other.  A story I will look forward to telling Mikey as he gets older.  On how he came to be...