Grrr

Christmas came and went I had about as much joy as I could stand. How awful that sounds but it is true. It is like wanting something so bad for Christmas and Christmas morning arrives and you get everything but what you really wanted. Then your best friend calls on the phone so thrilled because she got your dream gift from her parents for her Christmas present. It is your job as her best friend to be happy for her but you are too sad and disappointed for yourself to get overly jubilant about it. That is the way I felt at Christmas this year. I really wanted to still have my husband and the dreams we had no matter how silly they seemed. All the Christmas trimmings and family distractions couldn’t take that deep seated droning of want from me this year. It's reverberations were so loud that it deafened me to the angelic host around me, my family. I felt as though I had an out of body holiday experience, I was here, but not really present more robotic than anything else.  I hope for next year to be better. 

I don’t like the thoughts I am having, they seem so ugly. I am jealous and completely envious of older couples I see. I really believed we would grow old together and see our grandchildren grow up. At my son’s house I was reminded that he will graduate from Pharmacy school in May. This will be the next “you have to be off work” event we will miss together. Steve pushed our kids to get their education and all of them have attended college and two have graduated and the other three will graduate at their God appointed perfect times. We attended every graduation Ryan has had and this will be his last, and Steve will miss it. These are the things that hurt me hard right now, events we will miss together in the lives of the children we created together.  I don’t like to dwell on these thoughts, but they are facts in my life right now so if I visit them a few times before they happen, it may not sting as much at the time of the actual event. This is how I got through the beautiful song my boys wrote about their dad. I listened to it so much that I don’t cry when I hear it now, I just appreciate the sentiment and the love my boys have for their dad.

Steve has attended so many important dates in our family’s history such as kindergarten, sixth grade, high school and college graduations and most Boy Scout, and almost all the Eagle Scout ceremonies too. He has attended Josh and Amy’s wedding, Ryan and Shannon’s wedding, and the birth of our first grandchild. He attended most every ball game, and drama function in church or school. He will be sorely missed at the rest of our college graduations, the rest of our upcoming weddings and the births of any grandbabies God blesses my family with. The hole will be huge in my heart and my side will be empty without him there to walk with me. I miss holding his hand during church or walking down the street. I miss him driving me places and holding the door open for me, or shielding me from the cold and rain. He was my sidekick, my companion, my bodyguard and a part of me that is missing. In our vows the two became one; well I am definitely walking crooked right now without him. I am having phantom pains of him and feel for him there only to look to my side to realize he is not there.

I am glad to be home with mom and dad but sad too. I love that they are still happily married over 50 years now quite a wonderful feat these days. The part that makes me sad is they are what I guess I tried to model my life on and now that is taken from me. I have to adapt and move on, but I am angry that part of my life is over and I had no say in that. It was snatched from me, sure I had some warning, but it was like someone in a coma warning. You visit every day and the one day you can’t go for your visit they wake up then go back into their coma. This is a huge overhaul of my existing way of life and will take a lot of adjusting and adapting and this old dog just wants to sleep right now. Grrr leave me alone, I feel grumpy and just need my space. I feel as if I could scream or just run but I know I can’t so I will hold it in some more. It won’t do me any good anyway, my throat will get sore, and my legs will tire.

Good grief my eye Charlie Brown. There is nothing good about this I will say to anyone who cares to listen. It is ugly, smelly, dark and dirty and bad. Bad grief Charlie Brown would be more appropriate. Who coined such a ridiculous phrase? Grief is very much like having a boil and looks like it too. Poor old Job had more grief than I would ever want to deal with so I guess I better be quiet and accept my good grief. I am not having fun at all right now it is too much work. I am trying to work through every dimension of it at a quickened pace to put it behind me, but that doesn’t work. There are no cliff notes here so I will have to read the whole book. Grr, once again I want to growl.

I have so much to do when I get back home, so many things I don’t want to get back to doing. It is much like coming off vacation I guess. I am already focusing on what I have to do. I know I can get it done with a little help from my friends and family. I want to rush everything so it will be behind me and I can move on and mourn at a later time, but I don’t think God will allow that. I have to go through at my specific pace and my impatience gets in the way sometimes and I growl. I apologize to anyone I have growled or snapped at. I wasn’t myself at the time. I plan to be myself again real soon, but God may have other plans on that too so stay tuned. I will get out of this with God’s help of course.