Moment

“Giving thanks for the moment is the only way to glimpse eternity.”

One moment.

When he walked through the front door and our eyes met.

When our lips first embraced.

When I said “I love you.” And he said it back.

When he slid the ring down my finger.

When he boarded the bus.

When he surprised me at the front door for the last two weeks we’d share together.

When we’d kiss for the last time.

When we’d share our last words and see each others faces over the computer screen.

When I heard his last “I’m so in love with you.”

When the explosives went off.

When he took his last breath.

When I got the call.

When I drove home to find out he wasn’t coming home.

The moments.

Theses are some of the moments that made up our physical time together. Our unity. Our love.

 

Talking to him in the darkness of our empty room.

Remembering the things he said and taught me while on earth.

Feeling his love and warmth, in my heart and soul, when the rest of the world felt cold.

Knowing that with each leap and fall, he’s there by my side.

Knowing that I am never alone.

That I will never suffer when I stay in the light of what is the now.

Feeling alive in the beauty all around.

Still telling him every night how in love I am with him.

Falling, again.

Getting up.

Finding my purpose and passion through his example of having found his.

Smiling.

Living an utterly beautiful and confusing, yet clear life.

The moments.

These are some of the moments that make up my life after his passing. Our unity. Our love.

 

The moments before and after that allow me a glimpse into the eternity. Of our love. Of our lives. Of his legacy.

The moments that make up life. The moments that I cherish and can never give enough thanks in sharing and in having with the best man I’ve ever known.

Never

Someone once said, “You never need to apologize for how you chose to survive.”…

6 years later, and I still couldn’t agree more.

I’ve been madly happy.

I’ve been madly sad.

I’ve been mad.

But above all else.

I’ve been.

That is enough.

That is amazing.

That is something that is the proudest of my accolades after being Michael’s wife and widow.

I have and will love.

I will prevail.

I will fall.

I will get up for the millionth time.

But I will never ever doubt or talk down on the decisions and life I have and do lead.

For it is all I know.

It is all I grow with.

It is all I will be flawed in.

It is all I will become.

It is.

I’ve been.

I am.

Me.

No apologies.

Break Up

“The relationship you have with the world is just like any other relationship. Every now and again, even if it’s pissed you off for no good reason, you have to look it in the eyes and say: I love you.” – Iain Thomas

I broke up with life in May of 2007.

For obvious reasons.

My soul mate was killed.

But as the days, months and years passed.

As the smiles grew from corner to corner, laughter escaped, inhaling was appreciated… we made up.

But then another loss. Another break up from the big L.

Then he wined and dined me and we made up. All past issues forgiven

But the past 4 years, when May or December came around, I didn’t just end our longstanding nuptials with a break up, but insisted on at least giving life the cold shoulder.

They’re hard months with hard dates.

Not this year.

No.

Event though we’ve had are disagreements and what at times seemed like a total divorce, life and I have stuck it through.

‘But how? Life has done some pretty messed up things to you?!’

I know. It’s a question asked by many and many times by myself. Please, let me explain.

Life has its flaws. Undoubtedly. But so do I.

Life has sometimes made me question my very existence. But Life never Life never left my side as I figured it out for myself.

But enough about Life..I must admit my own discretions in our relationship.

I’ve hated Life with my very being. I’ve spit on it and told it to never come back. I threw its clothes to the curb. I’ve cursed it to all around me.

But through it all, Life consistently let me know that it was there for me. Life knew that it wasn’t perfect, and most importantly, Life never gave up on me when I had given up on it and myself.

Life understood what I needed to realize for myself….

That it wasn’t perfect, but it was something that many didn’t even have the honor of having in its presence. That it couldn’t give me everything, but if I were to reflect, I’d realize that it had and would give me more than I could have ever asked for or dreamed of.

This May (and after), I’ve made a pact with what I some thought to be a hellish relationship, to really opening my eyes to the utter beauty and unconditional love it has and will show me as long as I’m willing to embrace it.

Life is a gift/relationship denied by many (even by myself at times)….but no longer, hot stuff. I’m on to you and all that I blinded myself from seeing before.

I love you….and I’m so in love with you.

6

With May marking the 6th year of Micheal’s transition, I figured that I’d cover 6 things that I’ve learned or that still ring true. Some of it may seem monotonous, but it’s monotony that seals the cracks to the weak spots in our soul. More than any of the six things below, I want to acknowledge that each and every journey is unique. There is a shit ton more than the 6 things noted below that I’ve learned, but here  are just a few of mine, and mine alone:

1.) I’m still madly in love with the dead dude!:
I tried to run away from my pain after his sudden death. Tried convincing myself of things/falsehoods, that I thought may lessen the pain. They didn’t. The pain ate away at every ounce of what I thought was left of me before bringing back to the one truth and constant that was there all along. That our love is eternal. He is in every moment of my happiness and accomplishments, and gently nudging me as I trudge and trudged through the darkest of minutes, months and years. Being in love with someone not physically here has never for a moment equated to me living a less fulfilling, exciting, and amazing life…if anything, after seeing that I could withstand and overcome the grief (and what seemed like it’s deathly grip), I was able to feel the very essence of what his love did and does for me continuously. Who he was in his life, guides me after his death. I simply just love the ability to say that I had the privilege to be his wife, and find it an honor to call myself his widow.

2.) The only way I could start becoming me was by doing what I didn’t think I could do:

It started with breathing without him. Then it turned into smiling and laughing. Then onto trying new things. Creating new things. Growing. Acknowledging. Embracing. Living. I didn’t think it was possible. But with each new step. Each new leap. I remembered who I was before the loss and started creating a me I could fall in love with, again. The more you hesitate, the more the fear will grow in you that you shouldn’t or you can’t or you won’t. So just do it! Shedding the “what could or should have been” is the only way you can evolve.

3.) I hated that it got easier, but it did…it has:

As I started recognizing that I had more good days than bad. The moment that I switched from being able to count the number of days I didn’t cry in a year on one hand, to the number of days I cried on one hand, was scary. My grief and pain had become an extension of my life without Michael, but my mind and heart were ready to shed that layer that I felt I needed to hold onto in fear that it would be a shedding of my life with Michael. It wasn’t. It isn’t. All new things, all things that are worth reaching will face discomfort and our mind telling us not to march forward…but I did, and it was so worth it. It revealed a life that I didn’t think was possible to be a part of after he died.

4. )Some people just won’t ever get me:

People still try to tell me what I need or should do. Not as many, but they’re there. I’ve welcomed them with open arms, as I know that it is just them not understanding something that I didn’t understand until I was in the midst of it. Acknowledging with myself that I got to take the path my heart and soul yearn for, makes it a lot easier to hug and show love to those who feel that it’s necessary to share their opinions. As long as you know that they’re nothing more than opinions (something we all have a ton of), then it makes those somewhat awkward moments a breeze. And believe it or not, those people make you that much stronger!

5.) I like the me I have become:

I used to yearn to be the person I was when Michael was alive. I seemed so much happier. I was the person he knew before death made me into what i felt was a ghoul. But 6 years later, I don’t wish that I could go into the past as much as I wish he could be here to see who I am now. Grief can destroy you or strengthen you…or in my case, do a bit of both. But now I am strengthened more than destroyed. I have made an exerted effort to continuously surprise myself. To challenge myself. To make him proud where he is…and most importantly, to make myself proud, as I’m the person and soul I’m with the most.

6.) I never thought I’d still be here:

In all honesty, I didn’t think I’d live a month after Michael’s death. There was a part of me hoping that I could physically die of a broken heart. I even remember looking at those who had lived a year after their spouse’s death and thinking that they must not love them as much as I love Michael. Well, I was totally wrong.  I couldn’t die of a broken heart, but not physically. I could make the choice to die mentally and emotionally and do nothing more than be a shell of a being. I chose that for a while, but realized that I had to at least live for Michael until I could maybe one day choose to live for myself. It was when I did that, that I realized that those that had survived more than a month didn’t have less love, but had made the decision to do more than just exist. They were willing to take a path they had no clue in where it would take them. It was an amazing realization. It is a huge reason I am living, not merely existing, today.

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Dr. Anthony Robins

Michael was blown up.

Blown up by a man in a field who waited for the perfect moment to detonate thousands of pounds of explosives underneath him.

And yet, with such a heinous and deliberate act, I have no doubt in my heart, that he died in peace. He died with no anger.

After I was notified, I found myself not angered by the stranger who pressed down on the detonator. Or the military. Or the men who were with him. Or really anyone here on earth.

As the days and months passed I saw what it was to be blamed for his death by others (yes, even in grief, and in Texas, I was blamed). But I never took it personally, knowing that it was there way of displacing the pain they didn’t know how to handle (I personally preferred to displace it on a bottle of wine….but we’re all different).

And it’s happened more since his death. Blame. Anger. Hatred. And in all honesty, I always took it because it never absorbed, and I know we all react in different ways.

But it wasn’t until 4 years after his death. 4 years of learning to live. 4 years to teach myself how to inhale and exhale in a world without him. 4 years to remember who I was before the loss and merge it with who I had become.

4 years till it hit me.

And in all places, an Indian sweat-lodge.

It hit me in the vulnerability of the heat, strangers and darkness, that I realized something that I never even knew existed.

Up until that evening, I had prided myself on never blaming. I was pretty good at taking the blame. But I always felt I took ownership for my actions. It seemed easy.

But it hit me.

I had been blaming someone for something since his death.

Blaming a god/higher being for Michael’s death.

It had been so easy to live a life free of blame when I had put it on someone I do not know and cannot see.

It hit my heart that night, and I had to say it. I had to verbalize something that I had been unconsciously hiding in my heart for so long.

I did.

And it changed my life.

It changed my life in allowing me to take away the blame and let be.

It allowed me to jump over the invisible stone wall that was still surrounding and cloaking every action and aspect of my life….without me even knowing it.

For it was after that moment. When I stepped out of the lodge, that found myself living a blame free life.

Blame free for me and towards any and all things.

A life that had patiently waited until the right moment to let me walk into the surprise party of awesome-ness that I didn’t even know I was invited to.

I’ve even stopped blaming myself for not recognizing it until that moment.

For it was then that I knew that the ability to embrace change and the changes to come, far outweighs the heavy weight of the blame we create in our hearts and minds.

Choose

“Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It
takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.”
- Fred Rogers

While sitting with a dear widow friend I met in the very first few months of losing our loves, we reflected on where our lives have gone over the past 5 years.

 

The things we’ve worked through. The things we still struggle with. The things we’ve faced head on. The things we’re still fearful to deal with.

 

It was in these conversations that I realized all the demons I’ve faced and conquered. All the things and individuals I’ve forgiven…..including myself. All the things to come that I now look forward to growing from and through…not that I’ll let bring me down.

 

All of these actions and changes, though, were prefaced by one important choice.

 

The choice to finally stand up and look in the mirror. The choice to finally question why your life is and what it could be if you chose to overcome and not to be overcome by.

 

It didn’t happen overnight for me. It’s an ongoing, day-to-day choice.

 

But it’s a choice we all have.

 

It’s a choice I’d highly recommend.

 

Because in reality it’s not so much a choice…

 

It’s your life.