12

My first trip to India with the most amazing, gracious souls I’ve ever encountered.   -Kaveri Vanita Seveshrama Orphanage

Every year on our anniversary I have tried to spread the love of a wonderful man by doing acts of  intentional love/kindness for strangers and family alike.

It has turned a day that for so many years was unbearable, into a day full of shared joy and excitement.

This year I’d like to ask your help in spreading the love! For the 12th Anniversary, having just 12 of you to help my mission of giving, would be the most amazing gift you can give to a day that personifies love.

Are you in????! Do you accept the mission? I know….what the heck is the mission, Taryn!?

Slow you roll, Tom Cruise….Here’s what I’m planning……..

—

It is no secret that my heart is deeply in love with India and the people who inhabit it.

It is in India that I have found the true meaning of surrender/letting go and trusting the unknown.

In India I learned the true meaning of happiness.

I learned how freaking lucky I am to have the things that so many of us take for granted each second (true story…I am kind of a master at not taking showers after not taking one for 20 something days there…I know…but really, it’s all about the baby wipes and Teen Spirit deodorant).

It is in India that I realized that Mother Theresa knew her shit(though I never doubted this saint)…because “I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?”

So this leads me to the goal I have to make this day that encompasses so much love, into one that spreads love…to India 😉

I have stayed in touch with folks in India and was recently contacted by Gokulananda (go ahead…..say it 5 times fast…) who heads the Widow Initiatives in the Keonjhar District…..but first, let me digress…

I’m not sure if you know what it’s like to be a widow in India…I didn’t know until I was in Vrindavan where the “Widow Home” was…and never have I ever been more grateful to be a widow in the United States….to have the rights to pursue life after loss…to have created the AWP….to have the choice to rebuild after the ruins of tragedy.

Take a quick second to watch this clip….it sums it up pretty well (or google “Widow in India”…it’s pretty much the same across the board) what these women face.

 

Digression done and back to my buddy Gokulananda….who for typing purposes and because I think we’re cool with each other, I’m going to now call Goku on this post 🙂

So Goku’s been keeping me updated on all the amazing things they’re doing to educate all in the district on the importance of supporting widows and their children, while also giving the widows in the region opportunities to have a purpose and a plan to thrive after loss (which is basically my favorite thing in the world). Here are some pics of the ladies, their education initiatives, the children of the widowed they’re serving and some more eye goodies of good deeds:

Goku rocking it….and rocking that plaid!

So Goku and I have been going back and forth, and having run a non-profit for 10 years myself, I know that donations are great, but I love when physical items/services can be given instead of money. So I emailed Goku to send me a list of what I ( or WE….if you’re in 😉 ) could physically send for them to use now….even more so, I want to go beyond that and if you decide to answer this call, you’ll send it directly to them in India (straight to the source!).

So my dude Goku wrote me this:

….Thank you so much for your mail and your concern for the Widows and their Orphan Children.
The materials you have mentioned are very useful and is a dire need for the stakeholders.As per your mail we need the following materials:
White Polo Shirts(For Kids Only)
School Supplies(Note Books,Pencil,Pen,Markers,ABC Books for Kids Only)
Sandals(For both Widows and their Kids )
Water Filter is a dire need for every Widow family.
For Sarees,if it is not possible to arrange it in US,we are trying to arrange it from India.
Thank you once again in advance for your concern for the helpless Widows and their Orphan
Children living in India and supporting IDP Team’s effort in Widow Welfare,Empowerment and
Development.
With Kindest Regards.
In Solidarity,

GOKULANANDA OJHA

---

So there you have it! Everything that may seem small that could make a huge difference (cue Mother Theresa…).

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

—

These are items that you (or you and your kids/family) can go grab anywhere for very little moola (but make a huge impact with). I would also urge you to write letters of support to them, and as they learn english I have no doubt that those letters will be their aim to one day read. As you can see in the email, I had mentioned the difficulty in finding white sarees (mandatory widow garb in India…and maybe why I like to wear rainbows….we’re lucky!). If for some reason you know how to get some, that would be amazing!

Having spent time there I know that water filters are indispensable, and something as small as this $15 life straw will make a huge impact if that is an item you have the means to donate.

—

So there you have it! The mission! If you do decide to partake (THANK YOU in advance!) please take a picture of it about to be sent off or of y’all working on putting it together and attach it to the FB post or in the comments below! I’d love to meet the goal of 12 folks sending packages of love (and I promise, you’ll get soooo much out of giving it)… and the posts will let Goku know our little corner of the world is helping in a big love/small gesture kind of way (and maybe I’ll send him rad plaid or non-plaid pics of us coming together for them…I’m thinking plaid…yep).

I’ve included the address to the foundation/Goku below. Print it out and bring it to the post office in case of any confusion.

I am a widow because of December 23rd, 2005…the day I chose to follow my heart and marry Michael….

There is no better way for me to pay gratitude to him for choosing me to be his wife then to help those who are suffering because of their “I Do” ending too soon.

Thank you for taking this journey with me (Cue Mother Theresa…)….

“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.
We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”

 

 

Some of my favorite souls during my time of teaching in Baljeet Nagar.

MR.GOKULANANDA OJHA

MEMBER-SECRETARY

INDIA DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

AT:-AKHUPAL,POST:-BADAJAMUPASI

VIA:-GHATGAON,DIST:-KEONJHAR

STATE:-ODISHA,PIN CODE:-758027,INDIA

Tel:- +91 7377720394

 

Back

5 months around the world.

Tears.

Bliss.

Shedding.

Finding.

Searching.

So much that I don’t feel I will ever be able to put into words.

So much I’m still absorbing….embracing.

I can say, that more than anything, this trip was not about the tropical locations or adventures (yes…they played a part)…but this trip was about a widow who lost her soul mate over 8 years ago, who had never wanted to date or love or feel connected in that way again…learning how to be a “we” again.

Learning:

How to trust.

How to rely.

How to let go.

How to have faith in the unknown.

And…

I was not disappointed.

I struggled and fought and sometimes climbed into my mental cave of a security blanket, but not before Luke pulled it over my head and made me face it. Face myself. Face the obstacles of learning how to live in love after the one I loved was taken suddenly and tragically.

When times got toughest I’d find a “Michael” or “Charlie” show up in the form of a grocery bagger, a bungee coordinator, or a dog on a trail. I’d be sent warmth and hope in the form of a swallow or a white butterfly or a child’s smile.

More than anything, I saw the parts of me that I so easily ignored in the comfort of my solitude.

The fearless widow now saw the fears that still crippled her.

The go-with-flow girl saw that she still wanted to control the uncontrollable.

The peaceful warrior saw that she still had battles within herself to hand an olive branch to.

And so, here I sit, not swarmed by the impermanence I had become so acclimated to, but on the chair in the office in the home we live in.

I’m changed and am changing, but am still playing catch up to figure out in just what and all the ways.

And with that, I am learning to love all the crooks, cracks, crannies, jewels, dust, glitter and glow of this further unveiled soul of mine.

And I’m alive….and now, very fully aware of what that truly means….fully aware of where life exists.

It’s Time

Taking in the wonder that is the Grand Canyon- Oct. ’14

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste it, to experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”- Eleanor Roosevelt

 

It’s been well over 6 months since my last post.

Much has happened. I’ll highlight a few:

• I’ve risen in love with an amazing human, best friend, spirit, lover and overall partner in (good) crime (not that that makes logical sense….but you get me 😉 ).
• I began studying and practicing Peruvian Shamanism (and became a reiki practitioner).
• I’ve flown over 46,000 miles this year….and it’s nothing compared to what’s ahead!
• The AWP is rockin’ and rollin’ with features on Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR and TODAY…this year alone!

So now that you’re kind of caught up, it leads me to what is coming…what has already begun…I am leaving to travel around the world for the next 5 months (to start)…

Austin -> Norway -> India -> Nepal -> Thailand -> Cambodia/Laos -> Indonesia -> New Zealand -> Australia -> Austin

To be more specific!

Destiny has been knocking at my door for some time, and this year I made the decision to answer…and oh what a glorious welcome she has given me.

I’ve been lucky enough to do a “once-in-a-lifetime-once-a-year” trip every year since Michael’s death… but after the next 5 months, I think I’ll be set for a while, allowing me more time to grow and expand my horizons and future (for myself, my passions and with the man destiny hooked me up with out of nowhere….well played, destiny…well played…).

I’ve been blogging a bit on the site where we will be sharing our stories, photos and revelations.

You can find it here.

 

My eyes are ready to be opened a bit wider.

My feet are ready to walk a bit farther.

My hands are ready to reach a little bit further.

My heart is ready to grow a bit larger.

My horizon is ready to become a bit broader…

 

It’s time.

 

I’ll see you along the way….

Decide

Today marks 7 years since Michael was killed in Iraq.

It could be thought of as a day of sorrow, but for me, today is a celebration of decisions.

Decisions that dictated a life that I’m blessed to have been a part of for 6 years.

 

You see, it’s hard to mourn on a day that is a true reflection of how we should live our lives.

Michael decided many things….

Things that some fear to try, commit to, or experience.

 

He decided to lead.

To serve.

To love fiercely.

To always say what he felt.

To teach.

To care.

To live each day like it was his last.

To sacrifice.

 

He decided.

 

These decisions are not ones that I can look back on with sadness….these are decisions that 7 years ago put me on a path that led me to decisions that have dictated/will dictate the life I decided to take back….just when I thought all had been taken from me.

Through his example and remembering the core of one’s soul path, Michael has allowed me to fearlessly make decisions that I know I will never regret.

Whether those decisions will affect 22 (or 100) years of the life I may live.

 

So if there is anything I can ask of y’all on a day like today, it is to decide.

Decide to live life.

To learn.

To love.

To forgive.

To be challenged.

To embrace the unknown.

 

For me, my wardrobe choice for today is my decision:

And I have a feeling that Michael couldn’t be happier.

Strut

 

It’s been said that once we have found the true path, destiny unfolds before us like a red carpet.

 

I’m a believer of that and the fact that much of destiny (if not all) is determined on our ability to self-propel ourselves into it.

 

Sometimes we don’t notice our forward trajectory and the red carpet unfolds at a slow speed, that years later is finally apparent to the naked eye and soul. And it shows us that not only has destiny rolled out the carpet, but shows us that we have walked across it.

 

But as I’ve most recently learned, sometimes, after many years of becoming mindful of who and what we are made of, we become aware of destiny when it shows its bare self, and decide to throw ourselves into it head first…no looking back…and just like that, at the speed of lightning, that red carpet is not only rolled out, but ready for you to strut yourself down.

 

Of course, on any red carpet, you’ll find a step and repeat. Those moments where you’re made to pause, see the light, gather yourself…but what’s most important is that you keep walking…because lord knows you can’t keep destiny waiting!

 

Popped

There are many things I’m certain of in and of myself:

I am strong.

I am resilient.

I am confident.

I am driven.

I am passionate.

I am a rebel.

I am a lover.

I am a giver.

I am a life embracer.

But I must be honest.

Last year, I found myself challenged.

Now, I must preface that with that fact that I live for challenges. I thrive off of them.

And yet, when I found myself challenged in a way I could have never predicted…expected…I realized that in the midst of being and living all of the truths earlier mentioned, that there was still a part within myself that I had stayed disconnected from.

It was not some bear simply hibernating, that I speak of….something that I expected to at some point unveil itself…

I’m talking bigfoot!

A part of me that I’ve never embraced, acknowledged, lived…simply because I had convinced myself it didn’t exist.

A part of me that I have no control over.

A part of me that left me with two choices…

Reconnect or stay in control of my little bubble.

It all took me back to a favorite saying, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

I think my soul saw something before my mind could grasp it….and luckily, I made the choice to not ignore it…to reconnect….to plug back in…all of me.

I’d recommend it to all…

Pop the little bubble you may have unconsciously placed yourself in.

Though you can see though it.

Though you can still go places….

Until you do, there will still be a part of you encased in something that is too small to hold all of you and all you have to give.

Lost

I was having a farewell dinner this evening with a friend…which usually equates to sharing our thoughts on life and all that it teaches/has taught us thus far.

At one point during our conversation, he looked at me and said, “Taryn, there was a quote from a book that changed my life. I want to share it and I want you to absorb it.”

Intense!

That was the word floating into my head with such a preface!

“Ok.” I responded, taking an exaggerated inhale as some sort of sign to show him I was prepared.

He opened his mouth and the words poured out:

“All that is not given is lost.”

I repeated it aloud. I repeated it again.

I sat silently and dissected it in every which way.

It hit me. I dare not say in which way, as I think it’s a line that will bring to the surface the things deep within ourselves that we may have lost….which will be different for each of us.

The things we have failed to give.

 

I know since Michael’s death, there is much that I have given and much that I have received.

I also know that there have been parts of me that I have held so close that had/if I did/do not let go, I would never know all the true beauty still awaiting me.

I want to give.

Every aspect of every ounce of every part of myself.

I refuse to die with any lost part of my being.

I’ve lost too much to lose anymore by my own hand.

I want to give it my all in giving my all.

I owe it to myself.

200

They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack, disappear, you can even wear your sorrow — but come tomorrow you must change your clothes. Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then.

For my 200th post, I wanted to share a video that is a reminder for all those (everyone), of what we need to remember in the moments our life and mind have a tendency of clinging to. To that which no longer serves us but has become a comfort zone. Something that acts of no use, but a reminder of what you used to be, and what we never want to return to.

 

I guess more than anything, I post it because 200 posts later, I can say that the pain belongs to the ‘then’.

 

It sometimes hurts to type the truth, especially when you were convinced it could never be possible.

 

200 posts later, I know that it is…and so is everything else.

Feel

Though I love to come her to share my thoughts, experiences and words, there are moments that I come across things that speak so poignantly that it must be given the space to spread to those who deserve to hear it.

 

This letter is one I found this evening that I know so many who have lost, struggled, hurt and suffered, should read.

 

Written by a stranger. But a human. Who has gone through who knows what in their lifetime.

 

May it impact you the way it has for me:

 

There will be days when the tears become waterfalls upon your cheeks Feelings cascading down your skin soaking you to the bone, to your soul.There will be nights when you are so overcome with the weight of being alive that you cannot sleep. You turn and toss in the sea of bed sheets. There will be years when the emotions you held in for so long, for too long, breakthrough in waves and currents that you have not yet learned to swim in.

Breathe my love. It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to be emotional. It’s okay to sit with the feelings and try to understand them. It’s okay to let them hug your body for a while, till you are ready for them to let go. And if it takes longer than most to say goodbye that’s okay. You feel what you feel till you don’t feel it anymore. It takes time. You will not drown in the ocean of emotion. You will float on your back and feel it all, every ripple, every wave as the sun leans in to kiss away your tears.

For every person that told you, “you’re too emotional” I stand before you with arms open wide and say it’s okay love, it’s okay to be emotional.

I love you,

Dele

2013

“Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties,” – Helen Keller

 

Well, 2013, we’ve had our moments.

 

Good.

 

Bad.

 

Awesome.

 

Terrifying.

 

Everything in between.

 

But you have not conquered me, and for that I am forever grateful and with a reflective heart, shall share some of my favorite moments, because focusing on the shitty is just kind of faux pas and SO last year!

 

 

So with no further ado….

 

• Going to India- It’s truly has been my favorite stop in my travels. It touched some part of me deep down in my being. Its people. Their smiles. Their spirituality. Their gratitude for life. It was utterly amazing. With some of my highlights being: “working” at the orphanage, the Shreya’s crew and guests and driving around the madness of Bangalore. Thank you for allowing me to visit you. We’ll meet again.
• Yoga Practice- It’s only natural that it follows India, as it was in India that I was taught their traditional hatha yoga, that I practiced for 3-5 hours a day. Once returning home, I’ve so gratefully been able to carry on my practice nearly every day of the week. Namaste!
• The AWP- We had our first gala. Launched WidowU. Held over 18 events! Connected with around 1,500 military widows! Created an amazing team. It’s my passion and purpose. Most importantly, all of the amazing fellow military widows I have the honor of taking the journey with! They inspire me beyond words. I’m so grateful to be a part of it.
• My family- We had some big health scares and I’m just grateful for initiatives and steps taken to ensuring more time with those I love the most. I’m also so glad to having a talking niece! They’re a bit more fun when they can talk!
• Friends- For those that have been in for the long-haul, those that I’ve reconnected to, and those that have recently entered. I’m grateful for meaningful conversations, drive-in theater dates, food explorations and guidance. Thank y’all!
• Officiating my first wedding- I was honored to be asked to officiate for a dear friend and her amazing (now) husband! I could have never thought to have been asked, but so grateful to be a part of such an amazing love story.
• Hawaii and Mexico- Any time on the beach and with those you love is amazing. Add in dolphins, snorkeling, margaritas and sunsets…pretty darn awesome!
• New York- I’ve been there a bit this year, but all for amazing things! Surprising AWP fans at a school, meetings for AWP partnerships and awards.  It’s been great to us all!
• Music- Whether it be in the form of ACL Festival, Karaoke, Pandora, SXSW or my LP collection. It lubricates the heart and soul. I don’t think you can ever use the word lubricate without it sounding a bit inappropriate. Forgive me.
• Spiritual Awareness I had already started a path of awareness in the past couple of years, but in ’13 I loved taking my modern Buddhism course, teaching meditation to other widows, learning about and utilizing Reiki, crystals, essential oils, making malas and getting acupuncture! I’ll leave out the millions of books and notes I have…but they’ve been a part of the journey, too!
• Happiness- It was somewhat of a “Bigfoot” for a while. Some mysterious and ever fleeting object that seemed more myth than reality. But it’s real and pretty awesome to be immersed in.  Even more than that…it’s a choice. I’m glad I chose to have it become a huge part of 2013.
• Michael- Ok, he’s got to make any list of mine! I was able to connect with him in ways I never knew possible, and lets just say that we could have filmed “Ghost 2” with the interactions we’ve had 🙂 I feel more than ever that he such a guide and part of every step, decision and interaction. Love you, baby!
• Everything Else- Conversations, Maximus and Brutus, Queen Latifah, AWP Supporters, Getting rid of cable, A new AWP Logo and SO MUCH MORE!!!

 

There you have it.

Pretty good roster! And I have no doubt, a primer for all that 2014 holds!

AS my motto goes:

Let’s do this shit!

7 & 8

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.

~ William Penn

12.23.12

On December 23, 2005, he said I was the kindest person he knew.

A year and a half later I never had the chance to tell him that it was he that was the kindest. It was he that chose me for some odd reason and showed me what true kindness was. It was he that I prayed to god every night to keep alive over me. It was he whose life echoed and echos on through those I had no clue his kindness had touched.

Now, 7 years later, I woke up on the sofa. It was a hard night to try sleep in my bed. I awoke knowing that I could take this day that was the moment that solidified our eternal love, and for once, not make it a day that was harder than any other. This day was going to be the day I wanted to live up to the vows he wrote to me. Today was going to be a day that I echoed his life, even more, to strangers who would never know his name or sacrifice.

My best friends sent me flowers and survival kits full of tissues and chocolate, but I knew there was much more to be done.

I jumped in my car and headed to Wal-Mart. I purchased the needed items. Heavy duty sticky notes, “Hello, My Name Is” labels, Ferrero Rocher chocolates and 4 gift cards.

“$25 on each please.” I asked the cashier.

“And I need you to do something for me. Keep one and give the next 3 to the next 3 people to check out.”

“Are you sure?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes.”

“Well, Merry Christmas!” she replied.

I walked out as I heard her tell and hand the first gift card to the next to check out.

I exited with a smile.

I got into my car and started preparing the notes and labels for their mission for the day.

I drove off and stopped at the first ATM to leave one gift of kindness. Then off to a Redbox.

Then off to Starbucks where I ordered a drink and 3 more gift cards.

The lady was going to grab a bag for all three when I stuck a label on each and asked her to give one to the next 3 customers. She couldn’t believe it, and even gave me a free drink coupon. I looked in my mirror at the young man in the truck that would get the first one and I drove off.

All of this had taken place in 15 minutes and my heart swelled…and so did the tears in my eyes….this was the feeling I had when Michael read his vows…I was living them out loud 7 years later…but had just begun…

I headed to the nearest shopping center for a continuation. I stopped at another ATM to leave a message of hope before heading to Marshall’s to leave a message on the bathroom mirror and on a couple of cars before departing. I knew there was a nearby bus stop that would be my next location. I pulled over to see a single dad with his two kids, lovingly playing with them while sitting on the bench and smiling with pure love. I put together another bag of things to ensure their day and Christmas would be a better one, handed it to him as he looked at me in shock and uncertainty, and walked off to turn and see the kids smiling and waving to me. It was amazing.

As I drove off, I saw a group of world travelers, with a lack of means and two dogs, asking for any sort of help. I pulled over, gave them water, dog treats, and some funds to buy a couple more meals, shook their hands, shared some laughs and a photo and departed. Their spirit was amazing.

I drove to the next town where I left a couple other messages and goodies in random spots before heading to McDonalds and grabbing a snack wrap and the tab of the stranger in the car behind me.

Next was Half Price Bookstore, where I grabbed some 80s records, and while checking out, a gift card for the next person to check out. The kind-hearted cashier told me she would remember this for a very long time. I smiled and exited and left another note on a random car.

I then headed to pick up our favorite food we used eat together…sushi…where I tipped 50% and while walking back to my car saw a young couple and their young children,  and left one more note for the end of the day on their mini-van.

These individuals weren’t any worse off, any less happy, and less loved than I. But they are individuals I feel forever grateful for. They were strangers that became saviors, friends, and  ones that I admired.

They let me give them what I have always felt in my heart I was given too much of. Even when I didn’t deserve it.

I don’t know what will happen. How may people I may have freaked out or may have made their day better. But for 24 hours, I have felt pretty damn good on a day that has always been hard to bear without the person that chose me 7 years ago to be his wife. A person that showed me a level of kindness that I can only try to live a quarter up to.

We danced on December 23, 2005 to Louis Armstrong’s “A Kiss to Build a Dream On”. One set of the lyrics stated:
“Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss
Ah sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A kiss to build a dream on..”

That kiss he gave me led and leads me to thrive, to live, to give, and to show kindness the way he did….or at least a fraction of the way he did. And for the first time in a long time (outside of my daily AWP mission), I felt it the way I did when kissing him, when knowing that all was possible, because I saw it in each person and stranger, and others that I don’t even know that were affected by the kindness he inspired me to show on the toughest, but most beautiful,  of days.

Happy Anniversary, baby. So in love with you. SO grateful for you. So eternally inspired by you in every way.

**Update**

 

12.23.13

Today marks 8.

8 years since the most remarkable man chose me to spend the rest of his life with….and he did…if only for a year and a half in flesh.

I prepped the night before…jotting down what great deeds I would do, not only in commemoration of this special day, but the people and universe that surround and house the spirit and love that we share.

I awoke, opened my eyes to the sun shining through the blinds and said aloud “Happy Anniversary, my love…let’s rock this!”

As I showered, Sam Cooke’s “What a Wonderful World” played and I my heart filled with the mission at hand.

The mission to share a fraction…an ounce..of the love…unconditional love…I had been shown during his time on earth.

This year was different, I wanted to spread kindness, but throw in bit of us…who we are…what we love.

I warmed up with a stop at Starbucks, buying giftcards for the two cars behind us and leaving a 300% tip to the warm smile that handed me the green tea latte.

I found joy in looking in the rear view mirror at the unsuspecting person that I hoped to share a bit of sunshine with.

Next, I stopped to get flowers, hoping that our favorite (tulips) would be available. We used them in my wedding bouquet and Michael loved surprising me with them on occasion.

With my heart open to whatever was available, I smiled to find red and white ones waiting.

I then googled “cemetery”. It led me to a small back-country haven, in which I headed to the back corners.

Once there, my heart led me to one headstone, cracked in half due to time’s grip. No longer bearing a name, all it shown was a poem that I have no doubt I was supposed to read:

This lovely bud so young and fair
Called hence by early doom
Just came to show how sweet a flower
In paradise could bloom.

I laid a bouquet of tulips, and offered it the attention I know a loved one past would have appreciated.

Next, I set forth to my favorite used bookstore.

At arrival, I headed to one of Micheal’s favorite book series “The Dark Tower” by Stephen King. I found the oldest edition of the first book of the series and inserted enough for its next reader to buy the whole set. As I placed its message, I remembered the moments in bed where Michael would read aloud to me. My heart swelled knowing that that memory may be passed on to another lucky soul who falls in love with a Stephen King reader.

I headed out, also ensuring that the next two book lovers left with their books on us.

As I left, I bought a mildly inappropriate Christmas card (the best ones, in my opinion) and found a man who looked as if he deserved a laugh and kind deed.

I hope it made him smile.

My next stop led me to a random car, where I placed another bouquet on the windshield.

As I was plotting my next route, I was honored enough to see the elderly couple return to their car, find the flowers, sit in their car seats and simply inhale the flower’s fragrance with a smile. It was one of the best moments.

Next, being a lover of the sweets 🙂 I placed many a treats on many a cars:

One of my last stops was at a place that embodied so much of what we love…FILMS!

My dear friends know just how many 12 hour film marathons I’ve attended, and Michael knows just how many sofas we imprinted while watching our favorite foreign films.

I wanted to make sure other people could enjoy such a blissful aspect of our intertwined passions, so I headed over to the Alamo Drafthouse to buy multiple gift cards for the next groups to arrive.

The gentleman preparing the gift cards responded with ” I thought all of humanity was lost…thank you.”

I thanked him.

He was giving me much more than I was giving monetarily.

I entered my car, with my list of acts of kindness completed in hand, and smiled with the same joy I felt as if Michael was by my side.

I ended the evening with a dear friend, at a favorite restaurant, sharing some of my favorite memories of my journey with Michael. She surprised me with dessert, and I was humbled to know the staff felt honored to share in the celebration, as well.

I conclude this remarkable day with gratitude.

Gratitude for the messages sent. Love shared.

Gratitude for those that let me show and give them something they undoubtedly deserved.

Something that I believe to be the greatest resource our society has.

A resource the kindest being I knew shared with me to their last ounce.

Love.

Happy Anniversary, baby.

Thank you all.

Built

“A song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment. Which is pretty amazing, when you actually think about it.”
-Sarah Dessen

This Monday will mark our 8 year wedding anniversary.

As I’ve said over the years, I’ve never defined Michael’s life by his death, so the anniversary of his death has never had the burn of the day that symbolizes him and our time together…

Our wedding day.

A day that symbolizes our love.

His love.

The unconditional love he showed myself and everyone else.

The pain and angst enveloped me at times, but one thing always takes me away from any sadness that wears on my soul:

Hearing our wedding song.

He let me choose it, and when the time came for our first dance, we swayed (mostly due to lack of dancing skills) back and forth, lost in the moment, tunnel vision only into each others eyes and the warm glow of our hearts melding even deeper into their eternal bond.

After his death, a year and a half later, the words of the song have guided me through dark moments. They’ve reminded me that everything that I’ve been able to do, survive and embrace, has been built upon his love…his kiss.

And I’ll keep on building.

Happy Anniversary, my love. SILWY

Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss
Ah sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A kiss to build a dream on

Ill-Equipped

It’s a funny thing.

The breaking of the shell that once encased a broken heart.

A shell that unveils a stronger, more resilient heart….person…life.

No longer protected by the bitterness and loathing of what occurred, you find yourself open and vulnerable to the elements of a life you’re ready to live.

With that comes some of life’s irritants; insecurity, doubt and apprehension.

Today, while sharing in these struggles of living fully, a dear friend stated something so poignant, moving and true.

She mentioned how someone told her how ill-equipped she was to be doing what she was, yet she was beyond successful and living a life by her terms. She didn’t meet the “prerequisites” of what usually must be done to reach that state of life, yet she was doing so at a level beyond most.

She told me that to ensure me that what I was doing and how I was living was more than enough.

She made me realize that I am ill-equipped for the norm. For the anticipated. For the path taken by most.

But it made me realize that I was equipped for the extraordinary. The unexpected. The path least taken.

With that comment, and my realization, I smile.

Smile as I stand bright-eyed and bushy-tailed towards all the elements that are bound to cross a soul wide-open to life’s experiences. A life that was never equipped for the anticipated. A life that proudly takes in the unknown.

And hell, I look forward to every second of it!

Faith

When he died, my faith died.

Faith in a god, life, living…

There was only one thing I wanted to believe, that he’d come back home.

When that didn’t come to fruition, it was believing that life would end shortly thereafter.

It didn’t.

Nothing changed.

It wouldn’t change until I started believing.

Believing that I could survive. That I should survive.

Believing that inhaling and exhaling, at some point, would be a natural process that I didn’t pay attention to, mostly because there were too many times I wished I would have stopped doing both.

Faith became a silly word I loathed using.

I’ve always thought that faith was a belief in something bigger than one’s self.

I forgot that for a while.

But when the turning moment came for me to believe that I could survive….thrive after losing him, so came the moment that I realized a truth.

That I still had faith in our love.

It was bigger than us both.

It still is.

And now, 6.5 years later, that faith has allowed me to know, believe and trust in those things.

With one of the most important being the angels that have guided my way.

Sometimes it was a child smiling at me in line after a night of crying. Other times I know it’s been Michael with the synchronicity that could not be explained. There are even moments when I realize I am one for myself.

Sometimes it just takes us believing.

And with the belief comes the faith.

And with the faith comes a world possibility, in one that once seemed impossible.

And with that, an unveiling of a world or people, things and moments that make once unfathomable seconds, now worth it.

Faith never died. It never will.

Believe me.

“Everyone has an Angel. A Guardian who watches over us. We can’t know what form they’ll take. One day, old man. Next day, little girl. But don’t let appearances fool you, they can be as fierce as any dragon. Yet they’re not here to fight our battles, but to whisper from our heart. Reminding that it’s us. Its everyone of us who holds power over the world we create. You can deny angels exist, Convince ourselves they can’t be real. But they show up anyway, at strange places and at strange times. They can speak through any character we can imagine. They’ll shout through demons if they have to. Daring us, challenging us to fight.”

Load

It was one day after the one year mark of losing him.

I was on a plane to Spain.

One backpack in tow. Two sets of clothes. Euros. Some photos. My feet.

225 miles to hike on unknown terrain that had no map, but seashells in the ground as markers or random arrows painted on tree trunks.

But before that  flight and the pilgrimage, came the preparation.

Let’s just say that I was not a hiker.

Let’s just say that going to REI was like walking into a baby nursery…I had no clue what the heck I was doing.

I improvised.

Used the knowledge of those that knew a bit more about backpacks, hiking boots and the best underwear to wash in a sink.

When packing, I tried to keep it to the minimum of all needed. Heck, I even was smart enough to not pack a warm jacket (said no one EVER).

From what I had read from past pilgrims, you’d end up with a lighter load by the time you’d reach Santiago (the destination).

It was the journey of a lifetime. A journey that kept me from any distractions (which had a way of being an escape from my harsh reality), and put me smack dab in a room with my thoughts and emotions as I hiked in silence 12 hours a day.

I had no preconceived notions on what the journey would consist of or do for my soul, and that ended up being my most valuable tool to carrying the load on my back and in my heart.

I came across those on the camino that came into it with different expectations.

They wanted to be healed. Cured.

They wanted it so bad that each hope for it all to disappear. was like throwing a rock into one’s pack.

It weighed them down.

Broke them down.

Until arriving to a place of anger and resentment for the journey that they expected to take their load off of them.

Never realizing that it was our duty to adjust our pack as nature and heart told us it was time or where to go.

The camino changed my life.

It changed my perspective on how to live in the now.

To know that everything you need will come at the right moment for your heart (not when your mind tells you it needs it).

By the end of my 20 days in Spain, the other pilgrims were correct.

I had less in my backpack.

I had dumped the unnecessary to see the true essentials, and without even realizing it,  done the same for my soul.

We’ll all take many journeys in our time and it’s our duty to create a load that we have unwavering faith that we can carry…because we can…we will…we just need not  anticipate what that load will bring us.

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”-Lena Horne

Go

 

I’m a pretty laid back cat.

Put me in a room with great music, a cold beer and I’m set.

But that’s all external. Those are creature comforts.

When it comes to the internal….

The decisions I make that will determine my life at that current moment.

I’ve learned that the one thing you can’t be is laid back.

You must be vigilant.

A gladiator for your heart and all that it truly needs.

 

When it comes to living the life you deserve you can’t go with the flow.

You must stand for what you need.

What you deserve.

Where you’re challenged.

Where you learn.

Where your uncomfortable.

Where you’re at home.

Stand for what is uniquely you.

 

When it comes to your life, don’t go with the flow.

Go where you grow.

 

End of story. Beginning of beautiful reality.

Solutions

I’ve recently been on the search for a new home.

It’s not a long distance from my current casa, but in an area I love and come alive in.

During many of the showings of the houses I’ve found enticing, I’ve been bombarded with one question over and over from my brokers (aka parents).

As we entered each place and I’d point out something I loved, they would rebuttal with….

“What does having that/living here solve that your current house doesn’t?”

Sometimes I would have an amazing answer, sometimes I didn’t, only that I just loved its feel and environment (an anaswer not always accepted by discerning parents…or heck….people in general).

After a few days of searching and that unwavering question from outside entities, I found a moment to sit, relax and reflect.

In that reflection on just what moving would solve, an amazing revelation occurred. Not only about the house…but in life in general.

It’s not always about the solution…sometimes it’s simply about the evolution.

I can’t tell you what or how certain things have been solutions for me, as much as they have helped me to evolve to a better, happier person.

Reason and answers sometimes need to take backseat for our heart’s knowing pull to something beyond where we are and what we have been.

An evolution.

One that may not be solving something, as much as it is key in growing something within.

There’s No Place Like Hope

 

 

I was spending my Friday evening perusing a used book store when my eye was caught by this very catchy title.

 

Being an avid “Wizard of Oz” fan, the switch of HOME with HOPE struck such a chord with me.

 

Home, for me, has never equated to a physical structure, but rather a place to fully be me.

 

To be immersed by all that I love.

 

To let me hair down.

 

Dance around naked.

 

Talk out loud.

 

Find myself.

 

Cry.

 

Laugh.

 

LIVE…

 

A breeding ground to create memories and share moments with those I care about.

 

A place of peace.

 

Unapologetic.

 

Quirky.

 

Me.

 

 

When thinking of all that I hope for, I saw that it literally embodied what “home” was/is.

 

Hope is nothing more than us trying to find our way back to all that we are when we find ourselves in a space/energy/place that embraces all that we are and all those that add color to our canvas….hope in disguise.

 

I have no freaking clue what that darn book is about that stirred this realization…But I sure as hell know that it made me realize that there really is nothing like hope.

 

Nothing like ‘home’.

 

Nothing like remembering where the yellow brick road leads to and what that homecoming means to one’s soul.

 

Sometimes we just need to click the heels of our hearts and mind together to remember where it is.

 

 

Invincible

You know that feeling….

You can do it all.

Conquer it all.

Get through it all.

You enter any situation or place almost as if you own the joint, simply because they’re by your side.

All is right.

All that isn’t, will soon be.

You’re safe.

All is sound.

You have the unquestionable and unshakeable knowledge that you are deeply loved.

For all that you are.

All that you’ll be.

Unconditionally.

 

 

Then loss occurs.

You have a feeling of self-doubt, instability and a fear to take one step forward.

It happens…

 

 

One of my favorite guided meditations to lead is the ‘feeling of love’ meditation, as I call it.

You go back to that place.

That safe place and power of a love someone showed you, which in turn bestowed you with a confidence and assurance that all will be well…even amazing.

Mid-way through the meditation, I ask them to release the image/place/feeling of that person, but to hold on to the energy.

It’s tough.

It can be painful.

But as they breathe through it. Inhaling the love. Exhaling the fear of being on a world without them here physically, a switch occurs.

 

 

It’s a meditation I personally guide myself through on days where I just need that extra oomph…. it’s that reminder that the invincible feeling I had with Michael wasn’t dependent solely on him, but created within myself when the perfect one for me showed me it was possible to find that love and power within.

I can still feel it.

Still walk in to a building like he’s by my side.

Feeling confident that it was in the action of someone loving me unconditionally that I was able to find within myself an unconditional love that knows no boundaries, or rules on when and how and where to come forth.

And I will rock.

And I will kick ass.

And will do it eyes wide open. Fearlessly.

To infinity and beyond 😉

 

Many

“Somehow she knew that you didn’t get many moments like this in your life: moments when you knew, without any doubt, that you were alive, when you felt the air in your lungs and the wet grass beneath your feet and the cotton on your skin; moments when you were completely in the present, when neither the past nor the future mattered. She tried to slow her breathing, hoping somehow to make this moment last forever.”
-Neil Gaiman

It was a day before he left.

My hands graced his chiseled jaw.

My eyes melted looking into his.

He asked what I was doing.

I responded with “Remembering this moment.”

 

 

It was under the sheets as the sun seeped through.

We’d lift them like a tent and stay in our “warmth bubble”.

Refusing to remember that time was clicking by.

In that moment, it was frozen.

 

 

It was his hand inching over to hold mine for the firs time.

In that truck on our way back from the zoo.

 

 

It was our last kiss.

Gate 14.

 

 

It’s waking up and stepping outside to smell the dew and feel the warmth of the sun on my back.

 

It’s walking down a path in India and soaking in each smell, sight and person.

 

It’s the knowledge that I get to meet the most amazing people and do what I love.

 

It’s cuddling with my dogs and hugging my family extra tight.

 

It’s now.

It was then.

It’s the moments.

The moments before tragedy struck.

The moments after.

Both stunning.

Both beautiful.

Both paving the way for those to still come.

Open

 

My life is much different from many of my loved ones.

 

I find myself traveling 1/3 of the year.

 

I happily sleep with two (furry) men each night I’m home.

 

No one gets on my back for the dishes sitting in the sink a bit too much or the dirty clothes on the floor.

 

I thoroughly enjoy my solitude (i.e. meditation, reading, playing fetch, watching clouds pass,etc.).

 

That’s just to name a few of my realities ( I guess not noting the obvious…I’m a 27-year-old widow…oops…add that!).

 

In the first few years after Michael’s death, many (ok…nearly all) were worried about me….

 

Worried about me being alone.

 

Worried if I’d drink too much.

 

Worried that I’d never come out of the deep hole that my grief and self had been thrown into.

 

Worried that I’d kill myself.

 

The “remedies” and “prescriptions” came flowing in from all those around.

 

Not out of ill will…more out of not knowing what else to do.

 

I remember looking into their eyes and seeing a pain for the life I was living. I saw their fear of ever having to imagine it ever being their fate one day.

 

I felt their pity.

 

I felt their gratitude (that it wasn’t them).

 

I felt their lack of control of changing what they could not.

 

But then, and now 6 years later, I have held onto something that my soul and heart know.

 

A knowledge that is as pure as my eternal love for Michael.

 

The knowledge (and now the power) of knowing that what others have seen as an empty life (after his death).

 

I have known to be an opening for me to find, persevere, rise, fall, and create my life after tragic death.

 

Empty is just another word for OPEN.

 

Open to life.

 

Open to fear.

 

Open to happiness.

 

Open to failure.

 

Open to all that has occurred.

 

Open to all that will occur.

 

Remember that. Find power in that. Feel peace in that.

 

So as I enter our home, 6 years later. Uncork a 91 point wine. Watch an amazing film. Feel gratitude for the day that has passed and the roof over my head. I live and feel the knowledge of knowing that one man’s empty, is another man’s sanctuary.

 

And my heart feels grateful. Content. Overflowing. Blessed. Strong.

Something

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Something happened last weekend that awakened me.

 

It was an AWP Health and Fitness weekend.

 

We were ending the evening with reiki sessions.

 

I’d never done reiki, and since leading it, I hadn’t planned or set aside time to do so.

 

A window opened and one of the practitioners had come down, looking ready to depart, and I figured I’d ask if she had a free 20 minutes so I could at least try it.

 

She did.

 

She led me upstairs. I layed down. Closed my eyes. And just kind of waited.

 

I didn’t feel anything. My mind was wandering so I went to meditating.

 

I could hear her as she progressed from my head to my chest.

 

A slight touch.

 

Then she broke the silence.

 

I don’t know what occurred or what she truly is (being a skeptic on so much).

 

She heard him. She said things only he would know.

 

At first I kept my eyes closed thinking “This is reiki?!”

 

Then I went into “What does she know?!”

 

Then she continued to slam me with facts….court worthy facts that washed away any doubt.

 

Her hand shook on my arm.

 

She continued to spit out things that opened the well to my emotions like only Michael could do.

 

It was my Demi moment. He Swayzee-d her like she was Whoopi.

 

It was….. I don’t know. It was real.

 

20 minutes turned into over an hour.

 

She wasn’t a medium or clairvoyant, nor sought out.

 

It was something I’ll never forget. It was something that has reaffirmed all the crazy things so few believed. It was him.

 

All around.

 

Madly in love.

 

Guiding me.

 

And now I sound completely mad 😉 but honestly, I feel so drenched in love and assurance that I find it hard to stop smiling.

 

They’re here. Undoubtedly. All around. Listening. Lifting. Loving.

 

He hears me when I talk to him at night. He’s there with Charlie. He wants me to get up off my butt and outside more! He chose to spend his spirit-life as my guide. And we have lived many lifetimes together in the past and will again. Our love transcends time, plains, everything.

 

This I know.

 

 

Bucket List

 

“What else is on your bucket list?” the stranger asked me.

It was over a call in which I received the news that something Michael and I had planned to do, but never had the opportunity to, was coming to fruition.

I sat there. Thinking.

“What else is on my bucket?!”

If I were to refer to my list after Michael’s death and where my life is now, the answer was simple.

I had done nearly everything that we ever wanted to do together. Either while he was alive or after.

I found true love.

I found my passion.

I’ve been able to travel all over the world.

I’m able to get up and love what I do every day.

I have amazing family and friends that continue to push me to evolve and grow.

And now….I had the knowledge that one of the last activities we spoke about doing together was going to happen.

So as I sat there, contemplating my response,  it hit me, “I think that the one thing I had left on my bucket list, that I loathingly added in the very first months of Micheal’s death, was to actually want to live again….to not open my eyes each morning with apprehension…to not just feel the need to live for him, because he couldn’t, but to want to live for myself. That really was the biggest thing left on my ever-changing and expanding list…and I’ve done it. It’s checked off.”

Of course, I’d love to see and experience every thing this beautiful world has to offer, but at that moment, and at this moment, I have done more than I ever dreamed possible, loved more deeply than the deepest abyss, experienced more than I could have ever fathomed. There may be more in the future, for whatever length that is, but in the present, I can happily say that my original list has been (or will be by August), completed. My bucket list before his death.

And now, I’ve chosen to not create one for my life after his death. Not for fear of the unknown, but for bliss in the unknown…the unpredictable…the things that make life the amazing ride it has been. The bliss that has made every moment of everyday an unfolding bucket list I didn’t even know I wanted, but so happily check off.

India

That is why we need to travel. If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don’t lift to the horizon; our ears don’t hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.

Don’t let yourself become one of these people. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable will conspire to keep you from taking the chances the traveler has to take. But if you take them, you will never regret your choice. To be sure, there will be moments of doubt when you stand alone on an empty road in an icy rain, or when you are ill with fever in a rented bed. But as the pains of the moment will come, so too they will fall away. In the end, you will be so much richer, so much stronger, so much clearer, so much happier, and so much better a person that all the risk and hardship will seem like nothing compared to the knowledge and wisdom you have gained.

-Kent Nerburn

I have returned from my “Once in a lifetime – Once a Year” trip.

With it being the 5 year anniversary of this tradition, I followed suit with the one I took 5 years ago (my pilgrimage across Spain on the Camino de Santiago), and ventured solo to India for a spiritual journey.

Last year I made the decision to go (which included breaking it upon my family by seeing if they noticed the Taj Mahal ornament on my tree), as everything had seemed to be pointing me to there.

On top of the signs, my deepening relationship with meditation, followed by my studies in Buddhism, I was ready to immerse myself in a world that could no less than enrich my heart and soul…

And that it did.

A shift took place.

Amidst the time at the local orphanage, the people, the letting go of control amongst the crazy streets of Bangalore, the hours of meditation chakra clearings and traditional yoga instructors, the amazing interactions and conversations from people all over the world that I have come to admire…a change took place.

The last night during dinner, I told my new-found soul friends that if a plane’s wings were to shift the tiniest bit it would change its whole course.

During my time in India, so many shifts took place within me. And ultimately, with the shifts, and the new course and direction that follows, will be a new destination….and undoubtedly, a better one than before I had arrived.

What I experienced was one of the most moving, inspiring and energetic places I’ve ever had the honor of placing my bare feet on the ground of.

And with that experience, the reaffirmation of the beauty in the unknown. The embracing of a thing called fear. The deep love for the uncomfortable. A change. A shift. A new direction. A more beautiful destination.

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.

 

Push

Besides the obvious pain of losing my soul mate, I’ve done many things to challenge my mind and body to see all that I’m capable of and that is still possible after what seemed like the most debilitating of losses.

I’ve walked on fire over a 108 times, done Indian sweat-lodges, put a knitting needle through my hand, walked on glass and more.

Not because I’m a complete nut job (though I may be by many definitions), but because these (what seemed like) physical challenges opened my eyes, mind and heart too much more I had yet to unearth.

I’ve taken those teachings with me and benefited from the metaphorical message they each carried.

They changed me…In a dramatic and drastic way. They have become an integrated part of my daily life, but as I was just reminded, I forgot one pivotal aspect of their teachings.

Change is good. Discomfort is something to be embraced. Change is growth. Change and discomfort is a willingness to live.

But as I recollected just recently, many, if not majority of these teachings, were preceded by a distinct and terrifying pain.

A pain of the unknown. The pain of what could be. A pain of something my thoughts conjured up.

A pain that took place before an action had actually taken place.

A pain that can stop one’s persistence, if easily hindered. A pain that waits for moments of change and discomfort to hold you back from all that you can and could be.

But more than anything, a pain that beckons your heart to take the leap…make the decision…embrace the evolution…return to what you know in your heart is what is right for you.

I chose to take that first step onto the coals. To focus my attention on the moment in what seemed like unbearable environments…to push forward when all things said don’t push forward for one more inch…I didn’t choose to lose Michael, but at one moment I decided to live for him…and then for me.

But there is pain. There is discomfort. There is doubt.

But more than anything, there is the force that has no definition or specified word, that is waiting for you to push through. To find out that it’s not as painful as it looks, or as terrifying as your mind wants to trick you into thinking.

It’s waiting for you to take the next step into what will be the most amazing time of your life.

The only time of your life.

The now.

The time where pain takes backseat to positive change.

The only kind of change that we deserve out of such perils.

Souvenirs

“How can the future be molded
with hands full of baggage labeled
“What Was” and “What Could’ve Been?”
Where can you go with all that stuff,
and how much fun will you have with it
when you get there?
Leave those bags behind,
and hope they stay lost
before you get to your next destination.
All right, take a few souvenirs if you must,
but just nice stuff. No junk.”
-Michael Rawls

This is a year of actually loving the lost “bags” of what used to torment me. The bags of dreams unfulfilled, life loathed and seeking answers to the questions that had none.

I set them down a while back, but had those residual thoughts of going back and grabbing them.

“I’ll need them some time later!” “I forgot something inside one that I need to get back!” “Baggage needs company!”

And the list goes on to times where the ego tried to tell me that it would starve without the unchangeable circumstances and ‘could-have-beens’.

But not this time.

I took the souvenirs; the love, the memory of his smile and confidence in me, the parts of me that I have had from the beginning of time…

And I’ve left some room in my pocket for the wisdom and attributes  I’m curating to take along for the journey.

The journey to the fulfilling and amazing life of “What is”… “What will be”.

Leap

“When we learn what it is our soul needs to learn, the path presents itself.”

 

Over a year ago, I decided to take a new journey in my daily passion. To create something. For myself. For others.

I decided to start laying the frame-work of what could be. I started finding those that wanted to come, nails in hand, and create it with me.

I jumped in. Day by day, getting closer to this change, this growth.

Now it’s here. The dream, not just in sight, but in hand.

The funny thing, though, is that there were a million tiny and large changes…unexpected, unplanned, some unwelcome…that have made this new chapter a glorious one.

Maybe that’s life.

We set these goals, these visions, these ideals of what we hope and work towards.  Only  to realize that it’s the in-betweens, the surprises, the new friends and deeper instilled friendships, the introspection, the new-found traditions and the growth that are the real gift.

The bigger the leap, the bigger the return…just with big struggles, big transformations and big changes.

I learned that when I fell in love with Michael. When I married him. When I became his widow.

Since his death, I had just forgotten the feeling of taking the leap willingly. Taking in and absorbing the benefits of a courage you knew would pay off, no matter what obstacles came one’s way.

I remember now.

I remember and smile…looking forward to the next leap.

Grateful

The 20th Feast Menu, signed and hanging among my favorite things!

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart”- Henry Clay

 

This week was one that reminded me how blessed and grateful I am for the millions of tiny things that always come to a head and reveal that they were huge things.

For me, this week’s realization consisted of a movie theater, 20 feasts, Valentine’s Day and the fact that an action 5 years ago would change my life in so many ways. I don’t want to live knowing that others impact is acknowledged.

The letter is a bit lengthy, but I wanted to share what a wrote, but preface it with saying that the love and kindness shown to me at my 20th feast, left me in tears and utterly grateful for people who may be strangers but have made a lasting impact on my life forever. Thank you, Alamo Drafthouse Theatre…and Don, for telling me about them! (They even had the chef come out and presented me with a signed menu (see pic above)!).

Now, the letter:

Dear Alamo,

I’ve never been one too privy at making a long story short…but I’m going to do my best and ask that you forgive me if I completely fail. To start, this email is in regards to the “Before Sunrise” Valentine’s Day Feast. Now the story:

My husband and I have always been huge movie buffs. From foreign to horror to the utterly complicated. My husband was in the US Army and when he wasn’t training, there was nothing we enjoyed more on the weekends when he was home, than an amazing meal followed by some film that most people hadn’t heard of.

He deployed in October 2006 and would always surprise me with the “already released” films in Iraq that I hadn’t seen. Or my personal favorite, “The Complete Joaquin Phoenix Movie Collection” in languages I can’t even pronounce.

Movies were and have always been a huge part of our love story (we even had our first kiss while watching “American Beauty”).

That couldn’t have been solidified even more than after May 21, 2007. I came home to find two men there to notify me that Michael had been killed by explosives just an hour after we said “I’m so in love with you”, for what I never knew would have been the last time.

I died that night on the front porch.

I remember, days before his service, just lying around and watching one of his favorite movies over and over, as a way to just feel the way I did when he was alive, the way I did when we could lay there together.
For the sleepless months that followed, movies were the only way I could feel connected to anything or anyone. (I can’t tell you how many times I watched “Top Gun” just to see how Goose’s wife reacted…which is totally unrealistic in retrospect…but still, it helped 🙂 ).

Weeks later I went on to start filming a documentary with a friend in the film industry that knew my love for movies and had heard the memories of our dinner and movie nights. He told me I should look into going to the Alamo. He explained how it worked and how I could overcome two big obstacles since Michael’s death; Going to the movies and enjoying an amazing dinner solo.

I went online and saw that there was an Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Birds’ feast. I purchased it and tried to talk myself out of it too many times to count. I even had a friend meet up with me before hand to give me that extra push the day of the feast. I sat near the front to “keep a seat” for Michael, and ended up having one of the best moments and nights since his death. I remember driving home and feeling my heart feel the same way it had before Michael died.

I was hooked! The feasts let me have a part of me and Michael that I thought had died forever, come back alive in the midst of amazing meals and wonderful films! To put it not so lightly, I became a Alamo Drafthouse Feast fanatic!

“Groundhog Day”, “La Dolce Vita”,“Lord of the Rings Trilogy Feast”, “The Dark Knight Rises”, “Casablanca” ,“Indiana Jones”, “Back to the Future”, “The Big Night”, “Chocolat”, and the list goes on to why I am writing today.

It’s been 5 years since my first feast and five and half since Michael passed away, but the reason I’m writing is that this Valentine’s Day feast will mark my 20th feast at the Alamo (I made sure and counted the 3 trilogy feasts as one a piece instead of 9 to make it a real landmark)!

So my request is simple, is there anyway y’all could have the menu signed by the Chef heading up this particular feast?

And lastly, and mainly a huge reason for the beyond lengthy email, I wanted to write and thank you all at the Alamo for giving me a place to feel my husband’s spirit, to feel the love we will eternally share, and for allowing me to see in a simple way, that there is still so much beauty and amazing life to experience after the worst of tragedies.

Thanks, guys!

Taryn
Proud Military Widow of Cpl Michael Davis

Must

I was recently watching a documentary profiling a individual who works specifically with those facing loss or the loss of a loved one.

 

It was poignant, gut-wrenching, and thought provoking.

 

I found myself reflecting on many of the ways I reacted to death before Michael’s passing, and most importantly, after.

 

How it affected me, my family, and the one’s I love so dearly.

 

How I reacted. How I questioned. How I let it affect every aspect of my life.

 

Some for the better. Some for the worse.

 

But out of all that he stated in the film, there was one subject that resonated with me more than anything.

 

He said to love anything to the fullest of our ability, we must recognize and love its end to the capacity.

 

As a child takes its first breath into the world, we must acknowledge and embrace and love that moment as much as we do in knowing that one day, that child will take its last breath.

 

To marry someone and vow our eternal love, we must know that one day that love will come to a physical end, yet we shall love and embrace it as much as the day we first said those two words that brought us together.

 

It’s the only way to live fully in the bountiful blessing we are given on this earth.

 

Love and life. We must admire their beginning, their gifts, their end, to be willing and able to live in its amazing glory every second of our lives.

 

How sweet a kiss would taste if we knew it were our last. And yet, if we had acknowledged from the very first kiss exchanged, that one day it may come to an end, how much more it would mean.

 

A simple concept. One we probably have already known in the core of our being, but something I I didn’t always, and must, acknowledge and must love with all of my being. But not only must, but want to embody. For all those I love.

Reminder

When the hands of time

evict the smile from the apartment building of your face.

When you get punched in the esophagus by a fist full of life

Remember

The human heart beats approximately 4,000 times per hour

And each pulse,

each throb

each palpitation is a trophy

engraved with the words

“You are still alive”

…So act like it

-Rudy Francisco

I’m sitting at a cafe, sipping pinot noir, feeling the 62 degree air whisper on my face and blow aside my hair.

A rose-bush is blooming, people are on first dates, others with their best friends, and some soaking in the sun beams that have decided to grace us with their presence.

I remember going to a cafe like this over 5 years ago, months after Michael’s death. I despised that other’s could laugh, love, and live with him not here.

But today is different. I am different. I allowed time to take its toll and place its blessing.

I can sit here and listen to the”trophy” that each beat of my heart gifts me with.

I can sit here and smile while acknowledging so.

I can sit here and be. And smile. And inhale all that surrounds me. And exhale with the happiness of being able to do so.

And I can say, I don’t have to act like I’m still alive…but embrace it as the glorious action it is.

Someone Else

“Sometimes you need to hang on to someone else’s hope, someone else’s peace and sanity while yours is under siege. Do it. Courage, hope, faith, sanity, peace… they all come and go. Borrow them from someone else’s supply until your own comes back in.”
— Linda Mundy

How did I make it this long?

How did I survive the most soul shattering event that could ever take place?

How was I able to get up and breathe, and then walk and then live, after Michael’s death?

These are all questions I’ve asked myself and find others asking me.

Time does make certain aspects of life more bearable, but to say I didn’t, at many times, loathe waking  up each morning, would make me a liar.

The truth is, that at the moment where I wanted to give up I remembered the man above. I remembered how much he loved life, how much he made everyone he met feel like they were special, how with three simple words from his mouth he had my heart forever.

But there I was, consumed in my own suffering, that I had forgotten the fact that all he would want would be the ability to live, and here I was, ready to give up on any sort of life or existence.

The truth is that I lived for Michael. I woke up. I got out of bed. I sought out others like me. I found my passion. I pursued it. I learned to laugh and smile once more. I did it for him, and in the midst of that action, awoke one day to the realization that I was now living for myself.

He gave me strength when no one else could, He rooted me on for each inhale and exhale. He never doubted my course. He inspired me and gave the world color when all seemed gray.

He did it all when he was alive. He did it all after he passed away.

He made me hold on. He lent me the core of his soul and the strength of his being for as long as I needed.

He saved my life…he save it by letting me see I could save my own.

Mistakes

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

This quote reminds me of a new year message I shared with my friends that I’m, in true Taryn fashion, sharing with you a bit belated.

Mistakes, losses, changes…all consistent attributes in any persons life, but I guess being the eternal optimist I am, I rarely remember, fixate, or find myself debilitated because of their ever coming and going presence.

In retrospect though, they’ve all led to another path in this labyrinth of a life that I’m ever grateful for.

So as another being so eloquently put into words, I too hope for many mistakes for you and me in 2013:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
-Neil Gaiman

 

Less

–

“The happier you are, the less you need.”
-Francesca Lia Block

I’m writing this in nothing but my underwear in a tent in a park while sipping on my ramen….

Ok….not really…but if I was, I know I’d make it work…

On New Year’s day I backed into my sister’s car. In the beginning, I would have been shattered….my material things were all I used to feel I had left after Michael died. Instead I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling and grasping how little all of it mattered!

Little by little over the past 5 years, I’ve been challenged with facing whether or not the physical or material actually would be the connection to memories and happiness.

Floods, wrecks, lost items, donated things, etc. etc….and the transition continues to happen daily.

The love and memories are no less.

My life and soul are just better.

And like the quote says, I guess that when that mixture of forced, realized, learned, and tortured comes together…you end up with the potion, the combination, that equates to something that seemed as foreign as a leprechaun riding a unicorn down a rainbow to reach its pot of gold….

You end up with the realization that you are happy.

December

“It never stops hurting, the big losses never do, it becomes a part of your bones. It rips you apart and leaves you to figure out what to do next. It becomes a part of who you are and runs through your life like thread, coloring everything you are and do. It has informed how I choose to live, what I do, how I love. You will ache and you will hurt but you will be feeling, remembering how much love there was and how much there still is; death can never touch that. You heal and the wound closes, becoming a scar to remind you how precious things are and how well you were loved…”

It’s quite insane.

5 years have passed since my love was taken but when the toughest month rolls around, even when equipped with an arsenal of optimism, friends and plans, there is a subtle nuance of loss present that unknowingly takes over my body.

I’m not sad or find myself crying, but I sleep in a bit longer, watch movies a bit more. Subtle differences that anytime of the year would seem out of place.

It’s almost like the the chill that’s left when you walk in from the cold. You’re warm and in a safe place, but still have a chill shake your whole being when taking off the coat and gloves.

It finds me. I stare down at the scar over my heart.

I breathe in and accept it.

The scar. The extra hot chocolates. The extra hours of sleep. The extra glass of wine. The extra tears that may creep in. The unknown. The welcome. The unwelcome. The part of me that I honorably hold eternally.

December.

Expect

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian”-Dennis Wholely

 

I wish that I could say that in the past five years since Michael’s death that assumptions and questions of my current life have fallen to the wayside.

 

But unfortunately, I assumed incorrectly, which proves even further that I just need to stop assuming!

 

All that aside, though, it seems that more than usual, that I am being questioned by many people on how or why I choose to live my life the way that I choose, and again, I assumed that all would take my response and leave it at that.

 

Again, that has not been the case and I’ve found many challenging or questioning my path. Again, not to sound like a broken record, the assumption that all would except others individual path and individual terms would be the norm was a wrong by me…but in a way…the right by me.

 

This past week has reinforced more than ever that my ideals that we are all unique and all dealt with challenges we will face here and there, has made it a bit easier when those moments come….even when I have made the mistake in assuming that all others would feel the same.

 

We all have had different situations, different perceptions, and yet, through the misunderstanding or personal belief, I know that we always will be left with those that embrace without understanding, that love without question why, that acknowledge without judging.

 

Thanks

“Everyone has an Angel. A Guardian who watches over us. We can’t know what form they’ll take. One day, old man. Next day, little girl. But don’t let appearances fool you, they can be as fierce as any dragon. Yet they’re not here to fight our battles, but to whisper from our heart. Reminding that it’s us. It’s every one of us who holds power over the world we create. You can deny angels exist, Convince ourselves they can’t be real. But they show up anyway, at strange places and at strange times. They can speak through any character we can imagine. They’ll shout through demons if they have to. Daring us, challenging us to fight.” – Unknown

Life is a consistent flux.

But if there is anything I can say I’ve become aware of over the past 5 years, it’s the nuances, the individuals, the friends, the strangers….that have been the biggest blessing.

With Thanksgiving still on my heart, I wanted to take a minute to write about all the “angels” that have been a part of my life, most importantly, after my real life angel died.

Some have been around for longer than I can say, some for a few years, others a few months, and some for a very brief second…but each have been the reason I am here today, and for that I am eternally grateful.

They have shouted through the demons of grief, remorse, angst, and pain to help me see the silver lining in life after the most tragic of losses.

Most may not know the full extent of what they have done, nor have I probably ever expressed it at the level I should (since I’m not quite sure how to thank those that have given me the gift of laughter, smiles, and a shoulder to lean on), but I hope that what they have given me they receive back ten-fold in this life and their lives to come.

Thank you and thank you some more.

Invest

5 years…..

In 5 years I’ve gone from someone that felt I had nothing.

Felt that dying was a better choice then inhaling and exhaling over and over again.

Over time, life crept in. And in a way, I slowly started investing in the day ahead…the week ahead…the month ahead…

I didn’t see it as I was doing it, but in retrospect, I finally let the love between Michael and I be an action for life, instead of letting his death be a reason for doing nothing more than existing.

And like any investment….the stocks will rise and fall…there will be times you want to pull out because the future is to uncertain and your head starts telling you it won’t get better….but something in me told me to hold on….let his love stay…grow…show me what was possible for my own life.

5 years ago I took a risk….I took the risk to live…to invest the love he had left me with into an uncertain life….

There are certainly going to be moments in the future where I will doubt that decision….but I know the investment will always turn out in my favor…turn out to show me that his love…my love for myself and the life I had before…but more importantly the life I have NOW…is worth it…

He bought into me when he let me love him…I bought into him when he allowed me to love him…and I still love him…and I feel in my soul the eternal love we still share….and that investment was and is worth every second of every day….crashes…rises….recessions…and all….

Love is worth the investment….but even more…life is worth it….

Intertwined

“I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.”
― Jodi Picoult

It hits sometimes out of nowhere.

The pangs of separation. The hollow feeling that drains every ounce of energy as it reminds you of the absence and presence.

Life goes on cruise control and then the engine I call my soul is reminded that I didn’t get that “oil change”, that time allotted to just feel and not repress those random instances that have a way of making the whole journey feel as if there may be a bit of “air out of the tire”.

So where do I go to get a battery jump for the heart….iTunes movie trailers…I know…I’m demanding.

It was something I did all the time when Michael was alive (being the movie buffs we are)….and used to check new trailers each week.

It had been a while and I ended up watching this one.

Tears rolled down my face.

I always hoped all hopes that I’d see Michael again…it was something that kept me alive in the beginning and at random instances even now…and seeing this trailer made me think “what if we always knew…if we were certain we’d be connected life after life…pre-destined…some short, some long…ohhh….what that would mean!’

And it may be.

I have no eloquent words to say other than watch it…

It’s beautiful and terrifying and comforting…and basically, life in general….and maybe the future and past lives we’ve lived.

Ohhh…and I know in my heart of hearts we will be back together…destinies eternally intertwined.

Collapse

“.. my heart and my trust were in the process of collapsing. And that collapse created a vacuum in my chest. Like every nerve in my body was withering in, pulling away from my fingers and toes. Pulling back and disappearing.” -Jay Asher

I was wearing a top this week that allowed my tattoo to show. It’s large size and semi-difficult to read font equated to curious minds asking about what it said….the story behind it.

I shared the background on the saying and ring, but one other thing that the tattoo gave me…

After Michael was killed I felt as if anything and everything was going to be taken from me. Undoubtedly, impermanence is a part of life that we all will face, but at that time…2 months after he died…I began think, “Why should I show my family and friends love?”, “Why should I say ‘I love you’ to them?”, “Why should I invest anything into this life that was going to leave me suffering and miserable?”.

Those were just a few of the thoughts I had…and I let them mingle in my mind for too long.
Ultimately, having those closest to me suffer even more from not only my own suffering, but my lack of wanting to see any sort of silver lining.

But the tattoo…the tattoo was the thing that allowed me to feel as if I had some control again. No one could take it from me. No one could make it disappear. It was mine. It was my attempt at feeling somewhat grounded.

I’d like to say that getting it allowed me to finally take the leap in showing love to my family and friends, once more. It didn’t.

It didn’t until I made the decision to trust myself with life again. I had to prove to myself that it was worth living. It was worth loving. It was worth taking a leap and knowing that wherever I landed was where I was supposed to be.

It wasn’t an overnight process, but 5 years later it is a way of life.

I trust in me. I trust in the way. I trust in the impermanence that is our lives. And I trust that the love I show, and the suffering that may come from having that love, will never be a hindrance or obstacle I dodge.

I withered away. I pulled back. But it was I, that made the decision to get up from the collapse.

Trust in you. Suffer. But never let the suffering take you from what you know life is meant to be….

Love.

Blank

I had quite the awesome post written (I’m totally biased)…

WordPress had a new format and I had the finishing touch to it all…the cherry on top….a photo…to bring it all together.

Ooo…perfect….add…submit…

What the!?

Yep…everything disappeared.

One blink…one click…bam…

Now, I’d usually get a bit pissed that an hour of writing and curating the perfect photo…but if there is anything I’ve learned to embrace…and oddly love…is those moments.

They remind us of what was and will always be in our heart in minds…it keeps us on our toes each and every day…and most importantly…helps in handling those moments that pop up in the middle of a day, at the click of a button, when we least expect it.

 

“Would you like to know your future?

If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.

So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence — a surprise.”
― Vera Nazarian

Simple

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~Hans Hofmann

 

I pulled into the driveway.

It was Friday evening. The junk food in hand and wine awaiting my lazy evening.

I step out of the car and see a puddle of water in front of the garage door.

‘Did it rain?’

‘No…’

I open the garage door and the water starts pouring out.

‘It’s probably the water heater in the garage. It must be.’

Then I see it pouring out the small cracks of the door leading into our home.

I exit the garage. Close the door.

Hold my breath for an instant and start walking towards the front door.

The sidewalk is soaked.

I was afraid to enter.

I looked through the glass panes and see it.

4 inches of water throughout.

I open the door. Set down the drive-thru food.

‘The computer cord’ flashes through my mind. I unplug it.

Michael’s combat boots by the front door. I grab them and set on higher ground.

I didn’t think about much more. The electricity and cords probably should have been a first thought…to conventional for my brain, I guess 🙂

Clothes are floating, carpet is rippling like waves in an ocean.

I put the dogs outside. Call the emergency water shut off and sit in my car.

Long story short…much was ruined. The whole hose has been boxed up. All of my laundry was sorted through by commercial dry cleaners and is who knows where (makes me regret the stacks of clothes unwashed ;D ). The walls drilled through. Floors ripped up. Photos and every memento taken down by strangers.

But I had what I needed:

My dogs. His combat boots (his flag was safe on a mantle).

With further rummaging…the letters he wrote me, his voicemails, and portraits of our Charlie.

It’s all I had. It’s all I needed.

And even if those didn’t make it, a calm draped over me that it would reminded me all will be okay.

The crazy thing is I never screamed, cried, became hysterical, etc.

It was as if the house was on fire and I grabbed the essentials and quickly became at peace with all I might have to part with.

As the water rushed through every inch of our house, enveloping everything in it’s grasp…In a way it enveloped me with the knowledge that the material was the material. What I needed was with me or already within me.

I’m unable to live there for another month, but as I lay her with my dogs, a picture of Michael and Charlie, and a bag of clothes that will more than suffice..I’m grateful.

It could have been so much worse. I could have lost so much more. I could have not been as ready as I was when the pipe broke.

It’s a new beginning for our home…and a new chapter in me simplifying my life with the essentials….high off the ground 😉

I’ve gained so much more than I lost.

For once I’ve realized the strength and fortitude I had no idea was within me.

My soul was tested unwillingly and passed with flying colors.

Free

Every now and then. Every once in a while she’ll get worked up and cry like that. But that’s OK. She’s letting her feelings out. The scary thing is not being able to do that. When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in deep trouble.

 -Haruki Murakami

This past weekend I was honored enough to spend with a fellow widow full of so much courage.

A widow that could admit their fault, their weaknesses…and when the time prompted, face the head on to say you have no power over me.

I saw the tears she held back…and then I saw them leave her.

A cleansing of all that she had held in for so long, and they glimmered down her cheek with the freedom they had pleaded for, for so long inside her soul.

Watching it. Being a part of it. Allowed me to reflect on the things, pains, regrets, that wanted to be set free.

I let them go.

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding onto them.

In seeing the prisoners of her past pains be relinquished of their role of torturing her every step, I set them free.

Don’t let them harden your soul.

They weren’t meant to have a life sentence….

And neither were you.

Evolve

The 4 Fires we created the last night for the 108 aka the 108 times we walked across them for graduation.

Evolve.

We all hopefully do it.

Peel the layer off the onion to reveal the next.

It was hard and unthinkable to have any other “layers” after Michael’s death…but surely, 5 years later, I’ve evolved.

Grown.

Learned.

But the growth has been like watching a snail crossing a road:

It’s surely moving, but when you watch it continuously, it looks as slow as molasses…when you turn your glance and look back a time later, it seems as if it’s gone leaps and bounds.

This past week though…I saw the growth happen before my eyes…without taking my eyes off the whole time.

I went to become a Certified Firewalk Instructor for new things I have planned in the future for my passion and cause…but left having learned more about myself than I could have ever imagined.

It was a crash-course in the obstacles, faults, fears, and goals we all have in life.

It was like taking a sip of what I thought was water, to have my system shocked when I realized it was sprite.

I pushed myself (along with the help of a god-sent group of individuals all trying to attain the same goal or facilitating), mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Together we cried, cheered, were inspired by each others faith in the other, by each person’s perseverance when things got bad, by the ability to find a place in our mind that was pure, unscathed, and there to show us the truths within each of us.

There were moments of doubt and apprehension…but always a hand to reach out (Thank you Kathy). There were moments of realizations that we are not alone in are connections (Thank you, Del) and there were realizations that some people will test you to make sure your spirit and soul are reinforced in your being (Thank you, Robert).There were moments that I saw the utter goodness of strangers who want to do nothing more than help other’s achieve the goals set forth (Thank you, FIRE team).

Only one other moment since Michael’s death have I been so utterly sure that the things I learned would change my life forever.

I am now a certified Firewalk Instructor.

But more than that, I am a better person. A person that has much growing to do, but can finally see life with clear eyes and an open heart.

I didn’t want our time at F.I.R.E. to end and had a bit of hesitation in the outside world being able to fully comprehend all that took place…all that will run through my veins from this point on…and they may not…but I knew that for 4 days I learned amazing and extreme tools of enlightenment and empowerment, I met people who are more than people, but now family, and I have no doubt that I was where I was supposed to be…with Michael’s amazing spirit alongside me the whole time.

 

“Courageous risks are life-giving, they help you grow, make you brave, and better than you think you are.”

Old

Okay…okay…

I know I’m far from what our society considers “old”.

I’m 26…and was 21 when Michael was killed.

He was 22 when he died.

But I can’t help but despise each year that passes without him.

I remember when I surpassed him in age…and before I knew it had lived 2, 3, 4 years more then he had.

I look at the photos and see the new wrinkles and lines that he never saw.

I look at the photos and know that one day I will look far different than what I looked like when he was alive.

But as much as I despise old father time…and the wrinkles that come along with it…I love knowing I have them from the smiles I’ve been able to have since his passing…the “are you serious!?” faces I’ve made to those that were unaware of my situation…the squinting lines from all the moments I shed the layers of grief and loss from my being.

 

As Brandy Carlile sang her song “My Story”:

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am

 

So I’ll embrace the lines….the story….the ability to create the crinkles that he never could…..and the stories I will continue to create with each new one.

Return

This week is like one in December.

One I’ve quite nicely entitled….Hell Week.

It basically consists of days that seem to consolidate lots of loss or the reminder of what once was, into a small period of time.

On May 21st, 2007, Michael was killed when a man in a field detonated 2,000 pounds of explosives directly underneath him.

On May 26th, 2011, our baby, Charlie, died after his battle with cancer.

On May 28th, I’ll be existing during Memorial Day…a day I live every day.

On June 1st, 2007, We had Michael’s memorial service.

On June 2nd, 2007, I spread his ashes.

On June 3rd, 2011, I thought of how much I despised living on earth without two things I loved more than myself.

Okay…that’s hell week and a half…I always sucked at math…but besides that…

These dates signify the most pivotal moments in my life.

They were the last day that they had that their last inhale….their last exhale…

These were the days were the last days I’d hear their voice or feel their wet tongue on my cheek…

These were the days that bred many ‘what ifs’…many ‘could I have done things differently’…and for each…5 years and 1 year later…I still struggle with both…

Some more than with others.

But with each I was given the gift I never will regret.

The gift to say the only things human vocabulary ever created for such beings as Charlie and Michael.

“I love you”…”I’m so in love with you.”…”I love you more than life itself.”

The pain is always there. Not to burst any bubbles. It’s a dormant ache that re-surfaces in the moments we reflect on that which we have lost.

But the ache is soothed by the love that withstands all things…even death.

Someone once said that where we invest our love is where we invest our life.

I’ve been given the greatest investment…to keep living for them..for myself.

I miss them more than I can even try to pretend to want to know. I ache for them at random moments to the point of unstoppable tears.

And yes…5 years later it is still a bit of a “Hell Week”…but I stop and I absorb, and I feel, and I release, and I feel their love.

And the investment always has the greatest return.

Perfect

Monday will be the big day….

5 Years.

5 years since I last heard his voice..saw his face…heard “I love you…and I’m so in love with you, baby.”

And in these 5 years I’ve learned just what it takes to be the “perfect” widow, and I’d like to share it with all of y’all:

1. You must be imperfect.
2. You must make mistakes.
3. You must persevere.
4. You must follow your heart.
5. You must do so knowing that many will tell you you shouldn’t.
6. You must ignore them.
7. You must find a reason to smile…
8. Not everyday…as that is not feasible…but more times then times you frown in a year will suffice.
9. Being a widow is a title you should be proud of..
10. Never forget that.
11. You are amazing.
12. Your spouses love will get you through the moments that you will sometimes feel are unbearable…
13. Keep you heart open to feeling it.
14. Life is short.
15. Love is eternal.
16. Repeat that to yourself each day.

And there you have it….ingredients to being the perfect widow.

It took me 5 years to realize and I’m sure I’ll become more “perfect” along the way…but this is all I have so far.

Ability

 

There’s a poignant quote from a book that I truly related to in the first days and months after my love’s death:

“My heart was chilled to ice. I felt ill with grief. But there was no time for frozen shock. Something in me did not want to give up on life, was unwilling to let go, wanted to fight the very end. Where that part of me got the heart, I don’t know.”

 

I didn’t know how I could still live…still breathe…without my other half on earth…by my side.

 

I turned on all things and people around me…believed in nothing….loathed my fear that deterred me from taking my own life.

 

But now I know.

 

Know how that part of me remembered I had the heart to keep living, to keep breathing…but most importantly, to keep growing, giving, and healing.

 

He did.

 

You see, Michael was not in the Army for his life career…only 3 years…as a way to feel challenged in life….to feel as if he was making a difference…to feel passion for something outside of himself and for those around him.

 

I never quite understood it. Understood the ability to be willing to risk one’s own life for another he barely knew. To pursue a career that no one around him could even fathom doing. And yet Michael followed his heart . Became whole. Helped his comrades grow…pursue their dreams….find purpose. The same purpose he was once looking for but had found…if only for a short period in time.

 

That’s how I had the heart to keep going.

 

He showed me…gave me the ability to say, that my love died doing what he loved, followed the path wholeheartedly, and had no fear when passion was the guiding light.

 

He gave me the ability to see that I could do the same…find that passion, pursue it, change my own life and hopefully those around me, and, when the moment comes….one day….one decade…one hundred years from now…and fate meets me face to face….those who know me will be able to say the same, as I’ve been able to say for my husband.

 

All because I realized not where I got the heart from…but was reminded that I had it all along.

Camino

On May 22nd, 2008…One year and one day after losing Michael…I flew to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago aka the Way of St. James.

I’d like to say I learned about it while reading some amazing literature or while speaking with a world explorer. But, no. I was on one of my widow couch and tv binges, sadly watching some made for tv movie with Joshua Jackson (Pacey). During the last scene, he pulls out some map, oddly finds the perfect walking stick, kisses his Spanish lover goodbye, calls his job in the US and quits, and the only thing with any guidance on me understanding remotely what the heck he was doing, was the map being titled “Camino de Santiago”.

That last scene struck something in me and I immediately GOOGLED it.

4 months later I’d be on that flight to Spain. 16 days, 225 miles, a backpack, one pair pf shoes, two sets of clothes (including the one on my back), a sheet set, and some money in hand

After researching it, I found out it had become somewhat of a “spiritual” journey for those who ventured out on its multiple terrains. You see, the camino is a pilgrimage that in the past was walked as a form of penance, but overtime had warped into what is today with today’s modern pilgrims. Its route is maarked through mountains, vineyards, barren desserts, by a scalloped shell…believed to represent the unique grooves that a shell has, all leading to one point, as a way of showing we all take different routes but arrive where we need to. The whole key though, through my readings, is that one must be willing to place faith in the walk to receive out of it what they need.

Faith? To say I was lacking in that area would be an understatement…but just like Michael joined the military to feel challenged…I felt I needed to do so, too, to survive.

Some people would literally take the camino with no money, food, or direction, but they’d always get just what they needed to make it another day closer to Santiago.

I knew the walk would not only be challenging physically, but mentally, more than anything. To be left with nothing but my thoughts and feelings to sift through (no phones, computers or mp3s in sight), every moment of the day, would be my biggest obstacle.

Day after day of the walk, I felt lighter and lighter (though the bag on my back felt heavier and heavier), as I started to just let go. Let go of my fears of the unknown on that path and in my life. Let go of the fear that I’d forget Michael if I didn’t have our material things nearby. Let go of this need to just basically need to know what the future held, as that very step I was taking would take me where I needed. Let go of the pain, as it was heavier than a bag full of rocks, and fogged my mind of my final destination…my goal at sight.

That walk changed my life.

It dictates all I do, in just reminding me that if I have faith in the journey, everything I need will come to me…not all at once or as obvious as a blinking sign, but in subtle nuances that push me enough to take one more step…to live one more day. It taught me to set expectations, but the right kind. It’s allowed me to have faith once more.

This week has been one where I’ve felt down and out on how others are doing certain things, that make me feel as if I have to change how things are done, simply so I won’t feel them on my coat tails…but alas, the way has shown itself in its elusive messages, I just had to be open enough to read, reminding me to just be me and keep walking my walk…

and I’m POSITIVE it will take me where I need to go.

“Buen Camino”, my friends.

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”-Kahlil Gibran

Arrival

May will mark the 1 year anniversary of my beloved Charlie’s death.

It still feels like I was just walking through the airport terminal getting the call from the oncologist. Yesterday, that he was fighting for his life and my soul and heart. Yesterday, that I laid with him at the fireplace and felt his last breath pass by my cheek.

Just like Michael, the gaping hole will never be filled where Charlie’s life and love still lay, but the past few months I’ve felt that it may be time to find Maximus a new friend, a new brother. Not only that, I felt that I was ready for the possibility for there to be another fur-monster in our family.

I looked online, found doggies that peaked my interest. I went to meet and greets and even had one dog spend the weekend with Maximus and I.

When he was here, I felt disheartened. He was a good dog, but my heart wasn’t in it, and Max seemed more depressed than ever.

I then headed to Paris, and while there saw all of this squatty, terrier type dogs and when I returned home, found myself on the same place I found Maximus…Craigslist.

There was still a fire in my heart that this was possible.

Then I saw him…this furry, white, westie with a smile.

I emailed, got a response, and 5 hours later was meeting him.

He jumped right into my lap and started kissing me.

I knew Charlie wouldn’t have killed him immediately and I knew that he’d keep Max on his paws. I knew he was right. My heart felt like it was smiling.

So it’s been 3 full days with my white stallion, that I can’t quite figure a name out for (that was always Michael’s job…or mine and then Michael’s to come up with a more sane one), and I’m glad I listened to the call my heart was making.

It’s bittersweet, in knowing that the Charlie, Michael, and Maximus family is growing, but more sweet than anything.

Opening up our hearts to anything…new experiences, new friends, new additions to our family…is always scary. But if we listen to, and allow the new things to not take place of or fill the gap…I think everything comes together…we realize that the heart still bears its scars and holes, but it can always stretch just a little bit more.

“A person’s world is only as big as their heart”
-Tanya A. Moore

Now

Michael loved Calvin and Hobbes:

A kid’s pretend friend that he asked lifes big and not-so-big questions to. An invisible tiger that always seemed to help guide him through his childhood.

Michael became that tiger to me when he died…he became the person I talked to for guidance…who I asked life’s questions to. But the response I knew would never come from him…it would have to be felt and heard by me and me alone. But still, I asked. I screamed and cried for reasoning to this tragedy before me.

As time has passed though, I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer of those questions on life, do I want, or even need an answer to. Just as a child grows up not needing a fictitious animal to guide their way.

In no way am I stating that I don’t still lean on my baby in the toughest of moments, but I’ve realized that the moments where I have been the most incapacitated by grief, are when I have been thinking about nothing but the future, the world in front of me without him by my side.

2012 is carrying a new constant that I know would make him happy, and I know brings a smile to my face. One I picked up along the in 2011.

A constant that freed me from the constraints of life that my pain and loss had me chained down with… had imprisoned me with its uncertainty.

The constant of living now…and nothing more.

I know the future will be what I make of it, but my present…my present was awaiting me to embrace it…and for more than just a second…I have done so.

Worth

It’s 2012.

I’m here in Tennessee with  group of widows and all feels right.

I woke up this morning and walked in the mountains. The fresh, cold air on my face. The sound of nothing but wind through pine needles. The necessity to do nothing but listen to the thoughts in my mind. To say nothing but my feelings to my heart and him.

I know that 2013 and 2014 and 2015 will come. I don’t know what each year will hold, or if I’ll even be in them, but I do know that living is the only answer to each day that passes…each month that passes…each year.

He is my reason for living, and through that reasoning, I have even found reason to live for myself.

He was always someone who I planned or would have died for, but when cards dealt something unexpectedly, I knew I had to live for him, and in doing so, I found not only a reason to live for myself, but for others like me.

I love that I have that knowledge…I love knowing what I am alive for…and what I know I would and will die for.

That knowledge, undoubtedly, will make 2012 and beyond a year and lifetime worth living.

2012

Holy smokes, Batman.

2000 freakin’ 12.

I don’t quite know how to simply describe 2011 or simply describe what I hope 2012 to be.

I feel I’ve excelled.

I feel I’ve failed.

I feel I’ve laughed more.

I feel I’ve been disappointed more.

I feel I’ve grown.

I feel I’ve shrunk.

I feel I’ve exceeded my expectations.

I feel like I haven’t done enough.

I feel…as I type this…I’m a bit of a split personality 😉

Or a person who hasn’t quite still found a steady balance in the crazy scale of life.

But I think there’s a part of me that knows deep down I liked the excitement of running side to side, just long enough to keep my balance…find that center, but not long enough to ever feel that all will always be as it is…more so a time to know that one side will sometimes lean more than the other and my center will never look the same as the last time I balanced it.

Balance.

Even typed out it looks so linear…so horizontal….so not me.

So….2012 will be awesome.

Crazy.

Not what I expect.

Not always what I will have envisioned.

And more than anything… a little off-balance.

I’m excited for it.

For life in 2012.

With You

“I like people with depth, I like people with emotion, I like people with a strong mind, an interesting mind, a twisted mind, and also someone that can make me smile.” – Abbey Lee Kershaw

I’m stubborn. I’m sarcastic. I say things like I see them. I bottle up my emotions. I’m a fireball.

He was laid back. He laughed at my sarcasm. He’d correct me when I was wrong. He made me express my emotions. He cooled me down when things got hot.

Michael was most definitely not the same as me. He was the opposite. He was perfect for someone like me; The person that has a filter issue but loves to be challenged, corrected, educated.

Michael made me grow. He makes me grow.

It’s not easy not having him here…The person that I didn’t need to explain things too, but the person that challenged me to challenge myself. My ways. My words. My life.

I keep that going. I motivate myself to remember that he made me want to be and be a better person.

I still am me. The person he fell in love with.

But still the person that makes mistakes. Says the wrong things. Sticks to my guns when everyone says let them go.

I’m the person that knows that I will grow. I will be me. I will become a better me.

I miss you, baby. The person I was with you.

But I know…no matter what, you will always be here. You will always stand by my side, but make me work, reflect, and remember that there’s room to improve.

And I will.

And I’ll smile knowing so.

Weird

I’d be lying if I said I miss being weird…I still am and will always be.

But oh…how I miss being weird with him.

Not so much weird with him, but ourselves completely.

I impressed him with my Gallum impersonation. He impressed me with his Chewbacca roar.

He spent his lunch breaks watching Star Trek Next Generation, and loved that I collected stamps.

He smiled and always cared to hear about my collection of Ghostbuster and Beetlejuice figurines or the gopher skeletons I treasured.

I loved watching him read Stephen King every night or laughing over ‘Pet Cemetery’.

His nostrils could fit two fingers in it, and he loved showing me that talent…I never got sick of showing him how well I do the truffle shuffle.

He could hack computer systems and he always appreciated my poetry and paintings…no matter how peculiar.

There are so many things that I miss in our mutual weirdness, but as I continue on with these rooted aspects of my being I smile at the oddities that make up my daily life. I smile in knowing that he loved them with all his being. I smile knowing that all of me is always more than enough.

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

Deny

When loss strikes, we have a way of denying ourselves of things.

Whether it be the ability to smile since they can’t smile. The ability to see all the impact that they’re life left by focusing on the fact that they were taken so suddenly. The ability to celebrate life’s happenings, since they are not there to celebrate it with you. Our ability to look ourselves in the mirror and like who we now are, because we’re too focused on who we were before tragedy struck.

They’re just a few things that I did and denied myself of.

I think I had to…it was necessary.

It was in denying myself of the life that I still had before me that I realized that I still wanted to live it.

Piece by piece, day and month and year by year, I find I’m not putting back together what should have or could have been….but embracing what is.

A part of me died the day Michael died, and I dragged that corpse behind me, letting its weight wear me down. But not all of me died.

It was with that knowledge that life has become one I oddly and peculiarly enjoy.

One case in point: I’ve recently picked up training. At the gym…outside…on my floor.

I was in such great shape when Michael was alive. I had him to look good for. I had a me I loved I wanted to take care of.

I never fully let myself go, as I always wanted to represent Michael in semi-decent shape. But I never pushed myself past that. Why should I?

But now, now I don’t deny myself the ability to love me again. As I kind of like her. And I sweat. And I see myself changing physically and mentally. And I laugh that I ever denied myself of this. Yet I smile, as I now know just how much I’ll cherish that I got to the place I am now.

Someone once said that in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness. I couldn’t agree more, but it’s in recognizing the suffering and denial we place on ourselves that I truly believe makes the journey one we look back on with a smile…with the knowledge we made it through.

Tomorrow

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
-Lao Tzu

Veteran’s Day is tomorrow, and it comes every year with many people asking what I’ll be doing. How I’ll be honoring a day that my husband fought and died to be recognized as a part of.

I guess in a way these days (Veteran’s and Memorial Day) are not so much any different then yesterday or the day before, as they’re days that I daily am reminded of with Michael’s absence…with his uniforms that hang lifeless in the closet…with the flag displayed on the shelf. But it’s a day brought to the attention to those outside of my realm, and so a day that I am able to talk about him a bit more and know he’s being remembered.

So my answer for what I will do tomorrow is: Remember his strength and courage, Remember the love that was shown to him and that he showed others that gave him the ability to sacrifice his all in the name of sanctifying those attributes and the root of their being. I’ll reflect on how lucky I am that he chose me,  not only to love but to bear his legacy and what he stood for in the case he would never return. I’ll think of the men and women of the military that allowed him to flourish in his passion in life and allowed him the ability to die having found it. I’ll think of April 9th, 2007, the last time I kissed him in the airport. I’ll think of the many like me who shared that kiss they never thought would be there last. I’ll think about those that came before him and after him in serving our country. I’ll remember that in my darkest hours to tap into what he embodied. I’ll think of how proud I am of him and how I hope to make him proud, too…

I’ll think about what I think about each and every day.

Paradise

“I love that moment. When you’re on a long car ride, or listening to music, or reading. And you completely zone out. You forget your troubles, and everyone around you. You’re focused on that one thing, and that one thing only. You’re content, and everything seems peaceful.”- Unknown

I savor these moments.

After Michael was killed I had to remind myself when they were happening, but ironically knew right away when they were taking place. Almost as if my mind couldn’t believe that peace and a quiet smile was possible.

I savor these moments even more, even though they come around more often.

They’re no longer a shock to my system.

They are a gift I excitedly tear open to savor for whatever period of time that is.

Life is finite.

These moments are too.

But it doesn’t matter…

These moments are happening and it’s all I could ask for.

Waking up to my dog curling his tail and stretching. Watching the biography channel over a glass of wine. Listening to Coldplay echo in the background. Feeling the breeze as I take out the trash. Smiling with a dear friend. Laughing at the random moments of beauty and awkwardness that plague any widow.

That’s life…my life.

A quilt of moments…good..bad…unexpected…expected…

My own little odd paradise.

Immortal

I’ve been traveling a lot…all for good and great things, but it still takes its toll.

Luckily, I’ve noticed that it takes much more weight from life to throw me off-balance, as I try to find relief in the little things…mementos surrounding me, waiting for me to find peace and relief in what they hold.

This week it was in a quote from an in-flight film. It was some actor reciting lines that I felt embodied my baby…and helped shed light on the facts my heart already knew…the reasoning behind my love’s service and sacrifice.

It’s these things that help tip the scale a bit towards the center…helps me remember why my husband is the man he is and will immortally be…for I share his heart…the heart he so vulnerably and excitingly offered me to carry forever.

“All men fear death. It’s a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven’t loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you love a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman’s heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness you will feel immortal.”-“Midnight In Paris”

Moments

They happen…sometimes more than I think I can handle.

Those moments where it feels like I’m in a well, with all the walls caving in on me.

The sad thing is I see it when I’m being lowered down….like the bucket on the rope.

I anticipate what will happen and still am lowered further and further down…feeling as if there is no one at the top to help pull me up.

I reach the bottom and know that my soul and spirit will collapse with the walls around me….

I look up once more, taking that last glance at the light that seems so far away.

I bow my head to come to terms with the unwanted fate I have found myself in.

I close my eyes to become acquainted with what will be my new scenery.

And then…when I’ve made peace with the dark…it happens…

Something hits my heart and my arm…

A rope..a bucket…a hope…

And as he pulls me up…my love…my eyes readjust to the light, the warmth, the life still before me.

The air is inhaled a bit deeper, my heart opened a bit wider, my willingness to keep going a bit stronger.

“The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we’d learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn’t fall apart, you’d stop suffering when they did.”

John Green

Needed

 

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind, and I’m kind of getting acclimated on the occasions where they happen…and in a way enjoying the mayhem it brings.

 

Last weekend was one of the best parts (minus dancing like it’s going out of style with Brooke). We held an Inner Peace getaway for the amazing AWP ladies. From yoga to sailing to long nights of talking….it helped center me back in a place that I had been swinging around on like an out of control pendulum.

 

Being around such a diverse group of ladies, with diverse love stories and diverse ways of dealing with loss just reminded me that all is well.

 

Being near the ocean, a place Michael so deeply loves, didn’t hurt either.

 

I felt him. I forgot at moments that he was dead, as I was living life as if he was right there with me, with his soft, close-mouthed, grin and warm green eyes looking down at me.

 

I feel him when I live life as he’s right there with me, and maybe it’s a reminder that he never has left.

 

I must believe that if a feeling that strong exists, just like my love for him, it will never wander or disappear, I just must remind myself that it is real and to use it to get me through the times I need it most….and that’s always 🙂

 

It’s there waiting for me to take hold of, embrace, and have eternally…just as I know he is waiting there, where the world begins, to do the same.

 

In love with you, baby…

 

 

Have I Told You Lately…

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
-Pablo Neruda

Tonight’s just a night that I want to share how grateful I am for the eternal gift that keeps on giving. The one that allows me to be more than my loss and suffering and the ability to rise above and fulfill all my hopes and dreams. The gift that quietly nudges me out of the dark into a bright future. The gift that  answers my heart’s questions and wraps itself around me when life send a cold front my way.

Tonight, Michael, I want to thank you for choosing me to be the recipient of your love. Never would I had known the true strength and fortitude it held. But you gave it to me, unconditionally, with the knowledge that even when you were gone it would still be securely tucked in my heart, never to leave my side.

When I smile, I am reminded that your love smiles with me.

When I cry, I am reminded that your love will wipe away the tears

When I live, I know that your love is more present than ever.

My hands are your hands. My eyes are your eyes. My love is your love, and I love you (and am so in love with you).

Recap

The past week has been a roller coaster.

Charlie was laid to rest and it was one of the hardest moments of my life. It was also during that time that I was moved by my friends kindness. I was lucky and blessed to have some of my dearest and best friends there…friends that weren’t like the friends that were around when Michael died….these are friends that aren’t going anywhere and laugh and cry and grieve without questions or answers. TT told me she wasn’t used to being so open with her feelings, as we all shared our love and memories with Charlie…the secret is…it’s because they were there that I was able to. I love you all so very much. Thank you for helping me, loving me, and allowing me to be called your friend…I’ll never feel deserving of such kindness.

The flip side of this major loss is a major gain! My organization, as of today, has it’s first official office! I hold the key and smile…it’s more than an office…it’s a brighter and more beautiful future for myself and the fellow widows of the AWP. I’m so excited and know that this means nothing but good. It’s in my dream area. My dream 360 square feet. And will be a place where even more dreams come true for all we serve.

I’m spending this month to absorb all that May has consisted of. A month of growth, pain, survival, and the further assurance that Michael’s love is always present.

That’s it.

The end .

It Holds On

I’ve been getting everything ready for our upcoming AWP event these past two weeks.

One of the neatest components to the time is the golf tournament. I know…golf….not synonymous with anything too exciting, but at each hole is a sign. A sign that bears words from a fallen hero’s wife. Words on his life, his character, his soul….even his favorite beer!

I’ve been preparing them the past three years, and never not smile with pride to know that I know these men through their widows.

I wrote the content of Michael’s sign three years ago, never changing it. Mostly due to lack of time, but when submitting them to get printed, I took a moment to look at it…read it once more.

The content was perfect and defined him perfectly and I ended it with a latin quote. A quote that over the years I forgot the translation of (widow brain).

So yesterday afternoon, I searched for its meaning.  The results couldn’t be anymore perfect, and was something I needed to read again, as the days shave off closer and closer to the day Michael was killed (plus, it reminded me of how much I wanted to get it tattooed!).

Quos amor verus tenuit, tenebit.

True love will hold on to those whom it has held.

Growth

“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.” – Buddha

I must be honest.

So much of this blog has been a diary of my love with Michael, my struggles with him being gone, my growth and realizations. But one huge component of who I am and what I have become/am becoming, I’ve left out of these writings…until now.

The American Widow Project has been a huge key to my survival, my reason for getting up each morning, and the source of infinite strength and understanding that my journey is mine alone, but does not have to be taken alone.

It has done all of the above because of the people who have believed in its mission. People like me, who were trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel, people who wanted to use their own stories of love and tragedy, to not only help themselves, but others like them.

In the beginning, I could find only 6 military widows that believed in my crazy idea of an organization, to now having nearly 800 military widows, that each are continuing to form and build the organization into what it will continuously evolve into.

The thing is, the AWP, this organization, isn’t really an organization, but so much more.  It’s tightly interwoven with my love…Michael’s love. Interwoven with my healing and journey. With the love of other widows and their heroes. With things I don’t quite believe have words to describe them.

I never wanted it to be normal organization, just like I know I never had the normal love story. I never wanted to be a leader, just someone standing among those who could turn to me and nod in confirmation that love story wasn’t a dream and won’t be forgotten, that the road ahead won’t be easy, but can be pretty darn fun. And that’s what I’ve seen it become and grow to be.

But with that have come times where I feel it hasn’t been what I envisioned or what I hoped for others to get from it, and because it’s so woven into my heart, I hurt, and I know it’s mostly because it is so much of what I live and breathe….And I know that that roots from it being a one man show (most of the time) running it.

So with that, the palm tree I planted in the tiny pot, has finally grown too large, and I need to move it into something larger (or maybe a private beach), that can hold its weight and undoubted growth.

It’s taken me over three years to take this step, but I know that the AWP will do nothing but flourish with expansion. Growth is scary with anything in life, and I’m excited to take a step to having a larger place to house the most sacred of love and lives….those of my fellow military widows.

The AWP is a big part of my heart and soul, and I need this growth to take place to help it keep beating.

On Yours

I lay in bed a lot, thinking of when Michael and I lay there together. The mornings where we had nothing else to do but sleep in, rolling into each others arms, with me kissing them as they embraced me. The evenings in which the world fell asleep with us, as there was nothing but him and I. Sometimes my heart will beat out of my chest reminiscing of those times, and it’s almost as if I’m back there.

I wrote this one night in which I could hear nothing but my heart beat, as I lay in bed. When I hear it I think of him, and the crazy world I find myself in becomes calm, and I know his beats with mine.

 

My heart racing

up against yours…

 

Trying to catch up to the feelings,

the emotions

protruding out every pore.

 

But we lay still

inhaling,

exhaling,

knowing that if we lay here long enough,

they’ll find their way…

the pounding of our chests will become

one

beat,

and our hearts will laugh….

as we realize,

laying there like

stacked

logs…

that we are at the one place we are supposed to be.

 

And with my face pressed against your chest,

I smile.

 

And I’ll

inhale,

And I’ll

exhale.

Admit One

I love one-of-a-kind and unique pieces of jewelry that no one else has….

This is no exception and perfect for Michael and I…especially being the foreign film and overall movie lovers we are.

In love with you, stinkers.

You’re my “Admit One”.

Wack

You know what…..The poster above has it all right!

Loves not wack, even life isn’t (though it has its glimpses). But death, death I’m pretty certain is wack.

Death didn’t take Michael out of pain or take him to a better place…he had all of that here, and at 22 ,I’m pretty sure he wanted to live down here with me a tad longer.

I don’t think I’ll ever know why death came knocking when it did, but I just try to remember the un-wack things that have been brought/been a part of my life than and now, and the wack is out-weighed. Hell, I’m even really thankful for the people and things the wack has brought my way due to its repercussions.

Death…your wack, and in embracing and accepting that fact I’m able to embrace and accept all that’s come after your visit.

Dreaming

I dreamed of him last night. My dreams aren’t too off from the real world. In them I know he is dead. And yet, in this Inception like reality, I still think maybe there is someway his world and mine can merge, if only for a couple of hours in my sleep.

In the dream, there was one moment that stood out more than any other.

I was walking beside my love, both of us aware of each others presence. I looked down at his hand which I so greatly wanted to grasp, but hesitated almost in fear that my dream world would start collapsing for not following some code. I looked down at his hand, looked up seeking some mighty voice to say it would be ok, and then he grabbed it, and in that moment I felt something that I haven’t felt in nearly four years.

Bliss. Pure bliss in knowing my hand was locked in the one place it will one day be locked into for eternity. Ahead of us in my dream was my sister and her husband, and I just remember her turning around, looking at me and Michael, and saying, “You look so happy (the exclusive kind of Michael happy).”. Which was followed by me smiling the way only those who witnessed our love together could remember the sight of.

From there, things start getting a little loco and then I awoke. I laid there knowing the feelings I had felt that night had taken me over in my unconscious and soaked through to my conscience, and I found myself trying to fall back asleep a bit longer in order to search or remember any other bits.

I’ve always loved my dreams that he’s in (minus the ones where he feels so far away…which over the years I’ve learned to shrug off), and I felt like last night’s dream was him reminding me that those feelings will always be there when I need them the most. The feelings of untouchable love, that may be tested and torn by the winds of time, but will always stand tall and guiding like a beacon of light.

This is my life and our life together. I cannot change its course, but it’s always nice to reminded I’m on the right one.

SO in love with you, baby.

I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.

– Jonas Salk

Related articles

• Recent Repeated Dream Messages (deniselefay.wordpress.com)

Happy

My personal growth, as well as dedication to the American Widow Project, has brought me more healing than I could have ever fathomed. I still attend each event hoping to get as much out of it as a widow who RSVPed, and continuously I am not disappointed. This evening though, I received a call that meant so very much to me.

I rarely hear or ask what the organization means to others, but today I received a call that made the organization, and the work and dedication come full circle.

A fellow widow and friend rang me up. She spoke about her new engagement and asked if I would be a part of her wedding, as she could not envision being where she is in life had it not been for the AWP. It blew me away and left me speechless, to say the least.

You see, all I hope for myself and my fellow widows is for each to find their own place of happiness. A place they will end up spending more time in than their grief. A place that they know is unique to them, and them alone. All I’ve hoped for is for others to find this place and embrace it to the fullest, as it is the true guiding light to all that is amazing and yet to be explored in the lives still left before us.

I’m honored to have been even a small part of someone finding their place and am even more grateful to celebrate it with them, as I celebrate mine.

I have few words else to put into what this conversation meant, other than that I am happy, I am grateful, I am blessed. And I find myself to be so grateful to be among the ranks of military widows.

Congratulations my friend, and I can’t wait to stand their on your special day.

 

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”

-Dale Carnegie

Announcement

***I’d like to take a moment out of my life to make this announcement***

I like being me.

I like being the wife and widow of a hero.

I like the knowledge that I have the best of family, friends and pets.

I like the oddities of my being that I’m still being introduced to.

I like being introduced to them.

I like sunshine through my blinds when I awake.

I like telling my husband how in love with him I am, every night when I go to bed.

I like to dream of him.

I can survive the mornings when I don’t.

I like the warmth that overcomes me when I am reminded of the amazing things still out there for me to enjoy.

I like sitting in a coffee shop and lip syncing the words of a favorite song.

I like to sing them out loud, but spare the strangers around me.

I like when strangers become the people who get us through the days we never thought we’d survive.

I like how they are no longer strangers.

I like the days when I am ready to take on the world.

I like having the ability to forgive myself when I don’t.

I like when a sour time turns sweet.

I sometimes like celebrating the sweet over a glass of wine, sushi and foreign film.

I like turning up the volume on the foreign films, when I can’t hear them speaking.

I like that it doesn’t matter if the volume is up because I’m reading subtitles.

I like driving with my top down….convertible top.

I like looking down at my picture of Michael in the odometer and feeling an overwhelming sense of love take me over.

I like screaming out loud to him in reply….and smiling at the other drivers wondering why I am yelling to the heavens.

I like living.

I like having no fear for when the time comes that I will live no longer.

I like being Taryn Davis.

***You may now return to your regularly programmed life.***

Your Feet

But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.
-Pablo Neruda

Knowledge

 

Someone once said that it is knowledge sets us free, but as I’ve learned, everyone’s knowledge is different.

 

After Michael died I knew nothing but one thing in life. I could no longer answer questions on why or how things turned out as they did. I could not tell you right from left. As time has passed though, I have embraced the unknown and learned to accept it as a companion on my journey here on earth.

 

Still though, there are those times, those gut-wrenching, bring you to your knees moments in which the lack of knowledge of how one has ended up in the predicament they’re in, can run a muck on the soul we each carry inside of us.

 

I don’t know why I can’t hold the hand or kiss the lips of my one true love, I don’t know why his vehicle had to be the one to be absorbed by the 2,00 pound blast, I don’t know why I must sometimes wander in a world in which few understand me…and yet…as overpowering and heartbreaking as some of these things may be I can only  return to the one true thing I know…the northern light in a world that sometime has no direction….

 

I know I am loved…but not only loved but in love with my counterpart…my chosen one…my compass.

 

It’s all I know in a place that sometimes feels like a dark alleyway.

 

And that is all the knowledge I need…it’s all I need….and I am free.

I’m Still In Love With You

While reading a fellow widow’s blog, this song echoed in the background with the chorus being a message I could hear Michael telling me know. Because he’s still in love with me….And because I’m still in love with him…..

Because I’m still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon…..-Neil Young

And so I shall dance…..

Charlie

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.
– Unknown

I’ll never forget the night I got the news….

Charlie had cancer.

The dog that has been my best friend through life’s most painful tribulations. The dog that greeted me at our patio every day back from college. The dog that has never run out of love to give with his kisses and a simple tail wag. The dog that is the son to Michael and I. The dog that would not leave my bedside, not even for food or water, as I grieved the death of Michael in Iraq. The dog that senses when I am down and quietly lets me know that I am not alone. The dog that is not just a dog, but something more that few understand.

At first knowledge of the news I didn’t know what to say. The tears just rolled down my cheeks and seemed to never stop. He is the link to me and Michael, a part of us that still lives to know the depth of our love together. He is the one thing that has never left my side. I drifted into a dark place I hadn’t been in since the beginning months of Michael’s murder.

After Michael died I feared most for when Charlie or Maximus would pass away. I feared how I could deal with their absence, for I knew only Michael would be able to help me through it. But here I was, sans Michael, starting in on a battle for the quality and happiness of our son’s life.

A veil of darkness had covered me in the weeks to follow. We decided on radiation and an oral chemo to kick the ass of the sarcoma that rooted from his nasal cavity. For two weeks we took the long drive north for his daily treatments. By the second week he became sloth like, but overnight the mass on his head went down and Charlie had a hop in his step. By December 31st, Charlie had officially finished his treatments and there was a 75% reduction in the tumor.

The past two weeks though have been rough. Radiation burns took over his face, and for once I started questioning if I had made the right choice for him. The pain from the burns was unbearable and again we started daily trips to the doctor. The past two days I’ve broken down in the office, telling the oncologist assistants and doctors that this isn’t what I expected…that I was afraid it was getting worse. They reassured me that this was the worst of it and that it must get this way before it gets better. I replied with that I don’t believe that….forgetting in reality that it is an example of my life since Michael’s death. Nightly I spoke to Michael about getting Charlie and I through this.

I returned home last night, emotionally drained to my core. I walked through the door, and like all things….when I was running on empty in the hope department….it refueled.

Charlie was running around, eating more food than I could offer, kissing me, wanting to window surf.

I’m upset at myself for letting my optimism get sucked dry by fear, anger, and sadness. I was upset that ignored the fact that I know Michael is glad we decided to put up a fight, I feel it and know he is by my side, with his arm around me, assuring me that we’re all going to be okay. I’ve forgiven myself though, and today is a good day for Charlie and I.

Papa Giorgio (one of his many names) continues to teach me so much about unconditional love and life, in the sense that he hasn’t given up, and he trusts my decisions and gets up every morning to face whatever is set in front of him. He’s a fighter, and through the long haul we’ve both been through since his diagnosis, he still finds time for a kiss goodnight and each morning.

He always was more like Michael than I, but unknowingly, I see that he has seen me pull from the bottoms to the earth to try to find a reason to live, and in return, now has a bit of me in him too.

I love you Papa Jinkies and thank you for continuing to remind me just how to live life, how to love, and how to face the world each day….even when we may not want to.

I Smile

Recent Photo From One of my 2011 Adventures

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
-Arundhati Roy

 

I must say, with each passing year it’s as if another layer of sludge is washed away from my life….The life that began the day Michael was killed. I life I used to loathe to the core of my being.

 

But for once, I’ve been watching, I’ve been learning. I’ve been trying to understand that which I don’t, and yet, with no answers I smile with the reflection.

 

I feel that so much has been bestowed upon me since becoming his widow, and yet, I find more of it that I love than I could ever hate. I’ve never looked away. And for once I am seeing the fruits of that sometimes painful action. I see the immeasurable gifts before me, and even more for my taking. And just as the quote states, I know it’s because I never allow myself to forget. Forget the nights we sometime wish we never had to remember, the moments where taking my life seemed like the only means to an end of all that I felt was taken from us both, the moments where I cursed God for continuing to test me and my strength I sometimes ignore.

 

Those moments, though they will probably occur time to time until I’m reunited with my love, are the ones I sit here at my computer smiling over.

 

The questioning, begging, and pleading have gone on an undetermined sabbatical and I feel free. And I feel Michael. And I feel excited for where our story will continue to lead me.

 

And I feel alive.

 

And it’s all I because I never forgot…..It’s all because I’ll never forget.

Comfortable

It happened.

 

I’d become comfortable. I’d accepted the fact that I must survive…thrive in this world without my soul mate. It became acceptable. It became something other than a curse.

 

Then it happened. News. News that I was not supposed to deal with without him by my side. News that made me want to screw the comfortable and scream for the past. News that I didn’t know how to take.

 

I had retreated into a world that was only known to me many years ago…I didn’t want to go back there, yet my heart knew no other path.

 

I guess that is what it is. Like a down comforter chair. You see it. It looks so welcoming. You decide to sit in it. It’s blissful as your muscles are enveloped by its comfort, by its surroundings. But just as you sink in more and put your feet up, it happens, you’re abruptly thrown to your toes, thrown into a confusion of sorts that you never saw coming.

 

Maybe the secret isn’t dwelling on the fact that it started “just when”. Maybe it’s a matter of celebrating and being grateful that I had that “just when”.

 

Life is the greatest mystery. The second greatest is our heart’s capacity to handle it all. The only thing that isn’t a mystery is the love that drags us through the hell we find ourselves in. Drags is through those moments when we had just become comfortable.

Search

“What do I do now?”

“Where do I go?”

“How do I live?”

These are just a few of the many questions so many of us ask after the loss of our counterpart…our soul mate.

These questions helped fill my overactive brain from focusing on the reality that I needed to stop living in a nightmare and do it…venture into the wild and find the answers for myself…find life.

But I can say now, that the search needed little manpower, for in reality we cannot live life in questions….In search of some bigger picture. I think the only thing we can truly do is what Rainer Rilke said herself…”live the questions themselves” and hope…madly hope….that in the midst of living them they answer themselves. And that we are too busy living life to even care that they’ve been answered, for our life has become nothing but an outward expression of those answers.

For when it comes to it, the only questions worth answering are those that have a simple answer…”I did it for love.”

Guide

I’ve always taken my own path. I like the fresh, uncharted dirt beneath my feet, the barren terrain of land not crossed by others. Yes, as Michael would say, I lived in the clouds, a world of my own, but he never tried to change that, and in all honesty, I think it’s one of the things he loved so much about me. It’s the Christopher Columbus in me, which did lead me to him to begin with.

 

After Michael died though, I forgot about this land, the trail of life I was blazing. Soon my life became consumed by the “What would Michael want me to do?” I had lost my inner compass, my sense of direction, and leaned on Michael to show me the way.

 

This sustained me for a little while, but I felt Michael fading more in presence.

 

Then it hit me. How or why would I feel his presence and guidance when I was losing and forgetting that I was my guide all along. I was losing me, in this pursuit to let go of my steering wheel, hold my hands up and expect for  there not to be a crash.

 

Once I realized that to continue on my journey to him, my journey through this life without him, my journey, I had reclaim that girl that “lived in the clouds”. That girl that had a machete in one hand to cut her way through an alien world.

 

I’ve found her. Piece by piece, new and old me’s, gleam beneath the gravel of life they’ve been hidden in.

 

It feels good. To have that compass inside of me working. It feels good to know that at the end of my pioneering this life before me I’ll be with my soul mate.

 

I remembered that the only phrase I needed to ask myself the whole time, “What would Taryn do?” and it’s a phrase that has brought his loving presence back into my life more powerful than ever.

 

There is great meaning in life for those who are willing to journey.

-Jim England

ACL 2010

2009 ACL Festival

This weekend I’ll be at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. 8 stages, over a hundred bands, but to me it is so much more.

Last October, my best friend (and fellow widow) and I ventured out on the green grass, drinking wine from sports bottles, listening to amazing music, having a grief/stress free time.

Of course, since Michael’s death I’ve had many days that way. Worry free, almost to the point where I forget that he’s even dead, but what differentiated that festival weekend from anything else was the affect it had once the 3 days were over.

You see, after Michael died, the future was unbearable fathom. Minute by minute was as far as my mind and heart could comprehend. As time passed I could maybe look a month or two ahead, but after ACL happened the amazing happened. I went and bought tickets for the next year’s festival over a year in advance.

I couldn’t believe it, but it felt so good. 2 years after my soul mate’s passing, I had seen the possibility of looking forward to something not only in the future…but a year in the future!

So you see, this weekend is more than a music festival, it is a marker of what has allowed me to see and plan and get excited for life again. It is 3 days, that year ago allowed me to look 365 days ahead, allowing me to be set free from the fear of having to face another second without my other half.

 

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there”
-Charles F. Ketering

Push

One of the many hills Michael conquered.

Active Lifestyle….

I lived one.

I ran 5 days a week, did ab workout DVDs, went biking with Michael, and a little more here and there.

Now in comparison to Michael, I was sedentary, but he was my motivation to do that which I was active in to begin with.

Self care was something he was a huge advocate of, and feeling and looking my best made me feel great inside and out. Plus, it made me even prouder to stand next to my husband and be introduced as his wife.

Then it happened.

He was killed.

Suddenly I thought, “Screw it all.” I went out and ate everything I had cut from my diet. Steak, blizzards, Big Macs. I stopped caring about my it all, and hoped if anything, this lifestyle would make me see Michael sooner.

Well, it probably would, but with me looking like a sea world exhibition. Looking like someone he wouldn’t know…and I probably wouldn’t know either.

So I started. Started eating healthier, returning to a daily exercise routine, taking my dogs for that walk that their tales begged for.

It’s taken a while and I’ve just recently started pushing myself back to the level I was at when Michael was alive. I’ve moved from the elliptical to pavement and from hula hooping to weight lifting, but it’s happening.

So blinded by my grief and his death, I forgot me, I forgot the person he loves, I forgot that I am a living example of the man I am so in love with.

I feel him when I run, I feel him when I think I want to give up, I feel him when I look in the mirror, knowing he’d be standing next to me smiling.

Piece by piece his Taryn, my Taryn, is returning…and damn…it feels great.

A picture Michael took of me after a steep climb on the bike. When I reached the top, seeing him there made it all worth it.

Overwhelmed

It happens.

A song plays. A breeze brushes past my face. A scene from a movie crosses the screen. I stand in the kitchen for no certain reason. A sunset paints itself across the horizon. Our dog sticks his head out the window. I lay silently in bed.

These diminutive things take place, and from head to toe I am overwhelmed with how much I am in love with him. How much of his love gives me random moments of bliss and makes me thankful to be around to feel them.

It’s the equivalent to his 6’2 self wrapping his arms around me. A kiss of his lips on my forehead. Awakening to find him watching me.

It’s the same sensation, just in a new form. A form that makes all well in this tornado of a world I live in.

I don’t know where they come from or why, but they are a reminder of the capacity of happiness that is and can be felt in this soul of mine. A whisper from his soul into mine. A promise that he’s always with me. A promise that all will be well.

26

Michael's 22nd Birthday

This Sunday will mark my baby’s 26th birthday….or 4th birthday in heaven. However you want to look at it.

Birthday’s we’re always such a happy time but even three year’s later, the angst of certain holidays never weaken with time.

I remember when I had my 23rd birthday…I had officially had lived longer then my soul mate. Though that birthday was hard and not being able to celebrate his with him is equally difficult, I try to use these days to celebrate who he is/was/continues to be in my life.

I like to buy him cards and have them displayed on these special days, because for me, he’s on this journey with me as much as I am with him. Ups, downs, and all.

Tonight, as shuffling through the card aisle of Wal-Mart, I found one I thought fit perfectly. I’d like to share it below:

Front:

Real love takes more than flowers

means more than

beautiful words.

Real Love means keeping promises…

holding on when you don’t want to, being strong so that others may rest.

And as time and change

swirl around us,

the love we share

stands quietly (or loudly in my case) in the midst of our lives,

forever beautiful,

forever real.

Inside:

Sometimes I stop and think

about what we’ve been through

together- the good, the bad,

and everything in between.

And I realize that there’s

no one I’d rather share

my life with than you.

Happy Birthday to the Man I Love (and I’m in love with)

I love you, baby, and am SO in love with you. The only gift I can think of getting you is the one you give me day in and day out…and that is my love…my unconditional, unwavering, undying love.

Happy Birthday!

Rules

Being a widow is no easy thing.

From picking up the pieces , staring at them like they’re some foreign thing, and trying to create something semi-comprehensible….to the “outliers” (those are the people outside my situation), that try and put their two cents in…or in most cases…89 cents in, to what my life should be. There’s a lot going on. But if there is anything that I have learned, it’s to FIGHT THE POWER.

Create your own rules, take the path less traveled (Mr. Frost was on to something)! If someone asks you how you’re doing on a bad day, reply with “Really freakin’ horrible.” If someone tells you they’re sorry for you loss, tell them they shouldn’t be, because what you have had/do have is more then most will experience in a lifetime. Wear your wedding ring till you die. Take your wedding ring off after a month. Chop off your hair while eating a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s. Run a marathon. Remarry. Never Date.  Jump out a plane. Stay in your house watching soaps. Get a tattoo. Travel the world. Make a daily bucket list. Redefine what others have tried to define for you. Scream to the high heavens that you are a widow and SO proud of it. Surround yourself by people of all walks of life; They’ll either guide you where you need to be or help reinforce what you already knew in your heart. MAKE YOUR OWN RULES!

The truth is, I have never read a whole book on grieving or widowhood…I knew for me, I had to do the one thing that has no manual, guide or rules…and that’s to follow my heart. Has that put me in situations that may have been awkward for others, if not only myself? Yes. Has it brought me joy? Yes. Has it brought me struggle? Double yes. But the thing is, every night when I go to sleep, every step forward or step backward I have taken has been decided on by me. Not “outliers”, not “How To’s”, not by family and friends….just me. It’s because of that fact that I never have regrets…because no matter what the outcome, I know that I was the one who decided, chose, picked, and did it. And no matter what….that willingness to have faith in myself is something I’ll never have remorse over.

Fight the power…grasp your chaos…savor your solitude…celebrate your company…live your life…embrace YOUR rules.

“All your life people are going to try to tell you who you are. And sometimes it’s going to be tempting to believe them. But you must remember that you are who you feel in your heart and your head and down to your toes. You are who you feel deep down in your soul and radiating out your skin, and no one’s opinion (except maybe your own) can change that.”- La Joie Dd “All your life people are going to try to tell you who you are. And sometimes it’s going to be tempting to believe them. But you must remember that you are who you feel in your heart and your head and down to your toes. You are who you feel deep down in your soul and radiating out your skin, and no one’s opinion (except maybe your own) can change that.”

– La Joi de Vivre

Friends

For those that really know me, they know how open I am in sharing that a huge percentage of the reason I am still here today, has been due to my friends.

Before Michael was killed, my friendships were on a superficial level. This wasn’t to say that I didn’t have long-time friends, but the essence of who I was wasn’t truly understood.

The only person that knew me past the candy coating was Michael, and for my life, that was all I really needed.

It wasn’t until after he died that true friendship, outside of my husband, would find it’s way into my cold soul. This isn’t to say that there weren’t a couple of bumps in the road to find the ones who would really be willing to stick it out for the long haul (though they taught me much), but as my wise best(est) friend of mine said, “Those that aren’t in your life anymore, have made room for those that want to be there forever.”(Sorry TT, if I butchered that).

Through the AWP (which is the other percentage of the reason I’m still here today), I have met the women who have not given up on me when I wanted to give up on myself, women that embrace and laugh at my quirks (just like my baby), women who continue to teach me about life, love and death at a level I never knew existed, women that have celebrated in the tiny and big moments that I never thought I could handle without Michael by my side, women that have made life worth living after a very long time of nearly settling for despair.

Women that have shown me that TRUE, undying friendship (outside of Michael), does exist.

It is to those women that words can never be enough, nor actions, but….I did find a few quotes that will suffice for now ;D :

“With each true friendship, we build more firmly the foundation on which the peace of the whole world rests.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

“By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.
Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you,
and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter
with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
-Albert Schweitzer

“Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.”
-Rabindranath Tagore

“True Friends are like blood.. it sustains life, and comes out whenever you are wounded”
-Unknown

“A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?”
-Kahlil Gibran

“I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.”
– Charles R. Swindoll

LUB

Embrace

“I don’t understand what’s happened to me?”

“It’s huge. You’ve finely embraced the life you hadn’t planned on.”

This quote from a movie just keeps echoing in my brain.

I’ve noticed that, with quotes and words…they have a way of sticking to the sides of your mind during different parts of our life.

Some temporarily to help you get through the day or empower you to march on, others to bring you comfort in knowing that your pain has been felt by another, and in this case, to remind me that as much as i may have never fathomed it….I’m embracing this life I have.

The funny thing is…I don’t understand it either.

I guess it’s like most things in my life since Michael was killed…out of nowhere, it just happened.

I guess the only way to describe it is like being in line for a REALLY scary rollercoaster. One that you didn’t want to ride but got pulled into line for. Plus on top of that…it’s a really looonnnggg line, so any hesitation and fear you have in actually getting on is enhanced by the fact that you must now wait, watch, and either walk through the other coaster-goers (head down of course) back to the entrance you came in through, or stay in line, hope for the best, and take the exit you were made to take. If you decide the latter route, I (at least) am one of those folks that has to ask everyone around me if they have been on this ride before; “Is it scary?”, “How many times have you been on it?”, “It’s not that bad? Are you sure?” and of course, as the questions take place you hear screaming from those who have already met their fate with the metal mammoth.  Then I get jumpy like, ‘I’m going to do this, woo…yeah!”, while secretly hoping that I can play the “I really have to go to the restroom” card.

But then it happens! You look up and the wait is over and you are asked to take your seats (hopefully you’ll be sat next to one of the new friends you’ve made in line). The bars go down and before you can even anticipate anything, your zooming off.

That’s how life’s been after Michael’s death. Lots of fear, having to ask others who have been on this ride before, or on for the first time, how they feel about it, and before you know it you’re going full speed ahead, with plenty of loops and turns thrown in.

I guess the important thing to do when the ride finally takes off is to put your arms up, keep your eyes open, scream as loud as you can, and when it concludes, if given the chance, get back in line and ride it all over again.

Embrace the life you hadn’t planned on.

Kora

It started with a call from CJ (my brother in law), letting me know that him and Kenzi we’re heading to the hospital to have their baby girl.

Rewind to 9 months earlier; it was another dinner and movie night at our home and Kenzi and CJ walked in, stood in the entrance and announced they were going to have a baby. When the words came out of their mouths, it was one of the moments in which the finality of Michael not being there to be a part of this chapter of their lives sank in.

Those moments aren’t few and far between, but there are those certain times where it really hits you that the moments where you are supposed to be hand in hand to congratulate your sister on her pregnancy, or see another sister walk down an aisle, or my mom and dad hold their first grandchild, aren’t going to happen.

You see, in the 3 years that my baby’s been dead, I’ve come to terms and accepted the reality of us not having our beautiful children, sharing exciting moments in our lives with family, and growing old together. I guess I wasn’t quite prepared or had even thought about what it would be like when our loved one’s started to do those things, and how I would react.

But as they stood in the entrance, waiting for my reply that October evening, I smiled and the first words to exit my heart and then my mouth were, “Congratulations! Wow! All I can say is that Michael would have loved to be here to tell you how much I know it means for him to be an uncle to your child.”

I knew that over the duration of her pregnancy, and the duration of Kora’s life, I’d be able to physically show them my excitement and joy in being her Aunt, but at that moment, I just wanted them to know what was most important for me to have them understand, and that is the fact that as Michael’s soul counterpart, he will be there in everything I do, and in all the moments I have with her, and that is something I had learned that only other widows may truly understand.

But with tears in her eyes, She smiled and said, “I know.”

After that understanding and acceptance of what I know to be true, I became their biggest cheerleaders during her pregnancy. Cards for first ultra-sounds and doctor appointments, taking pregnancy photos, creating a stock of ultra cool baby things that Michael and I would have laughed over, and even buying her alcohol-free wine for our dinner nights.

I was liberated by the fact that not only me, but Michael, could celebrate in this special occasion, and they knew, understood, and liked it.

Today I went to the hospital to see the new family, and the first thing they did was open the card I brought. Signed by my family: Michael, Me, Charlie and Maximus.

They set it on display and for the next 3 hours we laughed about how big Michael was when he was born (10.5lbs), talked about who Kora looked like, and for a moment, it was if Michael was standing behind me as I held Kora, his warm hands placed on my shoulders, looking down on our niece. For a moment, life was as perfect as their baby.

If it hadn’t had been for Kora, I wouldn’t have learned that as some life’s big moments occur sans Michael, that I actually have him there more then ever, and feel like life is as it’s supposed to be.

Thank you, Kora.

I promise you that Michael and I will show you the love that we have shown each other, and with that, I know your life will be amazing.

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us aunts and uncles.
~Johann Schiller

Aspire

After he was killed, it was so easy to stay down.

Barricaded not only in my house but my emotions, thoughts and feelings. I’d torture myself with not looking at the memories as a gift, but more so, a reminder of that which could never be again. Even as the light would creep in through the darkness, I still didn’t allow myself to feel and live the way I already knew how to live when he was alive, but instead the way I thought I was supposed to live because he was dead. How can I exist, let alone smile and feel alive with my soul mate not here?

No one wanted to accept that I’m madly in love with a dead man, so separating myself from others and feeling that I could only live in a bubble became a notion I was ready to fulfill, as long as it meant I could live in his love.

But that’s the thing…I wasn’t.

The love we share is unrelenting, full of life, an explorer of the world and all the emotions out there waiting for us to feel them. It’s a love that does not sit and wait for something to happen, but goes out and gets it. A love that defines the infinite and creates feelings in which words have not been created to describe.

But what was I doing?

The opposite. Afraid to go out into a world that I was letting the fear of the unknown and those who did not know hold me back. A fear that smiling, laughing…living would make others believe that suddenly my love and pain was waning for Michael.

But those notions, each and everyone noted and unnoted, are things in retrospect that I have learned were my own aversion from embracing this life before me.

So I stopped.

Now my life is defined by the love that I know. The love that is compiled of all the things I spoke about. The love that has made me feel alive after I died inside, the love that grabbed the paddles, placed them on my corpse of a life, and recuperated me into living the life that I know Michael is looking down on with pride…and maybe a little envy 🙂 and most of all gratification in the fact that I did what he was whispering through my soul, but did not allow myself to hear with the glaring pitch of grief…that to honor his life, and the gifts he’s left me with, is to be the woman he fell in love with and proudly announced as his wife…to be Taryn.

“The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down; aspires and not despairs”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Yes”

Tomorrow will be the engagement anniversary of my best friend.

While thinking of what to do, send or say, I finally figured that only words could suffice for what I hope tomorrow is for her.

I know my life has changed immensely having her in my life, but with time, talks and just knowing, being best friends just fell into place, there was no ceremony or crowning. But, for our soul mates, our other best friends,  there is that moment where they tell us they want to spend the rest of their eternity with them, that moment where our love is personified as they look into our eyes for our answer and slide the ring on our finger.

For TT and Joe it was tailgating at a country concert, with cheap beer rushing through their veins just like the love they have for each other. I didn’t know them then and it wouldn’t be until nearly four years later that I’d meet TT, and through her Joe, and later here the story of how it all came to be.

Her and Joe have taught me so much, and I know and their love is one that so many can look up to. Though it will be a while till Michael and I and TT and Joe can hang out, the moments I’ve had of reading through poems he wrote her or seeing pictures from pivotal times, have been an honor to see and read.

And all of this is because we looked back down into their eyes when the words flowed out of their mouths, we looked at them and our heart spoke the truest words that would be the start of it all….Yes.

(or for TT, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god”… followed by a hug).

Love you bestie and Happy Engagement Anniversary.

What greater thing is there for two human souls that to feel that they are joined… to strengthen each other… to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
~ George Eliot

His Love…His Gift

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star…”

e.e. cummings

Do you know?

Know what your love has gotten me through, lifted me above, allowed me to see and my heart to follow?

I’m not sure. But one day you will know when I’m back in front of you and able to share the places your love has guided me to, and the people, the amazing people, that reminded me when all else failed, to listen to that voice, that hope and that strength that you gave me as your gift.

The gift I’ll never be able to repay, but the gift I swear to wear out, over-indulge in, stretch thin, and never get tired of.

Thank you for your love. Thank you for choosing me to give it to.

Parenthesis

As noted last weekend, the 21st marked 3 years since my hero’s death, but tradition continues of being around amazing widows leading up to or after the date.

This past week we were in Fayetteville, NC for our annual golf tournament for the organization, followed by our annual AWP Skydive!

Like all of our events, we have a definite melting pot of women at all different places in their journey. We spent time racing around in golf carts, talking till 4 in the morning, and lastly, suiting up to jump 13,500 feet out of a perfectly good plane for my 3rd year in a row.

During all of the festivities I have to say that I have never laughed so hard in the 3 years since Michael’s passing. Not just laughing, not even snorting laughter (which I’m known for), but hurled over holding my belly laughter.

Each year that I can make on notch on the widowhood belt, I’m left amazed at all that my fellow widows do for me in the continual process of healing a heart that has gone through the most devastating of losses.

As the trip came to a close, sleep deprived, in need of a shower or two, and smeared eyeliner accompanying the proud bags underneath my eyes, I looked in the mirror to see a noticeable change after my three not long enough days.

Not just a brighter sparkle in my eyes, but more evident, very well defined smile lines on each side of my mouth. Two lines that we’re a parenthesis to the grin that never left my face during my time with them. Lines that I proudly wear and look forward to deepening as the year’s pass with my fellow widows ,who help me make the stories that form the evidence of a live well lived.

I love you all!

If There Was No You

Alright, Alright, Alrighhhttt!

Long time, no post.

Just heard this song. Love it. It’s crazy how different songs I can connect to the lyrics in what I would want to tell Michael, or how I feel about him. Then there are those that I feel like Michael would want me to hear as if he was telling me, “Yeah, babe…that’s how it is..that’s how I love you..that’s how I feel about you.”

Well, I’ll stop with the ramblings. Here’s one by Brandi Carlile I’m feeling.

When I see myself i’m seeing you too
As long as I remember and I’m feeling like I knew
That my jokes aren’t funny the truth isn’t true
If there was no you

If you were my boat in the deep blue sea
I probably sink you down
I know I should have thanked you for carrying me
But for you I would happily drown

Out on your way the darkest night the longest day
I know what to say to make you laugh
And nothing you could do
Could make me turn my back on you
When you’re looking for a fight i’m your man
When you need a friend you got my hand

And what i really mean what I’m trying hard to say
Is that I’m counting on you and you got me too
Our secrets aren’t safe I’m singing out of tune
If there was no you if there was no you

Out on your way darkest night the longest day
I know what to say to make you laugh
And nothing you could do
Could make me turn my back on you
When you’re looking for a fight I’m your man
When you need a friend you got my hand
When you need a friend you got my hand
You got my hand

Sure of You

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. ‘Pooh?’ he whispered.
‘Yes, Piglet?’
‘Nothing,’ said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. ‘I just wanted to be sure of you.’”
–A.A. Milne

I’d be lying if there weren’t moments where I begged for a sign, dream, feeling that you were here…around.

Like a detective I’d search for clues or signals…but my magnifying lens, in turn, seemed to blind me.

It’s not a matter of the physical…that was something I had acclimated to not having or needing long before you were taken. It was more of that sense that in my deepest moments of despair you’d appear out of smoke to wipe away my tears.

But I forced it.

I begged and pleaded.

And it equated to me not feeling what was there all along.

Your presence…unfaltering presence..in a place that I could not see with my eyes, or figure out with my mind…

but felt it lodged, deep in my heart.

I’m sure of you.

I’m sure of you.

Happiness – Provided By Me

“I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.” -Jennifer Louden

Let me just say how much I love this quote. I really should print it on cards and hand it out to those who make the snide remarks that I will not be able to be happy until “move on” or somehow refuse to acknowledge the smile on my face when they see no one is standing at my side.

In my later years of college, single, partied out, and facing a world sans boyfriend…I found self-acceptance. I learned to love ME as ME. Flaws, bad decisions and all (and believe me when I say had a few). That was a trying time, as I believe we sometimes are our worst critics. But I did it, I peeled the layers of my onion and saw a new life before me, one like play-doh; bright, colorful and ready for me to mold.

Well, a little less than 9 months later Michael came back into my life and my own personal happiness was their, but enhanced by my soul mate…caught on fire. Maybe that’s why separation did nothing but enhance our relationship more, not strain it, because the happiness never faded, and still hasn’t to this day. Others just seem to have a hard time grasping on to the “sustenance and happiness” which still run through this widow’s veins.

So as I walk on this journey, I’ve dusted off my “self-care”…which was gathering dust…and decided to continue the path of happiness I found on my own, found enhanced by my soul mate, and found resurrected like a phoenix out of the ashes.

The Door

March 24th, 2007-

I sat in my office, blaring music and talking to a fellow Army wife on IM. Wearing my pajamas, which consisted of Michael’s basic training sweatshirt, I swirled around on my wooden office chair with the sun creeping through the blinds.

Underneath the rumble of music I hear something…another noise that I soon decipher as a phone ringing.

With Michael deployed, I had to be alert to any calls that may be him calling from Baghdad, so like a robot on crack, I shut off the music, ran to the living room (which was only 4 feet away, though I felt out of breath with the possibility of hearing my love’s voice), picked the cordless phone off the same red chair that Michael had proposed to me on nearly a year and a half before, and pushed the “Answer” button….

“Hello?” I say, breathing as if I’m some overweight cop who just chased down a convict.

“Baby…..” And before he could get a word in I was ecstatic to hear him…my soul mate on the other line!

“Baby!!! Oh, I’ve missed you so much!” I say, cutting him off.

“Baby, can you open the door?” he replies.

And with a sense of panic, I lift my head to look up at the glass door, and there he is. The most perfect specimen. Six foot, 2 inches, clad in his Army Uniform, with nothing else on him but a smile looking through the pane.

I can barely breathe. Tears of happiness hit the floor and take my body down with it. I unlock the first door and lay against the wall in shock that he is here. 7 months we sat and stared at each other through computer monitors, and here he was.

“Hi, Baby.” slips out of his mouth. A phrase and voice I could hear all the days of my life.

“Baby, can you unlock the screen door?” ( Because of course, I was still on the floor)

And then it happened. He walked in, picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around him. Felt him. Breathed him in.

In the tunnel vision of my love, I didn’t see his family outside (which I apologize if I may have mooned), but they drifted off on the other side of the door and we were alone.

He came into our room, layed back on the bed and just looked at me, as I sat on top of him just touching his face, absorbing that he was real, he was here, and he was mine…..

It was the best thing to ever walk through that door.

Our Ring

 

It is no secret…. my engagement ring is part of me. When he slipped it on my finger that September day, it symbolized more then our unity, but more so our eternal love, undying dedication and taking this journey together…never faltering.

It is a main reason that I wanted Michael cremated with his on. It eternalized it. It cemented what was already done.

When Michael went to pick mine out, he asked “What do you want, baby?”

Of course, being the girl, I had preconceptions on what I thought I’d want it to look like, how it would be cut, etc.

But it was in that moment, as his green eyes stared down at me endearingly…that it all melted away.

“I want you to pick something out, that when you look at it, you think of me.” I replied.

It didn’t have filigree nor was it channeled with many stones. It was a simple cathedral setting with a princess cut diamond.

But as simple as its setting, oh how that diamond glowed. Its facets reflecting colors I had never seen. A simple cut to hide its many complexities.

I stare at the ring so often, and finally see why Michael chose it. It’s the perfect combination of us both…it’s our ring ❤

Lyrics and Tunes

Music…it’s been a part of my journey of loss. A companion to my grief. A voice of celebration in my happiness. A tear to roll down my face in sadness.

I sat and watched a film this evening. 3 minutes in, I knew the soundtrack would be mine. Taken out of my grocery funds, I went to itunes to spend my few dollars… they filled me up and made me feel full with their lyrics and sounds.

From the beginning of my loss, when “Ache” and “Empty” were on repeat. To the days where “Fix You” and “Bruises” took their place on the CD. I continuously find these words…these emotions…waiting for me to find them…to push play…to devour my ears with their gifts.

They are a part of my salvation, a part of my grief, a part of my healing…a part of my life.

Wait– Alexi Murdoch ( The song that inspired me to write this blog tonight)

Feel I’m on the verge of some great truth
Were I’m finally in my place
But I’m thumbling still for proof
And it’s cluttering my space

Casting shadows on my face
I know I have a strength to move ahead
I can hardly leave my room
So I’ll sit perfectly still
And I’ll listen for a tune
When the mind is on the moon

And if I stumble
And if I stall
And if I slit now
And if I should fall
And if I cant be all that I could be
Will you, will you wait for me

Cause everywhere I seem to be
I am only passing through
I dream these days about the sea
Always wake up feeling blue
Wishing I could dream of you

So if I stumble
And if I fall
And if I slit now
And loose it all
And if I can’t be all that I could be
Will you, will you wait for me

And wait for me
And wait for me
And wait for me
Won’t you wait for me
And wait for me
Please wait for me
Please wait for me
Won’t you wait for me
And wait for me
Please wait for me
Please wait for me
Won’t you wait for me
And wait for me
Please wait for me
Please wait for me
Won’t you wait for me
And wait for me
Please wait for me
Please wait for me
Won’t you wait for me
Please wait for me
Please wait for me
Please wait for me
Won’t you wait for me

Guilt

I wanted to touch base on guilt, as I believe it has played a role in my grief with Michael’s loss.

The guilt that he died and I lived

The guilt of the things he never got to experience that I know have been.

The guilt of having eyes to still see this world’s beauty and ears to hear its melodies.

The guilt of knowing that he would have handled this pain, loss, and life better then I could, if it had been me to go instead.

The guilt that is created in my over-thinking mind…fictional and factual.

The guilt has sub-sided though, as I know it is a belt of weights I buckled around my waist…a belt that never was supposed to weigh on my hips, my being, my soul.

You see, guilt was never a component of our life (even though I may have used it as a defense mechanism in a disagreement…bad Taryn), so it makes no sense that I would make it a part of my life now, and the love that is still ours.

But I apologize, to Michael and the others around me, for the moments where I let guilt’s claws take their grasp on a moment that could have been put in the light it deserved.

Now I can’t say that it doesn’t creep up at moments where life is a-glow and I feel as if I’m surrounded by a bubble of positivity…but those are just the workings of my brain….
not my heart.

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.”
-Coco Chanel

In the Box

So a little story… a story I love to tell.

It was February 12th, 2009, and I decided to do something I had given up after Michael’s passing…create homemade Valentine’s Day cards. Making cards was one of my favorite things and with it being a dismal part of the year, I was secretly hoping it would lift my spirits. Michael used to love recieving them and seeing all the little touches I’d add to make it special.

So I pulled out my box of paints, papers, embellishments and more. I grabbed enough to strat creating and sat at my kitchen table. The first card was made without a hitch, but it was as I created my second one that it happened…grief decided to make an uninvited visit, and the tear’s soon followed. Oh, what I would do to have spent that Valentines with Michael, to just hear him say, “I love you”…those thoughts and more clouded my brain as fast as the tears clouded my eyes.

But no!! I could not let this stop me…”I just need to find even brighter papers and paints, maybe the perfect quote on vellum….I’ll go back to the box and continue forward. ” was what I told myself. So I got up, went back to closet and pulled out the box, digging for something…I didn’t quite know what. I sifted through a rainbow of colored papers, paintbrushes, cardstock, and more. I lifted one stack and noticed a tiny sliver of paper with the ink of a sharpie seeping through the back.

I knew it had to be something written by Michael, he always wrote with sharpies. The pain from my very recent breakdown gave me a moment of hesitation is which I feared to turn it over and read it’s words.

I put my hand into the box and slowly pulled out the ruled paper. Sitting on the floor, I flipped it over….

“Happy Valentine’s Day”

Written in his handwriting (all caps)….waiting for me in that box, in that closet, in my office….waiting for me to find it 2 days before Valentine’s Day, to let me know he was there.

“A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.”
-J. R. R. Tolkien

He Did It

Michael did.

Not through buildings, books, televisions or how much money he had in his account- but through lives.

The lives he touched with his words, kindness, support. The lives he touched through his love, encouragement and unfaltering friendship.

He did it. He did it without even trying.

He created something that will last forever. If not only through those people who were affected by it, but the places where his feet have set or his hands have gently grazed.

He understood the definition of forever by not aiming for it or trying to reach it as the ultimate goal…he just lived, and when he left, it sat on the front door step for me to bear witness to, to learn from, and continue on his “forever” by slowly creating my own.

Do you have a lighter?

I’ve been able to reach the life I deserved. Just as stated above. But then the sparks fizzled…went out…as that life slipped through my fingers with fate’s plan.

This past weekend though, in the presence of those acquainted with the loss of their love, their soul mates, the sparks reignited, pilot light by pilot light.

I am coming to learn to ignite the sparks and reach the life I now deserve as Michael’s widow.

I apologize for clouding the hero he taught me to be with grief’s evil grasp.

But i have not perished.

And I will win this battle…..

This life without you here.

Happily Ever After

I try not to think too much on all the things we would have done, family we would have built and life together we would have lived.

I try not to imagine it too much, for their is a pain associated with the what-ifs and that which we were unable to fulfill as the soul mates we are.

We lived our fairy tale. Our own Disney movie.

Like a knight on a white horse, you came and saved me from myself, took me to a safe place and calmed all my fears and hurt. I wish we could mourn together the losses we both share, for I know you mourn them too.

I think people look at me now and think all is shattered all is lost with the possibilities we once shared.

Not all was.

It isn’t.

We did live happily ever after, even though it the plot took a twist and all the characters we would have wanted to add to our tale never came to fruition.

The fairy tale ending didn’t happen though, and I will admit that.

For what we share has no ending.

Yep, That’s Me

I miss the quirky awkwardness that was all ours.

The waking up in the morning and making up songs about the cereal I was about to eat.

The moments where he’d surprise me….not with roses, but fried okra.

Giggling like teenagers as we snuck out to fool around in random parking lots.

Smiling at each other during cheesy movies and then getting in the car to see who could do the best impersonations of “Naaaccchhooooooooooo” or whatever other lines made us smile.

He always was proud of how well i could do, “Whatch you talkin’ ’bout Willis?”….I was really good at it.

I’d turn on ’50s music and he’d dance with me, smiling the whole time.

We’d go to the Zoo and take pictures of the squirrels running around, instead of the lions.

But all of those things and more…..are what made us, us. What made our love, our amazing love, what it is.

I still make up songs, and sometimes I’ll even stop by “Church’s” and eat my okra.
I will laugh at the corny jokes in a theater when no one else will, and snort with enthusiasm when the rest of the world is silent.

He encouraged me to be who I was…who I am…and I am so proud to be me….because it is when I am me, that I am us….I am perfect.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss

Turn the Light On

The other night I was enjoying dinner with one of my great friends. She is also a widow and will be coming up on two years since the loss of her soul mate.

As we sat and enjoyed our meals, drinks, conversation and company, it became obvious that in a restaurant full of people, we were the only ones laughing, smiling, toasting and enjoying the evening to the fullest. At one point, a waiter even came up and commented on how we brought “happiness” to the abode.

So what was our secret? It wasn’t the drinks, but more so – the stories we were sharing, the struggles we are currently facing (that we confirmed were normal), the love of our heroes, and this crazy life that we’re daily trying to figure out. Conversations that if most were listening in on, they may feel sad for us and the hardships we face. Yet, it became obvious to me that we are doing and were acting as we did when our loves we’re still here, because it was in that evening that they were brought to life.

Brought to life in the way that we were not hiding from our realities, but embracing them and the fact that we have come this far do to the love that still burns in our souls and beings.

And like the quote above says, it’s about remembering to turn on the light. I can’t say I always remember to, but with the right people and the right spirit,

I am more often.

–

–

I don’t have much to say today….

simply, “Thank you for lighting my sky.”

My love, my sun, my everything.

Note to self:

Life was grand with my love by my side.

As i come up on the reality of him not being on this earth for nearly 3 years, and face another year, another number, in which his existence is void to the outside world, I’d be lying if I said it’s gone smoothly.

I’ve struggled with an impairing grief and the pain. The nights where he felt so close that I reached out to the emptiness in front of me in hopes to feel him. Times in which the memories were so fresh, that I could paint their visions with my tears. Moments where I fell to my knees with the pain of the past, and what should have been our future. Yet through it all, I’ve learned, grown, and felt him there by my side.

Yet now, I face another war, another type a grief. Now, I face an opposite reality. One in which I beg for a dream, a sign, a feeling that I am not alone on this journey. A grief that comes not in the obvious, but in the mundane.

I feel strong and have happiness in my life, from what he has instilled in my heart, but I wish sometimes to go back to those raw moments of pain from a life that didn’t seem to far away.

I think that it’s been in my growth, my realization of the person that I am becoming and the person michael always knew was in me, that I have struggled and grieved over recently. I think I may be the one causing the disconnect and grief, over the disappointment that I could not have made and shown the strength that I never wanted to admit I had, the strength that is the sole reason for my existence right now, the strength Michael knew could take our love and relationship beyond the darkest of days.

This year I want to grab life, and make it what I know it can be, full of his presence, yet still full of those moments where my strength will be tested, just enough to remind me that it’s still there.

I’m always in love with Michael, even when life isn’t going where I thought it would.

Now though, I want to take the love I have with him always, and love the life I sometimes despise, the life that at times i fall victim to with it’s many forms of grief…I want to be in love with it for the life it blessed me with before tragedy, yet the one I have in front of me.

My life is different and the one I will lead will be different, but I can take that which isn’t different to get me through………

our love and the strength born from it.

2010

Well, it’s 2010.

I remember going into 2008 without Michael. It was the first year in which no history or memories would include him,  a year in which reality took it’s place next to me on my throne of grief. It’s funny how my mind also worked in ways to revert back to a time when he was still living. I’d sign checks with 2007, set dates with friends on the phone or email with that year… it was, in a way, symbolic of my heart holding on to something not tangible… going into a year with Michael by my side.

Each year, the ball has dropped, and I’ve taken on at different capacities… 365 days of self reflection, self growth, setbacks, happiness, grief, pain, joy, curiosity, dreams, nightmares and more. With each year though, the hesitation and reluctance to accept the current year I’m in, has fallen to the wayside and I am becoming more aware and open to my present and all the gifts it holds.

Each year is lined with the sour notes of with my life without Michael, though positive thoughts and actions have taken place.  I have learned that I am able to take on things (like a new year), with the knowledge that I feel him rooting me on and invisibly holding my hand when I am open to living life the way I did before tragedy struck.

So it’s with that knowledge, that I will embrace 2010 and hope to feel his presence every time I laugh, smile, take on the world and explore all it’s beauty.

Happy New Year!

“Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.” ~Thomas Mann

Help Is Better with Self

I believe for me, that a huge part of figuring out one’s grief, one most know themselves. Now I know some could say this goes without saying, but after the loss of your soul mate it’s difficult finding out who this new you is, or in my case, who this new me is.

It is has been through meeting others in like situations, reflecting on my own thoughts and actions, and lastly, making my self aware of auditory and visual things out there that may help in describing things that may not be able to put into words, that I have grown leaps and bounds.

One such example of the latter would be books. From Lewis to Emerson, it is in those bound pages that I have found that what that ink and paper holds is fare more precious then ever imagined. It was in college that I began reading a book entitled, “The Myth of Tomorrow” by Leo Buscaglia. After concluding the last chapter I realized the strength, power, and changes that I was allowing the words to have on me. I read things I had never pondered, things that stretched my thoughts and emotions to a new plain….and I loved it.

Miguel Ruiz explained in “The Four Agreements” that it is words that can either be the poison or tonic that determines our moods, thoughts, actions, etc. Anybody can read a paper, but we are the ones who determine what will impact us. We hold the pillar tp what will light our way.

It is because of that, that I am proud to say I happily stand in the “Self Help” book section! I love it there! I especially fancy the used book stores where there is a plethora of spines staring at you. I go into the section with no certain book or author in mind. Whether it’s the title or decor, I’ll pull out only a few, and usually in that mix, will find a book to take home. It is because I have no preconceived notion or background on what I will read that my mind is more open to soaking in the words or inspiration or knowledge that will help me on this lifetime journey we are all on.

Now you must excuse me, as I have a couple hardbacks calling me to the bedroom…..

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.
~James Bryce

Who Am I?

s i

At 21, life threw a wrench into the mechanics of my life. I had found all the parts that made me me, all the parts that kept my heart racing, all the parts that made my dreams come true. But on May 21, 2007 a phone call would take it all away.

Michael had been killed by multiple roadside bombs while serving in Baghdad, Iraq.

My soul mate, biggest fan and partner in crime had been taken from me by the most simplest of actions…the push of a detonator button.

I was lost, I was confused, I was broken hearted, I was torn, but for some reason I was still breathing. At first this was something I despised, the inhale, the exhale. As time passed I realized that there was still his love throbbing through my veins, and for that simple reason I could not give up.

I’ve embraced life, and even though my grip is not always the tightest, I will never let go.

I am a survivor.
I am a wife.
I am Michael’s Widow….. And that is who I am.

On My Way to North Carolina

Written March 31, 2008

On my way to North Carolina, to sit next to a widowed fiancée who called our hotline and wanted another widow by her side, I stopped in Atlanta.

With all the travels I’ve been doing the past year I have come to terms with the face that I will see numerous amounts of men and women in ACUs. Today was the same. As I stood at the gate my ACU radar detected a man to my left waiting to board.

Ok, he’s on I don’t have to be reminded of the fact that it isn’t my husband. No. As I make my way down to seat 30B I see him up ahead. ‘There is no way!’ I thought to myself.

Sure enough, I was squeezed between him and an older gentleman. I turned to him, tear defense in full effect and said, “Heading back?” He looked over at me and said, “I’m on break.”

He turned back to reading Newsweek and I went to reading my book. Through the one hour flight I would take glimpses of the ACUs on him, remembering the days when my husband filled them up so nicely. I wanted to glance to see the unit he was in or if he was airborne but knew it would be too obvious.

I was wearing my Gold Star pin and wondered if he recognized it, or the watch I was wearing that was set to Baghdad time, the watch my husband wore when he was killed.

We landed and sat there waiting for all the rows to unload. I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk to him again so I turned and said, “Are you going back over after R&R?” “Yes” he replied. I then went on to tell him thank you for his service.

From his reaction, I knew it may have been something he had heard before and his answer sounded somewhat scripted “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“My husband was killed last May and I know the danger you are put through, I spit out. His eyes teared up and he said “Well, I’m sorry.” I told him how I was on my way to actually attend the funeral of the 4000^th soldier killed in Iraq to sit and be there for his widowed fiancée. He told me about how he was on his 3^rd tour, where he was based, what his mission was, what rights he wished could be changed for those going through what we do, etc.

I then reached into my bag and pulled out my AWP Card. On it included the site, our ‘1-800’ number and smaller details. “If you ever have something happen and know a widow who could use our help give her this.” I told him what we all are doing, about the site that includes courageous stories of my fellow widows, and the documentary. He sat there quietly and looked at the card as I spoke.

He looked up and said, “I know you all have a lot of work to do to make others know of the hardships you go through on a day to day basis. Keep doing it.” I then shook his hand, told him to have the best R&R possible, told him about the wonderful one Michael and I last shared and how those 2 weeks meant the world.

There really is no point to this story other then the fact that:

1. I’m really freaking happy I had the balls to even talk to someone in ACUs, coming back from the place where my husband was last alive. ……

2. That taught me even more; how much strength we have just by opening our mouths when we don’t want to.

3. We do have a far way to come, but I am happy in knowing that one other US Soldier knows that there are so many of us Military widows just getting up.

I wish that I could do things better have more motivation at time, not sleep in till 12 because I don’t want to face reality. But most of all, I wish that I could tell and show him all the strength he embedded so deep down into my being that I am able to do the small things that I try to do. Whether that be brushing my teeth or filming a documentary.

I’d also want Michael to know that I am not alone. To not be afraid I have no one that understands, to not fear that I will forever be lost. I have my widows! I have the people that call me and brighten my day, who share their corny stories and share a laugh, who toasts with me up to the heavens. I have YOU.

I know he is up there with that gap-toothed smile, which no one knows he was planning on getting fixed LOL So thank you for giving me strength to face my fears with you by my side and thank you for having great men to keep our husband company.

The AWP Launch Weekend

Well the launch has begun. The weekend went quite successfully and it seems as though many came and got out of the weekend what i hoped: friendships, strength, understanding and more. Sitting in the theater and seeing the reactions of my fellow widows, exceeded my expectations. They whispered, laughed, cried, cheered and applauded. After the film was done I went to the front to speak. Emotions overtook me, some because I was in amazement that others got from it what I had the past 8 months of working on it, and others because there was so much beauty in that theater that night that our husbands should have been there to see.

We received a huge amount of publicity which I am happy with. The more people out there who open their eyes to the realities we go through the better. I thought it was funny that we made the front page of the Austin American Statesman, the paper that a year ago put Michael’s memorial pictures in the “Life and Arts” section 😉

Overall, I am thankful for those who have believed in the mission of The American Widow Project and in myself. I am blessed to be among some who truly implement what the organization is about and take advantage of the everlasting bonds made between us. They are the reason we are what we are and they are the reason I am still breathing today. We have just touched the surface of what we will become and what society will see from us widows! We have touched the surface on the legacies are husbands are still building in each one of us.

We are planning SO much but I just wanted to touch base about the launch.

Hope all is well!
Love, T

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

-Anais Nin

Grab Your Shovels

I made the choice to go into my office to throw the bundles of trash I have stacked in different places all over the room. One bag had a can of his dip that he left over R&R, bundles of every receipt from when he was here, and the lip gloss I wore when I was able to kiss his lips. I got through many of the boxes which led me to the closet…the closet that has bags of letters. Of course I’m a sucker for torturing myself, and opened the bags.

Letters from the past 3 years. A faint smell of the perfume I’d spay on them, and the envelopes he’s write tiny messages on. Reading through them I smiled and laughed, but most of all….cried. Cried for the unfairness and cried for all the letters talking of spending the rest of our lives together. I think we all can relate to that 🙂

Then I opened the calendar I wrote in while he was there. March 24th, 2007 “Baby surprised me today!”:

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was wearing nothing but a Army sweatshirt, sending over Patriotic Chippendale stripper messages to my friends on MySpace, blasting eighties music. I remember hearing my phone ring and ran to the living room to get it. I grabbed the phone and looked up…..there in the window stood my gorgeous husband in his ACUs. I fell to the ground as he smiled at me. Then he said through the door “Baby, open up!.” I unlocked the door and couldn’t even breathe so laid behind it on the ground. He said “Hi Baby!” I had NO clue he was coming home for R&R! I jumped up and wrapped my legs around him and I think by that time his family, who had dropped him off, left or got a nice glance at my bare butt ;D I was shaking and he walked to the bedroom to put his bag down. He laid on the bed and smiled at me. I literally had to touch his face for 15 minutes to even believe he was there. I could never touch it enough. I would always tell him when he came home for R&R I would give him a million kisses, I got a pretty good start that very moment 🙂

We all have that moment that seems to surreal. For me it was that day and also the day I drove up to my house with 2 soldiers waiting. I know we all have these days that bring us back down to our knees. The place we all started when we received the news, a place we all have worked hard at getting back to standing position.

I realized that when I was sobbing I was repeating in my mind, “This too shall pass.” So cliché’! But you know what, it did, and I’m still here, Michael’s still gone, and we have to keep going. We have to read through those letters to not feel pain from the days passed, but to feel the strength we had when we wrote them, the strength that we may have buried with the pain.

So grab your shovels ladies!! Let’s start digging the things we may have ‘buried’ in hopes of feeling less pain. The holes we create will be the ones we are able to pull ourselves out of when we need to.

Take Care.

Love,T

There is in every heart a spark of heavenly fire

which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

-Washington Irving

Another Day in Hell-adise

SO I think I’m having some fucking allergic reaction on my tat. I finally go out and put lotion on it to later find out that the ingredients in it take away the color and make it have a rash….just my luck. There my logo goes again. Never fails to let me down. I, of course, have procrastinated again on packing my house, big surprise there! Now that I have no freaking wireless in my house I find myself going to coffee shops nearly every day. I try to switch between two so I don’t look like a coffee house groupie. I had yet another break down last night. I think I should give them a new name. How about a lapse of falsehood. There you go! I had yet another lapse of false hood. To go along, there were no freaking scary movies on last night. Halloween night!! My first Halloween without my baby and i can’t even watch a good scary movie! Just my luck 😉 So i sit here depressed, scary movie deprived, exhausted, with a fucking rash on my back…..Yip-eeee! Also, i left the dogs out for about 8 hours and max came back in the house covered in stickers. Whatever. I’m so over all the things that occur. One stacked on top of another. Things i used to get upset about or shed a tear over are now the dumbest things. The things that now make me laugh or just add onto my crappy sundae of life. Well, I better get off to go rinse this allergic reaction off my back and pick up some stuff that will hopefully save the only thing I’ve been excited about lately.
I love you baby and I’m soo in love with you Michael.
*Kisses*

Just like Bilbo…I got the Ring

Nearly 5 hours after sitting down on that black chair , with a pillow in front of me, I was done. The concept I had been pondering, freaking out, and looking forward to is finally on my back…alot of my back!! I love it. The pain really could be best described as a hot scalpel cutting through flesh and bone. Half the time i had my eyes closed counting to keep my mind off the pain or trying to look at all the ghetto tattoo flash adorning the walls.I can’t believe I did it and I do feel a tad bit stronger in this very weak world of mine. Now I just hope and pray it heals correctly and ends up gorgeous. After it finally finished, i think it was a combination of the pain and the anticipation…..I lost it. I don’t know if it made it even more real that Michael is not coming home or what…it just was a lot to take in. I got home and started washing sheets and towels and kind of lost it. I wanted to call michael and tell him all about it or at least here one of his smart ass remarks……none were to be heard.