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

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.”

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.

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

6

I took a shower for you. I know you’d be happy about that.

I couldn’t sleep all night. I struggled for my mind to grasp what this day was.

I awoke and cried. It still will never seem fair that we are not together in the form we first connected…in the form we were meant to share more years in.

I felt whole.

I felt empty.

I rode behind someone on a motorcycle like yours and smiled.

I played Louis Armstrong like we did on our wedding day.

I was grateful for the few who still stick with me. Who see a slither of the being I was when you were alive.

They filled our house with flowers.

I bought tulips.

I know they’re your favorite.

I look at my ring and know you fingers graced it.

I know you weren’t a dream.

I miss you.

I miss having not to tell myself that all we have is not some fable.

I miss having the one person who knew we were true.

Who knew me.

Who knew that I knew you.

I love you, husband.

I’m so in love with you.

I don’t think I’ll ever fathom that we we’re married 1.5 years on earth…4.5 years apart….

But I can fathom the moment we are reunited and it makes each passing second a gift.

Happy Anniversary, My love.

“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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Loveinity

If I had to choose between loving you and breathing, I would use my last breath to say, "I Love You."

This Thursday will mark our 5 year wedding anniversary. As I've stated through the years, this day has always been more difficult for me than any other...including the day he was killed.

Read More...

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

Once In A Lifetime

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”

– Mark Jenkins

It’s that time of year.

That time where I’m able to fulfill one of the biggest dreams Michael and I had.

To travel across the world.

I vowed after he died that I would take a once-in-a-lifetime trip once a year. The first being a 220 plus mile backpacking pilgrimage across Spain. The second was in Ireland. And this yearI will be hopping around the UK (London/Lake District).

They are 7 to 20 days where I am able to experience and see things we could have only once dreamed of. I experience them for both of us, which in return makes the time doubly amazing. The cherry on the top though, is having been able to experience these adventures with my fellow widows. Women I met due to tragedy, befriended due to commonality, and had by my side for this new chapter due to extreme luck (and hopefully a little help from Michael).

Greece, India, Africa, New Zealend…and the list goes on with future endeavors. A time to live to the fullest with my husband (invisibly) by my side, and the women who are my group of Indiana Jones….ready to explore new terrain, physically and emotionally.

As my own life has evolved, not only do I have these yearly excursions to look forward to, but I have a time of reflection to see how far I’ve gone….in miles and in healing. I look forward to it. Something I once loathed even saying…the future. And these trips are the perfect time once a year to commemorate my once in a lifetime life.

Below are photos of special ways I’ve incorporated my love into my adventures.

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!

1157

One restless night of blog surfing, I saw someone post the exact number of days since they lost their soul mate.

I must admit, I stopped long ago in counting the exact days and months since Michael was killed. Knowing such numbers, especially in the never-ending days in the beginning of my grief, seemed like mental suicide. As much as I’m a believer that each day on earth is a day closer to them in heaven, I couldn’t fathom marking and taking note of each day without him…that is a loss in my being that no month, date, calendar, or clock can construe.

Yet I admit, as I stared at the widowers days numbered, I was tempted to find out my own. I found a site that allowed me to find out the duration from date to date…

“Submit” was clicked.

1157 days can be converted to one of these units:

* 99,964,800 seconds
* 1,666,080 minutes
* 27,768 hours
* 165 weeks (rounded down)

I stared at the numbers.

I wasn’t numb. I wasn’t in shock. I simply looked at them, shook my head, and closed the page.

As much as I can’t believe that it has been that long since everything happened (and had I been earlier out I may have had a different reaction) I’ve learned one thing above all;
In 1157 days I have struggled, cried, given up, stood back up, laughed, smiled, grown, cried some more, scorned the heavens above, thanked the heavens above, given up on life, taken back my life, fallen to my knees…prevailed.

I look at 1157 with pride, not pain.

I have survived 1157 days without my soul mate physically here. I have fallen deeper in love with the man who took a new form and shown me a new perspective on our amazing relationship and my new life.

Just as I couldn’t count the days or months these past 3 years because I felt that no number would ever bring back my love or erase the heartache felt because of his death…no number or date can be put on the length and depth of our love…but when I am given the chance (or the curiosity) to see a number, it will be one that reminds me of the strength born from both of those things.

My name is Taryn Davis. My life ended 1157 days ago….but in the last 1157 days it has come back from the dead…stronger then ever…fueled by the essence of any life…the knowledge that is has true love on its side.

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

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!

3

Three…

Three whopping years since it happened.

Since my soul mate went to the other side and I ventured out in the unfamiliar world called widowhood.

The Angel-versary is always a time where I look back on the time that has passed, things that have been conquered, feelings that have been realized, and growth that has taken place. As I drove in my car one evening, thinking of these things, thinking of THREE, one thing took precedent.

In the rehashing of all that has transpired, what came to mind the most were the three words that have got me through it all. Three words that he said to me for the last time on May 21st, 2007. Three words that have not only carried through my grief but helped me soar above it’s grasps into a life where smiles are more prevalent then frowns, and memories are recalled while making new ones.

Three words that on this three year anniversary will be heard in my heart and felt in my veins. Three words that have defined my being.

Three….

I LOVE YOU.

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.

How Much?

It’s been nearly 3 years since I saw this video (it’s been stuck on a broken computer), and nearly 4 since it was filmed in Eagle River, AK by my baby (you can see him in the reflection of my sunglasses).

I sure don’t sound the same, and definitely don’t look the same, but I sure do feel the same each time I watch it.

Love you mucho mucho.

Dreams- Brandi Carlile

Ok, I have something to confess….I’m website crazed! I have this one, which is the consolidation of three blogs…I have this one, which I put my favorite quotes and personal photos…and my newest one, which I just use as a photo gallery of my pictures…i know…it’s bad 🙂

While on this one, I came across this song from Brandi Carlile ( who I fell in love with, with “the Story”) and had to share it on here. It’s so true. Every night I hope to see his face, to just have him be a part of my world, even if it’s my dream one.

Dreams, I have dreams when I’m awake when I’m asleep
And you, you are in my Dreams
You’re underneath my skin, how am I so weak

And now in my dreams,

I can feel the weight, I can just come clean
I keep it to myself, I know what it means
I can’t have you, but I have dreams

How long, can you hold your breath?
Can you count to ten, can you let it pass?
Keep, can you keep it in?
Keep it behind lashes, can you make it last?

And now in my dreams, I can feel the weight
I can just come clean

I keep it to myself, I know what it means
I can’t have you, but I have dreams
Oh, I have dreams, I have dreams

(And then an amazing guitar solo)

Mind, can you read my mind?
Has it come undone, am I showin’ signs?

And now, in my dreams
I can feel the weight, I can just come clean
I keep it to myself, I know what it means
I can’t have you, but I have dreams
I have dreams, I have, I have, I have Dreams

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.

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.

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.

1.11.10

“The clouds in your eyes,
down your face they pour…”
plays in the background.

Down they pour, as I wonder
what I’ve become.

Where are you?

They pour down my face,
over my neck, and like
a puddle,
settle over my heart….

Weighing it down.

I need you…come take me away

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

–

–

I don’t have much to say today….

simply, “Thank you for lighting my sky.”

My love, my sun, my everything.

The Beat

2.28.09

As I lay and feel my

heart

beat,

I think of lying against

your perfect body.

Beat

after

beat

it throbbed against you,

like two drums playing a flawless duet.

Tears run down my face

thinking of its sound….

familiar sound.

Happy Anniversary

December 23rd will mark the four year anniversary of our love eternal. We wrote our own vows, we rocked into each other the whole ceremony, we had a moment in time where all else melted away, we sealed our devotion with a kiss.

It wasn’t about the dress, venue, gifts, or cake….it was simply about our love being personified.

Nearly three years of our marriage have been spent on different plains, yet it grows stronger and deeper with each breath I take for him…for me. He left me on this world with a kiss that I have been able to build a dream on….continue to build a dream on.

Here’s to you my love…here’s to us. And for ol’ time sake, let’s here Satchmo play the song we danced to nearly four years ago…..

“Give me a kiss before you leave me
and my imagination
will feed my hungry heart
Leave me one thing before we part
A kiss to build a dream on”

I Believe in Fairy Tales

Michael’s my prince charming. He saved me from the poisoned apple, kissed me out of an eternal sleep, slayed the dragon, and swept me up into his safe arms. And as soon as I was swept up, I felt like he was pulled away from me.

But, I still believe in fairy tales. It has been through my fellow widows; their stories, pictures, memories and thoughts….that I realized there were others in this world that had found their Aladdin, Beast, and Prince Phillip. It reinforced that I have felt the greatest of love’s yet survived the largest of tragedies….and I was not alone in surviving.

It reinforced that love will always live on.

So I will wake tomorrow, out of my glass case, surrounded by seven dwarves but no prince…within sight. I will take on this world, this tale we started….and in the end I will have my happy ending, as we will be together, and live happily ever after….and until then, I shall always believe in fairy tales and the FACT that they do come true.

“Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.”
-Ben Okri

Once in a Lifetime

Michael and I always wanted to see the world with each other.

We had it all planned out; After he and I graduated, we would go to Europe and start our travels. From Greece to tropical terrains, we’d see it all (leaving a few places for after retirement) and then head back and start our family.

Fast forward to 2007 and our “plans” fell to the waist side. The last foreign country Michael would visit would be Iraq, and all the dreams and hopes of our life together dissolved as fast as it took two uniformed men to say, “We regret to inform you..”.

It would be a little less then a year later that I found myself on the couch ( I know that’s so hard to believe), watching TV (hold the gasps), when a movie came on that concluded with the main character leaving his life to pursue a “spiritual journey” in Spain. The sun set as he walked with a backpack and stick in hand. I’m a huge movie buff and for some VERY odd reason, this “straight to DVD” film caught my curiosity. As all humans do when curious, I Googled “spiritual journey & Spain” to see what came up. 5 months later I was backpacking 220 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. I flew out a day after the one year anniversary with nothing but some euros, and and a backpack with two sets of clothing and socks. I walked over 15 days with nothing but my thoughts, and when I finished, I felt closer to Michael then ever before.

Everything I saw I took snapshots in my memory. Everything I’d never touched before, I brushed my hands across. Everything I’d never smelled, I inhaled into my being. I was taking notes of all that I’d be able to share with Michael. If he couldn’t be here with me, I wanted to report back in full detail when we are reunited again.

Since that trip, I’ve made the personal decision to take a once in a lifetime trip….once a year. It’s a time for me to reflect on where I have come, and revel in the fulfilling life I can live in the love of my husband, and in the love I have for myself. So next week I am off to Ireland, with my senses as my pencil and my memory as my paper. To write of the living I did (and continue to do) in the memory and spirit of my soul mate, and in the spirit of who I have become (and continue to become) because of him. Slainte!

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”

Winston Churchill

See You In My Dreams

Dreams take on a whole new meaning after the loss of your soul mate. They are a realm you travel to each night, with their population and surroundings always a mystery. Sometimes I have dreams in which I see my love; that smile, that face, that counterpart of my being. There have been times I’ve been able to speak with him and other times in which I feel as if he cannot see me. There are times in which I am conscious of the fact that he is not alive and times when I feel that I’ve been thrown into a time machine taking me to a time when he was still here.

After encountering theses night encounters I may wake up with a smile on my face and a drive like no other to take on the world, then there are the times in which I wake up in tears or just with the need to stay curled up in the enveloping warmth of my comforter. I’ve come to terms that these dreams may not all have a special meaning or happy ending. There are no dream dictionaries that can decipher their hidden message or let me know which ones may actually be Michael visiting me, or just my imagination feeding into my never ending want to be near him.

I still will wake each morning and face this new chapter that I never thought I’d be the author of. I still will be go to bed each evening not knowing what will come, but unafraid to shut my eyes….. and I will still see you in my dreams.

I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can play together all night. ~Bill Watterson

MP3

Let me load the music.

I have his MP3 player, I listen to it when mowing the lawn or laying in the sun. Let me load all the music onto my computer in the case something happens to it ( a common thing with widows).

• Plug into the USB Port.
• Open File Folder.
• Select and Copy all the music files.

Look! There are a few folders I have the ability to open and copy even more music files!
But wait, what is this? A 17 minute, 28 second recording?

Play.

What is this? Did I push record while mowing, it sounds really loud. Let me listen…..

There it was. His voice.

Of course the first thing I think is maybe it is a message, but no, just him accidentally having it on in his pocket. It is muffled and I turn the volume on high to hear his voice.

“I looked at it when I got out”
“I can do it right now”
“Huh?”
“Wooooo, it’s hot!”

…and a few other muffled sentences. Knocking, friends conversing in the background.
Is the loud humming in the background the Buffalo, the vehicle he so loved working, the vehicle in which he lost his life?

Almost 18 minutes later it is over. Just my baby at work, accidentally pushing buttons on his Mp3 player.

It was nothing life altering but it was good to hear. A few tears were shed (out of my left eye only) but worth it. I ache that he cannot speak aloud on this earth anymore but I celebrate the little pieces that even have an ounce of his being behind it.

I collect them, they are the glue to my broken self.

I shattered the day Michael passed on but I find myself being held together by his mementos. His voice recordings, his pictures, his imprint in all I do.

I would break a million times over if it meant that his soul, love and spirit would be the glue to put me back together…and that is what it is.

I Love you and am so in love with you Michael……my forever glue 😀

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

A Loss From Both Ends…

There is a quote from a book that C.S. Lewis wrote after the passing of his wife, it says: “If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.” – C.S. Lewis

I feel this way as well. I think Michael misses me just as much as I miss him. I believe he is counting the seconds as well to when we are reunited. Other’s may view this as me being selfish or heartless to say that about someone who is in “heaven”, a place with no worries or pain, but he lost his wife that day as well.

He cannot have me kiss him goodnight or make him dinner. I am not there to listen to his thoughts and feelings. My loss is the same as his, and I take comfort in knowing we share this angst together. The frustration of not knowing if he hears my words, feels my undying love, I wonder if he struggles with as well. I believe that just as hard as I try to communicate and get across how in love with him he is doing the same. As much as I yearn for him he does as well. When I sit and think of that I feel immediately less alone. It is one thing to meet fellow widows who suffer from the loss of a soul mate but at the same time I find even more comfort knowing that both Michael and I are still in this together….Life and Death.

Our love covers both realms. I do not search for answers or signs for just like love, it is something you cannot force. It is when you let go of the wanting and pushing that all that you need answered comes to you. I love you baby and am so in love with you. We are soul mates in life and in death.

Below is a picture that I took while walking across Spain. I looked up as the clouds rapidly closed in. Coincidence? Maybe…but beautiful above all.

2 years Later

Checking the mail. A routine that we all have, some everyday, others a couple of times a week. Today was one of the moments that interrupted a action I did for societies sake.

I opened my box to find a package. As soon as I saw who the sender was I knew from our wedding.I did not know there was video until after Michael was killed, for what reasons I cannot say. When I heard there was film I did not think I would actually ever get a hard copy simply for the reason that it took 2 years for me to know it was even real. I did not know what the pieces of cardboard held inside of it, nor did I know how I would react.

I put it in.

What I saw were things I knew of, words I knew were exchanged, people I knew attended. What I got from it was more then that though. I got to feel the way I felt standing across from Michael that day, the rocking back and forth from excitement, the tears of happiness that had no off button. For 26 minutes I had pure love, on film.

I have it with me in my heart, as I know all of us do, but to watch it, to see the gleam in my eye, the nod of my head as Michael made sure I was ok, the kiss on my forehead from my soulmate….that is bliss, that is life, that is why I am still here. I am here for those moments, even if they are relived 2 years later with my husband by my side in spirit.

Do I still hope to have some freak accident occur that would lead me to Michael?……Yes. But am I happy to be able to know and be a living example of the purest love I’ve ever known?…..Hell to the yeah!

So here’s to those memories, the best ones, the ones that are sometimes to painful to watch because of all the happiness present that we can’t share with them now. May they be our personal sanctuary when all else is a hurricane.

Love, T

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

-Helen Keller

The River

How is everyone? Today it is 90 degrees out, sunny and perfect. Today was also a day of further realization. I always connected memories of Michael with photos, places, physical things, etc.. I never had connected him with a hot sunny day in San Marcos, TX. I woke up and knew today would be a day where we would go swimming in his favorite river. A river where he grew up as a kid, a river we went tubing down, a river with memories that could fill a small book. The river where I spread his ashes, a wish he requested and one that is now written in my will for my resting place. Even though he’s probably in the Atlantic ocean by now 😀

I remember how he would dive into this falls that I always thought would suck me under. He’d beg me to jump in and I always would. I’d sit on a tiny rock and he’d swim up to me all cold and wet and give me a kiss. Sometimes I’d lay in the sun and he’d jump on me all soaking. On this sun blazing day, I miss you Michael…but I love you even more because I can sit here and share the memories you left me, memories I will forever cherish.

So widows…..share your favorite memory, share that day that is tinged with sadness but filled with recollections of better days. It is one thing to wake up and feel as if it will never get better, but even better when you share it and embed it that deeper in your heart.

Line by line, moment by moment, special times are etched into our memories in the permanent ink of everlasting love in our relationships. -Gloria Gaither