Posts

She is the Island, and the Island is her.

-
Five years old, watching the ripples of water in her bath sparkle and shine, like they held the treasure that she couldn't ever quite reach. Heartbreak is not a word understood but a Promise made from the moment she breathed her first. The inevitability of a heart shattered, but unlike glass there will be no fragments of light to cascade across the tiny prisms where her wholeness once existed. This will be better for her. In the shine of the Sun, she is nine, basking in it's warmth. Lazy days spent lying in the grass, watching the willow switches dance back and forth with the breeze. The Sun, gazing upon the girl with love of a thousand stars, and the girl laughs as Grandmother Willow tickles her toes with her branches, weaving love as deep rooted as the willow itself. She will be stronger for this. In the cold and damp, she is twelve. The Sun, now partially eclipsed by an onerous Moon, and the once protective willow branches are too far to offer the unconditional protection th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grief's Irate Companion

-
You know the movie Inside Out, the character Anger? I feel like I'm the living embodiment at the moment. I have been missing Joe a lot lately. Things have been happening that he normally would have been at, Pax got his all clear from his counsellor that he was doing really well and, while he can obviously come back if need be, we didn't need to make an appointment for every three weeks anymore - it would be on an ''as needed" basis. Throughout all of this, I had begun to feel genuinely happy some days. Enter June 13th. It has been a hard week for numerous reasons. Fighting kids, temper tantrums, husband working overtime, dance recitals...I'm tired. June 13th marks the final month of all of our firsts. Three days later, the 16th, would mark one year since my final solo interaction with Joe. To say I have been a wreck is an understatement. It's like every morning I wake up and feel all of the emotions that I felt in the days after his death. Emotions that...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there sunshine where you are, the way there was when you were here?

-
Silence is deafening. In silence you can hear your own heart beat. Because of that, even in one of those float chambers, you are never totally in silence. I laid there on the ground of the playroom, wanting to be near someone. I had each of my children twenty feet away from me in different rooms, as well as two of the best friends a girl could ask for, but everyone was sleeping. I was alone. My eyes filled up with tears as I began to process the idea that I would never see Joe again. I would never hear his voice, I would never have a hug. I would never laugh as he made fun of Rob, or talk about life with him again. I'd never see him stare at my kids with love and adoration.  Nope , I thought, I can't be alone . I wrapped myself in a blanket and puttered outside to where Rob and Pat were sitting around the propane fire. "Can I join you? Being alone was a bad idea." Exhaustion took over. We laughed, made inappropriate jokes, and I personally didn't stop t...
Post a Comment
Read more

I wish I didn't know what the words meant

-
"Sometimes things find you when you need them find you, I believe that. And for me, it's usually song lyrics."  Peyton Sawyer, One Tree Hill Music. Music is always on for me. When the world fails me, music is there. When my heart broke, music. Happiness? Music. Sadness? You guessed it.  I grew up with a grandmother that listened to classical and a mother that listened to a little bit of everything. My biological father enjoyed country and old classics, and when my mother re-married when I was eight, I was introduced to good, old fashioned, rock. To say that I ended up with a broad musical taste would be an understatement. After nineteen years of listening to music with me, Rob still shakes his head some days as my iPod bounces from Elvis Presley to Westside Connection to the Decemberists to AC/DC. Music has always been about the lyrics to me. They speak for my emotions when my brain just can't find the words. There are songs that don't mean a lot l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Take comfort in your friends, everybody hurts.

-
At 3AM, we walked in to a quiet house. You know that feeling when you move somewhere new, the feeling of it not being your home? That you are somehow intruding on something that you can't really explain, but still, here you are in a home that has all of your things, so it couldn't possibly be anyone's home but yours? That's what it felt like. Rob and Pat weren't ready for bed. Neither was I, but I had wanted to give them some space. It was the beginning of a divide in me that I haven't really had the words to explain until now, but at that point I put their grief, the two people in the world who could have possibly understood what I felt, ahead of my own because I put misplaced value on myself and what I meant to Joe. I put more importance on their friendship and brotherhood, instead of viewing it all equally. It wasn't the smartest idea, in hindsight, and created some problems in my own mind that stick with me, still. We needed to get them some warm clo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why is everything so heavy?

-
I was listening to the bass from the next door neighbours shaking my wall for the umpteenth time. 9 more days , I thought to myself as I packed the next box. Pax was at his friend's house, and Thaida was cooing at me from the floor, playing with her toys. If I had to live here any longer I'd probably be arrested for murdering her.  After six years of living next to these people, I was beyond done with their refusal to understand that when you turn on a subwoofer, the building shakes. I was so looking forward to moving to this amazing new home that we were lucky enough to get, with a huge yard. My Facebook messenger brought me out of my tiny daydream. Bear.  This is my eldest sister's nickname for me, and she doesn't usually address me as such unless it's serious. ??? I quickly sent back. Chester.  Confused, I stared at the screen. Chester? Like Chester Bennington of Linkin Park? That's the only Chester I know of. But why? What about him? And then...
Post a Comment
Read more

The first seeds of grief…Denial.

-
I am a huge fan of the television show "One Tree Hill". It had a moment in the final season's premiere where one of the characters is driving her children around, trying to get them to sleep, that she said something that hits home. "Sometimes my heart aches at how my life turned out, in a good way. It doesn't mean there haven't been hardships, there have been. But I'm here, and here is good." I often think of this quote as I drive around, be it with my own sleepy children in the back seats of the vehicle, or as I drive home with music blaring by myself after work. I love my town. I love the twinkling lights in the winter, and the glow off the snow when we are fortunate enough to get that cursed, white fluff around Christmas time. I love the fresh evening air when the windows are down on a summer evening, and the smell of rain as it washes away the dirt after an extended heat wave. I love the colours of the sky as the sun starts to reach the horiz...
Post a Comment
Read more