Grief, three years later.

Today is the 27th. That number is burned into me, but I manage to survive it okay.

I wonder why I can, if I should be something other than okay, but I remind myself to let go of a should or shouldn't. I am where I am, how I feel, today.

Today is okay.

I woke up next to my husband, did the dishes, sent him off to an interview, hopped in the shower. My mom came over, because it's the 27th, and we talked in my living room while my pup took turns sitting on our laps.

My husband came home, I made him something to eat.

We worked from home, we ran errands. We laughed. We ate. We kissed. We said I love you. We spent the evening playing nintendo.

That's what I did on the 27th, three years later.

I haven't cried. I don't know that I will. I feel healed. I feel whole. I have to know that it's okay.

Time is so surprising. Three years ago today I remember leaving my house in the morning to get back to my aunts, where he and his hospital bed had been set up in the living room. I thought I'd still get to see him. I pulled up mere minutes too late. My dad out front to meet me, "he's gone". "What?" Feeling everything sink. Purple pajama pants, blue flannel shirt. Running in. How profound. The first death is the most profound thing a person can go through. His bed surrounded. A spot now taken by me. His things at his bedside. What becomes of things? You can't take them with you. How he looked. He was, and yet he wasn't. We are not our bodies.

The reaction of my grandpa when he came in and realized he was also too late. Three years ago, I also still had a grandpa.

The blanket that had been keeping him warm. A kids blanket. Navy blue, with clocks. The time was frozen around the 10 o'clock hour. Very near the time he left.

At some point, he left us, entire. I don't know what happened then.

Three years ago tonight I sat in my backyard looking at the moon and questioning everything. Everything was new, and open, and vast, from the moon to my heart. I was reborn. I drank three big red cups of vodka and soda to drown out the world and cried myself to sleep wondering why I should get to sleep in a bed if he couldn't.

Those are the most vivid memories of the most surreal day.

Time blurs from there. I will always remember spending that spring and most of 2012 shattered. Before that, and after that. For so long, so terribly broken. I still carry that weight with me more than I'd like to, and find myself angry at times I ever had to go so low.

Crushed. Heart smashed.

Sad, sad, sad.

I did everything I could to keep moving and continue the rebirth. I shaved my head. I was so open. I read everything. I expanded. I learned. I saw omens. I saw heaven. I saw him in the form of animals. I ran. I ran, ran, ran. Anything to keep moving. I was afraid if I sat still something awful would happen to me.

I thought I was dying. I also had nightmares and began to feel sick all the time. The losses piled up and I could barely breathe.

I thought maybe I too, wanted to die.

Get me out of here.

I kept digging, I kept being buried alive.

I am mad at that time.

Mad, mad, mad.

But yet here I am, presently. So whole. Parallels exist at any given time. Extreme opposites. Both are true. I learned this then, and it still holds today.

Today the number 27 is burned into my brain. The contrast from three years to today feels like it might as well have happened to someone else.

I don't feel guilty for my happiness. I don't know how I should behave, or pay tribute, or not, on this day. I haven't cried, but I still feel it all. It happened, and left its mark all through my insides.

I still don't know what to make of it at times. Sometimes it's still not real. Sometimes a wave rocks me for no reason, death it says, he died, and the permanence takes me over for just a second. My brain can't process it for long, and my soul goes into protection mode.

It's another heaviness that simply is. Inside.

I thought of asking him for a sign today. Just like the first Christmas after he left I asked him to throw me a snowball on Christmas eve. "Make it hit the window outside", I said. Nothing. Today? Nothing. But today I also feel like I'm too closed off to it to see it anyway. Because if it happened, if it really happened, I think deep down I couldn't take it.

So that's it. That's today.

The third of these 27's so far.

And I have to stop now, because if I go on I think I might cry.

And I think what I need today, is to let myself be okay.


P.S The views on this post are quite high. I'm not sure why, but I'm glad people are reading. I find I am most comforted by words. I am so thankful there are writers, bloggers, and people living with open hearts who are willing to share their words. We all teach each other. I hope this entry is comforting to you if you have experienced any kind of loss. I have so much to say on the topic of loss, lessons learned through loss, and rebirth. If you go back to May of 2012 here on my blog and read up through about the first part of 2013, you might find even more that can hopefully be of comfort as I went through my journey of losing myself, and finding a new normal. Things turned out better than I ever could have hoped, but I had to go through darkness first that I never dreamed was possible. 

I also hope you subscribe here, bookmark, or look around through other posts. This is the place where I pour my heart out. 

~DM