I didn't forget

When you left your body it was hard to leave the house, for nine days I felt you here in a painfully quiet way, it was like picking up the phone and knowing someone is there but not being able to hear them, you don't want to hang up and lose the connection in case you can't get it back again.

I had to drop people back off at the airport, buy food, drop Noah off at school.  I was stuck in time but the rest of the world refused to stop.  When I did leave home I said, "c'mon Stevie lets go".

I went to the cemetery every Thursday, I mostly napped on a blanket over you grave site.  I needed to be as close to your body as I could.  I hated that you were there, that this is what happened but I needed to find you, be close to you, everything hurt so much.

Then I went on the 19th of every month, I called it cemetery day.  I changed the flowers, I talked to you I would close my eyes and visualize you walking toward me wearing something pretty, bare feet, hair long again, a big smile.  I would be afraid to open my eyes and not see you or see you...I was just afraid.  I didn't want to stay here without you but I didn't want Noah and Aly to have anymore pain and loss.  I couldn't find a way through the grief, didn't know how I would survive, assumed my heart would just stop eventually, begged it to, it hurt too much.

Then I went on birthdays and holidays and anniversary day (April 19).  The connection to that place was less and less.  I didn't feel you there, it was just the place your body stayed, a body I imagined was slowly being taken back by the earth. 

I watched a movie, a story based on Wuthering heights and how Heathcliff digs up Catherines grave just to hold her bones.  It was meant to be a disturbing scene, showing how undone he is.  To me it was tender and I understood it.  He needed to touch her.  His heart hurt so much, he ached for her any part of her, to connect to keep her real.  Then he lay down next to her bones...I sobbed.

I wouldn't do that but I understood it.

I have your hair, before we cut it when chemo started, before it would fall out.  It is all I have of you, of your body.  I have your clothes but they don't smell like you anymore, they don't feel real.  Your hair, the color of it, the softness.  If I am having a day when some gate in me I keep locked opens up without warning and I am flooded with memories and loss, and the reality that eleven years have gone by since I have held your hand, heard your voice...I sit with your hair and feel all of it, I don't break but I am always worried I will so I struggle to close the gate again.

I still go to the cemetery on your birthday, your death anniversary, or sometimes if I am driving by that exit I will drive up that big hill, park, and sit with your body, be under that big sky with you, look at that lonely little house in the distance on that big hill and imagine winning the lottery.

If I won I would drive up that hill, offer who ever lived there all the money so I could live in that house.  I would buy a big telescope one of those romantic ones made out of brass, and I would look out and make sure you were ok. 

This blog saved me.

A lot of things did.

Writing here and in my journal kept me whole, all my pieced together, helped me grieve and say what was in my heart without worry that is would be too sad or too real for anyone else.

It helped me keep time, and let me escape a little.

It was my connection to you, still is.

I don't write here much, I still journal everyday but something is fading.

Time doesn't heal, it gives you distance, it helps you find ways to cope so you can shut that gate, keep everything safe inside so outside you can live, because you don't have a choice, you must.

There has been so much pain, but so much happiness.

I wouldn't call myself a happy person, my life has been hard, it has required me to replace happiness with strength so I could survive, but I do find happiness.

You brothers, your sister, art, writing, Hawaii.  That is my happiness.

Your dad and I still live in the same house but we shouldn't.  That part of my life is over but I can't start over because I never leave.  I am stuck here, I call it sacrifice but it is fear.  I am afraid that I will hurt everyone more if I change this, take away what is left.  This house, your room, the illusion of a normal family.  Instead there is resentment and arguments.  I do my best to grow to take care of myself, to create memories for your siblings but its...not real, not like it should be.  I just don't know what to do, how to change it.

This is the first year I didn't write to you when I usually do...

I am not letting go, I did not forget, I just didn't.

It is 3am.  Birds woke me up.  I have never heard spring birds making so much noise at this hour.  I couldn't sleep.  Then I felt this pull, to come here and tell you that I am still here, my heart is still full of you, I won't let this gate open, I don't want to cry and hurt I just want to talk to you and tell you how much I miss you and how so much has changed but really nothing has changed.

I am working again, making art, making babies, not sure how this happened but it did and I like it.  I am building a little business around an accidental hobby and it is nice.  I am on the arts commission for the city and I love it, not sure how that happened.

My studio is a little factory, it is my happy place.  I would love a real studio but the garage is beg and I have made it sweet and practical, there is room to work and escape, I am grateful for it.

We are tearing down the garden shed and making a new studio for your brother.  I am using the money you left.  I would love that to be my studio but he needs it more than me.  He works hard, he makes such beautiful music.  He spends so much time out there creating, he needs a place that makes sense.  When he grows up and flies away from here I will move in...maybe.

Your little brother is done with kindergarten this week, time is going by so fast.  He is so beautiful.  I thought I would do everything right with him, be the perfect mom, but I continue to make all the same mistakes.  I let him eat cheeseburgers, he plays minecraft, he sleeps in my bed right next to me like all of you did and I know most people think kids need to be in their own bed, door closed, lights out but I have never understood that.  I love falling asleep talking about the day, planning tomorrow, telling stories, laughing, singing.  I love listening to him breath, being here if he is sick or has a bad dream.  I feel like I am keeping him safe.   One day he will be shaving and tall and have his own apartment.  I will be old a long for a visit or a phone call...today I have a skinny little six year old who just loves to cuddle, who wakes up in the morning happy to see me, happy to start the day and I don't want to waste a second of it.

Your sister moved, shares a cool house with room mates.  She hikes and bikes and works hard.  She is a beautiful person.  We don't always get a long but we love each other and we both keep this family a family.  She is funny, smart, talented.  She has the same job she always has. I can't believe she will be 34 this year. 

Time is an odd thing, it speeds up in strange places and slows down when you least want it to.

I am getting older Stevie.  I have not come to terms with that.  I don't look in the mirror often, that person is a stranger to me.  Inside I am 35, just myself but in the mirror I am 53, I have wrinkles and grey hair I have to color.  My eyelids are heavy, my body and hands look like they belong to someone else.  I lost a lot of weight last year but it is trying to return.  I am told that at this age it is natural for a woman's body to fill out into its soft granny curves.  As estrogen leaves your body reacts by holding on to fat in all the places you least want it to.  I don't care much about how I look, I just want to stay healthy, I want to live a long time.

I know I have said that I needed this life to be done so I could be with you but I now feel this urgency to get things done, to be something other than what I have been, to do something more, to be my real self.  I feel like I have been sleep walking and just woke up, all this time has passed and I don't want anymore to pass without being really awake.

I wasted so many years feeling...not like me.

I don't know what is after all this but if you are there on the other side I imagine you happy and not in a big hurry to see me.  Maybe you don't even remember me.  Maybe there is no memory not like here.  That would be hell for me but a blessing for a lot of people. 

Oh let there be a "heaven" and when this is over you are who I want to see first, however you can find me, I will know you, I will not forget, not if I live a million years.

I won't forget.