April - once again

Once again I'm writing about the hardness of April.  Once again I'm sinking into a 'funk' that has no rhythm or rhyme, just a loneliness, a quietness, a drifting away and unengaged.  Once again it's April and my body is remembering all that I had to do two years ago;  the last two weeks of Jim's life before he left us all on May 7th.

Last night Dave put on an old Bonnie Raitt CD and I was flooded with memories.  The good news is I was seeing Jim as healthy and vibrant in these images that flashed behind my eyes.  I have been waiting for the most recent images of my sick Jim to fade and to start holding tighter to the gorgeous, athletic, funny-faces and Irish-mugged Jim.  Last night I had a brief showing of that healthy man again.

We danced, always.

Today I'm back into the crippled, crooked and sick Jim images ... but oh, how sweet he was.  How incredibly loving, patient and kind he remained even as the tumor took him so far away that he couldn't talk or move very well.  How he would look at me and smile a crooked smile and struggle to say the words "I love you", but those were the words he remained able to say right up until his morphine coma.  Those words and the ability to look into my eyes, my soul, and speak volumes to me without one word spoken.

This is my April, once again.

Loving you all back
Mary

The Way it Feels Sometimes

"Missing someone isn't about how long it has been since you've seen them or the amount of time since you've talked.  It's about that very moment when you find yourself doing something and wishing they were right there by your side."


I don't know who wrote this but it's perfect.  This is exactly how it is for me.  And it doesn't matter how happy I'm feeling or what I might be doing the wishing just comes.  This past winter I was  bush whacking up the side of mountain in snow shoes with Dave and two other friends, having a great time.   Yet, on the hike back down that mountain Jim settled in and I found myself with tears freezing to my cheeks wishing he was there, tromping in snowshoes on that mountain.  


It happens less frequently these days, but with no pre-meditation it still happens.  It's just the way it feels sometimes.


The last week or so I've been feeling very melancholy, very low energy and hard to get myself up and out for anything but work and a bit of exercise; staring at clouds, or tree tops, or nothing at all.  No thoughts really, just this feeling of being a bit distant from others and quiet.  Last night, as I watched the setting sun reflected on the clouds I realized .... May 7th ... two years.  Ah!


It's a visceral reaction.  It's as though the very marrow of my bones starts seeping this information into each red blood cell that journeys to my heart.  The body seems to know before my mind grasps it.  And the weeks before seem to be harder then the actual anniversary date.


You do not replace one person with another, but I have found I can love again, be happy again and move on in my life. 


Still .... it's the way it feels sometimes.


Loving you all back,
Mary