Grief and Good Days

Is it possible to have a good day when you're grieving? I say yes! But my definition of a good day has changed since my husband moved to Heaven. Before he passed a good day meant I was successful at work, got housework done, helped my son with homework, and made a good dinner. I had money in my pocket and bank account, bills were paid, I had gas in my car, and had good conversation with my husband. A good day meant no arguments, there was laughter and joking, and hugs and kisses and I got everything on my to-do list done.

Since he moved to Heaven a good day is very different. Now a good day means that I didn't cry on the way to work. I was able to focus at work and laugh and play with my kids and accomplish simple tasks. I was able to come home and do some housework, warm something up for dinner, and hold a conversation with my son. I could talk with friends, share memories and laughs, and not stress about the future. That's a good day.

Today was a good day. Today I felt chipper and confident. Although everything didn't go as planned I took it all in stride. I had some work cancellations and started to stress about finances but I trust that it's God's way of giving me time to fully get back into things. He's making me move at the pace of grace, making sure I don't get in over my head too soon.

Today I felt "normal," whatever that means these days. My normal while missing part of my heart is different, but it wasn't sad today. I wasn't sad today. And that's okay, it doesn't mean you've forgotten about your loved one that passed or that you're "moving on" already. It just means you're living life with purpose, the life that God intended for you. God loves you where you are right now. He'll get right in the middle of the muck with you, but He loves you too much to leave you there. Don't stay there, let him pull you out.

It's okay to feel happy and find joy in life, even soon after loss. Life is worth living and there's still life to love even when part of your heart is missing. Don't feel guilty for being happy. I think joy and sadness actually coexist somehow. They both have their place in grief. Does this mean I'll have a good day tomorrow? No. Each day has troubles of its own. I may have another good day or I may completely fall apart, you just never know.

Today, though, was a good day. Today I hung my heart Valentine's Day wreath on the door and said out loud, "love still lives here," because it does. Love still lives in my home and in my heart. And in love there is joy. And in joy, the kind of joy that comes from the Lord, there is love, peace, and contentment.

First Outing Without Him

JJ's birthday is this week...she'll be 12. This is the first birthday she'll have without her daddy around. Since her birthday is so soon after his passing, her uncles wanted to make it special for her. Her uncle let me know they wanted to take her to Austin's Park & Pizza (a small theme park/arcade in Austin, TX). It would be our first outing without Mark.

At first she didn't want to go. She doesn't want a party and didn't want to go have fun. She said she just wanted to keep it low key and stay in bed. I told her that Daddy loved life and going out and doing things. And he loved her. He loved throwing parties for her and seeing her smile. He would not want her to lie in bed and cry all day instead of celebrating her birthday because that was the best day of his life. He'd want her to celebrate. I told her I know it would be hard but God didn't promise that life would be easy but He promised that He would never leave us and we can do this together, with Him.

So after some convincing she agreed and we all got ready to go out. We met up with his family and started off with lunch and cupcakes, then started a family game of putt-putt. That's when everyone started to losen up and have fun but that's when I turned inward and fought back tears. He was the only one missing. I fought back tears through 18 holes of putt-putt and while taking family pictures (thank God for sunglasses). I fought back tears as I watched the kids play in the arcade, remembering the time we all went as a family and Mark played the arcade games right there with them. He loved playing games. I, on the other hand, was the rational one and thought it was a waste of money. It was, but I'm glad he won some of those battles because he taught us to enjoy life and make memories. I'll always have those memories. As the day drew to an end we said our goodbyes and headed back home, just the three of us.

Bub sat in the front seat with me and both of the kids were occupied on their phones as I listened to Christian music and talked to God on the way home. When the tears started falling I reached out and held Bub's hand. He didn't have to say anything, neither did I, he just held my hand. I quickly pulled it together since I was driving and we got home safe and sound. When we got home the kids went to their rooms and I went to change into comfy clothes. As I was changing shirts in the bathroom I went to pull my hair out of the collar and my wedding ring snagged a curl and pulled my hair. That's when it all came out. All the pent up emotion from the day came pouring out of my eyeballs and I just leaned over the bathroom counter and wailed. I found that my safe spot in the house is my walk-in closet, near his boxes (I had to box up his things because I couldn't stand seeing everything as it was, shoes on the floor, clothes in the closet, as if he was going to come home any minute). I guess my safe spot is the closet because it's secluded and private and I can be near his things and in some way feel close to him. So there I sat on the closet floor balling my eyes out.

That's when Jamie knocked at my door. She could hear my voice shaking as I answered her so she came in and sat with me. She empathized with me and told me the same words I told her earlier in the morning, "God didn't promise that life would be easy, but he promised that he would be with us and we can make it through." She held my hands and sat cross-legged in front of me and by the end of the conversation we were both crying. Charlee, our dachshund, came in and tried to lick the tears from our faces which lightened the mood so we took a deep breath and got up off the floor.

She went back to her iPhone and I lied in bed, talking to mom on the phone, when Bub came in balling. It was his turn. When I asked what the trigger was he said he was just lying on his bed thinking about today and missed Dad, and then he looked over and saw the model airplane they were putting together and it wasn't finished and he just lost it. So I cradled my baby (teenager) and stoked his hair and cried with him too.

Our first outing was hard. There were so many triggers throughout the day, from the missing person at the park to the quiet ride home, to the empty driveway, wedding ring troubles, and the unfinished airplane. Today is JJ's birthday and although I want her to have fun and enjoy her day I'm afraid it's going to be another difficult day for her...for all of us. Sometimes I wonder how we're going to get through but I know we will. We have to. I'm just glad we got the first outing out of the way. We can only go up from here, the worst is over, that's what I keep telling myself.

Breathe & Know He is Here

I find myself sighing a lot these days. Actually, I'm not sighing, it's more like exhaling loudly. I remember back in school I used to run alot. I ran on the cross country and track teams and I would always get nervous before every race. Everyone was jumping up and down, pumping themselves up for the race, and I was the only one on the starting line yawning. My dad hated it! I couldn't control it though, it was a nervous thing that I did to stay focused, get oxygen flowing to my brain, and calm my nerves. Ever since the accident I've been exhaling loudly, filling my chest with air and blowing it out slowly. I think it's because my nerves are shot and my heart is overwhelmed but I'm trying to stay calm. So instead of falling apart all the time I regroup and exhale and take another step.

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time since the accident. When it happened that night I called 4 important people: his parents, my parents, my best friend (who I now call my "surrogate" sister), and my boss. It had been a year since she lost her daughter to cancer so I knew she would understand the immense pain and grief I was going through. I also needed to let her know I would not be coming to work on Monday. My mind was reeling that first weekend as I thought about my clients, my work obligations, my financial obligations, funeral arrangements that I had to start thinking about and planning, and obviously losing the love of my life so suddenly. It was a whirlwind to say the least. I didn't want to get out of bed but the world didn't stop when Mark died, even though my world was crashing down. I was grieving but I still had tons of things to do and nobody else could do things for me because of confidentiality laws. I had to be the person that talked to people, signed
papers, made arrangements, etc. So I just kept breathing.

Planning the funeral was made easier with the help of my sister-in-law and the funeral director. My sister-in-law called around town and found a funeral home large enough to meet our needs (he has a big family and we have lots of friends) and the funeral director was very patient and supportive and laid everything out to make the planning as easy as possible. When it came time to pick songs for the service I thought about songs that would fit his personality and songs that would be uplifting during this extremely difficult time. One of the songs I chose was the song "Here" by Kari Jobe. He always liked her voice and the lyrics reminded me to breathe, find peace, and trust God through the turmoil. I just kept breathing.

On the day of the funeral, when the grief was thick and the permanence of the situation was setting  in, I was reminded to just breathe when this song came on. I was reminded of God's promise, a  promise that Mark knew and shared with those he trusted. His faith was a private matter between him and God, but he let people see that side of him if he really trusted them. I was blessed to have been a part of that and know that side of him. Mark was an outgoing guy and he was very personable, but that wasn't all there was to him. I hate that people put him in a box because there was so much more to him. He had a deeper side, an intimate side, a devoted and passionate side. Beneath the bravado and BS was something soft and sweet and beautiful. Every now and then he would let his guard down and share his faith with his close friends and family but he was private about it for the most part. I'm just glad he was able to get out of his own way long enough to let God in. I'm thankful he knew God's promise and I can't wait until the day I get to be with my sweet husband again. I know that day will come eventually. From the very first day when the accident occurred, to the day I said goodbye at the funeral, until I see him again, I just have to keep breathing.

I did a lot of breathing today. I had to meet with State Farm to sign papers to total the truck, give them the death certificate for insurance purposes, meet with the bank to close accounts, and give death certificates to close loans. I'm overwhelmed multiple times a day but I just keep breathing. My nerves are shot and I'm shaken, but I'm not stirred. My faith is not deterred. If anything this has brought me closer to God because I know he's got my back through all this. People keep commenting about how strong I am. I don't feel strong. I feel broken. If my actions say I'm strong then so be it but I'm here to tell you that strength is not my own. My strength comes from the Lord because I can't do this on my own.

He's with me through this extremely difficult time. All I can do is breathe, exhale, and take one  more step. 

Tragically Beautiful

I haven't blogged in a while and then something BIG happened and now all I want to do is write it all down. Writing helps me process, vent, grieve. So I've been writing on my Facebook wall and on my husband's Facebook wall but I think I'm going to take up blogging again. Grief is hard to deal with, for the person grieving and for others around. It makes people uncomfortable because they don't know how to help, how to fix it. On one hand I feel that there's a testimony in my story and I feel led to share but on the other hand I feel like it may be misinterpreted as looking for attention or something negative. I'm not looking for attention for me, I'm looking to turn your eyes to the one who made me, my God in heaven. I'm being real and raw and transparent so you can see God through me and through my circumstance. So I've decided to share via blogging so that those that want to read can click on the link and follow the blog and the rest of the world can go about their day without being inconvenienced. So with that being said I hope you'll follow my blog!

If you're not my Facebook friend or you don't know, I lost my sweet husband on January 6th in a tragic car accident. He was 37 years old, I'm 34, and we'd been married for 8 years. He was a great big man with a big heart, big smile, big ol' daddy hands, and a big laugh. He lived big and he loved big. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't tell me and show me that he loved me. He did the little things like bring me breakfast in bed on Saturday mornings, stroke my hair and kiss my cheek every morning before leaving to work, and massage my feet when they were hurting. He would randomly send me flowers or a bouquet of sweets with a love note on a random day, not my birthday, not our anniversary, just because he wanted to surprise me. He was good like that. I was his world, he held me on a pedestal and made sure I knew how valued and loved I was. He was good to our kids too. He came into our lives when Bub was 4 and he was a great daddy at home to him. Bub was blessed to have 2 dads, his biological dad and Mark, his stepdad. If you didn't know any better you would think Mark was really his dad. Many people did up until his passing. And he was a good dad to his daughter, JJ. He loved her like he loved me: she was IT, there was no one more beautiful, more special, more talented than her. He would rope the moon for her if he could. He was a good man...a REALLY good man.

Well January 6th started out like any other Friday. He left for work around 4am and I didn't see him that day. I don't even remember him kissing me goodbye in the morning because I was sleeping. I talked to him around 2 in between clients and he was already off and hanging out at his friend's house. I worked until 6 and then talked to him again. He wanted me to go out there but I didn't want to. It was cold and dark and they lived out in the country about 30 miles from our home so I opted to get in my sweats, eat soup, and watch my shows without him interrupting me or hogging the remote. I was actually happy about being home alone.

I got the call around 9:30 that he was heading home but that he forgot his phone. We had plans for Saturday. We were supposed to take down Christmas decorations, go to Home Depot, fix things around the house, and I didn't want him to have an excuse to go back out to there to get his phone so I decided to go get it. As I was driving back home his phone rang. It was his uncle looking for him. I told him he was driving home and I had his phone and then his voice changed. He sounded suspicious. I pushed him to talk to me and he said a friend had heard Mark's name over the CB scanner but he wouldn't tell me what for. Instead of going home I started driving the streets, traveling the way I knew he would go from his friend's house to ours.

I tried going directly from their house to I-35 but took a wrong turn in the dark and ended up back on FM 317, not what I wanted but in the end it was the better choice. I made the loop around town and got onto I-35 north, towards the friend's house, when I realized I was following a tow truck. As I put my blinker to exit I noticed he was exiting. I needed to turn left, he was turning left. That's when he was going to the same place I was and it was a wreck. "Dear God don't let it be a bad one. Let him be okay." As I pulled up I saw the mangled wreckage that was my husband's truck and I slowed to a stop. I rolled down my window and said "that's my husband's truck" to the first officer I saw. He told me to park and get out...that's when I knew it was bad.

I don't remember much after getting out of my car. I remember him telling me in that matter of fact voice that they use, "I'm sorry ma'am but he did not survive. He is deceased" and my legs collapsed under me. I remember feeling like my heart had been squeezed to death inside my chest and all the air had been sucked out of my lungs and all I could do was scream and sob. I remember random firemen, police men, and EMTs took turns holding me up, hugging me, sitting with me in my car, and calling our important people to get someone there for me. I remember the fireman driving me to the gas station so that I wouldn't see them remove my sweet husband from his truck. I remember random gas station store clerks praying for us as his family gathered there. And I remember being surrounded by love and family and prayer as soon as it happened.

That's what makes it tragically beautiful. It was a horrible night and if we could go back and do things differently (stay home, ride together, etc.) I'm sure we would. But that's not what happened. My husband had been up since 3, drove a truck all day for work, then got off and went to hang out with friends. He didn't go home to eat or nap like he usually did and he hadn't been using his CPAP machine like he was supposed to because the mask was messed up. On the way home around 10pm he fell asleep at the wheel, flipped his truck, and was killed on impact. At least there's peace in that...it was fast. He didn't suffer. The paramedic that responded to him said within minutes of the accident they were on the scene and there was no pulse, not even a crazy one, which means he was gone for good. Thankfully she's a believe and she was the last one to touch my sweet husband so hopefully she helped him on his journey home. I pulled up within 30 minutes of it happening but it was too late. If I would've made that turn and gotten on I-35 like I had planned I would've seen it happen and that wouldn't have been good. I don't know that I could live with that. This was bad but at least I didn't see it actually happen.

The next days were filled with tears, questions, disbelief, and lots of support from family and friends. My people rallied around and were at my house the next day with loads of paper towels, toilet paper, tissue boxes, paper plates and plastic silverware for all the guests. They brought food, drinks, laundry detergent, dryer sheets. They took loads of laundry to wash, cleaned the kids bedrooms to prepare for the guests that would be staying with me, called around and got quotes from funeral homes, and checked on me morning, noon, and night to make sure I showered and ate something. Most days I didn't eat at all. I couldn't. I couldn't breathe much less eat.

We had funeral services for my love on Thursday January 12th. It was beautiful and we packed the chapel. Our pastor from Arlington came down to do the funeral and turned it into something beautiful. Instead of a sad funeral the message was about hope, peace, redemption, grace, and salvation. A lot of people were touched that day and I hope and pray that some of our friends & family gave their lives to Christ that day. It was beautiful. Tragically beautiful.

So here I am...two weeks since the accident. It's been 2 weeks since I lost the love of my life so unexpectedly, so tragically. I'm hanging in there. I've gotten out of bed and showered every day. I've brushed my teeth. I've taken Bub to school each day. I've run errands and worked on sorting things out. I've pushed through. But I've also been heartbroken, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, and exhausted. It's definitely a process, a journey I'm just starting and I don't know where I'm going; I don't have GPS, I don't even have a damn MAP! But nevertheless I'm on this journey, putting one foot in front of the other and walking forward one painstaking step at a time. Walk with me...keep me company on this journey. It's going to be a long road.