Craig

It’s March 28th. I keep struggling with what to say. How do I mark this day? The truth is that this day isn’t really any worse than all the days preceding it. It just has the unavoidable component of reminding me/us that we haven’t actually had interaction with my C in a whole year. As though a day more, or a day less, would make that any easier to accept. I don’t know why we seem to need to mark the year. What exactly is it supposed to symbolize? I look at other people that are suffering through loss and wonder why they seem more positive. How are they able to feel so grateful for the time they had? How do they take so much comfort in knowing that their person is somewhere and ok? I keep thinking, “what am I missing?”. I want to scream. I want to pull my hair out. I want to tell the world to fuck off. I’d like an island for one, please. With each day comes the same level of pain as the day before. You can’t “choose” to be happy. Your feelings can’t just be tweaked. I’m not sure about the countless suggestions to find relief in medication. I’m trying to fake it till I make it by moving about in the world, but it feels ineffective. I know…..time will dull the pain. I’m not even sure I want to dull the pain. It’s my only tangible right now. It’s what I still have to feel like he hasn’t been gone that long. Sounds unhealthy, I know. I think our connection was so profound that I can’t figure out how to do anything that doesn’t include C. Every new story, experience, news cycle, funny moment - they all lead back to him. I just want to tell him. The one thing I want in this world is simply the one thing I cannot have.

There are so many things I’d never be willing to say in the blog. It’s a love/hate exercise to write it. I do it because it's a way to inform people without the regular texts or calls. It’s a chance for me to document what I’m feeling - more for me than anyone, but it has always felt self indulgent. Not when C was here. It was necessary, and he was with me on it. It was something we had together. Now it's just me….doing what? Rattling on about where I am geographically? Partially sharing? Trying to provide a window for people to better know Craig is the part I like. No one knows their spouse the way you do. Especially someone like C. He was a little harder egg to crack, but there were so many accessible places to his mind and heart that I think, on average, few people saw.

When we started the update page, C was very clear about keeping it real. He wasn’t interested in a flowery version of reality. However, I find myself stopping short of being truthful. It’s too hard to explain the paralyzing fear of reliving certain moments. How sometimes my breath catches so quickly in my chest that I gasp just to get it back. The pain is exhausting. It’s physically exhausting. Sometimes I feel like I’m actually getting back in the groove of physical activity, naturally, not forced. Sometimes it is like lifting dead weight to get out of a chair. Sleep proves fairly impossible. Midnight, 1am, 2am….wondering when will it feel like it’s finally time to sleep. Then exhaustion arrives and the lights finally turn off, just as my mind starts to race and it’s time to turn the light right back on. I feel like I’m spinning, out in the middle of space. No anchor, no destination. Just perpetual motion.

I’m left with doubts. Doubts that I know I shouldn’t have, but it’s one of the perils of giving into grief. I don’t know why I didn’t ask him more in those final days at home. I didn’t ask him if he wanted to talk more about it. I didn’t ask him if he was scared. I don’t know if I was somehow holding out hope and thought I shouldn’t plant the seed that he might not make it? I know that's not the case. We KNEW he was dying. We came home to die. And in the final weeks we’d look at each other and say, “nothing left unsaid”. And that’s what it meant. We just got each other. No need to explain. We’d just share these long stares with each other. For months. Just this unspoken exchange that we both understood what the other was thinking. We laid in bed each morning watching the sun come up. Just holding each other. But now he’s not here. And I can’t ask him. I can’t see those eyes looking at me and letting me know we are in this together. So doubt seeps in. Regret seeps in. I have to keep reminding myself that this is the grief. I didn’t feel this way when he was here right in front of me. I didn’t feel like there was something that needed to be said and wasn’t. It felt whole and understood.

How did we get here? I just can't stop thinking about where we were x-amount of time ago. When his birthday came, where we were last year for his birthday. No matter how trivial the memory, it always comes back to where we were the last time we experienced it. It always feels like it was just yesterday, and as the months stretch out and put more time between those memories, I fear the pain will grow more acute. The reality that time is moving on. Right now I get to say, “last summer” b/c I measure time in BD (before diagnosis). 2020 is a fog. So when I say, “last TX/OU” I am really referring to 2019 when our life was seemingly normal. Every memory is measured before 11.10.19. I guess I should say every memory of our normal life. The life that was gone in the blink of an eye. He didn’t even have 5 months. Not even 5 fucking months to be diagnosed, fight like hell, accept the inevitable, and say goodbye. He was 51 and full of life.

Intellectually, I know that I have to gather myself, emotionally. Emotionally, I don’t give a shit about my intellect’s opinion. I know he would not be happy with where I am. I know he’d hate to think I can’t inch myself forward. I know the best way to celebrate his life is to have one. Everyone experiences loss. Even loss on a monumental scale. Mine is no different. Theoretically. But to me, it’s life altering. Earth shattering. He was the best of everything in my life. We were each other’s soft spot to land. I’m in this emotional abyss somewhere between survival and disappearing in the blink of an eye. And that isn’t some sort of cry for help. It’s the honest truth about how this feels. How much I miss him. How much I long to hear his voice or hear his big laugh. Give him our morning hug goodbye. I’d always get up with him on Monday mornings. 4:45am for his early flight out of DFW. Those goodbye hugs were the very best. I can still feel them. We had our routine. My routine. He obliged. Always a “wait, one more hug” before he’d walk out the door. I always watched until his tail lights disappeared. I don’t know that I ever told him that. I miss the language we spoke. Couples all have their own languages. Funny nicknames (we each had a million), certain words said a certain way, made up words to represent something only we understood. A language that was our own. It’s like a whole set of “words” or names that I will never hear again, be called again, speak again. What am I supposed to do with all of that?? Where do you put it?? I remember C and I having a conversation with a nurse about this. I think her husband’s name was Mike. Convo:

Us: ok, his name is Mike, we get that, but what do you call him?

Nurse: Mike

Us: ok, but like what is his nickname?

Nurse: Mike

Us: I don’t understand 😳

He made my days happy. He deserves better than he got. The fact that he could accept that and I can’t, should be teaching me something. He accepted that. Period. I think I’ve said that toward the end he said to our doctor, “you can’t win ‘em all”. So Craig to say that. It’s just so hard to let go, on his behalf. Even if he wishes I would. The reality of the year mark is taking hold of me. I felt like I was barely getting my head above water when we lost Bings. 8 months later I couldn’t have imagined the way our story would unfold. The way his story would unfold. Nor could he. I don’t know if my brain will ever be able to fully accept that he is just gone. Just gone. I’m sure I’m coming across as maudlin. It’s just the truth, and I don’t know how many people that are really sad are willing to say what it's like.

A month or two ago a friend’s husband came home. She walked over and wrapped her arms around him and put her cheek on his chest with a tight squeeze around his waist. That hug that is so natural and reserved for someone with whom you’re intimate. Cuddling into the person that you know protects you. It was such an organic moment. I excused myself. I couldn’t hold back the tears. What I wouldn’t give to hug my husband one more time. Grief is not linear. One minute I’m laughing at something genuinely funny, the next I’m sobbing in a bathroom. Grief is an unrelenting companion. The last 6 months have afforded me the gift of postponing the inevitable reality of daily life without C. I can’t imagine being back amongst our things, settled into a place, and just accepting this is it. Life. Go! I don’t know who to be, where to go, where to live, when to stop. Wandering seems to be the only comfortable place right now. So I’m going to keep wandering.

We were in Stinson last week. It’s a little beach town that definitely leans hippie. Lots of beautiful homes on hills overlooking the endless ocean. Many of the homes have weird yard art, tchotchke setups outside front entry gates, painted wooden cutouts on their fences. It’s pretty funny to see all this paired with homes holding multi-million dollar price tags. After maybe 5 days of being there, Maria and I were walking the dogs and went a different path than we previously had. We happened on a house that had quite the assortment of, frankly, crap. I started looking at one area, and she was looking at another. As I had just narrowed in on something, she turned to me and said, “there is an orb in my camera. I think that means there’s a spirit with us”. The tears were streaming down my face because I was simultaneously looking at a little figurine that said, “you can’t possibly realize how much I miss you”. I know we can manipulate anything to make it a “sign”, but this couldn’t get much clearer. After the tears, we laughed a little at C’s choice of tchotchkes. We concluded that when you are limited, in the way that he is, you work with what you have available to you. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I am hoping to plan C’s Celebration of Life for the end of October. I will be making some calls this coming week to try to set a date. I will let everyone know when it’s definitive.

This weekend we are in Calistoga. Wine tasting at different vineyards, patio dinners, we have a long hike planned today. It’s beautiful. Serene. He’s around me, with me, I KNOW that. ❤️ Maria was telling my friend Ashley a story yesterday that included a therapist urging someone to “let joy into their life”. I’m sitting with that. Maybe that is something I can learn to work on these next 365 days.

I want to thank you for being so supportive. Many of you have been there from the day we went into the hospital, and every day since. I know I may not reciprocate. At all. I’m sorry. I’m extremely appreciative and feel grateful for y’all. There is so much kindness in each of you. We are fortunate to have the family and friends that we do. Please think of him today. Maybe say a little something out loud to him. Tell him you’re thinking of him. Have a beer or tequila for him.

Our love is unending. He is the guiding light that puts one foot in front of the other for me. He will be my husband for the rest of my life. My everything. Inscribed in our wedding rings is, “my reason for being”. You and me, kid. Forever.

Hope this finds you all well,

A

Love Comes and Goes

Xavier Rudd

Love comes and goes

Sometimes decades sometimes months,

Raise you up to the sky

Make you feel like every little thing is bright.

Send you crashing back down

Make you so sick that you want to drown

No other pain, like losing a soul mate.

The roads we take in life often seem to be very strong.

Walk them carelessly like we’re walking on bricks and stone.

Only when we look behind we will see the road is cracked.

Oh, there we must move forward, gently as we tread.

Love comes and goes

Sometimes decades sometimes months,

Raise you up to the sky

Make you feel like every little thing is bright.

Send you crashing back down

Make you so sick that you want to drown

No other pain, like losing a soul mate.

To carry our guilt sometimes seems the only thing that’s easy.

Eat away your flesh and bones and all that you be.

My good Amigo once said that the truth will set you free,

But I guess we have to wait sometimes, just wait around and see.

Love comes and goes

Sometimes decades sometimes months,

Raise you up to the sky

Make you feel like every little thing is bright.

Send you crashing back down

Make you so sick that you want to drown

No other pain, like losing a soul mate.

I see a new sun rising again,

Brand new colors, brand new road ahead.

Sweeping up the pieces of a broken nest,

Sweeping up the pieces but the pieces never end.

Love comes and goes

Sometimes decades sometimes months,

Raise you up to the sky

Make you feel like every little thing is bright.

Send you crashing back down

Make you so sick that you want to drown

No other pain, like losing a soul mate.

No other pain, like losing a soul mate.

Calistoga

https://open.spotify.com/track/1AEbRxjh2Kn2ErhVaMOrWY?si=mZzk2vfaT42PsoESvn2HxQ

Stinson Beach

We have very spotty cell and WiFi. Not sure if this video of C and Bingley will upload. Not even sure how long ago it was. And please ignore my grating voice. 🙄

Hiking in Marin