In fairytales, we learn that true love will always overcome.
Once Upon A Time's Snow White and Prince Charming.
Buttercup and Wesley from The Princess Bride.
Chuck and the Pie Maker from Pushing Daisies.
Belle and the Beast from Beauty & the Beast.
But I don't live in a fairytale. My kiss couldn't bring him back. My touch couldn't return him to life. I couldn't rescue him.
My love couldn't save him.
I feel like Severus Snape. No matter how strong my love is, I cannot turn back time. My love for him must serve to guide me, but I must go on alone.
...most days, it's too much. I don't think I can do it. I always wanted someone to love, and someone to love me. Why did I only get 4 1/2 years? I wanted him for the rest of my life.
"Life isn't fair, where is that written?" (Princess Bride)
However, the days where I can see a glimmer of future that perhaps isn't so dark (while still lonely and aching for his arms and beautiful eyes and laugh), I think about the fact that we haven't really said goodbye.
This isn't the end.
Because when it's the end, we will get our happily ever after.
"Death cannot stop true love...all it can do is delay it for a while." -- The Princess Bride
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Grief
In the last several weeks, I've had people say everything from "You're young, you can still get married and have a family!" to "You're free to do what you want now."
I've had to see couples make plans and realize...I'm not part of a couple anymore. I'm relegated to a space between single (because I'm not ready to be single) and married.
I've had someone ask me, "everyone's praying for you, can't you just feel those prayers?" No, I can't.
It hurts.
I don't want to marry someone else. I wanted to be married to Stu for the rest of my life.
I've never been a risk taker.
And when I married Stu, that was the biggest risk I've ever taken, because I knew I could lose him.
But I chose to marry him anyway. Because I loved him.
You don't just get over love like that.
No one will ever understand me the way he did. I've never felt completely safe with anyone other than him. He and I weren't perfect. But we were perfectly matched.
The few times we worked together, we were a great team. We could have done great things, and we had plans to do so.
And even if we hadn't, I would have stayed here for him. I love him.
Stu helped me uncover the real me. He was always proud of me. Encouraging. Hopeful for my future. He never shot down my dreams. He never criticized the bigness of my dreams. He believed in me.
I've been missing him so much. Every time I get a phone call at work, I expect it to be Stu, and then I remember I have his phone. He called me a few times a day, just to say "Hi" and "I love you". Every time I look at the chair where he sat, I remember the time he took to come sit with me because he knew I didn't like to be alone in the office. He would talk to whoever came in, give them his megawatt smile, and be the sort of person I wished I could be: kind. (I think we also could never bear to be apart for very long)
I've been watching movies and TV, wishing I could discuss them with him. He always managed to go deeper into the story than I could.
I've ached to hold him and be held by him. Our love language, physical touch, made us annoying at times, I'm sure. We were never happy unless we were in the same room, or next to each other, cuddling, hugging, kissing.
Life was fun with him.
Life is dull without him.
If you can call this "life" and if this is what "living" is.
I'm sad for me. I'm a person who needs completeness, whole numbers, and preparation for big change.
I didn't get a lot of that.
One thing I did get was Stu's sickness for six months.
I began losing him in January. He couldn't even sleep in the bed with me most of the time, and one of the few times he slept in there, he slept on my legs because he always said I was comfortable.
I was so angry from January to May. So angry, and underneath that, terror. I knew something bad was coming. I just didn't think it was this bad. I spent May hugging and kissing him whenever I passed the couch, pleading with him to go to the hospital, and going out to spend time with friends because I couldn't bear to see him so sick.
We had a fight Monday night about going to the hospital. I spend Monday night crying myself to sleep to Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away". I don't know if that's irony or if I knew I would lose him. We made up Tuesday. He came to see me before he went to the hospital. I can't remember if we kissed or not, but I think we did. We talked through text later, and he was worried I'd leave him. He was always afraid I'd leave -- his family, his father, had always left. I assured him that wasn't even in my mind -- I wanted to work through this with him, not say goodbye. I assured him of my love. We talked later that night on the phone. He wanted me to bring his wedding ring because he didn't want to go through everything without it.
I still can't find it.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I promised.
The last words we said to each other were, "I love you."
I've never loved anyone so much.
And I've been thinking...
Maybe for him, in heaven, it will be tomorrow when I see him. Maybe the lonely, aching, agonizing years I'll spend here (however many there are) will be a blink of an eye for him. I hope that's so.
Grief is like a stone pressing on my chest. It makes the world grey. I can't make sense of colors right now. Although most people have commented that I'm "handling it well" (whatever the hell that means), what they don't know is that I'm keeping the majority of my grief private. I can't find comfort in anyone's arms when all I want are Stu's. He was the one who always comforted me. He was always the one who found me and held me.
So I hold in my tears. I wait until everyone's asleep, and then I curl up with his big leather jacket, one of my favorite things of his, and I cry, I wrap its arm around me and let the tears flow.
Sometimes I listen to Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne or Lady Gaga as the tears slip down my face.
And I'm waiting when I have a day to myself when I can just sit in a corner and sob.
The magnitude of my grief can't be expressed in plain sight. I need for this to be in a sacred, silent space.
So for now, I'll choose laughing over crying.
I do feel lonely in my grief -- most people didn't get six months to go through the angry phase. I'm in a different place than the rest, and it's separate. Apart.
But I made a choice, there in the hospital. I wanted, for the first time, to feel everything I was capable of. I took note when my body signaled a change of feeling. I felt every damn thing I could, to hold onto that part of me Stu uncovered -- the human, living, breathing being inside of me that I'd covered up with wiring and metal parts.
The first thing I felt was that I was paper, and someone had thrown a rock through me, ripping me into tiny pieces. Then the ice came. Ice enclosed my heart and lungs. I could draw the shape for you. And then the coal came. A wretched burning, one that consumed my heart. Then, in place of a heart, a large stone was put inside, weighing me down.
My heart is gone, replaced with rock. Life is heavy, dull, meaningless.
I don't know what my future looks like.
Without Stu...I can't imagine a future. He was always there in my daydreams.
It takes me a long time to process. It takes me a while to form my thoughts into semi-coherent words.
But way back when we were first married, I wrote in my Secrets Journal,
"I never expected a happy ending. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to fall."
The other shoe has fallen.
I don't know that I knew all along. But something in me recognized that Stu wasn't going to be around forever.
I also wrote this:
"Whatever it is I do, I'm going to have to do it alone."
---
Despite all the grief, the overwhelming sense of loss that makes me want to scream when I think of all the years we won't get together (because I'm grieving those too), all the hugs and kisses we won't be able to share, all the little in jokes that no one else will understand, I'm still...grateful that Stu isn't sick anymore.
He was so sick.
He was sick for most of his life.
He would look at me sometimes, and say, "I don't want to be sick all my life. I'm tired."
He was too tired to keep going.
As much as I wish he were here, I would not wish him back to his previous condition. It would be cruel, and selfish of me. I love him, and love him so deeply that I can't help but be glad that he's ok. For the first time, he's living to the fullest capacity. He's alright. And I'll see him again.
That sustains me. He's safe. He's well. He's happy. He's free.
But if I hear one more comment about how I'm young and can get re-married, I'm going to slap someone. Whatever happens in the future, I will always want more time with Stu. To spend the rest of my life with him. I will continue to grieve all the time we didn't have. We were meant to be together.
He was one of a kind.
He was my Stuart Harlan, and I love him.
Always.
I've had to see couples make plans and realize...I'm not part of a couple anymore. I'm relegated to a space between single (because I'm not ready to be single) and married.
I've had someone ask me, "everyone's praying for you, can't you just feel those prayers?" No, I can't.
It hurts.
I don't want to marry someone else. I wanted to be married to Stu for the rest of my life.
I've never been a risk taker.
And when I married Stu, that was the biggest risk I've ever taken, because I knew I could lose him.
But I chose to marry him anyway. Because I loved him.
You don't just get over love like that.
No one will ever understand me the way he did. I've never felt completely safe with anyone other than him. He and I weren't perfect. But we were perfectly matched.
The few times we worked together, we were a great team. We could have done great things, and we had plans to do so.
And even if we hadn't, I would have stayed here for him. I love him.
Stu helped me uncover the real me. He was always proud of me. Encouraging. Hopeful for my future. He never shot down my dreams. He never criticized the bigness of my dreams. He believed in me.
I've been missing him so much. Every time I get a phone call at work, I expect it to be Stu, and then I remember I have his phone. He called me a few times a day, just to say "Hi" and "I love you". Every time I look at the chair where he sat, I remember the time he took to come sit with me because he knew I didn't like to be alone in the office. He would talk to whoever came in, give them his megawatt smile, and be the sort of person I wished I could be: kind. (I think we also could never bear to be apart for very long)
I've been watching movies and TV, wishing I could discuss them with him. He always managed to go deeper into the story than I could.
I've ached to hold him and be held by him. Our love language, physical touch, made us annoying at times, I'm sure. We were never happy unless we were in the same room, or next to each other, cuddling, hugging, kissing.
Life was fun with him.
Life is dull without him.
If you can call this "life" and if this is what "living" is.
I'm sad for me. I'm a person who needs completeness, whole numbers, and preparation for big change.
I didn't get a lot of that.
One thing I did get was Stu's sickness for six months.
I began losing him in January. He couldn't even sleep in the bed with me most of the time, and one of the few times he slept in there, he slept on my legs because he always said I was comfortable.
I was so angry from January to May. So angry, and underneath that, terror. I knew something bad was coming. I just didn't think it was this bad. I spent May hugging and kissing him whenever I passed the couch, pleading with him to go to the hospital, and going out to spend time with friends because I couldn't bear to see him so sick.
We had a fight Monday night about going to the hospital. I spend Monday night crying myself to sleep to Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away". I don't know if that's irony or if I knew I would lose him. We made up Tuesday. He came to see me before he went to the hospital. I can't remember if we kissed or not, but I think we did. We talked through text later, and he was worried I'd leave him. He was always afraid I'd leave -- his family, his father, had always left. I assured him that wasn't even in my mind -- I wanted to work through this with him, not say goodbye. I assured him of my love. We talked later that night on the phone. He wanted me to bring his wedding ring because he didn't want to go through everything without it.
I still can't find it.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I promised.
The last words we said to each other were, "I love you."
I've never loved anyone so much.
And I've been thinking...
Maybe for him, in heaven, it will be tomorrow when I see him. Maybe the lonely, aching, agonizing years I'll spend here (however many there are) will be a blink of an eye for him. I hope that's so.
Grief is like a stone pressing on my chest. It makes the world grey. I can't make sense of colors right now. Although most people have commented that I'm "handling it well" (whatever the hell that means), what they don't know is that I'm keeping the majority of my grief private. I can't find comfort in anyone's arms when all I want are Stu's. He was the one who always comforted me. He was always the one who found me and held me.
So I hold in my tears. I wait until everyone's asleep, and then I curl up with his big leather jacket, one of my favorite things of his, and I cry, I wrap its arm around me and let the tears flow.
Sometimes I listen to Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne or Lady Gaga as the tears slip down my face.
And I'm waiting when I have a day to myself when I can just sit in a corner and sob.
The magnitude of my grief can't be expressed in plain sight. I need for this to be in a sacred, silent space.
So for now, I'll choose laughing over crying.
I do feel lonely in my grief -- most people didn't get six months to go through the angry phase. I'm in a different place than the rest, and it's separate. Apart.
But I made a choice, there in the hospital. I wanted, for the first time, to feel everything I was capable of. I took note when my body signaled a change of feeling. I felt every damn thing I could, to hold onto that part of me Stu uncovered -- the human, living, breathing being inside of me that I'd covered up with wiring and metal parts.
The first thing I felt was that I was paper, and someone had thrown a rock through me, ripping me into tiny pieces. Then the ice came. Ice enclosed my heart and lungs. I could draw the shape for you. And then the coal came. A wretched burning, one that consumed my heart. Then, in place of a heart, a large stone was put inside, weighing me down.
My heart is gone, replaced with rock. Life is heavy, dull, meaningless.
I don't know what my future looks like.
Without Stu...I can't imagine a future. He was always there in my daydreams.
It takes me a long time to process. It takes me a while to form my thoughts into semi-coherent words.
But way back when we were first married, I wrote in my Secrets Journal,
"I never expected a happy ending. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to fall."
The other shoe has fallen.
I don't know that I knew all along. But something in me recognized that Stu wasn't going to be around forever.
I also wrote this:
"Whatever it is I do, I'm going to have to do it alone."
---
Despite all the grief, the overwhelming sense of loss that makes me want to scream when I think of all the years we won't get together (because I'm grieving those too), all the hugs and kisses we won't be able to share, all the little in jokes that no one else will understand, I'm still...grateful that Stu isn't sick anymore.
He was so sick.
He was sick for most of his life.
He would look at me sometimes, and say, "I don't want to be sick all my life. I'm tired."
He was too tired to keep going.
As much as I wish he were here, I would not wish him back to his previous condition. It would be cruel, and selfish of me. I love him, and love him so deeply that I can't help but be glad that he's ok. For the first time, he's living to the fullest capacity. He's alright. And I'll see him again.
That sustains me. He's safe. He's well. He's happy. He's free.
But if I hear one more comment about how I'm young and can get re-married, I'm going to slap someone. Whatever happens in the future, I will always want more time with Stu. To spend the rest of my life with him. I will continue to grieve all the time we didn't have. We were meant to be together.
He was one of a kind.
He was my Stuart Harlan, and I love him.
Always.
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