Happy Birthday, Babe!

I tried to psych myself up for today. Last year, his birthday was harder than most of the other holidays. So, I have been trying to figure out what to do to keep myself busy all week and I've come to realize that nothing I can do will stop the flood of emotions.

I woke up crying AGAIN about the things I should have done differently in that hospital room. The flashback memories of 8:45 p.m. to 11:06 p.m. that night just running circles in my mind.  I thought I had worked through all of that and let it go, but today it came back. The words to the song "Say Something" played like a soundtrack to it all.  I never realized how well that song fit the situation until today.  I stood there in that  room praying, while holding my breathe waiting for him to just breathe; just look at me and say something.

I've been trying to decide what I'm going to do today. My ideas ranged all the way from going to the grave to getting completely trashed  Just being honest here, I've never been trashed, but today seems like a good day to try anything that will stop the pain. Having kids keeps me from being able to do dumb things, so I didn't.

I thought about what Steve would be doing today if he was alive. He would probably have gone to breakfast with some CMA guys and gone for a ride. So, I got up and decided to take the money I would have spent on a birthday present for him and donated it to the CMA Run for the Son. I can't think of any better way to honor his life than that. Even in death, he's winning the lost. 


After donating to the CMA I decided to get my nose pierced. It was something Steve and I had talked about for a while and he loved the idea. I just never got around to doing it.
Before anyone starts in on biblical aspect of nose piercings read Genesis 24 where Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son and he was to give her a nose ring as a sign of engagement. So, I figured today, on his birthday, I would finally get around to getting that nose piercing. It didn't hurt that bad. I also went to Applebees with a friend. The very first birthday that Steve and I celebrated of his was at Applebees, so I did it again 20 years later.


Most people are very understanding about this journey, some are not. I have recently been told that it's time to move on and all the general cliche lines you hear: Steve would want you to be happy, you can't stay stuck here forever, you have to let go of the past, etc. I understand all of that, I really do. I also understand that people usually mean well when they say it. For the most part, I'm doing leaps and bounds better than I was but I have come to the realization that there are some days I AM GOING TO FEEL THIS PAIN; I am going to fall apart and nothing I can do will stop it AND it's o.k. It doesn't mean I have had a setback or that I'm worse than I was yesterday. It's actually proving my progress. It no longer takes weeks to recover and find my way out of the dark again. I'm not stuck in depression.

I don't know your experience with love and loss, I know that I have loved and been loved deeply and I've lost it. I only have 18 months and 9 days experience at this. I don't know what 3, 5, 10, 20 years down the road looks like. I think it will be much like the last 18 months; I think with time the pain will sting a little less, but I'm sure there will be days or circumstances that bring it all back again. I'm sure that the unanswered questions will flood my mind again. There is no way to know what the future holds and I'm honestly, not even worried about it. I've learned to live in the here and now, but there is no way to have loved Steve and intertwined our lives the way we did and not still feel the loss.
Grief really is the price we pay for love. Do not assume that someone who has experienced a loss is clinically depressed or refusing to let go or happy to be stuck in grief just because they periodically have days that the pain is overwhelming. Life does march on and so do we, but sometimes we have to pause and let our hearts take a rest.