One More First Without You

Warren's birthday is over, and you weren't there -- and you were. Your devilled eggs, your paper plates, your grandchildren, you. Just you.
And Warren wearing a suit and tie, but his dress shirt that just wouldn't stay tucked in. (Remind you of anyone?)

Day after tomorrow, Tommy will be 14. I doubt he'll even know it's his first birthday without you. If he does, I doubt that it will matter much to him. He never got a chance to know you, save for those few weeks he won't remember.

Coming up, Easter. I  should be able to make baskets for them, and maybe some clothes (new to them.) They won't be able to show/share them with you, and that makes me sad.

The whole upcoming spring and summer makes me sad.

The return of October makes me more than sad. Hailey says you might come back when it's Halloween again. I tell her that you can't, and she just says but you might. Last visit she didn't go into details but was happy talking about October when it will be Halloween again.

Of course, when that happens, we will have completed the cycle of calendar firsts, won't we?

I wonder if that may nor be a way you "come back" to us.

I wonder, too, about the Halloween thing. Is she expecting you to come back as a ghost? Or maybe you'll be reincarnated by then. ? Or does she think you will come back as the you she knew? Is the Halloween when she couldn't show you her costume and call you about trick-or-treating her benchmark of your death? It's so hard to know what to say to her when I don't know what she is thinking? And she doesn't have the words to explain her thought or emotion. How could she have? I am barely able to do so and I've been reading and writing and using/learning words for a half century plus.

You won't be here to  see the forsythia this year.
That is so unbearably sad to me,that you won't see the bright blooms you looked forward to and enjoyed.

The firsts will continue as we go on without you, Rex.But we will soon be halfway through the cycle of calendar firsts, and it looks like we've made it so far.

The distance between now and next October is nothing at all compared to the distance from us now and where you went last October.

Warren's Going to Be 1!

Tam wants me to make devilled eggs.
Well, to be honest, I said I would.
I will make them, too. It's a way of you celebrating with us, I suppose. That's how I am going to look at it anyway.

Tam said she really liked that chili mac stuff we had after your service. That would be Johnny Marzetti, and I hope it was Rita's that she liked so well, because it was someone from the other side of the family -- your side -- that made the other pan of it. They were basically the same; one had more cheeses, I believe.
Not that I remember a lot from that time period.
Another interesting way to make you a part of it just turned up. Rita asked Tammy if she wanted Paper plates and stuff, because she has a lot left over from -- then.
That's really strange because someone had said something about them being plain white and how Warren might someday feel slighted, because Hailey usually has Ariel plates and we have tons of pictures to prove it. Now we can tell Warren, if he's ever that petulant, that the plates were left over from the celebration of your life we had after you were finished with it, and that it was your contribution to celebrating his first year of life -- even if you could only be here for half of it.

That's an interesting way to keep you as a part of out celebrations. Even as a changing part of our changing celebrations. Because, life evolves; life goes on. Yadda yadda.

missing you again

It makes me crazy sometimes that you are not here.
The house is so big and so empty without your presence.

I miss coming home to you.
I miss calling you when I'm ready to come home.

I don't want to be here if you aren't here.
I don't want to be here.

I'm having a harder time with Warren's upcoming birthday than I had with my own, or with Tracy's or Tammy"s. You would so enjoy celebrating him and his first year, and it tears me up that you aren't here to see it.

And Tam needs me today and there's nothing I can do for her.
Tracy needs me tomorrow, and I can't.
The things that mean the most, and I can't.

I am so tired, Rex.
So tired and so alone.

I love you.

How Do I Make Them Listen?

Gosh sakes, Rex, sometimes I think you are the only person on earth who ever listened to me and heard me, too. For someone intelligent and articulate, I have the hardest time making nyself heard.It's so terribly difficult.

My biggest concern is my health. Every symptom I have is dismissed or checked off a list or something. Not even my provider seems to be hearing me.

I am weak. Physically weak. Not just lack of strength -- I can't stand at the stove long enough to grill cheese. Lack of overall energy or even desire to do anything. Like that grilled cheese sandwich. If it is going to make me so tired, will I even have energy to eat it while it's hot? It's something that's not so good cold.
My back twists.
My shoulders ache.
My hand feels as if it's being squeezed and the arm twisted all at the same time.

And I can't seem to make anyone understand how damn scared I am of driving more than a few miles or a few minutes.
Some of that is the fatigue, I'm sure, but getting lost coming home from work has (I know it's ridiculous) traumatized me. That should never have happened. Never. Never Ever.
It terrifies me. That is not an exaggeration.
But people seem to think it's normal don't-want-a-wreck fear of driving.
It isn't.

I hate to drive.
I hate to leave.
I hate to come back.
I can't stand.
I can't clean.
I can't put away when I do clean.

And yet there is nothing -- or nothing much -- wrong with me.

Oh, Rex, what the hell am I going to do?

Wearin' the Green

Another first, I guess. First St. Patrick day without you. If you were here I'd have to bully you into your camo green t-shirt, I think. Hailey would be calling wanting to make sure you were wearing your green.
Or maybe that's just in my head. We don't know what she would have done, what she would have brought home from school to share with you/us. Her first year of school you never got the chance to live through the seasons of.

Days like St. Patrick's aren't anything we ever really celebrated, or paid much more than lip service. But we were there, and we were aware. Although those days were no big deal for us together, they are a great gaping hole in my calendar.
Not the days, but the acknowledgement of them
Not the acknowledgement of the days, but the loss of sharing.
Nothing makes any day special like having someone to share it with.
Your own special someone.

This little guy, your grandson Michael,  had his second birthday yesterday. I acknowledged it for your sake.
Sad that his second birthday celebrates the fifth month anniversary of your departure.

And, just so you know, I miss hearing your lawn mower talk: that was the surest sign of Spring arriving.

Needed You Today

I could have used your help. I slipped into a ditch taking Tracy to school. Same damn intersection that killed the blue car.
I know you couldn't have helped by pushing or pulling the car out, but you could have been a telephone help-call co-ordinator. We called several people, and waited.

Rescue came, and we reversed our trip and just came home.

Home to an empty house.

Oh, there's no one here to care that we made it, that we were safe, that we were back.
I wanted you to hold onto and to hold onto me.

Coming home to this empty house, trip after trip, is sometimes the hardest part of missing you. Sometimes I don't go, because I don't want to come home to the empty places.

If you were here, you would probably have felt frustrated and helpless, but just being able to make phone calls would have been a big help.
Just being here to welcome us home, to care that we were there, would have been a big help.

But, it's not that way, and will never be that way again.
All we can do is miss you.

And that we do. Every day.

What to Say

I talk to you so often in my mind (or spirit) that I sometimes don't know what to write about here. Sometimes, maybe I wouldn't write at all, except that not doing so would be such a betrayal to all our years together and all our time.

You would be leased that I am taking somewhat better care of myself. But it's the Health Care Act that has made it possible, and you were never a proponent of that policy. Without it, though, I would be withering worse than I did while I still had you to care for and about.

I miss having someone to fuss over, fuss with, and fuss about.
And I miss you, too. Just -- YOU.

Warren has your grin.
He has something of you in the way he uses his hands. Tammy noticed it first and neither of us can really explain it any better than that. It's not the shape of the hands, or the gestures, but there's just something about the way he uses his hands that is very strongly you.

I sometimes feel you were so cheated to not get to know this little boy child. You had all girls, and except for the few months with Tommy, in 2000, the year our life went to hell, you never got to be a daddy to a little boy. We, your girls, were looking forward to you having that chance.
But it will never happen  now.

A lot of things will never happen now.
Other things that wouldn't have happened before will happen now. Not that I can think of any that I want or wanted. I want to have a few dozen more years of holding you, hugging you, sitting on your legs. I want decades of arguing Fox News (entertainment TV) and shooting down moving to Alaska and agreeing on time-wasting jobs, and does beef taste better from the slow cooker or boiled in the oven.

I just want you.

Couldn't Forget You if I Wanted To. (Which I don't.)

Sometimes it seems as if there's some great conspiracy out there. Not sure sometimes if its goal is to make me remember or to make me forget. I wonder if *it* knows which.
Of course that confusion inn itself is enough to invalidate a conspiracy theory, if such theories followed any rules of logic.

Facebook has decided I would like to like all your damn ol' wrestlers pages. I don't know why they are doing that, and it stabs me in the heart with every suggestion. I have never liked any wrestling page, and very few sports things. My friends who like those things have liked them all along, so it's not like a new possibly shared interest that has come along.

All I can do for now is to ignore them as best I can, and hope the stab wounds are scratches not gashes.

In the meantime, I am glad the gas station moved across the street and into the bigger store. I couldn't stand the Little Debbie aisle in the old store. The brownies made me cry.
So did the Vienna Sausage display, but there was no way I could avoid that. It was on the endcap by the cash register. Dunno where those are in the new store.
But someone donated me several cans that I thought to keep for Hailey.
She won't eat them either. Nor hard-boiled "pappaw" eggs.

Funny, when you ate so little and were so particular -- although maybe that's why -- that some of our biggest reminders are favorite foods. I haven't made beans and cornbread since your funeral.

I miss you, baby. I miss trying to tempt you into eating; I miss you enjoying what you would/could eat. Maybe someday I'll be able to eat a Little Debbie fudge brownie (not the cosmic brownie) in your memory.
Maybe someday I'll enjoy it again, if and when I do.

Today is Tammy's birthday -- her first without your phone call. She's missing you so badly, and I can't help her either.

You were loved.
You are loved.
You are so very missed.