February 2011

There comes a point, I think, when you know the worst of it is over.

It’s always going to hurt. We’ve established that. But, for some reason, it feels like there is a tiny little bit of sunshine.

The season has changed. Quite literally. It’s gone from Summer, to Autumn, overnight.

Thank God. Summer, it felt like hell. Again, quite literally. The pain, the shock, the trauma.. and the heat, the oppressive humidity.

If there is a Hell on Earth, maybe I’ve been there.

Or maybe I should not be so cocky. They say God punishes us for what we can not imagine.

He most certainly does.

But….

There comes a point, I think, where you get busy living.. or you get busy dieing.

Living. Sorting out the kinks in your life. Making limbo an OK place to be, where you have some control, until you know, financially, what is going on.

The next few months will be spent waiting.

But that’s OK.

I think we need time here, to grieve, to heal. In our Gingerbread House, which is still the Purple House underneath.

So… Lori. Of her essence.

Redefining my whole life.

Redefining what I thought about Tony, what I thought about me. Redefining my ideas on raising children, on dealing with raising a boy-child, on schools and locations and all those other little things I never thought I would be working out for myself. Redefining who I am…

Taking the bits of me, and sticking them back together. Incorporating this new person, this strong, sad person, into the rest of me. What’s left of me.

So,I gather up the pieces. The part of Lori that I left, screaming “He’s dead, he’s dead”, clutching her daughter in our back laneway… she’s back now, somewhere deep inside, being comforted by a part of my soul that makes cups of tea and teaches yoga and reads stories about fairies before bed.

In fact, it’s not just her. There’s quite a few pieces of me- a piece I left behind in the ER at the hospital, a piece I left behind in the ICU. A piece of me that grieves for my husband, another that weeps for the sunshine of my purple life. And another that is bitter and jealous, and misses being a ‘wife’, when she loved being married so.

All of them, gathered up. Along with five year old Lori, gobsmacked that her fairytale has come to end. Comforting each other, receiving comfort from the strength I never knew I had.

I’m stronger than I thought I was, I think.

Or maybe not. Strength isn’t optional, sometimes. Sometimes, you just have to keep going.

Because what else can you do?

Except hope, that if you keep going enough, keep pushing through the pain, eventually you are going to want to move forward… not just have to.

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Blog like no one is reading…

It always going to hurt.

That’s the thing, I think, that my brain doesn’t quite get. That it’s always going to hurt.

Because I feel like I’m waiting.

I’m not sure what for.

Tony, perhaps. that’s what it feels like. Like I’m waiting for Tony to come home.

I guess I am.

I don’t want to live here, in this house, anymore.

I can’t handle it. The shattered happy ever after.

But I can’t move. Not yet, not until Something happens with the finances.

Waiting.

For it to hurt less?

For my mind to process it a bit more?

I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s too sad, and it hurts too much, and my brain plays tricks on me every time I wake up. Every time, especially here, at home. I wake up and just for a second, half a second, I’m happy.

And then I remember.

What the fuck is going on here? How was it Christmas less than two months ago?

It feels like a lifetime.

I guess it is.

If someone had told me, at Christmas, that this would happen, I would never have believed them. Never. I would have laughed.

My whole basis of life, it’s gone.

How do I do this, without Tony? He protected us. Now I’m in charge, of two tiny people. That was always something we joked about- we couldn’t have another child, it would leave us outnumbered. And now I feel outnumbered.

Capable. It’s auto-pilot- nappy change, water, food, sleep. It’s the rest of their lives I worry about.

Because this is it. Single parenting, sole parenting, in it’s essence. All by myself.

I’m terrified.

How did this happen? We had plans. Tony was my life, from the second we had our first date- that was it. We were meant to be.

It was never supposed to end like this. We had plans, a whole life mapped out. A new house, in a year or two. A holiday, this year. Our kids in the local public school. Us growing old together.

We planned to retire to a lighthouse by the coast. And live out the last of our days, together, by the ocean.

I still can’t quite believe he’s gone.

I know, of course- I’ve been living with that reality for weeks now, although it feels like years.

I keep waiting for that exquisite purple happiness to come back. So I can grieve it, maybe.

Maybe it’s less painful if it doesn’t.

This hurts, dammit. This is beyond pain, beyond rage, beyond disbelief. This is everything I ever wanted, gone.

I was so easily pleased. I had my husband, my house, my kids. The only thing to cross off my list of Stuff I Wanted To Do With My Life was learn to ride a motorbike.

And now it’s gone. I had it all, and lost it a huge chunk of it. All before I turned thirty.

The future scares the shit out of me. Day after day after day stretches out before me. Endless. Painful.

I’m missing him so much, it’s driving me insane.

The image of him, slipping the rope on his neck, then hanging, lifeless, it burns into me, hurts me, hates me, every second of the day. And there is nothing I can do to escape it.

I feel like it’s going to drive me insane. There is only so much stress the human mind can take.

And my kids… I can barely speak about them. Especially my son. His pain, and mine, they reverberate against each other. I dread putting him to bed, as much as I love it. Because there is always a conversation about daddy, especially now that we send rainbows, from our heart to his in Heaven. Chop is so confused, hurting so much. Missing his best mate desperately.

And he checks with me, every time “Daddy’s in Heaven, up with the stars, Mummy? And he can’t come back?”

And I reply that no, he can’t, and we all miss him very much.

Just tonight, my little man continued to talk, sharing memories of his time with daddy that I can’t even recall now, it hurts too much. And he looked at me and said “No, Mummy!! Just talk to me, don’t be sad!!”.

And I realised I had tears rolling down my cheeks.

We’re lost without him. All three of us. The big kahuna, the protective, guiding, strong force in our lives is gone.

My children are without a father.

Forever.

I am raising two little people by myself, for the rest of my life. I never planned to do this by myself. I need Tony, who calmed me, who picked up the slack and smoothed out the stress.

What am I going to do? I know, it’s one day at a time, one foot in front of another, and time is the only thing that will heal it.

But it’s just so hard to keep going. When every day is so, so long, and it hurts so much. And the little things that made up our lives have just vanished.

No more beers with neighbours out in the street. No more beers in general. No more roast dinners, no more ironing his shirts at night. No more curling up on the lounge and watching movies together. No more weekend trips with the kids to the markets, to the beach, just out for a drive.

How could he do this? How could he just go and leave all this? We were so happy, fuck it. That what makes it worse. Just four days Before this happened, we were talking about how happy we were, how lucky we were, how good life was. We had our house, our cars, our pigeon pair of gorgeous children, our dog. A stable, suburban, happy family life. That was all either of us ever really wanted.

Why did he leave me? How could he do this? What am I going to do, without him?

The rest of my life. The rest of my kid’s lives. Without the man who was our rudder, our rock, our strength.

I’m terrified. Exhausted. And desperately lonely without my soul mate, without the company of a man. I miss having adult conversation. I miss having someone to nurture and take care who actually appreciates it. I miss cooking for him. I miss him teasing me.

I miss hearing him make our children laugh.

I thought it would be better, by now… I thought I’d be starting to feel better, glimpse some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m even sure what I’m searching for, what the light at the end of the tunnel should look like. Is it someone else who’ll love me, tell me I’m beautiful and take care of me? To wake up and not think everything is OK, for that one horrid second?

Or just to have a few hours a day where I feel normal, where I’m not just killing time, killing minutes, slaying seconds..?

I don’t know. I feel like I need a miracle.

Something, anything, to take the pressure off. To make me feel just that little bit better. Just for a moment.

Please.

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