I'll be Seeing You

 "I'll be seeing you,
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces,
All day through,,,"

8 months.

8 whole months.

The night Sgt. Didham came and sat at the table, the look in her eyes and the gentle sigh she gave giving the news I never thought I would hear, is as fresh in my mind as if it was 8 minutes ago.

Not 8 months.

The look on her face as I whispered, "He's gone, isn't he?"

I knew.

I felt you slip away.

I knew you were no longer here.

"In that small cafe,
The park across the way,
The children's carousel,
The chestnut trees,
The wishing well..."

Everyday, mundane things are so different now.

I miss how we would go for coffee in the morning, go to Winners (how you loved Winners), go for a stroll in  Bowring Park, take Vinny and Colton around Neil's Pond, sit on the couch and just be.

Just be.

I don't even feel like I know how to "just be" anymore.

"I'll be seeing you,
In every lovely summer's day,
In everything that's light and gay,
I'll always think of you that way..."

How light everything was.

Summer's days have come and gone and you were not here for any of them.

How I would come home on Westport, doors open and windows open, music blaring as I watched you dance around the kitchen on those warm summer days.

And things have gotten cold again.

Cold like the night you were taken.

How are we back here?

With Christmas looming?

How you despised Christmas but said you were trying to find joy in it because of him.

And us.

And we did.

Decorating the tree, wrapping the pictures that now sit on my floor, making the look like presents.

Promising not to buy each other anything but always breaking the promise.

Last year we went to Jamaica and swore we would go back to that resort again.

We didn't know.

We couldn't know.

And it is so, so cold now.

We should be celebrating our first Christmas in our new home, my parents visiting, the tree glowing and the presents we swore we wouldn't buy each other hiding in our closets.

No family skate where you show Colton your slapshot and I show him my backhand.

Instead there is a dread and an emptiness, nothing being the same, and I will head home to my little cove for Christmas, without you by my side.

8 months and one day.

35 weeks.

35 damn weeks.

Every night I just hope I dream and you are there.

You usually are.

And we are doing those everyday, mundane things we took for granted.

I miss you.

I miss us.

And I hope, wherever you are, you know how much I love you and, whether in dreams or in some other world down the road, I'll be seeing you.

"I'll find you in the morning sun,
And when the night is new,
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you..."

Uninvited

 "Like anyone would be,
I am flattered by your fascination with me..."

Uninvited.

Like I was uninvited you were uninvited but yet felt the need to walk into my home like you owned the place.

No invitation.

No need to be.

Yet strolled in.

And my anger rose.

"But you, you're not allowed,
You're uninvited,
An unfortunate slight..."

No contact, not a single word, no eye contact or even a hello during court appearances and all of those anniversaries of things we all shared.

No acknowledgement of me or who I was to him.

None.

Just erasure and ignorance.

"Must be strangely exciting,
To watch the stoic squirm..."

I would not say I squirm.

I wall up.

I rage internally while simply walking away.

Because I know my worth now and I took your snide comments and abuse out of respect before, but not now. Not after all of this. Not after the hurt and the back-stabbing.

But I am damn stoic and will never be anything but.

"But you, you're not allowed,
You're uninvited,
An unfortunate slight..."

You are not welcome here, like I have not been welcome during so many milestones and important things that have come since.

Uninvited.

An unfortunate slight.

But more than unfortunate - deliberate.

A deliberate slight.

"Like any uncharted territory,
I must seem greatly intriguing..."

I pushed back.

You're not used to that, are you?

The domineering force who was dictating how and who I could be.

"You need to stop smoking."

"You can't have a dog."

But no more.

I'll smoke as much and when I want.

How dare you scratch the dog you told me multiple times I wasn't allowed to have?

Like you have any say in my life then, now and forever.

"You speak of my love like
You have experienced love like mine before..."

You did not and you do not know what we had.

The narrative you have spun suits you but everyone knows the difference.

How dare you walk in here, penetrating my safe space, my home?

"But this is not allowed,
You're uninvited,
An unfortunate slight..."

Now it is another deliberate slight.

The ball is in my court.

You are the one uninvited.

And I hope you feel even a fraction of the sting that I have.

Given that you creep my blog, heed the message.

Tuesday's Gone

"Train roll on,
On down the line..."

Another day is nearly over. Another court date, another two month wait, another agonizing morning of sitting behind callousness and disregard while trying to keep it together.

I am blessed with the best friends.

Beth came with me this morning. She drove me, chatted with me, distracted me, loved me.

Last night Mel, Rhonda, John, Jon and Karen made sure I had a Xmas tree when I had said I wasn't feeling much like Xmas this year. I don't have any of my ornaments - any of those sentimental ornaments that mark so many moments that are now likely gone forever, no chance of getting them back, in a box with OUR tree ornaments - but they made sure I had something.

And I don't know how I would be here without any of them.

"Please take me far away..."

I would rather be anywhere than here.

I would rather be back on that beach in Jamaica where we made so many plans.

I would rather be back on the Fox Island Trail as we hiked it again, laughing about the first time we had tried, both of us too stubborn to turn back when the snow was at our waists.

I would rather be at The Bigs with wings and cider (only dry wings, Tex Mex, sauce on the side because you knew that trick from working there).

I would rather be on our couch with you on the other end, a book in both of our laps as we work our way through them, glancing up every now and then to blow a kiss or ask if the other is hungry.

I would rather be wherever you are.

"Now I feel the wind blow,
Outside my door..."

The snow is falling and I find it so hard to believe that there was so much sun, warmth, summer days, and you've missed them all.

You should have been here.

There should have been more days biking those trails together.

There should have been more fires on Topsail Beach.

There should have been a lot but it was all stolen.

"And I don't know,
Oh,
Where I'm going.
I just want to be
Left alone..."

It takes so much energy to just be now.

Just be.

I sit in silence a lot when I come home, those hourlong baths you never complained about, hours on the couch just staring into nothing.

Because nothing is what it feels like I have now.

I know I have Stanley, I have my family, I have my friends, I have this house -

But it feels like I have nothing.

"When this trains ends,
I'll try again..."

And I try.

I try every single day.

I get through it all, somehow, but every day seems to take something and I am not sure when there will be no more somethings left to take.

So much has changed.

There is an anxiousness now where the peace you brought me existed.

There is a brokenness where you made me feel whole.

There is a void in this world that was left when you were taken.

And none of it is ever coming back.

And the early darkness now feels fitting since the sun has not been able to penetrate any part of my life since that night.

"The train roll on,
Many miles from my home..."

Everything keeps rolling.

Except wherever I am.

I feel stuck.

It has almost been 8 months and the fatal blows feel as fresh as they did that night when I realized you weren't coming home anymore.

Home.

You were home and I am homesick.

"Well Tuesday you see,
Oh, she had to be free..."

I guess everything has to end and every life closes.

But not like this.

Not like that.

"Tuesday's gone,
With the wind..."

The winds howling down my chimney remind me that the seasons have changed and time has simply moved on without you.

I have not.

Though so much and so many move on without me.

Like I have never existed.

And that kind of hurt is not something I can even put into words.

I am just thankful for those who have stayed, though some who have left have broken my heart in ways that are indescribable, insurmountable and just damn cruel.

And I just know how angry you would be to see all of this now.

Creation of a narrative.

Erasure.

No consideration for destroying a heart and a life.

I hope they're all happy with what they have created.

But I guess that is just it, isn't it?

People will always look out for themselves and not care who they stomp to the death to do it.

It's cold now.

And you're missing it.

I know you hated the cold since your days in Fort McMurray.

"Tuesday's gone,
With the wind..."

Yet nothing can blow away this pain and how it feels to have every single aspect of life and future stripped, removed, broken.

Nothing.

But

"Somehow I got to carry on."

Somehow.

"Tuesday's gone,
With the wind.

My baby's gone,
With the wind..."

Let it Be.

It's cold tonight.

It's been cold for a few nights now.

And I wonder how seasons have gone - spring, summer and fall - and now we are back to the chill of when you died.

How has time gone so fast, yet felt like an eternity, and it is once again that damp cold that chills your bones?

Tonight I was driving home from hockey when "Let it Be" came on.

"And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree..."

I think we can all agree that time is fleeting.

That no matter what we do it ticks along, it flies, and it takes us with it.

"There will be an answer, let it be..."

An answer.

I don't think there will ever be an answer to the infinite questions I keep asking, over and over.

Why?

How?

Why you?

Why us?

Why this?

"For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see..."

Do you see?

Do you see how everything is moving along, the progress, the back steps, the things that have happened since you were taken?

Do you see me here now, alone, just trying to keep going like I know you would want me to?

Do you see the things I wonder about, the answers I don't have, the life we had planned snuffed out and the world somehow carrying on in its twisted way?

Do you see I am trying?

"There will be an answer, let it be..."

I wish there was an answer.

I wish my dreams weren't as upside down as they are, some where you are alive but we cannot see each other, others where things are as they were and the darkness has not set in.

"And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me..."

I keep trying to find that light.

I keep hoping there is something at the end of this tunnel - okay, "end" is not the right word since there will never be an end to this, despite the end to you here - but I keep trying to push toward something, anything.

It's just so damn hard without you here.

By now we would have been settling into our new house, yet here I am, settling into my house, without you.

And that just feels so damn wrong.

Stan is here.

I know we had said no more dogs but in some way I believe you sent him because you had always told me you knew how beagles healed my hurting heart.

I know you sent him and I thank you.

And I know you send the butterflies - the white butterflies that flutter outside the patio every morning when I have my coffee, every time Sheena and I are at the camper lighting a fire, every time I go to my car to go to work.

I know you send them.

Thank you.

"I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me..."

And I dreamed about my nan last night. Mother Mary. She and I were "fishing" on the hills like we did with my pop's bamboo poles (the "ponds" were craters of rocks that had settled after glaciers, and she told me the history of that). We fished and we talked and we walked.

And in the end I went back to my home on the hill and she left me, heart filled, with her usual quip of, "Nan's girl."

I hadn't dreamed of nan Street for so long.

I feel like my dreams are all over the place these days but nearly all have you in them. We are doing mundane things, living our mundane life together and I remember how good that mundane life felt.

I miss it so.

And yet something always happens in those dreams and you go away, I can't see you, but you always reassure me:

"Whisper words of wisdom, let it be..."

I'm trying, Brad.

I'm trying to let it all be now.

I'm trying to push forward into work and life and everything that now has to be done without you.

I am trying to push through the hurt, the immensurable amount of hurt from your loss and also what has come tied to that - the realization that there are no lengths others will not go to project hurt and to try and beat you down to make themselves feel good and righteous.

And, if that is what it takes to make them feel good in their silo, who am I to judge?

Who am I to expose that?

That has never been me.

I will always write from the heart and should that evoke negative emotions based on the actions of others that is not my burden to carry, nor am I responsible for the bridges I did not burn.

I hope, some day, in his own time, he looks for me and he knows how much he meant to me because he was your world too.

But, for now, here I am.

Christmas is coming.

You hated Christmas and we spoke these past couple of years about how maybe you should try to find joy in it for him. He is getting older and these are the memories he will have.

So we tried - wrapping the artwork as presents, you bringing that damn elf home, us just trying to make Christmas a little more enjoyable.

I hope it was.

I looked forward to our first Christmas in our new home - mom and dad spending it with us in town for the first time, our tree decorated in the window in that yellow house.

I won't be putting up a tree this year - I just can't.

And the thought of my first Christmas without you makes my chest so tight I wonder if a breath will fit.

But it will just be another thing I have to push through without you.

No Christmas parties and planning our outfits a month before, no new dresses, shirts and shoes. 

No Christmas.

"Let it be,
Let it be,
Let it be,
Let it be..."

I am trying to let it be but I hate what it has become.

And this life is not one I want nor the one I need.

But it is the one I have now and I guess that is that, really.

An outlier.

I miss our little family.

I miss Christmas shopping for everyone.

I miss...you.

But right now I have to take things day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, breath by breath.

And even none of that feels like the pathway through this.

I just. Don't. Know.

But, for now, I guess I have to listen to the lesson:

"Let it be..."

So I will.

But no part of me knows how to be without you.

And that might be the biggest lesson of this year at all.

32 weeks without you now.

32 weeks when I hadn't thought I could live beyond one.

Back then I wondered what it would look like now.

And it looks like this - pain, grief, tears, a brave face to get through work, hours on the ice, walks along the streets with Stan and tears in his fur as he learns about you.

That is what 32 weeks look like.

They look a hell of a lot like the others prior.

And my heart holds a weight that it cannot.

I guess the only thing I can do is keep moving forward.

"Shining on until tomorrow..."

Tomorrow will be here before I know it.

32 weeks and one day then.

And I just have no choice.

"Let it be..."

Vincent

"Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils.
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land..."

It was April.

We had met in a January, my eyes meeting his and wondering who this kind, gentle person was talking arena fries and how it was so good to meet me.

A Twitter message solidified it and this person who I was asking my friend Raylene about, who was just well spoken and adorable in both parts, was her former coworker.

I had never expected to see him again.

"I think you're my cyber crush."

And in my head I was thinking, "And I thought you were previously anonymous but here we are."

And so we talked, we met, we hit milestones, we made our family on music and love and everything that came before us.

And we made us.

It is kind of funny - 

After that encounter we talked for months because I was so guarded. He talked me through my first tattoo in Edmonton, talked me out of buying three pairs of leggings at Underarmour, talked me through a panic attack when I was stuck on the plane and was my comfort when I landed.

Always my comfort when I landed.

I had never landed at the airport again without meeting him at the bottom of the stairs with his hugs and kisses.

Until I did not.

"Barb, there is something wrong. Brad isn't here."

Whether that was landing from a bad day, landing from a manic episode, landing from a day or two or three in the doldrums, he was always there and he was always my comfort.

When I say he was always there when I landed since the first day we had met I do not simply mean at an airport.

Brad was always there when I landed.

There are a few things:

I have been on antidepressants for anxiety since I was 15. Do they help? I don't know. They don't take away the dream or the elephant on my chest but I wonder how it would be without them. Maybe it is time for a tweak.

He was there when I landed on amytriptaline after my accident and my right hand is a messy, ugly, demolished excuse that tries to hold a pen.

He was there when I was so tired I questioned myself and who, what I was. He was there. He made sure I did not close my eyes thinking that way.

And now he is gone.

Tomorrow I complete my sleeve.

And I look at how cold it has became and wonder how the seasons dare change without him. How did he miss all of that sun and summer? The windows of the house should have been open with music blaring, not me trying to find a house with windows to blare it from.

I have stared at this blank area for months now, thinking nothing felt worthy of occupying it and being the finality.

Finality.

That is not even a word my vocabulary recognizes but it one I must accept.

A couple of years ago I played Don LcClean's "Vincent" so much that when Brian Fallon released a powerful song of the same name Brad exclaimed, "THIS IS NOT THE SAME JESUS SONG, IS IT?!?"

It was not.

But at the same time I laughed at his knowing how Vincent spoke to me.

So, with this empty piece on my elbow, my sleeve already his memorial with his compass going his direction, his clock when he died, the replica candle from his sleeve, the anchor for him and for my dad - it needed one more meaningful piece.

Don McClean found it.

"A silver thorn on bloody rose..."

He laughed when I played it over and over and swore to him it was the poet in me who simply loved the words. And he would play it fifteen times in a row had I asked.

These little memories cut the soul.

They hurt.

"How you suffered for your sanity..."

I'm always suffering for my sanity but hey, Brad, I'm hanging on. It's all I have.

And I just picture us listening to this now, on our couch, Colton asleep, and us singing along.

And I promise you one thing,

"I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."

It wasn't, though.

Goodnight, love.

Starry, starry night.

Beautiful Trauma

"We were on fire,
I slashed your tires.
It's like we burn so bright, we burn out."

I remember when we had first met.

Well, I remember the before times.

"Hi, I think you're my cyber crush," you had said in a Twitter DM.

My response?

"Thanks, buddy!"

"I made you chase me,
I wasn't that friendly.
My love, my drug, we're fucked up..."

And I did.

I made you chase me.

I had been on my own for so long at that point, my heart torn and wounded and in no place to trust. You persisted. You messaged me every day, eventually me giving in and giving you my number and you texted me every morning, every afternoon, every night.

"'Cause I've been on the run so long, they can't find me,
You're waking up to remember I'm pretty,
And when the chemicals leave my body,
Yeah, they're gonna find me in a hotel lobby 'cause, tough..."

I had heard that word before: tough. There is a blog about it somewhere here in the archives. Tough. I had gotten sick of being called tough; just as sick as I am of hearing the word "resilient" these days. I had been told I was tough - how blows rained off me and I kept carrying on.

"Times they keep comin',
All night laughin' and fuckin'.
Some days like I'm barely breathing,
After we were high and the love dope died, it was you..."

We always think we know what love is. We think we have felt it, known it, in all of the messed up, broken up moments in time we thought were healthy relationships, all of the days we spent trying to convince ourselves that it was what we were supposed to do and maybe, just maybe, we had to suck it up.

But no matter what came before, after we had met that day, face-to-face, in the arena in Paradise, you and your shy smile not even telling me your name; me getting home to see a Twitter DM that said, "I guess I could have probably introduced myself."

"The pill I keep taking,
The nightmare I wake in,
There's nothing, no nothing, nothing but you..."

And there hasn't been anything but you since.

I dragged you out for months after that. I went to Edmonton. We talked every day. You kept messaging me on the day of my first tattoo asking if I was alright, telling me I would be hooked and I would not be able to stop looking at it because that is how you had felt. 

You showed up at the airport at 4 am to pick me up.

Oh, and on the tattoo, you were right.

You always knew how I would feel because we had always, somehow, felt the same way in different stages of our lives even though we did not know the other existed.

"My perfect rock bottom,
My beautiful trauma,
My love, my love, my drug,
Oh.
My love, my love, my drug, we're fucked up."

How did this all become so fucked up?

We both laid it out, didn't we? We made sure there were no secrets. We let it pour out of us both the night we took that drive to Bay Bulls in your car and you said I scared you and I told you that you scared me too. Neither of us thought we had wanted it until it was laid at our feet.

"You punched a hole in the wall and I framed it,
I wish I could feel things like you..."

You were always the one who laid your feelings out, me a locked down safe draped in concrete that you chipped away at and taught me it was okay to talk and let it out. Talk we did. There was nothing we could not talk about and I learned what was a healthy relationship, open lines of communication, and always going to bed in each other's arms.

Now:

"Everyone's chasing that holy feeling,
And if we don't stay lit, we'll blow out.
Blow out."

Holy.

I have never been religious, nor were you. But we both had family factions that were and we were respectful.

Now I see and feel things from holy people that make me question their foundations, how they can be so cruel while also pledging their allegiance to a book that says to love one another despite what may come.

Lying and weaponizing.

Just like that morning when the priest said, "God be with you," and me, shrouded in grief, locked eyes with him and simply said, "Fuck your god."

But I will keep us lit. I will not let them extinguish.

"'Cause we've been on the run so long, they can't find us.
Who's gonna have to die to remind us?
That it feels like we chose this blindly,
Now I'm gonna fuck up a hotel lobby..."

You.

You did not have to die to remind me but your death has reminded some who do not seem to be taking it well that you were my anchor. You were my life support. You were my life and I was yours, not to take a piece away from anyone else but to compliment.

Our life together was so beautiful.

But some need to write their own narratives, I guess.

Erasure for their own smeared picture, thinking everyone else is blind when they all see the hatred and the hurt caused.

"'Cause these tough times they keep coming,
Last night I might have messed it up again.
Some days like I'm barely breathing,
But after we were high and the love dope died, it was you..."

Always you.

And sometimes I mess up.

Sometimes I am told what I do or say is right or wrong. Navigating this complete rupture of the world is a near-impossible task and I do not have the toolkit.

My counselor told me this week she feels I am an anomaly - I do what she would normally tell others not to do, what she told me not to do until now - to not use energy reserves that do not exist in an attempt to forge ahead.

But she said she has realized I only function on doing; I cannot sit still and I must channel my emotions - hurt and anger - into trying to do some good.

But other times I simply carry my grief while screaming it wherever I go.

And that has made some uncomfortable.

"The pill I keep taking,
The nightmare I wake in.
There's nothing, no nothing, nothing but you..."

My house feels like a pharmacy now.

Take one in the morning, one in the afternoon and three in the evening.

Anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, pain management and sleep.

You.

My beautiful trauma.

And if I had to go back and do it all again, knowing how we physically ended, I would take all of the pain again for the love we had.

How someone can try to erase that, I will never know.

I loved you from the first time I met you, I loved you more when I had finally given in and I love you still. Nothing on this mortal coil will ever change that.

"My love,
My love, my drug,
Oh..."

"My name is Rosemary..."

"I heard you say you don't feel right,
Somethin' must've changed inside.
She said, I still love the bands and the boy down the street,
But everybody else gives me the creeps..."

I don't feel right.

I haven't felt right in a long time.

I tried to have a normal week with Stef but nothing was normal. Everything was pushingpushingpushing and just trying to smile and laugh through the hurt. And even Edmonton isn't the same anymore; even going to Montana for the first time and spending days shopping and laughing until the store staff were confused and just hugging and grabbing obnoxious shoes to buy weren't the same.

A Wednesday spa day to wash it all away.

And a message that had me in tears at 8 am and Stef so angry I had to beg her not to blow.

A narrative being spun.

"And there's a hole in you now,
Like the windshield was taken out.
And everybody's hurt, and mine ain't the worst,
But it's mine and I'm feelin' it now..."

No grief is bigger or smaller than another.

Every path is different.

And writing has always been therapeutic to me.

Mr. Broderick told me in grade 8 to never stop writing because he knew it was my outlet.

I have always felt if I do not let something out it becomes poison and it courses through my veins.

And if I choose to share that publicly, to share the ugliness and the hurt and the deception, then maybe it helps someone else who is caught under this shroud of pain and who has not found their words yet.

I know some of you have messaged me and I hear you.

If my words help then that is more than I can ask for.

"Sometimes I think it's haunted inside this house..."

I came home to a shattered glass on my counter.

The one thing in this house that meant the most to me.

And I broke.

The tears won't stop and I feel so much loss over and over again.

Thank you to Jeff who replaced it with another when he heard but it will never be the same.

Nothing will ever be the same.

"And I hear ya cryin' over the phone,
'Where have all the good times gone?'
Downing the glass of shouting matches,
Lost in the songs they don't write anymore..."

So I sit here.

And I turn on the music that has gotten me through since I was a child and my dad told me there is a song for everything. He was right. My dad raised me on music, movies and hockey. There is, indeed, a song for everything.

I was told not to write.

Not to share.

That it was wrong.

But I will not stop writing and I will not stop sharing.

I will not stop speaking truth.

If that truth hurts you then you maybe need to look inside and adjust the reasons why it hurts.

"It's all right, I ain't tryin' to bring you down tonight,
'Oh my, my, my, she says, I don't mind,
I'm just so tired of the empty sheets I sleep beside...'"

And I do not try to bring anybody down; I try to let it out. I try to release the hurt and the pressure, hit the valve that will put it out there in the hopes that someone else feels their pressure released too.

Because there are far too many of us.

"Heard you say it's gone all wrong,
Since when did the days and the nights get so long?
She said, I still miss the scene and the dying breed, but now I'd settle for some company..."

Company.

Barely anyone checks in anymore.

The girls still chat and I still talk to one of his friends and his wife who are such beautiful people who get it, but it is a damn lonely existence.

Company.

Sometimes it would be nice to know someone cares enough to come by.

"And there were things that I did, just so I could feel anything,
But somewhere along,
Something went off,
And I woke up with blood on my lips..."

Maybe there were times when I have said or written things many feel I should not have because they are private but they poured from my fingers.

"And yeah, and there were nights I just did whatever I liked..."

Trauma.

Hurt.

Trauma responses are weird and sometimes you wake up and wonder why you said or did a certain thing.

It is hard to understand that until you have experienced it.

But there are zero regrets.

It's called boundaries, building walls and deciding who deserves my energy rather than who can walk in, zap it for their own gain and walk away.

I refuse to be hurt anymore.

Will I ever be the same?

God no.

Nor would I expect to be.

And if you are hurt by my words about your own words or actions that is a you problem, not a me problem.

Find a lie.

If your words or actions evoke negative commentary that hurts you - maybe ask why that is.

I am now realizing my worth and that I do not have to take anyone bringing me down.

And nobody has the right to silence my voice or truth.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

"My name is Rosemary,
You'd be lucky to meet me..."

And I'll rely on my army. Always. It's bigger than some think.

"Someday they're gonna love me back to life..."

19th Nervous Breakdown

"You're the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs,
Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs.
Well, it seems to me that you have seen too much in too few years,
And though you've tried you just can't hide your eyes are edged with tears..."

I'm so tired.

Today I was at work, thinking constantly of those on the southwest coast who have dealt with so much devastation over the past few days, my heart breaking as we try to pursue all avenues and try to help.

Help.

That is all I have ever wanted to do.

I look at my own situation and decide that if nothing else I can put my energy into helping.

There are those who have helped me.

"You better stop, look around.
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes,
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown..."

And on top of it all the house renovations are behind after having to go to a second painter after dishing out money after money to the first without results.

Two weeks have turned to three weeks.

I have not slept in my bed since April.

I have not been able to wash my clothes since July 31st.

I have not had a microwave since July 31st.

And every day there are excuses and more reasons.

I am tired.

Then Stanley got out.

Someone came to buy the mattress set I was selling to try and make some money because I am drowningdrowningdrowning and after being told by my contractor, because I could not be home and was at work, that they needed to watch the dog they watched him slip by their legs and said nothing.

When they were leaving and he asked if anyone had seen the dog they said, non-chalantley, "Yeah he went outside earlier."

Panic.

Crying and driving home while I called Sheena who has saved my life so many times and somehow keeps her head about her as I lose it over and over and over.

Then a text telling me I should have been at home watching my dog.

Yes I should have been.

I should be a lot of things and I should do a lot of things but I am barely keeping my head above water and trying all I can with everything I can.

Another reminder that I am not enough.

"Oh, who's to blame, that girl's just insane,
Well nothing I do don't seem to work,
It only seems to make matters worse, oh please..."

I am really trying.

I am just not used to life being this way or being treated this way.

These past few weeks have been an inhumane practice of how humans can treat other humans.

I was never raised to treat people in that way so I have had no concept of how it is or how it feels.

I am just so, so tired.

And when the thought of Stan being lost or hurt enters my mind panic ensues and I feel like something bad is going to happen to him no matter how hard I try.

I should have been at home watching my dog.

And I feel inadequate.

Brad never made me feel that way.

For once in my life someone made me feel like enough.

And I feel like I am back to being a scrap of a human constantly clawing at every day, every thing to make it to the next day.

I cannot find a break and at this point I am not sure I deserve one.

"You were always spoiled with a thousand toys but still you cried all night..."

I have not been spoiled or privileged but I know I have not had it hard.

And so many more do now.

I just want to help.

As my own heart sinks further and further into its acceptance of whatever this life now is.

I just wish he was here.

I know these feelings would not exist if he was here.

And every day is another exercise in crawlingcrawlingcrawling and climbingclimbingclimbing as one step ahead equals two steps back.

I hate it here.

"Here it comes,
Here it comes..."

And I have no choice but to accept it.

"It's just your nineteenth nervous breakdown..."

I Coulda Been a Contender

His sister gets married tomorrow.

I remember the day we were on the back porch in the sun when he took the call and came back to say, "Jenine is engaged!"

We talked about our own wedding.

On our second night together he looked at me and said, "Will I have to get another wedding ring? I had a deadly wedding ring."

And ever since we were so excited to have him suited up in the wedding party and to celebrate her finding her love.

He was supposed to walk her down the aisle.

We talked about how he would be in the wedding party so I would watch Colton.

We were both so happy and we couldn't wait.

Now he won't be there.

And I won't be there.

No longer invited.

To say my heart broke over and over again is an understatement.

I cannot put into words what this feels like.

I have never felt so hurt in my whole life.

And let me tell you - 

I have experienced hurt.

I have experienced the worst that has left me down on my knees wondering why this was the hand I was dealt.

But not with Brad.

Brad made me feel loved.

Like I was enough.

That what I was was not an anomaly and it was okay.

He loved me for everything I was;

The broken, disregarded pieces of what I was.

He loved it all.

And I felt that.

I felt more confident than I ever had and for once I felt like I could be me, everyone else be damned.

"I ain't pageant material,

The only Crown is in my glass,

They won't be handin' me a sash..."

I'm so tired.

I'm sick of trying to keep peace and be the punching bag,

"And that's okay, cause there's no way,

You'll ever see me in a swimsuit on a stage..."

I just can't be quiet any more.

"I ain't exactly Ms. Congenial..."

I have never spoken up.

I could not.

I was not raised that way and respect was something that was always drilled into me no matter the situation.

Be the bigger person.

"Sometimes I talk before I think, I try to fake it but I can't,

I'd rather lose for what I am than win for what I ain't..."

But I'm done not being me and holding back.

I am not responsible for rebuilding the bridges I did not break.

I hope it is beautiful.

My heart is in a million pieces.

And I do not have the tools to even begin to stick handle this much hurt.

I am just here.

And tomorrow nothing changes for me but so many move on.

And it damn well hurts.

"It's heads or tails and heart attacks and broken dreams tonight..."

Dreams.

I keep having these dreams now.

One day I have a dream where Brad calls me and he is still alive, just horribly injured after the accident so he will not see anyone and just wants everyone to think he did not survive.

The second we are getting married on a Wednesday and I am going around preparing, getting things together, but telling everyone I am not sure he will go ahead with it because he is so injured after the accident and does not want to be seen.

I wake up thinking it is all okay and just a misunderstanding and I can call him now and at least we will talk even if I cannot see him.

I miss his voice.

There is an ad that plays on VOCM in the mornings when I am listening to Open Line that says the first thing you forget about someone is their voice.

It plays a voicemail over and over and over.

It is sponsored by MADD.

How fitting.

I listen to his voicemail over and over and over.

"This is Brad. I can't come to the phone right now."

And for a second I almost leave him a message like I used to, telling his to get his ass home because supper is waiting and I am waiting and I just want to kiss his face off.

And he would usually call the second he got it and say, "Hi there."

Hi.

"What are you doing?"

Missing you.

And I guess nothing has changed because in your absence I am missing you.

It is Wednesday.

You should be on a soccer executive board call if soccer is over.

Is it over now?

I don't even know.

If it isn't you would be driving back home with Colton and I would be asking you to pick a Hello Fresh meal and have it waiting when you got home.

I got a renewal request from Hello Fresh yesterday.

They can't understand why I canceled.

Because you died.

And I don't need to eat much anymore beyond something meagre to keep me alive.

My new appliances are sitting in the living room.

I know we would still be looking for people to help move them but we would be doing it together.

Trying to install the microwave together.

Picking out colours together.

Your sister is getting married this week.

You were going to walk her down the aisle because your dad can't but now you can't and I can't imagine how that feels.

I could not wait to see all of your friends and to have so much fun with you.

But now you won't be there and I won't be there because I'm no longer invited.

I think I have cried more this week than I have in a while.

They warn you about the secondary losses.

And I am just tired.

I sleep - medicated sleep - last night for 10 hours - but I am never rested.

How can I be rested when you were my restful place?

You were the place where I could be comfortable and know there was never anything you wanted me to change or anything you were not proud of.

I keep trying to make you proud but that is getting harder as my will gets lower.

I feel so tired and defeated.

I know grief comes in waves and this is likely just one more tsunami without a name that I must, as my dad would tell me he did with every boat in a storm, turn my back to it and jog it out, but sometimes it feels so overwhelming.

I miss you and I just don't know what to do about that.

So I will go now.

I will go, turn on the TV, cuddle with Stanley and tell him about you.

And I just wait for the quiet.

Where I can remember your voice and miss it and that smile you would give me every night as you said, "Nite nite."

"But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness,

Like a heartbeat, drives you mad.

In the stillness of remembering what you had.

And what you lost."

"A simple souvenir of someone's kill..."

"And I'm afraid
To sleep because of what haunts me..."

Night time was our time.

We were done with work, meetings, conference calls, board meetings, volunteer Zooms, soccer and hockey and the gym.

And we would collapse on our big teal couch to turn on the TV to some British murder mystery and laugh as we told each other about our day.

But now the night brings the end of the day's push push push and everything that acts as cement to keep me together and keeps me going.

"I awoke
Only to find my lungs empty
And through the night
So it seems I'm not breathing..."

And I wake up every morning trying to catch my breath.

I try to drag you from those dreams into my morning so you would be here again, snoring on your pillow as I roll over and hug you awake rather than me waking up, drenched and sweaty, holding your pillow that no doubt misses you like I do.

"And I'm afraid
To sleep because of what haunts me
Such as living with the uncertainty..."

I am.

I am afraid to sleep.

I am afraid you will not be there and that is the only reprieve I get from not having you on this earthly coil.

You are there most nights.

But the nights when you are not there I spend my dreaming hours looking, searching, wanting to find you.

"I'll never find the words to say
Which would completely explain
How I'm breaking down..."

Someone save my life tonight.

"Like the sea
I'm constantly changing from calm to hell..."

Anxiety holds my chest hostage to the point where I can never tell if I'm losing my breath, succumbing to anxiety or if it is a heart attack.

In my current state I expect the probability of each to be as equal as can be.

Tomorrow. 

"Someone come and
Someone come and save my life
Maybe I'll sleep when I am dead
But now it's like the night is taking sides
All the worries that occupy the back of my mind
Could it be? This misery will suffice..."

Maybe the misery will suffice.

Maybe it will be the fuel I need to keep going.

Maybe I need to just set myself to get wrecked by what this is going to take and take from the energy reserves that I do not have.

But I need to find them.

I need to replenish them.

I will be there.

And I will draw from depleted reserves to make sure I stand tall.

"Madness fills my heart and soul
As if the great divide could swallow me whole
Oh, how I'm breaking down..."

But I will break down in my own house.

I will remain and I will be strong.

I will see it out.

And I am ready.

"Despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came..."

Another week.

20 without you now.

Paint and plaster and picking colours while making sure at least one room is Dulux Dusky Dawn like your house was, wall to wall, ceiling to floor.

Dusky Dwan, you said.

Days moving on like nobody else in the world realizes it had stopped revolving when your breath stopped.

And I keep going.

"On the edges of the sharpest knives,

In the middle of the darkest nights,

Always knew that I would find you here,

In a puddle of the bravest tears..."

I keep trying to just push forward without you.

Drawing from energy reserves that do not exist while just trying to keep going going going.

You would have said I was crazy.

This decision to step forward was not easy.

Jokes of, "What else do I have to do now?"

Wanting to just do some good in this world that I can be taken from as instantly as you were.

"Above the crowd,

Feet dangling from a rooftop.

She waits from ledges

For a voice talk her down..."

I caught a glimpse of myself in an escalator at convention two weeks ago.

I asked myself who that was in the mirror.

I barely recognized myself yet could not remember a time when I was anything but whatever this shell is now.

"When faced with tragedy,

We come alive or come undone..."

I've made a decision, one that would have had you giving me that smirk of yours, telling me I'm crazy but that you believed in me.

One that would have had you shaking your head, laughing that hearty laugh when I told you and saying, "Of course you are."

I do not have expectations.

But I have seen what is possible and how glass ceilings can be shattered.

So I will try.

This is a heavy week.

Phone calls and campaigning and meetings and court dates.

Tomorrow I'm adopting Stanley.

I know we said no more dogs but I think you would like him.

He's gentle, he's loving and his life was turned upside down too.

"Find yourself before the sadness came," you said to her in a dream she had about you asking to give me my oversized red and black plaid jacket - my ass-kicking jacket - as you said you had to go now.

I wish you had never had to go.

But I will try.

I do not think I will ever find her again but I can try to find some version of her.

Tomorrow I will try to lace up my running shoes for the first time since you were stolen and instead of running away I will try to run head-first into it all.

"And sometimes you have to go back,

To know just where you have been..."

I will try to find her even though I know I cannot go back, no matter how hard I have tried and still try.

And I will keep trying to make you proud, to show you that maybe my crazy can pay off and I can make a bit of difference in this world - like you tried to do, every living day.

Nothing is the same without you here and it is not the space in this room that makes it so empty - it is the fact that you are not here to share it with me.

Dusky Dawn on the living room walls, your pinup on the wall that you had wanted so bad and I gave you that first Xmas.

Her fist clenched in a moment of power.

You said she reminded you of me.

I hope I can keep making you proud and keep breaking down walls.

"Nothing matters when the pain is all but gone,

When you are finally awake,

Despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came..."

And tomorrow will come.

One more day without you and one more day closer to 21 weeks.

And though I will never be the same again I just just promise you I will try to channel something of what I once was.

What you made me.

And I will carry you with me every step of the way.

I've Looked at Life From Both Sides Now

"Great, how are you?"

How easily those words trickle out in an automated response to the tens or hundreds of people who I cross paths with daily and who utter the simple question:

"How are you?"

"Happy Monday, how are you?"

"How was your weekend?"

Good, yours?

Except inside there is something clawing to get out that screams in a pitch that obviously cannot be heard,

"THIS IS HELL AND IT WAS HELL AND IT ALL WAS, ACTUALLY, FUCKING HELL."

I tone down the profanities and say,

"Dandy sure, how was yours?"

But yet, with every inquiry, every innocent, blase question asked more of obligation than actual interest, the response remains the same:

"Oh you know, the usual. You?"

Nobody in this club really ever responds with honesty.

Unless we are talking to the other figuratively and eternally black-shrouded members of the club who all try to carry on our daily lives as to not inconvenience anyone with our grief.

"What did you do this weekend?" is met with, "Oh, watched a movie, relaxed," instead of, "Wailed on the floor when it hit me that he would not be coming through the door after soccer practice and we wouldn't order sushi because we were both too tired to cook while also saying we should probably budget better and eat less takeout."

That's not been happening - kudos to Doordash.

Nobody replies with that.

Unless you're talking to your Soulless Sisters.

I sometimes blame the medications for how mechanical I have been.

Other times I blame dissociation and how I throw myself into work to try and keep my brain so busy that it does not have time to break down.

If something keeps moving at an unnecessary speed it will take longer for it to stop.

To Crash.

Just keep going.

Fuel it with Zoloft and see if it will run until it physically cannot anymore and just...

Stops.

Things moved so flawlessly with us.

A perfectly functioning machine; a beautiful tragedy in the end, really.

I have seen both sides of it all.

Black and white.

Never in the middle.

I think most of my life has always been that way.

16 weeks and one day.

Those are 16 weeks and one day more than I thought I could survive without you.

I do not know how the body and mind do but they have.

Busybusybusy until it breaks down.

I have been told by one of my Soulless Sisters that my break is coming, it just has not come yet.

But there have been many times I have thought I would break.

But yet I have not.

So I keep moving and going and breathing and existing.

How is tonight?

"Great. How is yours?"

Comfortably Numb

16 weeks.

16 weeks without you, without your smile, your laugh, your goodnight kisses, your "hi there" when you would call or come in the door.

16 weeks since I stepped into that house knowing it was my first time stepping in without you and that when I had left it was the last time I would see you.

That sidewalk outside of the airport.

Kisses.

"See you soon. I love you."

Paris-bound.

Not knowing how the last time really is the last time but we cannot have a concept of that when living in the now, can we?

We should have been getting back from Golden Sands this week.

Packing the bikes on the back of the car and laughing our whole way with Colton as he told us, "There are no rules in Marystown!"

5 nights in that small, stuffy cabin but there was nothing else on this earth more perfect than waking up there and heading to the beach with you both and spending the day in the sun and the water with wonderful, fun people.

I'm on autopilot now.

Work is insanely busy.

Stanley is here.

This house.

I joked to a friend that I feel like Noah from "The Notebook" with my plans for this house, stripping it and painting, rebuilding, buying artwork, making it ours in the hope you would come back like Noah did for Allie.

But you can't come back.

You said we needed to rid ourselves of the old artwork because it had been yours without me and now it was time to buy new, our artwork for our house.

Yet I still have it all.

Remnants of Christmas paper still taped to the back of the aluminum artwork that hung in the living room from when we wrapped it like a present, with a shiny silver bow, to decorate for Colton.

You had said you had never really loved Christmas.

But you did now and wanted to make it special.

Every Christmas with you was special and I dread the first one without you.

Our Christmas tree with ornaments from Fogo and Jamaica but the Eiffel Tower one from Paris will never make it there because it is sitting on your grave.

I dread everything without you.

Stef and Ryan are home and we should be heading out to stay with mom and dad as mom recovers from surgery, you helping dad fix the bird houses and yard, meeting Ryan and Stef for the first time like he had planned.

But I'll go alone now.

Well, not alone - Stanley is coming.

Your mom looked at my tattoos this week and said, "Don't put him all over you."

But you ARE all over me.

You are all over me without ink, without hours in that studio.

You are all over me and all through me, in every day and second, in everything I do.

Medicated autopilot.

I feel like someone standing outside my body, looking at this shell and propelling it forward to do tasks I have to do.

I forget what okay feels like and I forget what happiness feels like.

Now I just am.

When two RNC cruisers parked outside my yard last night I went back to those long hours waiting for one to show up and how it felt when it did, the sergeant coming through the door and the way her face dropped as she sat at the table, our table.

"Is he gone?"

She did not speak but her eyes - her eyes told me and us that you were.

And that was a hell nothing in this world could have prepared me for.

16 weeks.

Medications, broken sleep, paint colours and new appliances.

And you should be here.

Sometimes I go to my car and I scream as loud as I can and I scream about how unfair all of this is and how beautiful you were.

And then most times I sit and exist.

Blankly.

I wonder where I should put your Andy Worhol banana that sat so lovingly in the corner of the kitchen counter.

I wonder where I'll put our Sailor Danny prints you mistakenly ordered on paper instead of canvas and told me I was never allowed to let you order important things ever again.

I wonder where I'll put our "Brad & Dwan, Jamaica 2022" carving you asked me to pick and we stood holding hands as the rastafarian carved it by hand.

I wonder where I'll put my love for you.

I feel so medicated that I am mechanical, moving through motions and not knowing how to live this life without you.

In this house that your best friend's grandfather built that has the grey siding and black trim I always said I liked and you said it was beautiful but worried it would fade.

If there is anything I have learned from this hell on earth is that nothing fades.

The love I have for you certainly will not fade.

And I just wish, in some way, we had known and I could have told you everything you mean to me and how deeply I love you.

But we never really know when the last day may be.

And so, I exist.

I have become

Comfortably numb.

Lord Stanley

I was never really the same after my dogs died.

I lost Sid on Thanksgiving weekend in 2019.

Claude passed over Xmas in 2020.

My boys were my world.

For so long it was just me, Sid and Claude in our little apartment, making it day by day.

Their fur dried tears.

They listened intently, no matter what I said.

They were the gentlest, sweetest friends.

Sid was my best friend for 11 years.

Claude for 6 as he was a senior boy when he chose me.

Sid the Kid and the Frenchman.

Their names adorn the wall of the shelter that saved them and allowed me to have my life blessed with the two sweetest creatures to have ever lived.

 Brad was a dog lover.

Vinny came from the Rescue League in New Brunswick and he always called him his first child.

Where there was Brad there was Vinny; later, where there was Brad there was Vinny and where there was Brad there was me and where there was me there was Claude.

Brad was there when Claude took his last breath and, as the receptionist at the vet clinic said, "You'll have another, you have too much love to give not to," he laughed and said, "I'm hoping I can give her a place for that love now."

And he did.

Until he was taken away.

There is a saying that grief is love with no place to go.

And I believe that.

Two days ago I watched a video from the same shelter that had saved Sid and Claude - Beagle Paws.

Brad supported my love of beagles and Beagle Paws.

We fostered over snowstorms and he had asked just weeks before he was stolen if I would like to set up a monthly donation to support a senior beagle.

The seniors always had a place in both of our hearts.

At 3 minutes in there was a senior beagle who lifted his sleepy, silver head.

His name is Stanley.

Yesterday I went to meet Stanley and his little senior eyes held so much love.

Today I am Stanley's foster mom and he is snoring by my feet, cuddled on his new bed.

Later we'll have a nap, cuddle in some blankets like Sid, Claude and I loved to do and take a walk around our new neighbourhood.

Brad and I had said when Claude and Vinny passed there would not be more dogs.

Our hearts could not handle the loss and what it meant to say goodbye to your best friend.

I've said goodbye to my three best friends now.

But I don't think he would be upset that I made an exception to our rule.

Grief is love with no place to go.

There is a place for some of that love to go now.

No new home is complete without some beagle hair in it.

And I've achieved what every hockey player dreams of -

I've won the Stanley Pup!

Proof of Life

I got angry with Brad once.

It was that one time.

I was tired, sick, stressed and I came home from work to spill out a problem I just could not find the other side of.

"Well Dwan, you're just going to have to figure it out."

And I exploded.

I told him I shouldn't have to figure it out, that I felt like I have had to figure things out on my own for my entire life and I have always just had to find my own way, that now there were two of us and I just really needed help and for once I did not want to figure it out on my own.

He stood there, he listened.

And when I had expelled everything inside of me I cried.

He stepped forward, gave me one of his big hugs and said, "You're right. Lets figure it out."

And we did.

When we had figured it out he kissed me ever so gently and said, "I've always been proud of how you've always figured things out."

But we worked like a well-oiled machine.

Like everything we did, we talked it through and found the way to the other side.

It's why we worked.

We worked together.

And finally I did not have to figure things out on my own.

Then it was April 3rd.

The world came crashing down, the sun exploded, the stars ate themselves and the moon descended into nothing.

Just black.

And once again I found myself sitting, defeated, having to figure it out.

How can this happen?

How can life just go on now without him in it?

Doesn't the world know that it ended?

Why is it still turning and why is everyone just going on with life when life has ceased to exist?

How can anything go forward without him?

We had so many plans.

It was going to be a big week.

We were putting in an offer on that yellow house on Wells Crescent with the hot tub and pool, the big back deck where he could sun and I could drink wine in the hot tub while he told me how gross hot tubs are and I flicked water at him to tell him to just get in.

I can even hear him laugh when I would do things like that.

"You're bathing in your own filth, Dwan."

"But it feels so good though!"

We were going to get that bedroom set - I had finally given in to splurging on the expensive one.

I never splurged.

I had never owned new furniture.

But this was ours and new and everything was new even though we weren't new.

It's funny how every day those butterflies made it feel like it was all still new, though.

And he was going to get that big print that was hanging over the bedroom set when we looked at it because it was teal, orange and had a guitar.

It matched.

Like us.

And then I was in the darkness and having to figure it out.

I cried. I screamed. I bruised my already battered hand and was so angry.

I could no longer figure it out on my own because he was a part of me and now that entire part of my whole self was gone.

How?

Today I turned the key.

I stepped inside.

It's not our home, the yellow house on Wells Crescent, it's one of his best friend's grandparents' house from way back when he was little and I was little in a Cove 3.5 hours away and didn't know that other part of me yet existed.

Somehow I figured it out.

And though I know I'll never be whole again, I know I have no choice but to figure it out, even when I am, as my counselor said today, expelling energy I don't have because I keep push-push-pushing and keep trying to make an engine run when it is out of gas.

I figured it out, Brad.

It's not going to be easy, but I figured this part out.

I just hope you're still proud.

It's Gonna Rain All Day

It feels like it is raining even when the sun shines.

I saw a quote today:

“There are people whose death leaves you with an ache of grief. A slight sting. And then there are people whose death stops time. Deaths that leave the sky murky all day long because even the sun is grieving.” 

And I felt that.

He was my sunshine.

How he loved sunny days and I would come home to all of the windows and doors open, likely Oasis blaring from the Bose speaker and Brad dancing around the kitchen with a rare beer exclaiming how damn good it was to be alive.

I don't think anything will ever feel alive again.

My house is supposed to close on the 20th.

I'm packing.

Slowly.

His bodywash and shaving cream in a bag because I can't bare for the bathroom to not smell like it.

That expensive shampoo he didn't need but insisted on using is there too.

His raincoat is being packed because mine was in the car -

Too much blood so it had to be thrown away.

Today was a work day followed by 2.5 hours of counseling.

And I always leave there feeling worse than when I went in.

Wounds ripped open like a premature bandaid being torn away.

My heart hurts, figuratively and literally.

I keep feeling the pain and thinking it is going to get bigger until I realize I don't think that's possible.

Where do I pack the sympathy cards?

Where is his Hurley hat?

I have the shirt he wore on our first lunch date.

He was thinking of throwing that one out but I wouldn't let him.

White with navy flowers and it was very Brad.

"Hi there, how are you?"

Tonight I packed the cookbooks I bought at the Beagle Paws auction because I loved cooking for us.

I never got to open them.

All of this is so overwhelming and every night I think nothing can possibly hurt worse than today did but every morning I wake up and realize everything hurts deeper than it did the day before.

How?

How can anything possibly hurt more than yesterday did?

But it does.

Staring up at that bank on Pitts as I stop at the lights on my way home.

Knowing he died there alone.

I promised he would never be alone.

But he was.

I couldn't keep that promise.

There is no longer sunshine, no matter what the forecast says.

Everything is cold.

And it will never, ever stop raining.

"It's gonna rain all day,
It's gonna rain all day,
With the life that I have made here
All covered up in gray.

It's gonna rain all day..."

Goddamn Lonely Love

I remember when Brad and I had first met.

One night he looked at me and said, "I'm hard to love."

I told him I had been told the same.

So he laid himself bare with me.

Past.

Victories.

Mistakes.

Everything he felt he was.

Everything he regretted.

Bare bones.

Those beautiful, bare bones.

"I don't know why I feel I can push my boundaries with you.

You need to know it all."

So he told me.

And I told him.

I told him of my stubbornness.

How I knew what I wanted in life.

How everything has always been a battle but no matter what it took I would dig in and refuse to let go.

I'm rough.

And tumble.

While my friends are talking skin care routines I joke that mine consists of dipping my face underwater when I wash my hair.

I play hockey.

I smoke when I drink.

I love wine on the weekends (though no more...sleeping pills make me steer clear of that now).

How most of my best friends are guys.

There is always dirt under my fingernails.

I chew them.

I swear a lot.

I'll fight you when a Pens game is on.

I am fiercely loyal to those I love.

Though those people are few and far between.

I rarely trust.

I don't sleep.

And for so long I've felt so broken.

I had felt so broken that I could not love before.

I never could find the way to do it.

Nothing ever felt right though I went through the motions.

My heart has always been guarded by concrete walls and I could never figure out why everyone seemed capable of love but I could never feel that way.

Broken.

Like there were no parts of me that were not broken in my body and mind and nothing fit together to make a complete human capable of love.

And he understood it.

In him I found the part that brought all of those broken pieces into one complete whole and finally, just finally, the walls came down.

We never fought.

Don't get me wrong, we had disagreements.

But those resulted in one of us saying we needed to talk and when we did we laid out what was bothering us and asked how we could make a plan to fix it.

And we did.

There was nothing that could not be fixed.

We could ask if the other needed space.

We could ask if the other needed to talk.

We could ask if the other simply needed a long hug that would help the stresses of our busy week go away.

On the first night we spent together that's what he did.

We laid our wings on the table and he reached out for a long hug.

And we stayed there until everything melded together and was whole again.

We had both paid our dues and now it was time to know what it was like to find happiness and contentment.

We found it easily.

Not once did he ever say there was a single thing I needed to change.

For once, this person who wanted me in his life didn't want to change one single thing about me.

It was never about change, it was how we fit together and made it all work.

For the first time in my life I could be happy being me and never once did I feel inadequate, wrong or broken.

And every mistake he told me he made only made him the person he was and that was who I wanted.

We fit.

I'm really struggling with missing that piece.

The one that completed me and made me feel whole, loved, appreciated and like there wasn't a single thing wrong with me after all.

My broken brain, my broken spirit, all of the things I had always told were not who a woman should be - he made me feel like every one of those pieces was loved.

It's so lonely without him.

I am missing my glue.

My soul.

My heart.

And for those years, though fleeting, I had finally known who I was and was comfortable in that skin.

Now I don't know who I am anymore.

I'm a mess.

I put one foot in front of the other but nothing goes forward.

Everything is stuck.

And I miss that feeling of acceptance and love.

He may have laid all of those past mistakes on the table and he may have also felt broken and hard to love.

But loving him was the easiest thing I have ever had to do.

Resilient.

 I heard it again tonight.

A ding off the wrist that would have likely gone into the net.

Vein swelling, wrist blue.

"I would have gone off to the bench and said, 'See ya b'ys!'"

Resilient.

I've heard that word a lot over the years.

And I wish to never hear that word again.

Resilient.

I've worked so hard.

I've done nothing but and yet, this.

This is my life now.

This, though not to this magnitude, has always been my life.

Nothing I touch turns to gold.

Everything I touch turns to shit.

And no matter how hard I work and no matter how hard I try the reward is this.

I never wish to hear that word again.

Resilient.

For once in my life I would like to be known for something other than how well I take a hit.

Tomorrow, Wendy.

Tomorrow.

It's 8:30 pm. That means I turn on the hockey game until I fall asleep but not before I think about tomorrow.

Every day becomes a task of how to spend tomorrow.

I never used to worry about tomorrow and always tried to live in the now. We were planners but today was always the most important day.

"It is what it is, Dwan," if tomorrow felt like a day where the other shoe would drop.

I thought I had worries then.

Never worry about tomorrow, we had said.

Worry about what today brings.

But that all changed when the Sergeant came to the door and the chasm in my chest got ripped open.

"It is complete now,
Two ends of time are neatly tied.
A one way street,
She's walking to the end of the line.
And there she meets
Faces she keeps in her heart and mind
They say,
Goodbye..."

Now tomorrow has become the biggest worry.

Will I be able to sleep to noon so at least those hours are taken up and aren't more hours and minutes and seconds of the fire in my chest that feels like it is trying to burn this house down but no matter how many matches and how much fuel get thrown on it my body just won't burn down?

Everyone means well.

I wound up on a Zoom call the other night with 14 other widows.

And they talked about faith, heaven and god.

I don't know why all of that is so triggering for me now.

I'm not religious, nor have I ever been.

I know there is no god.

Yet the simple mention sets me into a rage.

"I told the priest,
Don't count on any second coming.
God got his ass kicked the first time
He came down here slumming.
He had the balls to come,
The gall to die and then forgive us.
No, I don't wonder why,
I wonder what he thought it would get us?"

I've seen enough suffering and loss in the world that no concept of a higher power would ever let it happen with a conscience.

Oh, but that's not god, right? That's the devil.

Your concept of god can't even take accountability.

That doesn't fly here, anymore.

No pun intended.

Religion has become yet another trigger to throw on the list that never affected me in the least and I could let folks carry on and have their faith while going on about my day.

No more.

"Only god says jump,
But I set the time,
'cause if he ever saw it
It was through these eyes of mine.
And if he ever suffered,
It was me who did his crying..."

And I hate that.

I hate that I can't help but be enraged now by anyone who holds on to their faith and the belief that anything good happens in this life or after it.

There's not much of a happening scene in the cold, cold ground.

So, tomorrow.

"Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone."

No shit.

Every day now becomes a day of looking to tomorrow - not because it holds some promise or anything even hopeful; tomorrow is now just another day to go through the motions until it's time to shovel prescriptions into my mouth to bring sleep and wake up in another pile of sweat.

The only looking forward I do now is to try and get to things to distract me.

A haircut on Wednesday.

A hockey tournament starting Wednesday.

A meeting on Thursday.

Hockey until Saturday.

The after party of our tournament.

Then...what?

Group therapy on Monday.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Life is happening but it isn't living.

I spent Friday to Sunday at a cabin with a few of my best guy friends.

We fished, drank beer, talked, laughed and I felt like 15 year old me. She's the last version of me before Brad who I remember being happy. It was nostalgia, it was friendship and it was simple.

Tonight I spent the last day of the long weekend with two amazing widows and their friend.

"The Soulless Sisters."

I love them already and know we are going to be great friends.

I feel we are great friends.

I hate that we had to meet like this.

It's so hard to see any beauty in any part of the day now, even when weekends are long and bring what should be joyful, beautiful times.

I guess, as Tom Petty said, "Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks."

It's too bad every day has lost its shine now.

So, I'll go watch hockey.

I'll wait for medicated sleep.

And wake up tomorrow.

And miss how the shimmer on every day was buffed off the day his heart stopped beating.

Because mine did too.

Four Days

For four days things almost felt normal.

While there were some initial hugs and sentiments, things almost felt normal.

"I'm not going to say anything to you, just hug you."

And it was comforting to not be greeted with eyes of pity or platitudes of, "You'll get through it," "He's in a better place," or, a personal favourite, "I'm sorry for your loss."

Instead, it was like any other hockey tournament. 

This one was special, though.

The largest women's tournament and an arena full of the faces I've gotten to know since I laced up my hockey skates for the first time 6 years ago.

For four days we played hockey, laughed and joked in the dressing room, cheered each other on.

But when my eyes went to the stands I could see spouses, kids and families of other players roaring and hollering, rushing down to meet them after the game or giving an encouraging hug or kiss before they hit the ice.

And he wasn't there.

Those were the moments when I knew not a damn thing was normal.

The garage door wasn't open when I got home, waiting for my hockey equipment to be thrown in.

Brad wasn't sitting at the table on a late meeting giving me his smile and little wave as he chatted away on Zoom.

There was no waving Hello Fresh cards to let him choose what I should cook.

And no laying in the bathtub to soak sore muscles after the game and hear him start to strum his guitar in the kitchen.

"Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to..."

No texting him from the tub to tell him how my favourite part of a bath is hearing him play while I just close my eyes and lay back.

Instead the garage door was down, the lights were off and the house was silent.

No Vinny running to meet me at the door

And I remembered again that nothing is normal.

So I would just get in my (his) comfy clothes and sit in my corner of the couch while his stays vacant.

6 weeks.

How in the hell has it been 6 weeks?

6 weeks and I still expect to hear him call from somewhere else in the house or the yard asking if I know where something is and of course I know, so I grab it and walk to where he is, hand it to him and he always says, "That's my girl. Keeps me straight."

I can't even keep myself straight anymore.

I stay up all night wishing I could sleep and when sleep finally happens I just wish I wouldn't wake up and this would all go away.

I spend nights now on online support groups, Zoom calls with others who have lost their loves and I listen as people talk about their preparations and goodbyes while watching someone fade away.

I didn't get that.

He didn't fade; he was snuffed out.

Gone.

Stolen.

We were robbed.

I've found a house I like.

And I fully expect it will not work out because why would it?

Why would that work out when my entire life has always been periods of hope and ruin?

It just feels so wrong that the world continues and people keep strolling around Walmart doing their thing while I'm frozen in an aisle trying not to break down because he loved those spicy pistachios.

The visits have stopped.

My friends are all buying houses and getting engaged or married and adopting pets and going to events and galas.

I'm just here.

Don't get me wrong - I have an extensive support system and more people behind me than I ever thought possible.

But I've never felt so alone.

People say to let them know if I need anything but there's one thing I need and he was stolen violently.

When I stand outside the garage now I realize that if I had been standing in that spot that night I would have heard the crash.

It's so quiet out here.

I wonder how many people were out looking at the stars in the quiet of this neighbourhood like we often did in the nighttime and heard him die?

How many heard the sound of impact and wondered what it was before going back in to continue their night while our night and world came to a crashing halt?

I had counseling again today.

And while crying and going on and on to an independent third party without skin in the game releases the pressure the rot at the bottom of the tank is still there.

My counselor asked if I had tried meditation.

How can I try meditation when my brain has never stopped going 200 mph since the day I was born and is constantly in overdrive?

Brad was like that and we understood each other.

It took me so long to love and find myself.

I had never been truly happy until he walked into my life and someone understood me, I understood him and we knew exactly how to make all of the broken parts in both of us fit together.

We just worked.

I was happy.

And now I don't know who I am anymore.

I have to re-invent whatever and whoever I am to match the hell of these circumstances.

My partner is dead.

My dogs are dead.

I'm still just here and the vessel I call a body is so empty and vacant now.

The only thing that lives inside is that burning in my chest that feels like any day it will just rip open but it's okay, there's nothing inside to spill out.

There's nothing left.

And I just keep asking why he had to be taken like that.

One swift second.

No time to even tell him how happy he made me, how I appreciated every little thing, how I loved every part of him, even the parts he would say he didn't love himself.

I will always feel like I didn't tell him those things enough as we hustled through work days and board meetings and errands and groceries and all of those little things you do just to try and play your part in this world.

And in all of those things and in between there was love.

So much love.

He used to tell me he knew.

I knew too.

But I'll always wish I had that one last moment to make sure he knew the extent and depth of it all.

I'm so tired.

The sun will soon go down again and I'll go curl up on my end of the couch as always and his will be empty again.

Maybe I'll throw on that Growlers scarf I gave him for Xmas that he loved so much and watch the game.

I don't know much anymore.

But I do know with confidence that this living is hell, this pain feels like it could just consume from the inside out.

For four days things almost felt normal.

And then I was reminded that nothing will ever be that normal I knew, ever again.

The Ditch

 "'Cause I shake shake shake shake alone,
I'm shaking every night and day.
Will my shake, shake, shaking ever go away?"

Lawyers and house showings and appointments and waiting and waiting and waiting.

Every day now feels like the one before where I wake up and talk myself through the simplest tasks.

"Drink some water.

Brush your teeth.

You need your mouse at the office.

Put on deoderant.

Change your shirt.

The pants can stay because they're his and comfy.

Now:

Write that email.

Send in that document.

Call Dr. Parsons and tell him the prescription didn't work.

Counseling is at 5.

Check to make sure the door is shut behind you.

Check again."

And off we go.

The housing market is crazy.

Right on time.

Today I looked at a house.

Not our house on Wells Crescent with the hot tub and pool and all of those rooms we said had to be painted new colours to make it our home.

Nope, this one is in Kilbride.

Slanted floor, scratched cabinets, flooring needing replaced, two decks needing replacement.

I don't know whether to cry or laugh but both seem to come at the same time.

We were so happy and had everything laid out.

The new bedroom set would come first and then we'd move it into the new house.

We're both planners.

But life doesn't give a fuck about your plans or lists or timelines.

It's easier for it to step in and burn it all to the ground in one split second.

What can you even do when you're doing as much or more than is physically and mentally possible but the ditch keeps getting deeper?

"If I can't make it out of this ditch,
I better make a home of it.
If I can't get down off this ledge,
I better make a home of it..."

Thanks for the advice, Dave Hause.

Don't mind if I do.