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.