Thinking out loud.

If there is anything I could be accused of and humbly agree with, it is, and has always been, overthinking. For far too long I have spent days and nights in my own head, sleepless, with all of those open-ended questions.

There is that ADHD fun thing where the wheels keep spinning like an out of control ferris wheel that sometimes loses its footing and spins off into the sunset, on fire.

I have always been somewhat good at calming the wildness of my brain. If anything, I have handled catastrophe with a sense of Zen that rivals Buddha.

But it is when the day winds down and the calmness sets in that the voice in my head says, 

" HEY YOU! LET'S SIT AND REVIEW EVERYTHING YOU'VE SAID, DONE AND FAILED AT TODAY, YESTERDAY, LAST WEEK AND TWENTY YEARS AGO!"

I know I am not alone.

You know, had someone asked me to draft a 2024 bingo card when this year turned the page on the calendar I think I would have failed miserably.

This year rolled in quietly, forlornly, dismally.

How could it have been any different, really?

But oh, how the tide changed.

And these days I sit, look around at the changes that are still chaos, a whirlwind, and ask how this is my life - in a much different light than I had asked the same question for so long.

Last night, floating on the bay, on water like glass, looking out across the bay and taking in the evening, I looked over - memorizing every detail of his face as he looked over the same bay and was reminded that so much of where I am, this year and this life, are because of his kindness and love.

"And, darling, I will be loving you

'Til we're 70.

And, baby, my heart could still fall as hard
At 23..."

You often hear about how love feels and what it is. But what about when you realize that it has taken devastation, tragedy, the deepest hurt and damage to finally bring it into your life?

That love.

"And I'm thinking 'bout how

People fall in love in mysterious ways.

Maybe just the touch of a hand..."

There is love - hell, I tell my friends and family I love them daily - but then there is that love.

The one that comes naturally and develops in a way you did not expect but you realize was inevitable.

And I overthink now - but I think of all of the good things in my life now, the good things to come, all of the hope, promise, happiness and growth that is to happen.

And there he is in every single moment. From the first text of the day, his voice, his smile, his laugh, jokes, hockey, life in general, the pure, true happiness - I think of it all of the time. 

And when things are difficult he is the steady hand, the voice of reason, the sounding board that always has the best advice and helps. He just helps.

He has always helped.

"Well, me, I fall in love with you every single day,

And I just wanna tell you I am..."

Every day. Just when I think I cannot love him more it is a simple word, a look, a smile that opens my shuttered heart just one more notch.

'"Cause, honey, your soul

Could never grow old,

It's evergreen..."

From the first day we met he was the kindest soul I had known. Never in a million years did I ever think we would be here.

"And, baby, your smile's forever in my mind

And memory..."

That smile. That smile can turn around my worst day, my worst moment.

"I'm thinking 'bout how

People fall in love in mysterious ways,

And maybe it's all part of a plan.

Well, I'll just keep on making the same mistakes,

Hoping that you'll understand..."

Mysterious ways, indeed.

And the more my overthinking brain thinks, the more I see how much had to align for us to spend those nights talking, to be so comfortable together, to build that foundation of friendship and trust that is so, so important.

And how we both could have let everything that was falling around us take us out rather than thrive in the rubble of it all.

"That, baby, now,

Take me into your loving arms,

Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars,

Place your head on my beating heart..."

But we did not.

And now, now I feel invincible. No longer does my brain funnel through everything I have done wrong or said wrong or failed at - now it cycles through the happiness, the fun, how fortunate I am, just how great things have happened and continue to happen.

How I can handle whatever life throws at me because I have survived, but I have only done so with him at my side and holding me up when I felt weak.

He has held me up for longer than both of us could have realized.

And I will always be grateful for that. 

He makes me the best version of myself. The best. The strongest. The happiest.

Who knew he was right there all along?

My friend, my goalie, my confidante.

That love.

"I'm thinking out loud

And maybe we found love right where we are..."

Now that I've found you

Hello again, hive.

I know, I know.

I hit my writing vibe and stride once again and then I disappear.

Well, as I am sure most of you know, a lot has happened.

The days since July 25th have been an absolute whirlwind. I have not blogged about it but I have posted and expressed my utmost gratitude to our membership for putting their faith behind me to lead our Union into the future and to fix the wrongs, finally.

I am not sure I have come to terms with it, still.

But I am forever grateful.

I am grateful for those who helped me during my campaign, those who have always stood by me and helped, those who have taught me many lessons in this industry, and those who marked their X next to my name whether they knew me or had worked with me in these last 10 years.

So grateful.

These last 2.5 years have been utter misery but, I will be the first to admit, out of great tragedy is often forged a newfound hardiness, an armour, an ability to take a bullet and ask this universe, "Is that all you have?"

And, finally, though I had felt so defeated not so long ago and felt like all I had worked for and built up to then was for naught, there came a time a few short months ago when I woke up and realized the old person I had been was now dead.

And that was a good thing.

Who emerged out of that haze of smoke and debris was someone who could take a punch and still be left standing.

And at the same time, there he came.

"I'll take an ocean in my stride,
Steal the stars and hitch a ride,
To your door..."

I look back on what were 42 years of my life now, years of necessity and hard work, years of creation, destruction and rebuilding, and I ask how I ever did any of it without him.

Though I truly believe life is all a matter of timing and circumstance.

"And time builds a bridge through our bloodlines,
From the roots, we'll watch love rise,
Heaven knows how it grows..."

And it did.

Out of friendship, hardship, leaning on each other, life circumstance and learning to live again.

I realize now how much I have always cared about him and how important he was to me. Always genuine, caring, honest, open, a safe place.

Always.

And how I had always wanted to be the same for him, though back then he was just the beautiful friend with the kind heart who I felt so lucky to have in my life.

"I'll be branch that breaks your fall,
If you need me, make the call
I'll be there..."

I remember thinking one night how lucky the woman would be who got to love him. Never once did I think it could ever be me.

But here we are, and my life, the life that has come out of the damage and destruction, is more than I could have ever hoped or wished for.

Watching our favourite musicians, laughing, smiling, work dinners, phone calls, texts through the day and night, sleepy wake ups and shooting shit over breakfast - the things I never thought I would do.

I will not say "again," because these are things I never did. This has been, and continues to be, such an incredible thing.

And I am still in awe at every day.

"And I know it's late for lullabies,
But the future's yours and mine,
Now and for evermore..."

I find myself looking into the future now, each and every day, at what we have to look forward to - the exciting, the wild, also the mundane.

And every single day holds so much promise and growth.

My life - this collection of remnants of the before - is not the dread and lack of future I had anticipated; it is a timeline of promise, of beauty, of excitement - of love.

To resort to an old cliche, maybe love truly does set us free.

"Now that I've found you,
Now that I've found you,
I won't let go..."

I won't. There are days when I just cannot hold him tight enough because I know how lucky I am, how rare he is, how easily those special people can be ripped from your life in one fell swoop.

And so I hope I can show him every single day how much he is loved and appreciated for everything he is and everything he does.

"Let my love surround you,
Now that I've found you,
I can lay down with my ghost..."

The ghost of that person who I was.

I can finally be at peace with her, now.

I am not dismissing who she was or the work she put in.

But I love who I am now and what my life is.

Here we go.

"Now that I've found you, don't go..."

Coming home.

Our province was built, and continues to exist, on the fishery.

Whether you live in Leading Tickles, Ramea or St. John's you are connected and the lifeblood that runs through the fabric of your community, and the economic survival of your community revolves and depends on the vast ocean resources we have as well as the hard work of those who put their lives and safety on the line to and raw material to the wharves.

On Thursday evening, as I sat here in this exact spot at the table, hammering out words on a blank page, my phone buzzed:

"Glenn's boat is missing."

And the terror, the anxiousness, the shaking hands and tightness in the throat felt by anyone who knows someone who puts their life on the line in this industry when they hear those words, sank in.

The familiar dread felt in 2001 when the phone rang and Peggy Lee said, "Darrell isn't home." And just like that two friends and their dad vanished into thin air like they had never existed on the vast expanse of Bonavista Bay.

The horror of the phone call in 2004 when dad turned back to the supper table and said, "The Ryans are in trouble off the Cape." And the next morning surveying the rubble on the beach that was left of a vessel that, when seen weeks earlier, seemed beautiful and invincible. Two men gone.

The anxiousness with another call in 2005 that gave the same story, as the Melina and Keith II went down, the unforgiving ocean swallowing four men so close to home.

All too familiar.

As the daughter of a fish harvester there is not one day when he goes to work that you are not aware that the phone may ring and this time it is not someone else who has been thrust into the waves.

It may not be another family sitting vigil and hoping against the odds that are undoubtedly stacked against any human who battles nature.

That on the other end of the phone there might be someone telling you there is no contact with the people most important to you on a vessel that, tied to the wharf, looms over her berth.

Yet, still not invincible to the force that is the Atlantic ocean.

Being fortunate to work with harvesters in the industry that has filled my heart and soul since the day I was born, and realized that everything we had came from the sea, unfortunately also comes with the tragedy and loss caused by the unforgiving sea.

So we sat vigil as a Union, as an industry, as a province, as the children and relatives and friends of fish harvesters.

The conversations were grim.

Videos and pictures were shared of young men singing and laughing on the deck of the vessel, working hardily as boxes of turbot sat around them.

"As they steam up the harbour,
You can see their masthead light..."

But there was no light.

There was no mayday.

No communication.

No sign.

Family members begged for dad, son, friend to come home; for captain Carter to bring them home as they knew he was capable.

Nearly every conversation had brought some mention of how dire each passing minute and second looked as there was no communication from the Elite Navigator.

And last night, into the early morning hours that I know everyone has spent awake since hearing the first reports, while chatting about diminishing hope, I opened Facebook and the first message I saw was, "All seven on the Navigator r safe."

Safe.

For moments I know everyone who saw that post sat in silence, shock, dismay.

Good news is not often heard in our industry when such tragedies strike.

Safe.

And since that moment small details have trickled in of a faint handheld red flare seen by the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Teleost who was then able to reach the life raft and bring all seven to safety.

Bravo Zulu.

This industry is full of disaster, heartbreak, and every ounce of anxiety and worry when a vessel is known to be in distress or overdue is felt in the souls of every person in this province.

We are the fishery.

Captain Carter brought his men home and the scene on the wharf in Valleyfield this afternoon will be one the ocean has stolen from so many - but the crew of the Elite Navigator are coming home.

Dads, sons, brothers, friends, are coming home.

And I know last evening the entire province breathed a united sigh of relief as the news circulated. The radio recording from the Placentia Coast Guard will never not give us chills and remind us that the ocean is unforgiving but unites us all, while reminding all of us that next time it could be us.

It will never be you until it is.

To the families and friends of the crew - I hope you could feel the arms of an entire province and industry around you as you waited with bated breath and dread.

Welcome home, boys.

"With their hardy crews and captains,
They're the finest fishermen.
And the girls are all excited,
The longliners are coming in..."

Drive On.

In those first days, when everything was filtered through a lens of intense grief thicker than any shitty Instagram filter, I could not see anything past that exact moment.

No month later.

No six months later.

No five days later.

No later.

And as we filled the Rock House to Dave Whitty, Nick Earle and then the always incredible Matt Mays I still could not see tomorrow.

Matt belted out his usual hits and, like he had been able to hear me the day prior when I said into the empty car, "If he plays 'Drive On' I don't know how I'll get through it," the familiar chords came.

I will never forgot that moment.

Because, in that moment, he looked at me and sang directly, his words gentle but strong:

"There's no fear of losing,
The horizon holds the winning hand.
The rear view plays a movie
You never gotta see again..."

And later that night when I got the opportunity to talk to him, one-on-one, he said he did sing it directly and to me and hoped I would carry the message and live by it into the next days:

"Everybody seems to want the same thing,
Blinded by the light of a diamond ring.
Well look at you you've got too much to prove,
Too many songs to sing..."

There have been many song sang since.

A lot of laters that I did not anticipate, a lot of those movies in the rear view that I would argue I do have to sometimes see and mostly when I need a reminder.

It can be hard to even know where you are if you cannot see where you have come from, come back from.

And some of those rear view movies will keep repeating over and over because PTSD is a bitch and there is not much that can be done abut that other than to turn down the volume.

"There would be no good sunsets
If it wasn't for the rain.
You can't have true love
Without pain..."

There will always be pain, that ache that is chronic and only exists in those who know what it feels like to have your heart ripped out of your chest and be left with a gaping, open, empty chasm.

It is like the ache in that bone you broke when you were rolling down the hill at age six and now, 36 years later you know when it is about to rain.

Dull, deep, faint but there.

"So you drive a little faster,
'Cause you don't even have a place to go.
You breathe a quiet Hallelujah,
And let it all fall..."

But, I have learned it is possible to live both with that ache and to harness it; to carry it but also use loss and grief as a driver to ensure what you do have - these new, good sunsets - are appreciated and never taken for granted.

Sunrises, sunsets and all of the days to come are visible now - all of the things that seemed so impossible, out of reach - the "never agains."

There are still never agains - but that is okay. There are now soons, eventuallys and whens.

And all of those nevers I declared so defiantly have shrunken into maybes.

With one big change of mind and heart.

"Organically," he said when describing how it grew.

I like that.

Beautifully, as well.

Beauty out of destruction and devastation.

So many songs to sing, right, Matt?

"So drive on into the moonless night,
And just for a second everything is alright.
Drive on and give it all away,
You've got to trust yourself..."

And, for the first time in a long time I trusted myself and I am so, so thankful I did.

Because these last few months and the days, months, years, every single second left to come indicate something great; something grown from the devastation left by others.

"Let yourself turn into something else,
Feel yourself fall into the great white open..."

I am liking who I feel I have, and am, turning into.

I love the person he makes me feel I am and can be.

I am glad I shook away the nevers.

So, as I sit here watching the clouds darken the room, eyes open and the chasm in my chest a little more fuller every day, thanks Matt.

Thanks for the advice and the lessons.

And I will continue to do exactly that.

Drive on.

The Story.

"All of these lines across my face,
Tell you the story of who I am..."

I am alive again.

Aware.

It is funny how one minute you can be in a hole, wondering if you simply have to accept and take up residency in the ditch, and the next there is so much light and things are not quite so dire.

Sitting in this airport in Charlottetown after a morning where I was engaged, laughing with colleagues and for once seeing everything basked in the sunshine, I realize how long it has been since I have truly felt like a living being.

These past two and a half years (well, two years and three months if we are being exact) have been torture.

Hellish.

I have simply existed.

I have woken, breathed, worked, carried myself through - but not lived.

It sure is something to wake every morning and the only thought in your head is getting through to go to sleep and do it all again tomorrow.

And for two years and god knows how many days, that is what I did.

Everything in splinters.

"But these stories don't mean anything,
If you've got no one to tell them to,
It's true..."

I have said for many years that hockey is therapy, hockey has saved me and without my hockey family I do not know how I would have pushed through so much.

And so, how fitting that it is hockey that has brought me the reason to live again?

The reason to breathe?

The reason to find myself daydreaming while looking at a picture and getting absolutely lost in the happiness and absolute ridiculousness that has brought me, us, here?

It sure is something, that fate.

It is quite a feeling when you emerge from the wreckage of what was your life and survey the landscape that is left.

"You see the smile that's on my mouth,
It's hiding the words that don't come out..."

For so long I stared at the rubble and did not have the energy to drag myself, my way, through it in an attempt to find whatever was on the other side.

For so long I did not want to.

To be honest, it is very easy to sit amongst the damage and just be.

The difficulty lies in movement -

Movement forward.

Movement progresses and movement leaves something behind.

I did not, do not, want to leave my previous life behind.

But, I have realized that I can move and carry it with me, like callouses and scars, evidence of hard work.

And I will not leave it all behind - I will leave claw marks on it all as I go.

Because, as difficult as it all has been, as hellish and cruel as this life and world are, it all has made me - this.

And my god if I am not feeling damn good about moving into this next phase of this living.

With him.

He who accepts all of my scars and complications. I find all of his beautiful, too.

And though there are times when I look at myself and wonder how and why anyone would ever want to crack me open and see what I am, who I am, exactly what has poisoned everything for me to the point where I never felt I would live again - I am accepting that this beautiful soul has done just that.

And he is still around despite knowing and seeing the ugliness of it all.

Every time I take a breath now I am more conscious than ever that I am alive and there is more to every day than just making it to the time to close my eyes.

"And it's true,
That I was made for you..."

I'm here.

It has been a while, hive.

The therapeutic space where I could write, open my wounds and let them bleed, became a target, as most things do these days.

And so I bled in silence, for the most part of the past year or more.

Thank you to everyone who continued to reach out. Your messages always let me know that in the dismal reality that is every day on this cesspool we call social media there also exist many lights who shine through the cracks and keep breath in struggling lungs, at times when we feel like we are drowning.

So, here I am again -

Eyes open, wounds cauterized, a semblance of the person I used to be but, given what I know now about grief, loss, recovery and love - I do not want the person I was back.

And I am beginning to love who the woman is who emerged from the rubble, the one who was collateral damage.

"Nothing is the same, everything is a better change,
Sometimes I see silence in your eyes..."

Change.

That taboo concept that everyone both dreads and welcomes in the same breath.

So much has changed.

So many walls have come down.

"Let it all crash down,
When it ends, it begins with you..."

And when your eyes open for what feels like the first time in 2.5 years, there stands the person who helped carry you along more than he will ever know, even through his own hurt.

There for the beginning, the end and the new beginning.

Constant.

In retrospect, life is funny, that.

The kind, gentle soul who was always there to chat, laugh, talk about life and always try to help.

He helped and helps more than I can even put into text on this page.

I see a road forward now - a beaten pathway lined with the remnants of a fight to survive and be, cut through with pain and anger, and pure spite.

And it looks long but, in the grand scheme of things, it is but another trail to conquer.

I know we can and we will. 

This world seems a bit clearer now; the days brighter, the night times not so scary.

The monsters are no longer at the door.

And there is hope.

Every day I breathe it in and am thankful for having him in my life; not just for now, but for the years prior and for the years to come.

My bright light.

And in his eyes, his smile, his arms there is so much promise, so much to come. 

So much love.

I am sitting in this airport, the one where the worst moment on my life happened, and I feel peace.

Finally.

Finally.

These past few months have been a whirlwind and the days continue to be. When the dust settles, there he is.

"You took my life, turned it around,
You put my feet back on the ground.

I owe you, eternally..."

And this love - born from pain, hurt and pure devastation - means more to me than anything in the world.

I will make sure he knows every day.

1 year.

1 year.

12:05.

1 year since the metal hit the glass.

40 minutes from when I landed and texted you, "Yay ground!"

And you didn't reply.

45 minutes from when I stepped off the plane and you weren't there.

55 minutes from opening Twitter to see there had been an accident.

57 minutes from texting a friend in media to ask if he had seen you there.

97 minutes from driving past a burned out truck on Pitts Memorial and realizing it wasn't our car.

4 hours from when the officer came to the house to tell us you were gone.

And nothing has been even remotely close to normal since.

Walking into that room at Barrett's as "Joe Batt's Arm Longliners:" played, your dad and your uncle Tony crooning the lyrics we had sang on Sundays as you asked me if I knew every fish harvester mentioned in the song.

"Justin and the Endeavour! With Billy Burke as mate!"

Looking at your cold, still face, a face that was always so animated and held so much love.

Cold.

Still.

Your hands covered in those white gloves because they were too beaten up to not have them covering the injuries.

I fixed your hair.

You never parted it the way they had.

Now begin the seconds.

All of the firsts have happened.

The birthdays, the Xmas, the Halloween and Trick or Treating, the Easter, the Burger Battle, the hockey, the tournament, the...everything.

The immense loss of what we saw of the future.

Our little family.

Our future.

1 whole year.

The house, the painting, the furniture, the renovations, the loss.

The secondary losses.

I miss you and I miss him.

I miss Vinny and wonder how he is.

The changes.

I have tried to channel it all into good energy to do what I know you would want me to continue doing.

Work.

The house.

Volunteering.

The message.

Doing good in your name and feeling your love push me through.

I have met some beautiful people - tied together in our loss, the grief, the pain.

Nobody really understands this loss unless you have been there - and I understand that.

I do not expect anyone to be able to fathom the shock, the loss, the emptiness and the way the world feels so hollow now.

Stanley came.

I am still convinced you had sent him.

He knows when I need him and that funny little boy breathes new life into me every single day.

And in two days I will step on a plane and head to the same meeting I was gone for when you were taken on your way to pick me up.

Life comes full circle that way.

How has a year gone by?

How has life changed so much in such a short time yet it has felt like an eternity?

I hope you see that I have amazing friends, amazing coworkers, an amazing support system that carries me through even on the darkest of days.

So much has changed yet so much remains the same.

Last night we had our league banquet and when Barbie played "Sonny's Dream" and asked me to join her in singing my heart caught in my throat and I could only sing quietly.

The last time I heard it was at your funeral, when we all clapped, celebrating your life and the difference you have made in this world.

"Sonny, don't go away, I am here all alone..."

I will always, always continue to try and do good in your name.

You were too good for this world.

And on the 18th I will once again enter that court room.

"And I'm feeling so tired, I'm not all that strong..."

Everything takes so much more energy these days than it ever did.

So many have left and thrown me aside in all of this.

I wish it didn't have to be that way.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

But I feel you with me, guiding me, telling me to suck it up and do what you always felt I was capable of doing.

"Don't ever assume anyone is your friend. Push, work hard and keep doing what you do," you would say.

And I will.

1 year.

1 whole year without you, without my home despite this house that now has become my sanctuary.

You were my home.

1 whole year without your smile, your hug, your reassurance, your presence.

1 year.

1 year without that forehead kiss every single day.

Without your dance before bed, telling me I could stay on the couch then scooping me up and running into our room as we both laughed.

I remember the first day when I kept asking myself how I would make it through that day, how I would get through a week, a month, six months.

I could not see any way I could possibly go on and find the fortitude to carry on.

All of those days are a blur now.

I swear I barely remember one - noen of the visits, none of the days of Stef being home to be there for me, none of those who came to the visitation minus my hockey teams.

I just kept apologizing to everyone else for not being present.

But you helped.

I feel you in everything I do, in every day and every moment.

I'm okay, Brad.

I'm as okay as I ever will be without you.

I will do big things, just as you had told me I would.

I just hope that wherever you are you are okay too.

I miss you.

And I'll miss you until my dying days.

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

Terminal Romance

"What's your favourite song?" he had asked. "Your favourite song, ever?"

It was February, 2020. We had just begun and I had just gotten home from visiting Stef in Edmonton. It was a big trip - my first tattoo and the best I had felt in ages.

"Terminal Romance by Matt Mays," I had answered. "I would argue it is one of the best Canadian songs ever written."

And he reveled me with stories of singing Matt Mays with his friends, at parties, and when he was at home alone.

We both loved Matt.

"Broke the winter's back and split for the sun,
Shot through the night from a frozen gun.
With my eyes to the skies,
And one foot to the ground..."

And it was then that I knew.

But

"I really gotta go...
Away."

We never could have seen it all, really.

All we saw was so much promise ahead of us as he said, "You know, I think there might be another person in this house soon..."

"It's a rough n' tumble come down at the break of day,
Sitting here staring out across the bay.
With that sunrise in your eyes,
There's never really too much to say..."

We never had to say much.

And when I was better from a bout of influenza B we spent a weekend in my little Cove, hiking the trails and walking over the grounds that I had spent every day walking over when I was a kid.

Sitting there staring out across the bay.

"But...
I really gotta go.
Away."

I never thought he would have to go.

He never thought he would have to, either.

No choice in the matter, really.

And as we sat there on those grassy hills, staring at the waves crashing on the rocks that had seen my grandfather drag fish up over them and numerous shipwrecks wash into them, neither of us ever thought he would have to.

Not that soon, anyway.

"'Cause heartbreaks are uncurable,
And I'm up all night,
Stone-faced in New York City
Trying to set things right..."

We had found this pizza place in New York City on Instagram - East Side Pizza - and how C loved it when it was bed time and we'd all watch videos of the cheese stringing, the ridiculous slices, and we had promised that in September we were all going to go.

But just last week I found myself - stone-faced in New York City.

Flying over the ferris wheels, the lights and bridges.

Alone.

"She talks with her hands and she's saying goodbye,
Nobody's gonna' tell me why.
They just say time, time heals all,
But I don't believe them..."

I never, in a million years, thought goodbye would be so soon.

"Time heals nothing, my darling, it just dims," said a widow to me at a hockey game shortly after.

And I felt vindicated in my belief that time heals nothing.

"Now time rolls on religiously, swift and sly,
Bullet train full of souls riding through the night.
Everyone thinks they can slow it down,
I used to be like that before I knew you..."

You cannot slow it down.

God knows I tried.

God.

Religiously, swift and sly.

And as I said when I looked into the eyes of the Catholic minister who came by the day after he died:

"Fuck your god."

"There ain't nothing as dead as a dead romance..."

Nothing.

Nothing feels as cold and dead as when the light is stripped from your life and their heart stops beating.

Nothing.

Because on that night mine did too.

"Nothing more alive than the city tonight..."

And yet everything keeps moving.

New York City was as bright as I had always imagined it - just not as vibrant. It was missing the soul of how I had imagined it.

"Storefront windows reflecting me,
Where my steel cut heart can feel the electricity..."

Steel cut.

That is how my heart feels now.

How ironic that the next tattoo you had planned was the steel cut heart from the Terminal Romance cover, to both express how you felt about the music but to also immortalize how we had connected.

"Look at me now, whose gonna take me there?
From this lighting and the thunder and you, the eighth wonder..."

Nobody can, really.

I took myself there - to New York City and I watched the lights dance and the ferris wheel spin like nothing had happened; like the world had not been interrupted and blown up, like everything was normal.

Nothing is normal anymore.

Tonight is Valentine's eve.

We were never big on holidays but you had made a comment about how we would celebrate the next week because we were finally heading to Jamaica on that trip we had sacrificed and saved for.

I had come home that week and there were roses on the counter.

"Who owns the roses?" I had asked as I strolled past to get dinner ready.

"You, sweetness," you had said and held me so tight.

"There ain't nothing as dead as a dead romance..."

But our romance isn't dead, is it?

Just you.

Taken.

And I am left here, trying to make peace with it all.

"She sang rock and roll with the devil..."

And I will if that is what it takes to see you again.

Every night in my dreams you are there.

"I really gotta go,
Away..."

And I know you would have never left by choice.

Matt played your benefit concert.

We met, we hugged and he sang "Drive On" for me as my heart broke.

It was just another moment of connection.

Happy Valentine's Day, Brad.

I love you and I miss you.

41.

This is 41.

There are no lyrics, no songs to relate to, no poetic muses to help carry along these words.

This is 41.

And it all feels so numb.

This time last year, actually the day before, you told me how you would make sure 40 was my best year yet, as we planned a sunny vacation in Jamaica, and you wanted to celebrate.

I had told you if I came home to one more person in the house on that day other than you I was moving out.

And we laughed.

I have never done well with birthdays.

And you obliged, nothing more than dinner from my favourite restaurant, hugs, kisses and the promise that you would do everything in your power to make 40 the best yet.

But the universe had other ideas.

You tried.

It succeeded.

41.

I keep thinking how I am now 41, almost the age you were and will forever be, and I do not know how to process that.

I always joked that I was forever younger but now I will not be.

You are forever 42.

And now I am 41, in the house that is mine but not the house that was supposed to be ours.

41 held so much promise that was not to be.

Birthday wishes roll in and I cannot respond.

I ran today.

My second run since you died.

I know you would be proud and I had to. I had to drag myself out after 12 hours of sleep.

Trips on the road for work take so much more recovery now that you are not there to come home to.

I look at the changes since 40.

Dinner, work, fancy dinners, sunny vacations in Jamaica, nights at home, COVID, promise, offers on our house, your death.

And it takes my breath away more than the smoking habit I picked up the day that you died.

"What do you need?" my best friend asked.

"Cigarettes," I had answered. "Any cigarettes."

And I smoke one after another still looking for the peace or something that helps alleviate the concrete that sits on my chest every day.

I look around this house, the house I had to buy, not the house we were buying.

Not the yellow house on Wells Crescent but this house on Third Street, the one you and your friends grew up in but I did not even know that until later.

The one that holds your ghosts.

The house that has pictures of you but not you.

You should be here.

I have these dreams now.

They are recurring dreams and they will not go away.

Every night I dream of things that happen, of Stef coming home, of speeches and presentations, of weddings (sometimes our own) and you cannot be there.

I can call you but I cannot see you.

You cannot be there but you want to and I dial your number to hear you so sweetly say, "I'm sorry, sweetness, I can't come."

And it guts me.

But at the same time the me in the dream understands, though me who wakes in the empty bed does not and hopes that somehow it is your way of telling me you are watching, that you are proud, but you simply cannot be here because it is out of your control.

I miss you.

I miss you, I miss us, I miss our little family and how everything is so empty now.

Every day is simply a wake up, work, come home, sleep and make it to the next one.

And I wish I could offer something, anything, to the universe to get it all back.

But I cannot.

I wonder what we would all be doing now.

Hockey practice, walks in the neighbourhood, setting up his playroom, getting familiar with the new house, riding in your new car.

But it all came to a halt that night.

Everything ended.

Everything I knew ended.

And I wasn't ready for that.

So I have spent the last year trying to walk through this.

I have given it my all.

And while there are days I had wished I was not here to wake up and feel the pain I know I have to be here to feel and that I have a job to do to let the world know who you were and that you were here.

So I will continue.

Blindly.

I miss you.

I miss our little family and our future.

I know you sent Stanley.

You had told that medium you spoke to through your friend that you would communicate with me through an animal. He lets me know. 

And I thank you for that.

But I would give all of this up to be able to go back to nights in your arms.

This is 41.

In a week and a bit you would have been 43.

And I will never understand a world that took that from you, from us, and made you forever 42.

I'm so tired.

But I will carry on.

I will do good in your name and I will push as hard as I possibly can.

That is all I can do.

And thank you, my love.

You could not overpower the universe and make 40 my best year yet.

But you made 37 until then the most beautiful years imaginable.

Time Will Tell

"I've got blood all over my hands,
In my eyes,
On the strings.

It's pouring out all over all my favorite things..."

Happy new year.

Though there are few things to be happy about and the slightest tinge of joy brings the guilt of being here while you are not.

Not given the chance.

Stolen.

Yet I get to be here.

I get to enter this new year, this new year that had so much promise and the one that we had so many plans for.

Without you.

I get to be here.

Everyone gets to be here.

Except you.

Last new year's eve we ordered takeout, sat and laughed, watched Schitt's Creek and lamented how neither of us really liked going out much, how a glass of wine and those burgers from Bernie's were better than any other celebration.

Then we laughed, pointed at Spillar's Cove on the NTV scroll, kissed at the moment of midnight and said this year was going to be our year.

How there would be so many big things this year.

Yet there was only one big thing.

"My guilty heart is beating faster,
Every time I try to sing.
It seizes up and then my lungs begin to sting.

Only time will tell..."

I'm bad at this without you.

I feel like a shell, something that has been hollowed out that keeps existing and moving but not feeling.

But you made me feel so much.

This was to be our year and the day you dropped me at the airport the look in your eyes showed so much promise.

Then you sent me our yellow house on Nelder and said you couldn't wait for me to come home so we could make that offer.

So I changed my flight.

"Is it written all over my face?
Should I even feel ashamed?
Or is it that early thirties thing, where some guys just go insane?"

Not early thirties but 40.

"I'm going to make sure 40 is your best year yet," you had exclaimed when I lamented how I did not do well with birthdays and never felt accomplished or comfortable enough to celebrate them like milestones, rather than the stark reminders they were.

My best year yet.

A living hell we could not have ever imagined or written if we had tried.

"And the doctors give us lithium, but we're never quite the same,
Do we retreat to younger years to stop the pain?

Well, only time will tell..."

There is no retreating.

"Do you take all of those pills?" my mother asked last night.

Yes.

Three antidepressants, a muscle relaxer, a nerve blocker and a sleeping pill.

To exist.

And these are days and nights now.

"You say there's not a god?
Goddammit I could use a little faith to keep from crawling right out of my skin..."

I am sick of hearing that all of this was "God's plan."

What god could ever allow you to be stolen from this world, all of the good you did and still wanted to do to be taken.

That void.

Who you were.

What god allows that on his or her watch?

"I think it's adding up,
Staying up blowing tombstone powder with the broken hearted liars again..."

So many liars.

And I have had to build boundaries.

Sometimes growing courage for yourself means saying goodbye to those who feed on ensuring you are taken down.

Those who claimed to care, love and take care of me in your absence have often turned to have nothing but malice.

And I will never understand it.

"Oh I think I've had enough,
All my records feel like yearbook pictures,
There's fondness but I can't remember where,
Where I've been..."

Things are so cold now that I can't remember where.

Where I've been.

Who I've been.

Though I was the happiest and most contented I had ever been with myself.

Accepted.

Loved.

Then gone.

"So I'm sharpening my pen,
Shooting the ink into my skin..."

How fitting that my sleeve was finished on the mark of 9 months of you being stolen.

9 months.

How has it been 9 months when I didn't think I could last 9 days?

Those 9 days, these 9 months, have been a blur.

And I wake every morning in a stupor, amazed that another sunrise is creeping through the window and it is time to start again.

9 months.

The compass for the direction you were going to pick me up.

Our last time, though you were always there when the plane landed.

The pocket watch with the time you were taken.

The candle from your sleeve that you loved so much - reiterating that it indicated how precious time was.

The anchor because you were my anchor.

The "silver thorn on bloody rose" for every time you laughed when I played Don McClean's "Vincent" on repeat and rambled about the beauty of the lyrics.

The "Steve McQueen" lyrics - "'Cause this life is only chains, it's nothing like the colours in my dreams..." that hit a bit harder these days.

Finished.

But nothing is truly finished, I guess.

I need to push forward, learn to live around it, and carry you with me.

And I will.

I will continue to try and fill the void left in the community by your unnecessary exit.

And until my dying day I will try and channel your good and your drive to do what I can.

It can all be taken in an instant, can't it?

So I will take you and who you were with me to drive everything I do this year.

Everything.

In your name.

There is nothing else I can do.

"Baby, here's where we begin..."

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."