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.