Wednesday, November 12, 2014

On This Day~

I don't know what makes one day, one moment, more impossible than another.  Grief is just that way.  For me, it isn't a matter of grief suddenly showing itself;  it's more a matter of at any one moment I'm better able to keep it under my skin as opposed to right on top.  It isn't less or more than;  it's just under or on top of.

Today, Veterans Day, I couldn't keep it under my skin and nerves were crawling all over the place. Nausea, anxiety, the works.  It didn't show, I don't think, but it was so very there.

I was always so proud of Chuck's time in service.  The first time I saw him in his dress blues, I almost swooned right on the street.   But I loved him best in his BDU's (camouflage).  With his moustache...oh, he was a sight for this girl's eyes...

So, yeah, today.  And grief.  Every day, and grief.

I wish to scream and howl my rage and horror to the skies until my vocal chords are rendered numb with exhaustion.  Numb not only from exhaustion but because there are no more words to describe what my life is like without him next to me and the agony of the rest of my life missing him.

I wish to take my nails (which are too short now because I started biting my nails again after he died), and rake them along my skin, drawing matter that will not only be blood but my soul bleeding out the searing pain that resides in my muscle and sinew and bone.

I wish to tear at my hair, which has grown in now from that long ago day after his death when I shaved my head.  Tear at it and shred it from its' roots and rip into it.

If I could, I would grab at the cleaver that continually chops my inner self into pieces and parts and hammer at all that stands around me, pounding forth the fury that inhabits my body and heart.

But life continues on, doesn't it?  Whether we wish it to or not.  And I must function because I am, to my shock, still alive.  I hate that I am but I'm not going to kill myself, so apparently I must make a life for myself.  So each day, with these feelings raging inside of me, I get in my car and I drive wherever it is that I'm supposed to drive.  I don't attempt to push these feelings down, but I have to function so they go undercover, so to speak.   Always there, just not evident to the common observer.

And today...today the outer layer of skin gave way to the march of memory and future and present.

He is missing from me.  Oh, my dear husband, I wish for your arms around me, your chest to rest my head against, your breath to breathe with mine, your body to wrap around mine as we sleep, your solidness to stand beside and with me.

You were my knight, my hero, my lover, my dearest everything.

On this Veterans Day, I salute you and all that you were in life, to me and so many~





6 comments:

  1. Alison, I so feel your pain because I live with it too. The love of my life, my everything, lies in a national cemetery among his fellow veterans, heroes and American patriots. My husband was a fighter pilot who served 20 years in the USAF and flew combat missions in Vietnam. He died unexpected beside me in the middle of the night in 2011. I will never recover from the shock and torment of my loss. I miss him with every fiber of my being. He set the bar very high and I know, in my heart, no one can ever make me so loved and cherished. The love of my life now walks with God. I miss him so much I ache 24/7.

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    1. Every bit of me hears what you just wrote. And I thank your husband for his service, and you, for yours. Chuck always used to say, when he left TDY, that it's always harder on the ones left behind. It was true then, and it is so very true now~
      alison

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  2. Your husband was one incredibly lucky guy to have experienced such love from YOU, and YOU to have had such love. Monday (10th) was one year from the day my husband died. The last month I slipped in and out of the haze, confusion and deep deep sadness that had consumed the months after he passed. Some normalcy had seeped back in for awhile, then would be displaced by wavering emotions, quick to anger and crying episodes, wandering around forgetting what I was going to do next.
    Well, I'm sure many have experienced this. There is a slight sense of relief that I've experienced the "Firsts" of holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and MAYBE they won't be met with such anticipated dread.
    I wish you peace with hugs sent your way.
    Sorry we are on this journey with a circle of friends we didn't set out to find. Well actually, I guess we did, we chose to find this forum for support.
    And I turn to it every morning.
    So THANK YOU for sharing your heart.

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    1. Knowing that my words are seen and heard by others on this unwelcome path, touches my heart. Reading the responses, means just as much. So thank YOU~
      alison

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  3. I agree with everything "Annonymous" said... I'm only six months into my journey and I'm constantly saying "What the f___ happened" that you are no longer here... It was a sudden massive stroke and he was in a hospital when it happened??? It was so severe, there was nothing that could be done... He was the love of my life and this website has been my saving grace... Allison, I relate to you and your husband 's relationship... thank you so much for your posts...I pray to get through this... but it is so hard...

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    1. It's impossible, isn't it? This grief, this road...and yet somehow, we're still here.

      We're walking it with each other, always~
      alison

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