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Still Earthbound


jeudi
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Eleven days ago was the 17th anniversary of John's death. That is more than a bit sobering. Such a lot of years it's hard (almost) to recall the early days of grief except I do remember how hopeless I felt. How overwhelmed. How clueless at how to proceed. But I went ahead and lived anyway. I haven't spent a day feeling guilty that I have. 

 

I've felt relieved that I found my way because the way I used to feel was no way to live. The memories are almost buried under the sheer gravity of time but not so deep that i don't relive the despair in micro bursts when I least expect it. 

 

When I do, I know, thankfully, that it won't be long until I feel ok again. I know it and yet while I'm in the midst of bawling and feeling fragile I feel that tiny grain of uncertainty-oh God no- here it is again. 

 

How I miss the man. I can't say it plainer than that. Love has endured, not to the exclusion of other love, but contained inside a capsule that was us and us is lost and that is what this grief is made of. 

 

Our daughter was 17 when he died and now she has lived eleven days longer than she was allowed to have her father with her in this earthbound life. I thought of calling her to have her listen to me crying but that seems more than cruel. If there is anyone who misses John it is her. She is a beautiful combination of strength and tender heart. I have hated this for her more than I've hated it for me. I lost my own wonderful father when I was a teenager, not much older than she was when she lost John but I never loved him the way she loves John which is saying a lot because I loved my father. He was an incredible man who was overlooked for his genius and his kind and patient parenting. He was a man trapped inside of the stern father figure of the 1950s but somehow I was the only of his children to see his truth. My brothers recall someone just a little bit scary. I recall a teddy.

 

John was never stern. He was full of laughter and jokes and laughter and lightheartedness. Our daughter's friends remember him as kind and I always wonder if I'm right about how messed up her friend's fathers were for them to come up with the word kind as their first remembrance of John. sure he was kind but that seems such a basic description unless, of course, your own father was never kind. I know a bit about the histories of some of these girls...how my heart breaks for them them never knew a father like mine was to me or like John was to our K. 

 

Grief stays a hard kernal, whittled down in size but still there...I'm talking about molecules here. I don't hate it like i used to. I never fight with it anymore. How I used to rage against it. I was so unreasonable. I felt so wronged that my beautiful life was thusly interrupted and waylaid. 

 

Now I see how much I've gained from this experience. Um, thanks but no thanks.

 

But thanks. Really. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

 

And as always I just find it so interesting how at one time I was mystified that my life should continue on without him. And now I see this all as  an aha moment. Oh yes, I think to myself, so this is my path. This is how I learned this stuff that I can now bring to the table. This wisdom is such a powerful thing. 

 

And no matter how boastful that seems, what everyone should remember is that I am still an earthbound misfit. The knowledge that there is more later has been opened but I still do not understand it, not even a little bit. I live my life open to the mysteries, certain of these mysteries and always, always asking for glimmers of how it is. 

 

I ask. I receive. I don't know how it works. I have faith. 

 

Faith is a good feat for an atheist, isn't it? 

 

Seventeen years ago today I struggled with life and wrestled with a Christmas tree so we would continue to be able to have Christmas as a cherished family tradition. While John was dying I whispered in his ear to make haste and to leave us this tradition as his legacy. And he did. I still don't feel bad about it, in fact I'm glad I had the foresight not to be of the ilk who begs the dying to stay for just a bit longer. He was done, after all. And that I did that whispering is my secret. I have refused to let "regular folks" know what it's like to make bargains like that. 

 

I've done a lot of hard shit like that. Soft on the exterior, fooling the masses and inside just rock hard and solid as can be. Titanium. Bulletproof. Invincible...until grief takes me by the hair and pulls me off a cliff. 

 

Wrenching myself away from our human bond was frightful and how much I didn't want it to be the case didn't matter at all. No wonder I fought it. 

 

When I look at my life as a whole I'm right with the way I've conducted myself. So right that even though I've grieved I'm ok to grieve more. Ten minutes of feeling the hurt the same as I did back in the early days then, ten minutes of missing the man. Ten minutes of wondering how in the hell I got from there to here. 

 

I dry those tears and walk on.

 

Ever earthbound. Until I'm not.

 

I'm expecting a beautiful reunion. But I'm not holding my breath. It will come soon enough. For now, I'm still kissing the sky.

 

Quote

A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I

Jeudi

 

Edited by jeudi
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20 hours ago, jeudi said:

Ever earthbound. Until I'm not.

 

I'm expecting a beautiful reunion. But I'm not holding my breath. It will come soon enough. For now, I'm still kissing the sky.

I love it. So beautifully put. That's how I am feeling too.

 

19th Jan 2020 will be 4 years for me and I too miss him more then words can say. 

 

 

 

 

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